by Lisa Kleypas
Give Me Tonight
Lisa Kleypas
His kisses left hot imprints on her skin as she moved even closer to him, wanting him, aching, moaning his name…Addie was drawn as if by an all-powerful magnet to Ben Hunter from the moment she met him. This strong and handsome man was different from the other ranch hands on her father's vast Texas spread, as different as Addie was from the meek and mild women around her.
Lisa Kleypas
Give Me Tonight
Dedicated with love
to
Patsy Kluck
LaVonne Hampton
Billie Jones
Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.
– Horace Mann
1
THE DREAM NEVER CHANGED, ONLY BECAME MORE vivid each time it happened. She could recall every detail even in her waking moments. The strangeness of the images never failed to alarm her. It wasn't like Addie to think of such things… no, she was practical and sensible, never given to the kinds of reckless adventures her friends tried to involve her in. What would they think if they knew about the dream that returned to plague her so many nights? She would never tell a soul about it. It was a moment of madness, too personal to confide in anyone.
Her body was relaxed in slumber. Gradually she seemed to awaken, realizing that someone else was in the room, circling the bed with quiet steps. She kept her eyes closed, but her heart started to beat fast and strong. Then there was no movement in the silence, and she held her breath as she waited for a touch, a sound, a whisper. Gently the mattress depressed with the heavy weight of a man's body-a phantom lover, faceless and nameless, bent on possessing her as no one ever had. She tried to roll away from him, but he stopped her, pressing her back into the pillows. A heady masculine scent filled her nostrils, and she was gathered in hard-muscled arms, pinned underneath him, filled with his warmth.
His hands swept over her skin, circling her breasts, slipping between her thighs, and as he touched her she writhed, burning with pleasure. She begged him to stop, but he laughed softly and kept tormenting her. His mouth was hot on her neck, her breasts, her stomach. Then blinding desire coursed through her, and she wrapped her arms around him, drawing him closer, wanting him desperately. No words were exchanged between them as he made love to her, his body surging over hers like a slow, pounding surf.
Then the dream changed. Suddenly she found herself on the front porch, and the sky was heavy with the ripe darkness of midnight, and someone was standing in the street, staring at her. It was an old man, his face concealed by the shadows. She didn't know who he was or what he wanted, but he knew her. He even knew her name.
"Adeline. Adeline, where have you been?"
She was frozen with fear. She wanted him to leave, but her throat was locked and she couldn't speak. It was then that Addie always woke up, perspiring and breathless. It was so vivid… it had seemed real. It always did. She didn't have the nightmare too often, but sometimes the dread of it was enough to make her afraid to sleep.
Sitting up slowly, Addie wiped her forehead with the corner of the sheet and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her head was spinning. Although she was quiet, she must have awakened Leah, who was a light sleeper.
"Addie?" came a voice from the next room. "I need my medicine."
"Be right there." She stood up and took a deep breath, feeling as if she'd run a long distance. After she administered the medicine and Leah's pain began to fade, Addie sat down on the bed and looked at her aunt with a disturbed expression. "Leah, have you ever dreamed about people you've never met, things you've never done, but somehow it all seems familiar?"
"I can't say I have. I only dream about things I know." Leah yawned widely. "But I don't have your imagination, Addie."
"But when it seems like it's really happening-"
"Let's talk about it in the morning. I'm tired, honey."
Reluctantly Addie nodded, giving her a brief smile before going back to her own room, knowing they wouldn't talk about it tomorrow.
Addie walked into the bedroom and set down her purse, humming along with the radio as it played "I'd Be Lost Without You." Her arrival was a welcome relief to Leah, who was permanently confined to the bed, an invalid for the past five years. Aside from the radio in the comer and the woman they had hired to stay with her occasionally, Addie was her only connection to the world outside.
