River Road

by JoAnn Ross

  "I can certainly identify with that."

  "I'm sure you can. But Farragut made his mistake by going after the wrong woman. Just like you've done today."

  Now she read in his eyes. Trusting him implicitly, Julia allowed her rubbery knees to sag, going limp as she'd been taught in self-defense class.

  Lawson cursed as the sudden dead weight pulled him off balance.

  There was a swoosh of air as the silvery slash of the knife just missed her face.

  In a blur of speed, Finn pulled his pistol from the back of his jeans. The shot rang out, sharp and loud enough to silence the cicadas. In a half crouch, the gun in both hands, he looked just like James Bond to Julia's shell-shocked senses.

  Dark crimson blood bloomed across the front of Lawson's shirt. His eyes were wide with surprise and fury. But he wasn't dead.

  "Drop the knife," Finn ordered.

  Instead, the killer's fingers tightened on the handle. Blood began trailing from beneath Lawson's shirt sleeve, trickled over his hand, and dripped from the blade of the knife.

  The knife clattered to the crushed-shell path that wound through the roses.

  "You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man," Lawson said.

  "You sure about that, are you?" Finn's lips twisted in a half smile that was both grim and challenging.

  "You play by the rules, Special Agent. That's your fatal flaw. Because some of us make our own rules." Julia's breath backed up in her lungs as he pulled an ugly pistol from behind his back.

  Another shot shattered the soft, darkening evening.

  Lawson stiffened, then fell face first to the ground, like an oak tree surrendering to the ax.

  When Finn held out his arms to Julia, she flew into them.

  "It's okay, baby." He pulled her tight against his chest, as if he'd never let her go. As she clung back, Julia hoped he never would.

  Chapter 31

  After what seemed like forever, the FBI Special Agents who'd been dispatched from the Baton Rouge field office finally left Beau Soleil. The medical examiner had taken away Lawson's body, and Dani was already planning how she was going to change the garden she'd so recently planted, to rid it of the killer's presence.

  "God," Julia said in a long, weary sigh when they were finally alone. "I feel as if I've landed in a road company production of the Perils of Pauline."

  "It's all over now," Finn assured her.

  "Thanks to you."

  "No. That fiasco in the garden was my fault. Lawson never would have come here if it hadn't been for me."

  "You know, you're really not responsible for everything that happens in the universe," she said mildly. "Besides, it's all over. And, though I would never wish for anyone to die, I think it worked out for the best, because that horrid evil man will never be able to hurt anyone again."

  After a brief silence, Finn said, "I know I promised to take you into the city, and I will, if you still want, but—"

  "I'd rather be alone with you. Back at the camp."

  "Great minds," he said. "How long will it take you to pack?"

  She glanced over at the open suitcase on the bed. The one she'd begun to pack while waiting for him to return from Baton Rouge. "I'm almost done."

  "Good. I figured if we take your stuff with us, in the morning we can just leave for the airport from there."

  "What if I don't want to leave?"

  "Seems to me you don't have much choice. You made a deal, sugar. That studios expecting Carma Sutra to show up in Nepal ready to go to work. And I'm going back to D.C."

  She hated that he sounded so reasonable, when she was feeling anything but. Hated the way the warm, open-hearted sexy male she'd come to love was fading away right in front of her eyes. In his place was that unnaturally calm, rigidly controlled FBI Special Agent she now knew he played as a part, much the same way she'd played the unrelentingly amoral Amanda.

  "We have, as Nate would say, passed a good time, you and me," he said. "But the time's come to move on. Neither one of us made any promises."

  "Of course we did." Impending heartbreak warred with good old-fashioned anger in her breast. To keep from weeping, Julia concentrated on the latter. "We may not have said the words out loud, but we made promises. With our bodies. And our hearts."

  "Just because you sleep with someone doesn't mean you're pledging to spend the rest of your life with them."

  "That's all it was to you?" She couldn't—wouldn't—believe it. "You just were sleeping with me?"

