by Sandra Brown
The features of her face and the contours of her body had relaxed in sleep. One hand rested outside the covers, near him. It lay palm up, the slender fingers curved inward. It looked susceptible and defenseless, not like the strong, skilled hand of a surgeon. She was the most self-reliant and capable woman he’d ever met. He admired her accomplishments. But he also felt protective of her.
And he wanted to make love to her.
God, did he. He wanted to because… well, because he was a man and that was what men wanted to do with women. But it wasn’t just that. His humor, charm, even anger, had failed to pierce her hard shell of self-containment. Dented it perhaps, but hadn’t broken through. Would he be able to reach her if he penetrated her body? It was a provocative thought that left him agitated on several levels.
She shrank from his touch, but he didn’t think it was because she disliked him. The reaction was a self-imposed conditioned reflex, part of that control she was so hung up on, a legacy of the Raymond Collier incident. Passion had landed her in a terrible fix. That didn’t necessarily mean that she was any less passionate. She just no longer submitted to it.
In spite of her reserve, he could imagine her flushed with arousal. Today when he kissed her, for a few incredible seconds, it hadn’t been all one-sided. She hadn’t permitted herself to kiss him back, but she had wanted to. And that wasn’t the pompous disclaimer of a braggart who’d kissed a lot of women.
He hadn’t imagined that catch in her breath or that almost-but-not-quite surrendering of her tongue. Her skin had felt feverish even through her clothes. He hadn’t had to coax a response from her, either. Two strokes of his thumb and her nipple was hard, ready to be drawn into his mouth.
He stifled a groan by pretending to clear his throat. Beside him, Rennie slept on, undisturbed and unaware of his misery. He rolled onto his side to face her. If she woke up and challenged him, he could truthfully claim that his back had begun to ache. He couldn’t really see her anyway. It was too dark in the room.
But he could feel her soft breath, and he didn’t need to see her in order to feed his fantasies. During those long nights of surveillance he’d had plenty of time to memorize the features of her face.
He summoned up the memory of her removing the dress she’d worn the night of the wedding. Were those inadequate patches of lavender lace the lingerie of a dispassionate woman? Hell no.
One by one, moving slowly, he undid the buttons of his fly. If she woke up now, she would raise the standard for freaking out, because his back wasn’t all that was stiff. He was grateful that his sexual apparatus hadn’t suffered permanent damage and had resumed full, operational capacity, but it seemed to be trying to prove itself better fit than before the injury.
That pressure having been relieved, he closed his eyes and willed himself if not to sleep, at least to clear his mind and rest. He would not remember how good that kiss had tasted, or how perfectly her breast had molded to his hand. He would not think of her, warm and soft, under the light covers, or of that sweet place where she would be even warmer and softer. Taking him in. Enveloping him.
* * *
A horse nickered, waking him with the impact of a clanging alarm clock. He lay perfectly still, eyes open, holding a lungful of air he didn’t dare exhale for fear of missing another sound. He didn’t have to wait long before hearing another equine snuffle.
The noises hadn’t awakened Rennie. She continued to sleep soundly. Despite the soreness in his back, he came off the bed with the alacrity of a cat and picked up his pistol where he’d left it within easy reach on the nightstand. He tiptoed to the window, pressed himself against the adjacent wall, and leaned forward only far enough to look out.
He watched for several moments but detected no movement in the yard or in the clearing between the rear of the house and the barn, but instinct told him something was going on inside that building. Maybe a mouse had spooked one of the horses. Maybe the bobcat had a mate who’d come looking for him. Or maybe Lozada was paying them a call.
He crept across the bedroom and, after checking first to see that Rennie was still asleep, slipped from the room and moved soundlessly across the gallery. At the top of the stairs he paused to listen. He waited for a full sixty seconds but heard nothing except his own pulse beating against his eardrums.
He took the stairs as rapidly as possible but was mindful of creaking treads that would give away his presence. The living room appeared just as they’d left it several hours ago. Nothing had been disturbed. The front door was locked and bolted.
His pistol was cradled between raised hands as he approached the door leading into the kitchen. He hesitated, then sprang into the room and swept it with his outstretched hands. It was empty, as was the walk-in pantry.
