by Anne Stuart
“Any time you are, Tanner,” she purred.
* * * * *
Ellie stopped crying when she reached the town limits. Too many people were curious already—she wanted her face to be calm and pale when she stalked into her back door and slammed it. She pulled into her driveway, shoved the car into park and reached for the key to turn it off.
She let her hand drop as calm finally began to return. What was she so mad about? He did a kindness for an animal, and she threw a temper tantrum. Had she gone completely crazy?
There were reasons, of course. She’d been frustrated and on edge all day, waiting for the follow-up to the past night’s kiss, ready to combat it, and she’d never had the chance to practice her carefully prepared and tactful rejection. Doc’s phone call hadn’t made her feel any better. More animals had been found on some of the outlying farms, and several people had reported a Peeping Tom lurking outside their windows.
It was Charles Tanner all over again. But it wasn’t his son. If she was sure of anything in this life, she was sure of that. She’d been worried how she was going to tell him of the latest development, suffering from the accumulated stresses of the day, and seeing him able to win Shaitan over so easily had been the final straw. Of course he was absolutely right in doing it. But she couldn’t ignore one inescapable conclusion. If Shaitan, who was so murderously distrustful of everyone but Ellie, fell under Tanner’s spell, how could she resist the man herself?
There was a distant rumble of thunder, breaking through her abstraction, and she looked out the window into the darkening sky. They were in for a hell of a storm, and she’d left him out at Maude’s with no choice but to walk home. There was no getting around it—she owed him an apology.
Maybe she could call Doc and send him out in her place. She had a wicked headache right now and her knee was aching. She would have loved to have crawled first into a hot shower, then a warm bed, with a cold glass of wine.
But she’d always prided herself on being fair. It had been her fault that afternoon, not Tanner’s, and it was up to her to make amends.
Her pace back to Maude’s place was more decorous, now that her rage had vanished, leaving only guilt and embarrassment in its place. The sky was almost black, wind was whipping through the thick grasses, and in the distance she could see the forked lightning snake to the ground.
She recognized Ginger’s Camaro from a long ways off, and she felt a sudden tightening in her chest as she drew closer. They didn’t even see her. Ginger was laughing, her heavily made-up eyes flashing, and Tanner was Tanner, smoking, lids half-closed over his sleepy, sexy eyes. Ginger probably wouldn’t notice that those eyes were as cold as the north wind.
She stomped down on the accelerator, speeding past them in an immediate return of emotions too tangled to sort out. It was for the best, she told herself self-righteously, grinding her teeth and speeding. Ginger and Tanner were made for each other. Not that Ginger would like that narrow, lumpy little cot or a cabin with no doors and windows. Still, they’d probably manage just fine. Damn them, damn them, damn them.
* * * * *
The scent of Ginger’s perfume was overpowering in the closed car. Tanner lit a cigarette in self-defense and opened the window a crack, trying to keep the bored expression from his face as Ginger flirted archly. He saw the big black car coming, and he knew who it was. So much for Maude’s supposition.
Ellie had recognized the car, and she didn’t like what she saw. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. She drove by so fast, her face averted, that it would have been hard to recognize her if some instinctive part of him hadn’t known. She’d forgiven him his transgression with Shaitan. He wondered how she’d feel about Ginger.
“That was Ellie,” he said, stubbing out the cigarette, interrupting Ginger in midspate.
“Where?”
“The car that just drove past.”
“Did she see us?”
Was that guilt in her voice? Or vicarious excitement? “I expect so,” he said, controlling his need for another cigarette, controlling his need to tell her to hurry.
A small, satisfied smile lit Ginger’s face so swiftly that he might almost have imagined it. So it wasn’t guilt. “That’s too bad,” she lied. “Ellie won’t like it that I drove you home.”
“Why not?”
Ginger laughed, a throaty chuckle that was meant to be enticing. “Oh, I know Ellie very well. We’ve been best friends since childhood, and I know when she has her eye on someone. She finds you very attractive, Tanner. As do I.”