  "We said no strings," Finn reminded her. "Maybe we both lied," she dared to suggest. "Without meaning to."

  He cursed, softly, without heat. Sighed like a man carrying a heavy burden. "It wouldn't work."

  "Why not?"

  "We live in different worlds. I'm beer and boiled shrimp. You're champagne and caviar."

  "You don't drink," she reminded him. "I've never liked caviar, and champagne makes me sneeze. And on top of all that, your snobbery's showing through again if you're going to hold my career against me."

  "Are you saying the new Bond Girl would be happy being the wife of an FBI agent?"

  "Are you proposing? Or is that a hypothetical question?"

  He looked up at the ceiling as if seeking strength—or divine intervention—and made a sound somewhere between a curse and a groan. His expression, when he returned his gaze to hers, was not encouraging.

  "Look, you're talking to a guy who spent three years tracking down a serial killer. You were right about Lawson being in my mind. I ate, slept, and lived the bastard. He was all I thought about. All I cared about."

  "He's dead."

  "You think he's the only one out there? My work's too demanding, too all-consuming to allow for emotional involvement."

  "Whether you want to admit it or not, Callahan, you're already emotionally involved. Besides, we've been through this before. Being an FBI agent is what you do. Not who you are."

  "There's no difference."

  "If that were true, it'd be the most purely pitiful thing I ever heard. We may come from different backgrounds, and you might have chosen to be a cop, while I became an actor, but deep down inside, where it really matters, we're more alike than either of us ever could have imagined."

  She looked up at him earnestly. "I love you, Finn Callahan. I didn't plan for it to happen, and if anyone had ever told me I'd fall in love with a bossy, oversized—"

  "I sure didn't hear you complaining about my size the other night when you were screaming my name into the pillow to keep from waking up the entire inn."

  "Arrogant," she muttered. "But it does suggest there's some hope for you, that you can make a joke, at a time like this.. As bad as that one was."

  "It's either laugh or shoot myself."

  Julia was trying not to think about Finn shooting anyone. The scene with Lawson was still too fresh in her mind. "I know you're not a coward," she tried again. "I can't understand why you won't admit you love me."

  "Hell, yes, I do!"

  "You don't have to shout."

  "I'm not shouting." But he did lower his voice several decibels. "Of course I love you, dammit," he shot back. "Okay? Are you satisfied? Happy now?"

  "Let's just say I'm a bit less unhappy than I was a minute ago. But less happy than I would be if you seemed at all pleased with the idea."

  "Look." He scraped his palm over his short-cropped hair. "I love you. You know it, I know it, I'll bet every damn person in south Louisiana knows it. Hell, even Lawson spotted it right off. But sometimes love just isn't enough."

  "And sometimes it's alt you need. Do you think it was easy for me, realizing I'd fallen in love with a man whose work could get him killed? Every time you walk out the door, I'll probably think back on that scene with Lawson and wonder if this is the day you don't come home to me. But dammit, if I can live with that, if I'm willing to love an FBI Special Agent, you can certainly put up with an actress for a wife and two ex-hippies for in-laws." There, she'd said it. She'd actually gone past love straight int
o marriage. And she wasn't the least bit sorry.

  "Christ, you can be a stubborn, argumentative female."

  "And you can be a rigid, obtuse male who can't recognize the best thing that ever happened to him when it's staring him right in the face."

  "You are the best thing that's ever happened to me, which is why I'm probably going to spend the rest of my life kicking myself. But I'm trying to do the right thing here."

  "The stupid thing." She blew out a breath as she realised she wasn't going to get anywhere tonight. His mind was made up, his size thirteen feet set in stone. Oh, Julia had no doubt that she could, with time, change his mind. Eventually. But since he seemed unwilling or unable to budge at the moment, she was wasting previous time.

  "You think you're doing the right thing, but what you're really doing is making a huge mistake."