They made an odd pair, a maiden aunt and her twenty-year-old niece. There were few similarities between them. Leah was from a time when women had been fussed over, protected and sheltered, kept in ignorance about matters pertaining to the intimate relationship of a husband and wife. Addie was a modem young woman who could drive an automobile and bring home a paycheck. Unlike the Gibson girls of Leah's generation, she hadn't been sheltered from hardship or knowledge. Addie knew what it was like to work. And she knew, as her friends did, not to trust in the future. They had all been taught that only here and now mattered.
To wait, save, and hope for better things was naive. To believe in nothing was the only way to be safe from disillusionment. They overdosed on sex and sophistication, until the novelty of their outrageous behavior wore off and it was commonplace. Women smoked as much as they pleased in public, and passed around flasks of strong drink under the table. They kicked their legs high as they danced the Charleston, and used rough language that once would have caused any man to blush. It was fun to be young and frivolous, fun to go to movies, listen to jazz, park in their shiny black Fords and flirt and tease their boyfriends long past midnight.
They were a hard-bitten lot, but Leah took comfort in the fact that her niece was less brittle than the rest of her friends. Addie had an understanding of responsibility, and innate compassion for others. She hadn't always been that way. As a child Addie had been willful, intractably selfish, disrespectful of Leah's authority. But a hard life had taught Addie bitter lessons that had softened her pride and gentled her spirit, turning her willfulness into an inner core of steel. Now many others drew constantly from Addie's strength: the patients she nursed at the hospital, the friends who called for her help when they needed her, and most of all Leah herself. Leah needed her more than anyone else.
The tune on the radio changed to "Blue Skies," and Addie sang along with the chorus.
"You're off-key," Leah observed, sitting up in bed, and Addie bent over to place a smacking kiss on her forehead.
"I'm always off-key."
"How is everything in town?"
"The same," Addie said matter-of-factly, shrugging. "No work. People standing on street corners with nothing to do except chin-wag. This afternoon the line at the unemployment relief station is all the way down to the barbershop."
Leah clicked her tongue. "Goodness gracious."
"Nothing interesting to tell you today. No new gossip, nothing going on. Except there's the strangest old man wandering around town." Addie walked over to the nightstand and picked up a spoon, flipping the bowl of it against her palm as she spoke. "I saw him outside the apothecary shop after I picked up your medicine. He looks like one of those old drovers-heavy beard, long hair, and kind of a weather-beaten face."
A tired smile crossed Leah's face. She was paler than usual and strangely listless. During the past few months her perfectly white hair had lost its brilliance, her dark-eyed liveliness had all but vanished, leaving behind a mixture of resignation and peace.
"Lots of old cowboys wandering around nowadays. Nothing strange about that."
"Yes, but he was standing outside the shop as if he was waiting for me to come out. He looked at me so hard, just staring and staring, and he didn't stop until I reached the end of the s
treet. It gave me the strangest feeling, all creepy inside. And he must have been around seventy or eighty years old!"
Leah chuckled. "Older men always like to look at a pretty girl, honey. You know that."
"The way he looked at me made my skin crawl." Addie grimaced and reached for a green glass bottle. It was one of a large assortment of medicines on the nightstand, medicines that could not cure the relentless spreading of cancer through Leah's body but eased the pain of it. Dr. Haskin had said it was all right for her to take a dose whenever necessary. Now every hour of her day was punctuated with a spoonful of opiated syrup. Carefully Addie held a spoon up to Leah's lips and used a handkerchief to dab at a stray drop which had fallen on her chin.
"There. You'll feel better in just a minute."
"I already feel better." Leah reached for her hand. "You should be visiting with your friends instead of fussing over me all the time."
"I like your company more." Addie smiled, her dark brown eyes gleaming impishly. For all its charm, her face was not spectacular. Her cheekbones were blunt and her jawline too pronounced. However, she gave the impression of striking beauty. She had an allure no one could precisely describe, a luminous warmth that shone through her skin, a ripe intensity in the color of her eyes and honey-brown hair. Jealous women could point out the flaws in her looks, but most men considered her to be nothing less than perfect.