He swallowed his sigh of irritation. He knew he should express some sort of gratification, but right then all he wanted to do was get out of the car and wait for Ellie to come back down that road that led to nowhere. He didn’t even mind standing out in the middle of a thunderstorm. Anything was preferable to Ginger’s arch desperation. He’d had too many women like Ginger, too many empty nights filled with more emptiness, and he didn’t want the same hollow feeling. The town of Morey’s Falls already made him feel rotten enough. Ginger Barlow’s tender ministrations wouldn’t provide any sort of comfort, no matter how tempted he might be to believe so.
“You don’t need to drive me all the way home,” he said. “You can drop me off in town.”
“Heavens, I wouldn’t dream of it!” Ginger protested. “As a matter of fact, I wondered whether you were all that eager to get back to that depressing little shack. I know a place that has decent food and lots of privacy, out on Route 43.”
He’d seen the place. A motel and a diner—not his idea of romance. “Some other time,” he said. “I’ve got things to do.”
“Can’t they wait?”
“No.”
“Wouldn’t you like some company?” she asked, still trying to entice him, her artificially sexy voice like fingernails on a blackboard.
“No.”
She pouted the rest of the way home. Someone must have told her it was attractive, long ago. Maybe then it was. Right now it gave her a double chin, and her china-blue eyes were flat and opaque. He could see the little wheels turning behind them as she pulled up in front of the cabin, wondering how she was going to get what she wanted. The rain had started, fat, angry drops splattering the windshield of the Camaro.
“Aren’t you going to ask me in for a drink?” she said. “After all, I did drive you all the way out here. Come on, Tanner, you owe me something. And I’m lonely and bored and sick of everyone around.”
“Sorry,” he said, his voice cool. “I don’t have anything to drink.” It was a lie—he’d bought another bottle of whiskey that he’d barely touched the night before.
Ginger’s determined smile wavered somewhat. “Well, what about a cup of coffee?”
“Ginger,” he said, tempering the cruelty of his words, “I don’t have anything to offer you.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“I would. Thanks for the ride.” He opened the door and slid out into the rainy evening.
Ginger jumped out of the car after him, and his sigh of irritation was swallowed by the sound of the rain. “Wait just a minute,” she said, striding after him. “I’m not used to being turned down.”
“Well, life is full of new experiences.” He stood there in the rain, feeling it soak into his cotton shirt and run down his face. It had soaked Ginger’s pink T-shirt, clinging to her erect nipples, and he stared at her, feeling like a eunuch.
“Is it Ellie?” Her voice was raw, jealous, not the voice of a best friend at all. “You’re a fool, Tanner. You won’t get to first base with her. No one does, and certainly not the son of the murderer who crippled her for life. You’re wasting your time. Saint Ellie is going to die the way she was born, untouched, inviolate, and you...”
He didn’t want to hear any more. He crossed the small patch of ground that was rapidly turning into mud, caught Ginger’s wrist in a painful grip and dragged her back to her car. Opening the door, he stuffed her in, slamming it behind her, just barely missing her leg.
&nbs
p; “Get the hell out of here, Ginger,” he said. “Or I’ll see if I can find one of my father’s guns.” His voice was low, deadly, and he managed to convince her. The tires spun in the mud for a moment, and then she was gone, tearing off into the darkening evening.
Two women storming away from him in one day, he thought, staring after her. What had happened to his usual expertise? He ran a hand through his wet hair and sighed. He was soaked to the skin, but at least it was a warm summer rain. Maybe he’d take advantage of nature’s shower and go find some soap. No one else was going to come after him—he’d alienated Ellie for good. He could only hope he’d done the same with the too-eager Ginger.
And what had she meant by those cracks about Ellie? Untouched, inviolate? Just how untouched was she? Hell, the woman was in her early thirties, she’d been married. She wasn’t wildly experienced, but she couldn’t be...
