by Gayle Wilson
“Chance? I can’t take a chance, Jeb. Not with Emma. Why can’t you understand that?”
“I do understand. Believe me. But as far as these people are concerned, you have no rights here. Diane does. Including the right to put her daughter into a car and drive away.”
“What guarantee do I have she isn’t doing that right now?”
“Her brother’s funeral for one thing. You heard Ahern. Wayne was the only family she has. No matter what else happens, she isn’t going to leave before her brother is buried.”
“You can’t know that. What if she suspects the same thing we do?”
She had tried to put herself in Diane’s place. If she thought her brother’s death wasn’t an accident, wouldn’t she fear for the baby he’d brought her? Or was it possible Diane really didn’t know where the little girl she’d named Alexandra had come from?
Maybe that had been the case before Richard’s body had been found, but there was no way she didn’t know after Susan arrived in Linton and began searching so publicly for Emma. Diane had to have suspected the truth at that point.
“I don’t think anyone else is suspicious of Wayne’s death,” Jeb said. “They all seem to accept it was an accident.”
“Diane has to know that he stole the baby he gave her. Even if she didn’t know before, Jeb, she has to now. She must be terrified I’m going to take her daughter from her.” Susan had only one standard by which to measure Diane’s degree of desperation. That was what she might do in the same situation. “I can’t wait until tomorrow.”
“We’ll call the FBI as soon as we get home. We’ll lay it all out for them, including what Doc told us. They can have someone from the field office in Jackson down here in the morning. That’s when we confront her. Not until we have someone who can overrule Jemison.”
“Jeb—”
“It’s the only way. And the only chance you’ve got to keep her from taking Emma and running. I wouldn’t tell you that unless I believed it.”
The quiet conviction in his voice made her know he did. The problem was that all the people she’d listened to the first time had been just as convincing. Just as sure of what they’d told her. And that time…
“I can’t lose her again. I couldn’t survive that.”
“You aren’t going to. I’m not going to let that happen. I swear to you, Susan. Just…trust me.”
Despite everything that had gone wrong before, despite the outcome—the endless nightmare of the last seven years—she did trust him. But the stakes in the gamble he was asking her to take were too high. All her instincts screamed she should just go find Emma and then defy anyone to take her away again.
She came out of that fog of despair to realize Jeb was guiding the truck alongside Lorena’s front steps. He cut off the engine and then turned to look at her, blue eyes reflecting the light from the open front door.
“We call the FBI, and then we wait until they get here. That’s all we can do tonight.”
She didn’t try to reason with him again. He had already heard all her arguments and rejected them.
And she couldn’t deny the possibility of what Jeb believed they should fear the most. If Diane learned that they knew the truth about Alexandra, then with Buck Jemison and the rest of the deputies as her willing allies, she would be gone before they had a chance to stop her.
She understood all that. At least intellectually. She just couldn’t help thinking that sometime tomorrow she was once more going to walk through the empty rooms of another house, fruitlessly searching for her daughter.
“SUSAN?”
Unable to sleep, she had finally retreated onto the cool, protective darkness of the veranda. Just as on the night she’d begged Jeb to help her, she was sitting on the top step, arms wrapped around her knees as she stared unseeingly at the roses.
“What are you doing out here?”
This time she turned, looking at Jeb over her shoulder. The light in the hall was off, but he was silhouetted against the dim illumination coming from the back of the house.
“Trying not to think.”
She had been. Trying not to think about what it would mean if Jeb was wrong. Or about the indifference in the voice of whomever she’d talked to at the Bureau tonight. Most of all, trying not to think about a little girl who should, please dear God, be sleeping in a bed only a few short miles from the one where Susan had tossed and turned.
Despite the fact that Jeb hadn’t answered her comment, she wasn’t surprised to hear his uneven footsteps cross the wooden floor behind her. She was surprised when he eased down on the step beside her, seeming to contemplate the same moonlit garden that stretched before them.
After a moment he put his arm around her shoulders, attempting to draw her to his side. Unthinkingly she resisted, her body stiff with an anger she hadn’t realized she harbored until he’d touched her.
Her resistance didn’t deter him. He increased the pressure, pulling her cold body against his solid strength. Holding her close enough that she could feel the steady beat of his heart against her ribs.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had been this near to a man. Near enough to feel his heartbeat. Near enough to feel the warmth of his skin against hers.
Once, a long time ago, leaning against a man’s chest and being comforted had been as familiar as the scent of baby lotion and formula. Then, in a heartbeat, both had been taken from her.
She had acknowledged the impact of the loss of one, but until tonight—until now—in her long bitterness over Richard’s desertion, she had never admitted how much she had missed being held. Or how badly she needed to be tonight.
She closed her eyes against the sting of tears. As she did, locked in that self-imposed darkness, she became aware of a dozen other sensations. The clean, masculine scent of soap. The hair-roughened texture of Jeb’s forearm resting against her bare shoulder. The firmness of the muscles under her cheek. And underlying all of them, the steadiness of his heartbeat.