Addie set the spoon down on the bedside table and eyed the high stack of sensational novels filled with stories of helpless maidens, daring deeds, and villains foiled by conquering heroes. "Reading these again?" she asked, and clicked her tongue at Leah. "Are you ever going to behave?"
The gentle teasing pleased Leah, who had always prided herself on having plenty of spunk. Until the cancer had struck she had been the most active and independent woman in Sunrise. The idea of marriage, or any other claim on her freedom, had never tempted her. But she admitted it had been a blessing in disguise when Addie had come to live with her.
The child and a nominal inheritance had been left to her at the unexpected death of her sister and brother-in-law. Raising a three-year-old girl had been a responsibility that changed Leah's life, making it richer than she had ever thought possible. Now at the age of sixty, Leah seemed happy as a spinster. Addie was the only family she needed.
Although Addie had been born to Sarah and Jason Peck and brought up in North Carolina for the first three years of her life, she couldn't remember any other parent but Leah, any other home but this little town in central Texas. She was a Texan down to the marrow of her bones, had inherited the Texans' lazy way of speaking and flat, stretched-out accent, their need for open sky, their hot temperament and deep-rotted sense of honor. She had inherited the strength and backbone of the Warner family, which had risen to greatness and fallen into decay long before Addie was born.
The Warners had founded the town of Sunrise near an overland trail that was eventually replaced by miles of railroad track. Texas cattle had stamped out that trail, tough, hardy longhorns with square faces and eyes that glittered with the fire and meanness of the Mexican fighting bulls they had descended from. Twice a year the longhorns were driven up north on long trail drives to Kansas, Missouri, and Montana.
It had taken tough men to run those cattle drives, men who couldn't afford to have families, men who were willing to live in the saddle for weeks on end, breathing thick dust and eating food that had been cooked over a fire made with dried buffalo dung or cattle chips. But in spite of the hardships, there was freedom in the life they had chosen, and an irresistible challenge in taming the longhorns and the land they rode. Leah often entertained Addie with endless stories about Russell Warner, her great-grandfather, who had owned one of the largest spreads in Texas.
Now the time of cattle barons and their huge cattle outfits was over. The range was no longer free and open, it was fenced into barbed-wire pens. Everyone had a little piece of Texas. The cowboys, the life and spirit of the old system, had drifted west, or turned into homesteaders, or even turned to rustling. The clumsily sprawling acres that had once been the Sunrise Ranch were now covered with oil workers, metal fences, and oil rigs. Addie felt sorry for the old cowboys that ocasionally wandered through town, so taciturn and resigned to the fact that the only kind of life they could· ever belong to had been taken away from them. Old men with no place to rest.
"See this?" Addie held up the green glass bottle and turned it in the sunlight. "The man I was telling you about-his eyes were exactly this color. Real green, not just muddy hazel. I've never seen anything like it. "
Leah shifted against her pillow, looking at her with sudden interest. "Who is he? Did anyone mention his name?"
"Well, yes. Everyone was whispering about him. I think someone said his name was Hunter."
"Hunter." Leah put her hands up to her cheeks.
"Ben Hunter?"
"That sounds about right."
Leah seemed aghast. "Ben Hunter. After all this time. After fifty years. I wonder why he'd come back. I wonder what for."
"He used to live here? Did you know him?"
"No wonder he was staring at you. No wonder. You're the spitting image of my Aunt Adeline. He must have thought she'd come back from the grave." Pale and upset, Leah reached out to the nightstand for a headache powder, and Addie rushed to the water pitcher to get her something to wash it down with. "Ben Hunter, an old man," Leah muttered. "An old man. And the Warner family all split up and moved away. Who would have dreamed it back then?"