“No,” he said out loud, dismissing the notion as completely absurd. He was willing to believe a lot of strange things, but the notion of Ellie Lundquist as a thirty-year-old virgin was too much to contemplate. Instead he headed for clean clothes, resigning himself to a quiet night with too much to think about.
* * * * *
Ellie couldn’t eat anything that night. She could barely bring herself to turn on the lights. Instead she curled up in bed, willing the night to close down over her and shut out the pain and anger and confusion that were tearing her apart.
It worked for a few hours. When she woke it was past eleven. She felt hot, sticky and unutterably depressed. The rain was still falling outside, a steady, relentless downpour that should have been soothing, and the house felt cold and damp.
The shower she took did little to warm her. She picked at her food, took a desultory sip of white wine before pushing it away, then she sat in the kitchen and tried to think of excuses to call Doc.
She’d be a fool to do so. Ginger wouldn’t be there. Ginger didn’t take no for an answer, even if Tanner was the sort of man to give that answer. They’d be together, while Ellie sat alone and miserable in her mausoleum of a house.
Why did she stay? She didn’t really have to wait until the Fourth of July. She could pack her bags and go now, right now. She didn’t have cash, but she had credit cards, and the tiny bank in Morey’s Falls had a bigger branch in Bozeman where she could draw enough money for her needs. Then she’d never have to see Tanner again, never have to deal with Ginger’s gloating.
She was being stupid and childish. She’d promised herself she’d stay till the dedication, and stay she would. She wasn’t going to let Ginger’s sexual desperation or Tanner’s disturbing presence stop her from doing exactly what she’d planned to do.
She took another sip of her wine, but it tasted vinegary. Maybe she wouldn’t feel so bad if she knew what she was missing. The books she’d read made lovemaking seem miraculous, splendid, the center of the universe. The attempted reality had been hideously uncomfortable and embarrassing. It was probably somewhere in between. One probably just ignored the less pleasant aspects and enjoyed the snuggling part of it. But damn, it had been so long since someone had held her. Longer than she could remember.
Well, let Tanner and Ginger enjoy each other. If the only men Ellie had ever tried to make love with had failed to perform, it had to be a lack in her, not them. And she absolutely couldn’t bear to see the look in Tanner’s blue eyes when he discovered it.
She watched the hands move slowly, inexorably around the electric clock in the kitchen. She listened to the somber, depressing tones of the grandfather clock in the hall chime each quarter hour. She didn’t realize till half past twelve that she wasn’t going to sleep until she found out for certain.
All the houses around her were dark when she climbed into the Buick. She crept along the empty streets, heading out toward Doc’s house, feeling like an immature teenager. She was halfway there when she changed her mind. The Barlow house was one of the few in town that boasted a two-car garage. She’d have to get out of the car, creep over and peer in the window, and that was sinking too low, even for her.
She was halfway out Route 5 before she realized what she was doing. She told herself she should turn back, but kept on driving. Route 5 went nowhere—there was no way she could pretend she just happened to be driving out that way. It didn’t go much past Tanner’s place—she’d have to turn around within hearing distance of the cabin. If he left the bed and Ginger and looked out the hole where the front door had been he’d see her driving by like the neurotic female she was.
But she no longer cared. She was chilly, even in her thick cotton sweater and baggy jeans. She was exhausted, and her head still ached. But whether it was a rational, mature act or not, she had to find out if Ginger was spending the night with Tanner.
At first the cabin seemed dark as she slowly approached it. She was about to drive past when she saw the pale glow of lantern light through the windowless opening. There was no Camaro parked outside.
Ginger could have already left, she warned herself, pulling in and turning off the motor. Tanner had every right to be furious with her—he’d probably order her off his land. He might very well be relaxing after his exertions with Ginger, and her presence would be at best embarrassing, at worst, an unforgivable intrusion. She didn’t care.
The ground was muddy beneath her feet, and the rain was a steady, warm drizzle. She barely noticed it—her hair was still half-damp from her shower and hanging around her shoulders. She ignored the pounding of her heart, the twisting of her insides, the nervous dampness of her palms. Holding her breath, she walked slowly toward the warm glow of what had once been the front door of Charles Tanner’s cabin.