Trust me, he’d said. And she had. Maybe, as he’d warned her, she hadn’t really had a choice, but once more she had put her fate—and Emma’s—in the hands of another person, something she had sworn she would never do again.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“Do you want to talk about her?”
If she did, then she would have to think about the self-possessed little girl who she now believed was her daughter. And she already knew where those thoughts would lead. In the same endless circle of fear and hope that had driven her out here more than an hour ago.
“How can I? I don’t even know her.”
“You will.”
She let the assurance lie between them, too tired of the uncertainties to argue the point. After a moment Jeb turned his head, his lips moving against her hair.
She’d done the same thing a thousand times as she’d held Emma. It was a gesture of caring. Concern. Love.
Except Jeb didn’t love her. And no matter how welcome the solidness of his body against hers, she needed to remember that.
This was friendship. Fellow feeling for someone who was suffering. Nothing more.
And of course, she didn’t want it to be more. Not now. Not until…
The realization was sudden. And unsettling.
If she recovered Emma tomorrow, there would be no reason to stay in Linton. No reason to spend another minute in the company of the man at her side. No reason…
Except that she wanted to. Even if she had Emma, this, too, was something she now knew she needed. Something she had needed almost as much as being able to press her lips against the softness of her daughter’s hair.
She moved slightly, an obvious withdrawal. Jeb responded immediately. He leaned back, removing his arm from around her shoulders.
She turned her head, looking into his eyes, her awareness of him colored by the newness of the emotion she’d just discovered. She had been physically attracted to him from the first
. That instinctive response had now changed into something much different. Something based, not on physicality, but on respect. Friendship. Admiration. Trust.
Trust me…
What she felt must somehow have been reflected in her face. His eyes narrowed, some thought shifting behind them, before he lowered his head, tilted so that his mouth aligned with hers.
There was a heartbeat of hesitation before his lips closed possessively over hers. This was nothing like the abrupt kiss the morning she’d left for Atlanta. This was a slow, unhurried caress. His tongue explored, melding with hers before it slipped away to trace the outline of her lips.
In spite of the stress of the last few hours, she responded, trying to deepen the kiss by placing her hand at the back of his head. Opened, her fingers spread through the softness of his hair.
With that encouragement, his arms tightened, crushing her to him so that her breasts were flattened against the hard wall of his chest. For a fleeting second guilt intruded, reminding her of the worries that had driven her into the darkness. Unable to act on them, she had not wanted to think.
And that was exactly the gift Jeb now offered, she realized. Freedom from those circling thoughts and fears. A span of time during which she wouldn’t be aware with every breath she drew of how near—and yet how far—from Emma she was.
Make me forget…
She didn’t speak the words, but as if in response to them, Jeb leaned back again, creating a narrow space between their bodies. His hand cupped under her breast, the sudden pressure of those strong, dark fingers verging on pain. She gasped, and immediately the pressure eased, to be replaced by the back-and-forth glide of his thumb across her nipple.
His mouth found hers, more demanding than before, as his fingers continued to tease the tightening nub. Sexual heat shimmered like summer lightning along nerve endings that were almost atrophied from disuse.
Too long. Too long.
His lips deserted hers, causing a small wordless protest. They found the hardened nipple his thumb had created, suckling it. All thought of protest was lost as moisture surged through her lower body, releasing in a sweet, hot flood of desire.
Her fingers convulsed, tightening unconsciously in the darkness of his hair. In response, Jeb raised his head far enough to allow his hand to sweep the wide lace strap of her nightgown down and over her shoulder. The night air brushed the dampness left on her skin, cool against its heat.
Almost before that sensation had registered, his mouth closed over her bare flesh. With his lips, teeth and tongue he teased her already sensitized breast, evoking a gasp of pleasure and surprise.
Again he leaned back, his desertion creating another wordless protest. Her fingers, still locked in his hair, urged his head down again, but he ignored their entreaty.
“Come on,” he said instead.
She opened her eyes, shocked that he would chance an interruption. She couldn’t. If she stopped to think about what she was doing… “What’s wrong?”
“Not here.” His hand closed over her fingers, which rested against the fabric of his shirt.
Bewildered, she shook her head. She was again aware of the night air, chill against her skin. Aware of how little she had on. Conscious, when she didn’t want to be, of what she knew was about to happen between them.
“Why?”
“The beds are inside.”
Beds. The reminder of how this was going to end was almost a shock. It was one thing to allow herself to be caught up in the heat of the moment and quite another to deliberately seek a sexual encounter with a man she barely knew.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.” All the reasons why it wasn’t came crashing in on her, destroying both need and desire with the cold, hard reality of the situation.