"Here, drink this." Addie pressed the cool glass into one of Leah's hands and sat down next to her, patting the other hand with unconscious vigor. Leah downed the powder and a few sips of water, then clasped the glass with trembling hands. "My goodness, why are you so upset?" Addie chided quietly, hardly knowing what to say. "What did this Ben Hunter ever do to you? How did you know him?"
"There are so many memories. Lord have mercy, I'd never have guessed he'd live this long. He's the one, Addie. The one who killed your great-grandfather Russell. "
Addie's mouth dropped open. "The one who-"
"The man who ruined the family and the Sunrise Ranch, and killed Grampa Warner."
"He's a murderer, and he's just walking around free as a bird? Why isn't he locked up somewhere? Why didn't they hang him for killing Russell?"
"He was too slick. He hightailed it out of town as soon as people began to realize he was the one who'd done it. And if that old man you saw today really was Ben Hunter, then it seems he was never caught."
"I'll bet it was him. He looks like the kind of man who's capable of murder."
"Is he still handsome?"
"Well… I guess… for an old man. Maybe some old woman would want him. Why? Was he handsome when he was younger?"
"The best-looking man in Texas. That's not a yarn, either. He was something else. And everyone liked him, even though there were rumors he'd been a mavericker and even a rustler. Charming when he wanted to be, smart as a whip. Why, he could read and write so well that some said he'd graduated from some fancy eastern college."
"And he was just a ranch hand?"
"Well, a little more than that. Russell made him foreman just a week or two after he came here. But after he arrived, things went sour."
"What kinds of things? Problems with the cattle?"
"Much worse than that. The first spring after Ben first appeared on the doorstep, my Aunt Adeline-the one you were named after-disappeared. She was only twenty years old. Ben took her and her brother Cade to town one day, and when it came time to leave, they couldn't find her. It was like she'd vanished into thin air. The whole county looked for day and night for weeks, but they never found a trace of her. At the time no one blamed Ben, but later on people began to suspect he'd had something to do with her disappearance. There was never any love lost between the two of them. "
"That hardly proves he did anything to make her disappear."
"Yes, but he was the most likely suspect. And then just after
fall roundup Grampa Warner was found dead in his bed, strangled."
Though she'd heard that part of the story before, Addie's face wrinkled with disgust. "How awful. But how did you know for certain Ben Hunter did it?"
"The cord that was used to strangle Russell was a string from Ben's guitar. He was the only one on the ranch who played the guitar. Oh, he could make the most beautiful sounds with it. Music would just float out over the house at night." Leah shuddered delicately. "I was just a little girl then. I would lie in bed and listen to that music, thinking it was just like angels' songs. And there was something else they found… oh, yes, a button off Ben's shirt, right there by the body."
"Sounds to me like he was guilty."
"Everyone thought so. And he had no alibi. So he sneaked out of town in a hurry and he's never been seen or heard from since. If he'd come back before now, he'd have been dry-gulched in a minute. But now I guess he figures he's too old for anyone to want to hang him."
"I don't know about that. People around here have long memories. I think he's bought himself a whole lot of trouble by coming back. I wonder if it really is Ben Hunter. Do you think he's sorry about killing Russell?"
"I don't know." Leah shook her head doubtfully. "I wonder why he did it."
"He's the only one who really knows. Most people think he was paid to do it. Grampa Warner had a lot of enemies. Or maybe it was… something about a will… I never understood." Leah sank back into the pillow, suddenly exhausted. Addie gripped her slender hand tightly as she felt it go limp. "Don't you ever go near him," Leah said breathlessly. "Don't ever. Promise me."
"I promise I won't."
"Oh, Addie, you look so much like her. I'm afraid of what might happen if he gets near you again."
"Nothing would happen," Addie said, unable to understand why Leah's eyes were so feverishly bright. "What could he do? He's the one who should be afraid, not us. I hope someone tells the police about him. No matter how old he is, justice is justice, and he should pay for what he did."