  "It wouldn't be my first."

  "No. And lucky for you, I'm not going to let it be your last. But meanwhile, time's flying, Callahan. Surely you can think of a better way to pass what little we have left."

  Julia was relieved when Finn at least let her win that argument.

  Each lost in private thoughts, wrestling with "what ifs," neither spoke much on the drive out to the camp.

  "Just tell me one thing," she asked as they entered the cozy cabin.

  "What?" he asked cautiously.

  "When you knew you loved me."

  "I don't know, for sure. I kept telling myself that I didn't want you. That you weren't my type. That a man would be a fool to get tangled up with a woman like you."

  She arched a brow. "A woman like me?"

  "It's a compliment," he said, wondering what it was about this

  woman that could so easily turn his brains to grit and tangle his damn tongue.

  "You thought I was Amanda."

  "Yeah, and you didn't do anything to change my mind about that in the beginning. Then Margot said you were one and the same—"

  "Margot? You were discussing us with Margot Madison?"

  "You," he said. "I was discussing you with her." Hell, why didn't someone just give him a goddamn shovel so he could dig this hole he was burying himself in a little deeper? "There wasn't an us yet. It was the night of the welcome party."

  "The night you informed me that your tastes were too selective for a woman like me. And that if I was expecting to ease small-town boredom by having hot sex with my bodyguard every night, I was going to be disappointed."

  "Damn, you've got a memory," he complained.

  "It comes naturally. Sort of like your rotten attitude." She folded her arms. "So, what did Margot tell you about me?"

  "That you and Amanda were pretty much the same character."

  "I see. And you believed that."

  "Yes. No." He rubbed the back of his neck where a boulder-size knot of tension had settled. "Hell, I don't know. Maybe in the beginning. But not later. That's when I started making promises to myself. That I wouldn't allow myself to touch you, even when every fiber in my body wanted you so badly, I was spending twenty-four hours a day aching from it."

  "Good." She nodded her satisfaction, clearly not willing to let him. off the hook anytime soon. "What other promises did you make?"

  "That I wouldn't make love to you. That I wouldn't let it get serious, that I could keep it casual. That I wouldn't want you more than I wanted to take my next breath. Wouldn't need you more than I needed to breathe."

  "Well." She blew out a short, surprised breath. Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously. And, he thought, a little dangerously. "Did you have your brother write that for you?"

  "Hell, no. I haven't had Jack write me lines since I was sixteen and wanted to ask Mary Jo McCarthy to the Spring Fling."

  "You had a twelve-year-old write your pickup lines?"

  "Hey, he happens to have been a prodigy. But even Jack couldn't put down on paper a tenth of how I feel about you."

  "Well," she repeated, mollified. "Why don't you tell me, then? In your own words?"

  Julia watched him draw in another deep breath, and her heart went out to him. But she held her ground.

  "I love you. More than I ever thought I would love any woman. More than I wanted to." He smoothed his hands over her bare shoulders, down her arms, then back up again. "I doubt if there's a minute in the day that I don't want you. Or a fleeting second during the night that I don't want to reach for you."

  The emotions he kept so tightly locked inside him poured out, swamping her. How could he not see? she wondered as she tilted her head, parting her lips, inviting him to deepen the kiss, which he did, degree by weakening degree, until she felt herself going limp.

  "I want you now." Her head fell back as he trailed his lips down her neck. "Then I'll want you again." His teeth nipped at her earlobe while his hands moved cleverly, tenderly over her breasts. "All night long."

  "Yes." She lifted her hands to his shoulders and allowed herself to sink even more deeply into the tantalizing warmth. "Yes." Not wanting to ruin their last night together by arguing, she surrendered without hesitation. Without regret. "And yes."

  True to his word, Finn made love to her all night long, hot flashes of devastating heat that had her bucking on the fragrant mattress, nails digging into his bare back, her own hot skin slick with passion.