* * *
Chapter Thirteen
* * *
p;
He was lying on the narrow cot, wearing faded jeans and a blue flannel shirt unbuttoned around his tanned chest. His feet were bare, his hair damp, and there was a glass of whiskey on the floor beside him. She couldn’t see his eyes in the shadows, but she could recognize the tension in his body as he watched her step inside the meager shelter of the cabin.
And then the tension in him vanished, leaving only a slight wariness. “Thank God,” he said. “I was afraid you were Ginger.”
If she hadn’t still been feeling guilty she would have turned and left at that remark. “Why were you afraid?”
“Because she’s damned hard to get rid of,” he said frankly. “I underestimated my powers of attraction.”
If she hadn’t hurt so much she would have smiled. “When did you get rid of her?” she asked, not caring if she was giving away too much of what she’d rather keep hidden.
Thank heaven, he didn’t smirk. He didn’t even smile. “I didn’t let her in the cabin.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. You could have done it in the car.” Now she was shocking herself by her outspoken misery.
“Ellie,” he said, “she drove me home and I sent her away. Immediately.”
“Did she want to go?”
“Not particularly.” He pulled himself into a sitting position, leaning against the rough wall. “But she went. Does it matter?”
She didn’t move. Her heart was pounding, a heavy slamming against her ribs, and she felt cold and hot at the same time. She was on the precipice, at the edge of a momentous decision, and if she had any sense at all she’d turn around and run, rather than take that final step.
She’d been sensible all her life. “Yes,” she said. “It matters.”
His sigh was a quiet sound in the cabin, a strange, whispery counterpoint to the steady beat of the rain on the tin roof. It was a sound of sorrow and resignation, of acceptance and delight.
“You’re complicating things,” he said.
“I know.”
“Things are already complicated enough.”
“I know,” she said. “Should I leave?”
He considered it for a moment. “It would be better for you if you did.”
It wasn’t what she wa
nted, but she no longer knew how to tell him that. Without a word she turned to go, when his voice stopped her.
“Come here, Ellie,” he said, his voice a sinuous thread of sound on the night air. She turned back, and saw that he was holding out his hand to her.
She put her doubts, her fears, her reservations in a box and shut the lid. Moving across the room, she took his hand in hers and sank to her knees beside the narrow cot.
“I’m sorry about this afternoon,” she said, her voice low and hurried. “You were right and I was wrong. I’m neurotic and possessive about Shaitan, and I don’t know if I can explain this properly. It’s just that...” She took a deep, steadying breath. “I’ve always felt that I don’t belong to myself, that I belong to this town, that everyone has a piece of me. The one part of my life that belonged wholly to me was Shaitan. As long as no one could touch him, no one could go near him, he was mine, a part of me no one else could have. When you were able to touch him I knew he wasn’t mine anymore.”
She was close enough to see his eyes in the deep shadows, but she didn’t look. She was feeling too miserable and guilty to raise her gaze from the faded quilt that lay beneath him on the cot.
His hand was warm and dry and strong in hers. “He’s still yours,” Tanner said. “You just have to make room for me.”
She smiled ruefully. “With Shaitan.”
“Shaitan’s already accepted me. I’m talking about you.”
She looked up then, directly into his eyes. Why had she ever thought they were cold? They were the blue of the big sky of Montana, clear and bright and glorious. She didn’t say a word; she didn’t know what to say. She just looked at him, and after a long, silent moment he tugged at her hand, and she went willingly, into the narrow cot beside him.
His skin was warm, almost hot to her cool, damp hands. She lay there passively, letting him arrange her against his body, the two of them pressed against each other, his arms wrapped around her, her face pressed against the smooth flesh of his shoulder. The flannel shirt was soft beneath her ear, and she could feel the whisper of his breath on her damp hair, the steady beat of his heart next to hers, the subtle throb of pulses that were either his or hers.