He unlocked the back door and slipped through, walking in a ninety-degree crouch but still feeling exposed. He took cover behind the patio chair in which he’d sat earlier. It wasn’t very substantial cover, but darkness also provided concealment. He blessed the skinny moon.
He waited and listened. Soon the unmistakable sounds of movement came from within the barn. He slipped from behind the chair and covered the distance at a run. When he reached the barn, he flattened himself against the exterior wall, hoping to meld into its shadow. He also needed it for support. He was dizzy, out of breath, sweating profusely, and his back felt like he’d been impaled on a railroad spike.
That’s what a few days in the hospital would do for you, he thought. Make you a weakling. Against any foe stronger than a pissant, he might be in trouble. But he had a pistol, and it was fully loaded, and, at the very least, he was going to give the bastard a fight.
He inched along the wall until he reached the wide door, where he stopped to listen. And what he heard bothered him, because he heard absolutely nothing. But the silence was heavy, not empty; he sensed another presence. He knew someone was in there. He knew it in his gut.
Whoever it was had stopped whatever he’d been doing. Something, maybe his own keen instinct, had alerted him to Wick’s presence. He was now listening for Wick with the same intensity that Wick was listening for him.
The standoff stretched into its second minute. Nothing moved. There wasn’t a sound. Even the horses had become completely still and silent inside their stalls. The atmosphere was thick with expectation. Wick felt the weight of it against his skin.
Acrid sweat ran into his eyes. It trickled down his rib cage and between his shoulder blades. It stung his incision. His hands, still gripping his pistol, were slippery with it. He reasoned he could either stand there and slowly dissolve or he could end it here, now.
“Lozada! Have you got balls enough to face me like a man? Or are we gonna continue this silly game of hide-and-seek?”
Following a short silence, a voice came to him from the other side of the wall. “Threadgill?”
It wasn’t Lozada. Lozada had refined his voice into a low-pitched purr. This one had the nasal intonation of a Texas native. “Identify yourself.”
The man stepped from behind the wall into the opening. Wick’s hands tensed around the pistol and kept it aimed at head level. Toby Robbins raised his hands. “Whoa, cowboy.”
His easygoing manner didn’t faze Wick. Cops had died when fooled by that. “What the hell are you doing sneaking around in the dark?”
“I could ask you the same thing, couldn’t I? But since you’re the one with the firearm, I’ll be pleased to answer first. If you’ll direct that thing somewhere else.”
“Not until I hear why you’re in Rennie’s barn.”
“I was checking on things.”
“You gotta do better than that.”
“Heard one of her horses got a nasty scratch from a bobcat.”
“Who told you?”
“Game warden. I came to check it out, see if I ought to call the vet.”
“At this time of night?”
Toby Robbins glanced toward the eastern horizon where by now the sky was blushing pink. “It’s practi
cally lunchtime.”
Wick glanced toward the gate. It was closed and locked, no vehicle parked beyond it. “How’d you get here?”
“Walked.”
He looked down at the man’s feet. He was wearing athletic shoes rather than cowboy boots.
Robbins tapped the left side of his chest. “The cardiologist recommends at least three miles a day. That’s about a round trip between our place and Rennie’s. I like to get the miles in before it gets too hot.”
Reluctantly Wick lowered the pistol and stuffed it into the waistband of his jeans. Or would have if they’d been buttoned. Hurriedly he did up his fly with one hand. “You know, Robbins, I ought to go ahead and shoot you just for being stupid. Why didn’t you call first? Or turn on a light, for godsake?”
“The light switch is in the tack closet. It was locked. Rennie keeps an extra key above the door. I was looking for it when I heard you. Didn’t know it was you. Thought it might be another bobcat.”
Wick eyed the older man distrustfully. He didn’t think he was lying, he just wasn’t telling the whole truth. “Rennie told me she put antiseptic on the scratch and thought it would heal up in a day or two. If she had thought the horse needed a vet, she would have called one.”
“Doesn’t hurt to get a second opinion.”