  Although she never would have imagined it that afternoon she entered the terminal and saw him standing there, looking so huge, so formidable, they fit together perfectly, their bodies attuned to each other even after the smoke clouded their minds and flames scorched their senses. As if determined to claim her, to brand her as his own before he sent her away, Finn abandoned control and allowed the primitive, possessive male to break free.

  His greed was dark, thrilling, almost violent as he took her ruthlessly to peak after devastating peak. She'd never before dreamed that need could be so driving, so turbulent. Never dared dream that she'd so willingly lose herself in anyone, or that helplessness with a person you trusted implicitly with your body, your heart, your life, could give birth to its own special strength.

  A crimson harvest moon sailed across a midnight sky as they plundered, all speed and heat and force, until finally, just before dawn,

  hands gentled, lips turned tender. The pace slowed. Sweetened. When he slipped into her, smoothly, silkily, Julia opened for him, taking him as fully as he'd taken her.

  Later she lay nestled in his arms, her cheek against his chest, cozy as a kitten and feeling just as boneless. "You've ruined me, Special Agent."

  He idly brushed some damp spiral curls away from her face. "Should I apologize?"

  "Of course not." She pressed her lips against his cooling flesh. "It's just that it could never be the same with any other man. Ever again." He felt her smile. "So, I guess you're stuck with me."

  Finally surrendering to the events of the past eighteen hours, she drifted off. Gathering her close, not wanting to lose a moment, Finn watched her sleep as the pale shimmers of silver light signaled the dawning of a new day. The day he'd once been so looking forward to. The day he'd send her away.

  Chapter 32

  You realize, of course, that you're an idiot."

  Finn blinked against the burst of sun that came flooding into the room as the window shade snapped up. "Jesus." He rubbed the heels of his hands against his burning eyes, vaguely surprised that there was a part of his body that could still feel pain, when he'd been working so hard around the clock to numb it. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  "Sorry," Nate said, his easy tone dripping with insincerity. "We figured you might like knowing that it's nearly noon."

  "So?" Finn reached down and picked the Jack Daniel's off the floor to pour himself another drink. Then frowned when he realized the bottle was empty. No problem; like any good former Eagle Scout, he'd prepared for this contingency.

  "So, drinking by your self is a good way to get into trouble." About this, Jack was definitely the voice of experience of the three Callahan brothers. "Drinking before noon
shows you're already there. And sinking fast."

  "This from the man who single handedly nearly turned Blue Bayou dry by drinking up all the booze in the parish when he came back home." Finn stood up, swayed as the bourbon swam in his gut and head, and sat heavily back down again.

  "True. Fortunately, the love of a good woman turned me around. You might want to give it a try sometime."

  "It's too late." God, what he'd give for a drink. Wondering what his chances were of talking either of his brothers into getting the backup bottle from the kitchen cupboard", Finn ran his tongue around fuzzyteeth that had been numb for the past eight days. At least he thought it had been eight days. It had been hard to tell with the hurricane shutters closed and the shades down. Which had been just the way Finn liked it. "I screwed things up. Big time."

  He felt something wet push its way beneath his hand and didn't have to open his eyes to know it was Jack's oversized mutt's nose. The dog had gotten the name Turnip, because one day this past spring, she'd just turned up in Blue Bayou. The same way Julia had. But the dog had stayed and she'd gone.

  "So unscrew them," Nate advised. "It's only been ten days."

  "Ten?" Obviously he'd lost two somewhere in one of those bottles.

  "Yeah. Ten. Which is not exactly a lifetime."

  "It just seems that way in idiot years," Jack said. "This is something else I'm an expert on. Time doesn't stop just 'cause you shut down, cher. The old world jus' keeps on a turning. It took me thirteen years to get Danielle back. That what you plannin' to do? Wait thirteen years?"

  "I figured I should give Julia some time." He said what he'd been reminding himself of ever since he'd watched her plane turn into a little silver speck in the sky, then disappear out over the water.