by Nora Roberts
roll before he raped her a second time.
And he’d decided to hurt her. After all, the choice, the mood, the control were all completely in his hands.
She stopped fighting him. In all but a physical sense she’d stopped being there. Her body was numb, belonged to someone else. In her mind she was safe, with Tom, sitting together on the patio of their pretty new house on Peach Blossom Lane.
She barely felt him remove the gag. She managed a quiet sob, made a pitiful effort to draw in breath enough to scream.
“You know it’s too late for that.” He said it gently, almost lovingly, as he wound the scarf around her throat. “You’ll be my angel now.”
He tightened the scarf, slowly, wanting to draw out the moment. He watched her mouth open, struggle to suck in air. Her heels drummed on the sand, her body jerked.
His breath became labored, the power flooding him, screaming in his head, racing through his blood. He lost track of the times he stopped, let her claw back to consciousness before he took her to the brink again. He would rise, aim the camera again. Not just one decisive moment, he thought. But many. The fear of death, the acceptance, the flicker of hope as life pumped back. The surrender when it blinked out again.
Oh, he regretted the lack of a tripod and remote.
Finally his system roared past control and he finished it.
Gasping, he murmured endearments, kissed her gratefully. She had shown him a new level, this unexpected angel that fate had tossed at his feet. It had been meant to be, of course. He understood that now. He’d had more to learn before he met his destiny with Jo. So much more to learn.
He removed the scarf, folded it, and laid it reverently over the gun. He took time to pose her, adjusting her hands after he’d freed them. The welts on the wrists troubled him a little until he slid her hands under her head like a pillow.
He thought he would title this one Gift of an Angel.
He dressed, then bundled her clothes. The marsh was too far, he decided. Whatever the gators and other predators had left of Ginny was buried deep there. He didn’t have time for the hike, or energy for the labor.
There were conveniently deep spots in the river, however, and that would do well enough. He would take her to her final resting place, weigh her body down so that it would rest on the slippery bottom.
And then, he decided with a wide yawn, he’d call it a night.
TWENTY-TWO
WHEN Giff slipped out of Lexy’s room and down the back steps, the sky was pearled with dawn. He’d meant to be out of the house and on his way before sunup. But then, he thought with a lazy smile, Lexy had a way of persuading a man to tarry.
She’d needed him. First to work off her mad at Brian, then to tell him about her sister’s troubles. They could talk about things like that, and all manner of other things, tucked in her room, their voices hushed with secrets.
That ease of talking, Giff mused, was just one of the advantages of being in love with someone you’d known since childhood.
Then there was the electric jolt, the unexpected sizzle of surprise, as you got to know that very familiar person on other, more intimate levels. Giff puffed out a breath as he reached for the door. It sure wasn’t any hardship to study Lexy Hathaway on those other levels. The way she’d looked in that little silk nightie she’d bought in Savannah had been enough to make a strong man sink to his knees and praise God for coming up with the brilliant notion of creating Eve.
Getting her out of that sheer little concoction hadn’t been a worrisome task either. In fact, he decided that when he took her to Savannah on Saturday he’d buy her another one, just so he could . . .
The erotic image of Lexy in buttermilk silk fled as he found himself faced with her father. It was a toss-up as to which one of them was more disconcerted, Lexy’s lover, with his hair still tumbled from sex and sleep, or Lexy’s father, with a bowl of cornflakes in his hand.
Both cleared their throats.
“Mr. Hathaway.”
“Giff.”
“I . . . ah . . . I was . . .”
“That plumbing need seeing to again upstairs?”
It was an out, offered as desperately as it was nearly taken. But Giff straightened his shoulders, told himself not to take the coward’s way, and met Sam’s eyes directly. “No, sir.”
Miserably uneasy, Sam set his bowl down and dumped milk onto the cereal. “Well, then,” was all he could think to say.
“Mr. Hathaway, I don’t want you to think I’m sneaking out of your house.” Which of course, Giff admitted, was exactly what he was doing.
“You’ve been running tame in Sanctuary since you could walk.” Leave it alone, boy, Sam prayed. Leave it lie and move along. “You’re welcome to come and go as you please, just like you ever were.”
“I’ve been walking a lot of years now, Mr. Hathaway. And for most of them I’ve been ... I figure you know how I feel about Lexy. How I always have.”
Damn cereal was going to get soggy, Sam thought with regret. “I guess you didn’t grow out of it like most thought you would.”
“No, sir. I’d say it’s more I grew into it. I love her, Mr. Hathaway. My feelings for her are long-standing and steady. You’ve known me and my family all my life. I’m not feckless or foolish. I’ve got some savings put by. I can make a good living with my hands and my back.”
“I don’t doubt it.” But Sam frowned. Maybe he’d barely sipped through his first cup of coffee, but his mind was clear enough to catch the drift. “Giff, if you’re asking me for permission to . . . call on my daughter, seems to me you’ve already opened that particular door, walked in, and made yourself to home.”