“Like hell it isn’t,” Jeb said. “If you think you’re doing Emma some kind of favor by being alone tonight, you’re wrong.”
“It just seems…”
“I know how it seems. But I also know that waiting out these hours shouldn’t be an act of martyrdom.”
“Is that what you think? That I’m trying to be a martyr.”
“I think you’re scared to death that I may be wrong.”
He was right. She just hadn’t realized he understood her fears.
“The thing you don’t know,” he went on, the words seeming to be dragged from him against his will, “is that I’m just as terrified as you are.”
“Then—”
“Admitting I’m afraid doesn’t change a thing. Waiting is still the best thing you can do. Just…don’t do it alone.”
“Is not wanting to be alone a good enough reason for something that should be…I don’t know what it should be. It just seems that when two people make love it should be about more than that.”
She hesitated, hoping he would say the right thing. That he would find the words that would free her from the constraint she felt. Words that would let her know she wasn’t taking anything away from Emma tonight by wanting to be held. Not even by wanting Jeb to make love to her.
And she did. Despite the fact that his lips and hands were no longer seducing her. Despite the fact that this would no longer be a situation that had simply happened, but one she had made a conscious decision to allow.
She still wanted him. His strength. His warmth. His heartbeat against hers.
And he was right. Denying herself those comforts wouldn’t change whatever was going to happen.
“I thought you knew,” he said.
“Knew what?” Her heart rate accelerated, anticipating.
“How much more there is than that.”
She examined the words, realizing that more than anything else he might have said, these really were the right ones.
“I’m out of practice at reading between the lines.”
There had been a few men in her life since Richard’s death, but those relationships had been brief and for the most part meaningless. She had always accepted the blame for that, but this time…
“I’m afraid I’m not very good at this,” Jeb said. “The way my life has been—” He stopped, seeming to think about what he wanted to say. “To be honest, I don’t know how much my current situation has to do with it, but you’re the first woman I can ever remember thinking about in terms other than sexual. And temporary.”
She wasn’t sure for a second whether to be flattered or appalled. Given that confession, however, she couldn’t doubt he was trying to tell her the truth. Even if that didn’t rebound to his credit.
“I’m not proud of that,” he went on, speaking hesitantly for almost the first time since she’d met him, “but…my job didn’t lend itself to permanency. And it always came first.”
Now that had been taken from him. Just as her life had once been taken from her. And neither of them could be sure they would ever recover what they’d lost.
All they could be sure of…All they could be sure of was what they had together tonight. Although it might not be what they sought, it was, in itself, something of value, no matter their reasons for embracing it.
Something of value. Something to cling to. Something they both needed right now.
Without a word, and knowing that he couldn’t possibly understand what had changed her mind, she held her hand out to him. After a moment, he pushed up from the step where they were sitting, looking down into her face. Then he reached out and took her fingers into his.
She was aware again of their strength. Aware of the slightly callused abrasiveness of their skin. So aware…
She allowed him to pull her to her feet. For a few seconds they stood silently at the top of the steps before his arm once more came around her waist, drawing her to his side.
Arm in arm they walked to the door before he stepped aside, allowing her to precede him through it. Without any hesitation she crossed the hall to the foot of the stairs. Once there she turned back to find him watching her.
Again she held out her hand, smiling at him until he took the first lim
ping step toward her and all that lay ahead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THERE HAD BEEN another awkward moment when they reached the landing on the second floor. Lorena’s room was at the head of the stairs, next door to the suite Susan had been given. She’d hesitated, realizing what that proximity might mean. Jeb’s hand at the small of her back reminded her there was another option.
She followed his lead to the suite at the far end of the hall. She had known those were his rooms, but she’d never been in them, of course.
He turned the handle, opening the door for her. The lamp on the bedside table had been left on, its low light revealing the disordered sheets of the bed he’d left to come looking for her. An open hardback lay facedown on the table. Beside it stood a small brown prescription bottle.
Painkillers or sleeping pills? She had time to wonder before the door to the hall closed behind her. She turned to find Jeb standing before it, his eyes luminous in the dimness.
“I should probably warn you,” she said.
“Warn me? About what?”
“I’m a little out of practice at this.”
“I’ve always heard it’s like riding a bicycle.”
“Somehow it doesn’t feel like that right now.”
It didn’t. Despite what Jeb had said downstairs, despite her acknowledgment that this was something she, too, devotedly desired, everything felt strange. Almost disjointed. As if she were watching it unfold between two other people.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Jeb said.
“I’m not. I’m just…” There was no single word for what she was feeling. No simple explanation for why something that had seemed so right downstairs seemed suddenly so wrong. “It’s just been a very long time.”
His lips moved, a small upward tilt at their corners. “Funny. I was thinking the same thing.”
I was thinking the same thing. Since he could have no idea about the deprivations of her sex life, there seemed to be only one interpretation of that. But the idea that someone as intensely masculine as Jeb…