Giff flushed and hoped his swallow wasn’t audible. “Yes, sir, I can’t deny the truth of that. But it’s not that particular door I’m speaking of, Mr. Hathaway.”
“Oh.” Sam opened a drawer for a spoon, hoping Giff would take the hint and mosey on before things got any stickier. Then he put the spoon down with a clatter and stared. “Sweet Jesus, boy, you’re not talking about marrying her?”
Giff’s jaw set, his eyes glinted. “I’m going to marry her, Mr. Hathaway. I’d like to have your blessing over it, but either way, I’m having her.”
Sam shook his head, rubbed his eyes. Life just flat refused to be simple, he reflected. A man went along, minding his own business, wanting nothing more than for other people to mind theirs in return, but life just kept throwing tacks under your bare feet.
“Boy, you want to take her on, I’m not going to stand in your way. Couldn’t anyhow, even if I planted my boots in concrete. The two of you are of age and ought to have the sense to know your own minds.” He dropped his hands. “But I’ve got to say, Giff, as I’ve always been fond of you, I think you’re taking on a sack of trouble there. You’ll be lucky to get one moment’s peace from the time you say ‘I do’ till you take your last breath.”
“Peace isn’t a priority of mine.”
“She’ll run through every penny you’ve put by and won’t have a clue where she spent it.”
“She’s not near as foolish as you think. And I can always make more money.”
“I’m not going to waste my breath talking you out of something you’ve got your mind set on.”
“I’m good for her.”
“No question about it. Fact is, you might be the making of her.” Resigned to it, Sam offered a hand. “I’ll wish you luck.”
Sam watched Giff go off with a spring in his step. He didn’t doubt the boy was in love, and if he let himself he could remember what it was like to feel that light in the head, that edgy in the gut. That hot in the blood.
Sam settled in the breakfast nook with his second cup of coffee and his soggy cereal and watched the sky lighten to a bold summer blue. He’d been just as dazed and dazzled by Annabelle as Giff was now with Lexy. It had only taken one look for his heart to jolt straight out of his chest and fall at her feet.
Christ, they’d been young. He was barely eighteen t
hat summer, coming to the island to work on his uncle’s shrimp boat. Casting nets, sweating under a merciless sun until his hands were raw and his back a misery.
He enjoyed every second of it.
He fell in love with the island, first glance. The hazy greens, the pockets of solitude, the surprises around every bend of the river or road.
Then he saw Belle Pendleton walking along the beach, gathering shells at sunset. Long golden legs, willowy body, the generous fall of waving red hair. Eyes as clear as water and blue as summer.
The sight of her hazed his vision and closed his throat.
He smelled of shrimp and sweat and engine grease. He wanted a quick swim through the waves to loosen the muscles the day’s work had aching. But she smiled at him and, holding a pink-lined conch shell, began to talk to him.
He was tongue-tied and terrified. He’d always been intimidated by females, but this vision who had already captured his heart with one smile left him grunting out responses like an ill-mannered ape. He never knew how he’d managed to stutter out an invitation to take a walk the next evening.
Years later, when he asked her why she’d said yes, she just laughed.
You were so handsome, Sam. So serious and stern and sweet. And you were the first boy—and the last man—to make my heart skip a beat.
She’d meant it. Then, Sam thought. After he had worked enough, saved enough money to satisfy him, he’d gone to her father to ask permission for her hand. A great deal more formal that had been, Sam mused, sipping his coffee, than the meeting just now with Giff. There’d been no sneaking out of Annabelle’s bedroom at dawn either. Though there had been stolen afternoons in the forest.
Even when a man’s blood had been cool for years, he remembered what it was like to have it run hot. For the first few years that Annabelle was gone, his blood had heated from time to time. He’d taken care of that in Savannah.
It hadn’t shamed him to pay for sex. A professional woman didn’t require conversation or wooing. She simply transacted business. It had been some time since he’d required that particular service, though. And since AIDS and other potential horrors of impersonal sex scared him, Sam was relieved to have weaned himself away from it.
Everything he needed was on the island. He’d found the peace that young Giff claimed not to want.
Sam sat back to enjoy the rest of his coffee in the quiet. He had to struggle with a hard twinge of irritation when the door opened and Jo walked in. The fact that she hesitated when she saw him and a slight flicker of annoyance moved over her face both shamed and amused him.
Peas in a pod, he decided, who don’t much care to share the pod.
“Good morning.” Damn it, all she’d wanted was a quick slug of coffee before she went out to work. Not just wander or brood, but work. She’d awakened for the first time in weeks refreshed and focused, and she didn’t want to waste it.
“Clear morning,” Sam said. “Thunderstorms and strong winds by evening, though.”
“I suppose.” She opened a cupboard.
Silence stretched between them, long and complete. The trickle of coffee as Jo poured it from pot to cup was loud as a waterfall. Sam shifted, his khakis hissing against the polished wood of the bench.
“Kate told me ... she told me.”
“I imagined she would.”
“Um. You’re feeling some better now.”
“I’m feeling a great deal better.”
“And the police, they’re doing what they can do.”
“Yes, what they can.”
“I was thinking about it. It seems to me you should stay here for the next little while. Until it’s settled and done, you shouldn’t plan on going back to Charlotte and traveling like you do.”
“I’d planned to stay, work here, for the next few weeks anyway.”
“You should stay here, Jo Ellen, until it’s settled and done.”
Surprised at the firm tone, as close to an order as she could remember receiving from him since childhood, she turned, lifted her brows. “I don’t live here. I live in Charlotte.”
“You don’t live in Charlotte,” Sam said slowly, “until this is settled and done.”
Her back went up, an automatic response. “I’m not having some wacko dictate my life. When I’m ready to go back, I’ll go back.”
“You won’t leave Sanctuary until I say you can leave.”
This time her mouth dropped open. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me right enough, Jo Ellen. Your ears have always been sharp and your understanding keen. You’ll stay here until you’re well enough, and it’s safe enough for you to leave and go about your business.”
“If I want to go tomorrow—”
“You won’t,” Sam interrupted. “I’ve got my mind set on it.”
“You’ve got your mind set?” Stunned, she strode over to the table and scowled down at him. “You think you can just set your mind on something that has to do with me after all this time, and I’ll just fall in line?”
“No. I reckon you’ll have to be planted in line and held there, like always. That’s all I have to say.” He wanted to escape, he wanted the quiet, but when he started to slide down the bench to get up, Jo slapped a hand onto the table to block him.
“It’s not all I have to say. Apparently you’ve lost track of some time here. I’m twenty-seven years old.”
“You’ll be twenty-eight come November,” he said mildly. “I know the ages of my children.”
“And that makes you a sterling example of fatherhood?”
“No.” His eyes stayed level with hers. “But there’s no changing the fact that I’m yours just the same. You’ve done well enough for yourself, by yourself, up to now. But things have taken a turn. So you’ll stay here, where there are those who can look out for you, for the next little while.”
“Really?” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Well, let me tell you just what I’m going to continue to do for myself, by myself.”
“Good morning.” Kate breezed in, all smiles. She’d had her ear to the door for the last two minutes and calculated it was time to make an entrance. It pleased her to enter a room in that house and not find apathy or bitterness. Temper, at least, was clean.
“That coffee smells wonderful. I’m just dying for some.”
In a calculated move, she brought a cup and the pot to the table, sliding in beside Sam before he could wriggle away. “Just let me top this off for you, Sam. Jo, bring your cup on over here. I swear I don’t know the last time we sat down for a quiet cup of coffee in the morning. Lord knows, after that chaos in the dining room last night, we need it.”
“I was on my way out,” Jo said stiffly.
“Well, honey, sit down and finish your coffee first. Brian’ll be coming in soon enough to tell us all to scat. You look like you got a good night’s sleep.” Kate smiled brilliantly. “Your daddy and I were worried you’d be restless.”
“There’s no need to worry.” Grudgingly, Jo got her coffee and brought it to the table. “Everything that can be done’s being done. In fact, I’m feeling so much calmer about it all, I’m thinking about going back to Charlotte.” She shot a challenging look at Sam. “Soon.”
“That’s fine, Jo, if you want to send the lot of us to an early grave with worry.” Kate spoke mildly as she spooned sugar into her coffee.
“I don’t see—”
“Of course you see,” Kate interrupted. “You’re just angry, and you have a right to be. But you don’t have the right to take that anger out on those who love you. It’s natural to do just that,” Kate added with a smile, “but it’s not right.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Good.” Kate patted her hand, as if the matter were settled. “You’re planning to take some pictures today, I see.” She glanced over at the camera bag Jo had set on the counter. “I got out that book that Nathan’s father did on the island. Put it in the public parlor after I’d looked through it again. My, there are some pre
tty photographs in there.”
“He did good work,” Jo muttered, struggling not to sulk.
“He sure did. I found one in there of Nathan, Brian, and I suppose Nathan’s younger brother. Such handsome little boys. They were holding up a couple of whopping trout and had grins on their faces that stretched a mile wide. You ought to take a look at it.”
“I will.” Jo found herself smiling, thinking of Nathan at ten with a trout on the line.
“And you could think about doing a photo book on the island yourself,” Kate went on. “It would be just wonderful for business. Sam, you take Jo over to the marsh, that spot where the sea lavender’s full in bloom. Oh, and if the two of you go through the forest, along the southwest edge, the path there’s just covered with trumpet vine petals. That would make such a nice picture, Jo Ellen. That narrow, quiet little path just dusted with fallen