Robbins turned and reentered the barn. Despite his bare feet, Wick followed. As long as he stayed in the center aisle he would be okay. As stables went, Rennie’s was as clean as an operating room.
Robbins went straight to the tack closet and ran his hand along the top of the doorjamb. He came away with a key. He unlocked the closet door, reached inside, and, an instant later, the overhead lights came on.
Paying no attention to Wick, he entered a stall, speaking softly to the mare as he moved in behind her. He located the scratch on the horse’s rear leg, then hunkered down to examine it more closely.
When he’d finished, he left the stall, moving around Wick as though he were an inanimate object. He returned to the closet, switched off the lights, locked the closet door, and replaced the key where he’d found it.
Wick fell into step behind him. When they got outside, he said, “That scratched mare wasn’t your only reason for coming over here this morning, was it?”
The older man stopped and turned. He gave Wick a look that could’ve scoured off paint, then he moved to the corral fence and leaned against it. For the longest time he kept his back to Wick and focused on the sunrise. Eventually he fished a small pouch of tobacco and rolling papers from the pocket of his plaid shirt that had white pearl snaps in lieu of buttons.
He spoke to Wick over his wide shoulder. “Smoke?”
“Sure.”
Chapter 27
Robbins shook tobacco from the cloth pouch onto the strip of paper and carefully passed it to Wick, who tapped the tobacco into a straight line down the center of the paper, moistened the edge of it with his tongue, then tightly rolled it into a cigarette.
Robbins watched him with interest. Wick figured that by knowing how to roll his own he had elevated the cattleman’s opinion of him. In the older man’s eyes he had adequately performed a rite of passage.
Wick silently thanked the high school friend who’d taught him the skill by rolling joints—until Joe found out. After the beating he’d taken from Joe, he had decided that smoking anything was bad for his health.
Robbins rolled his own smoke. He struck a match and lit Wick’s first, then his own. Their eyes met above the glare of the match. “This another of your cardiologist’s recommendations?”
Robbins inhaled deeply. “Don’t tell my wife.”
It was damn strong tobacco. It stung Wick’s lips, tongue, and throat, but he smoked it anyway, pretending to be a pro at it. “You weren’t surprised to see me here.”
“The game warden told me Rennie had company. I figured it was you.”
“Why?”
Robbins shrugged and concentrated on his smoking.
“You came here this morning to check on Rennie, didn’t you? See if she was okay.”
“Something like that.”
“Why would you think I’d harm her?”
The older man looked off into the distance for a moment before his unnerving gaze resettled on Wick. “You might not mean to.”
Wick still resented the man’s implication. “Rennie’s a grown woman. She doesn’t need a guardian. She can take care of herself.”
“She’s fragile.”
Wick laughed, which caused him to choke on the strong smoke. To hell with this. He ground out the cigarette against a fence post. “Fragile isn’t a word I would free-associate with Rennie Newton.”
“Goes to show how ignorant you are then, doesn’t it?”
“Look, Robbins, you don’t know me from shit. You don’t know anything about me. So don’t go making snap judgments about me, okay? Not that I give a flying—”
“I knew her daddy.”
The curt interruption silenced Wick. Robbins was giving him a look that said Shut up and listen. He backed down.
Robbins said, “Before I inherited this place from my folks, I lived in Dalton and did some work for T. Dan. He was a mean cuss.”
“That seems to be the general consensus.”
“He could be a charmer. He had a smile that didn’t stop. Came on to you like he was your best friend. A glad-hander and backslapper. But make no mistake, he was always looking out for number one.”
“We’ve all known people like that.”
Robbins shook his head. “Not like T. Dan. He was in a class by himself.” He took a last greedy drag on his cigarette, then dropped it on the ground and crushed it out with the toe of his shoe. The cross-trainers looked incongruous with his cowboy attire, with him. John Wayne in Nikes.
He turned to face the corral and propped his forearms on the top rail of the fence. Wick, hoping to have some light shed on Rennie’s secrets, moved to stand beside him and assumed a similar pose. Robbins didn’t acknowledge him except to continue talking.
“Rennie was a happy little kid, which is a wonder. T. Dan being her daddy and all.”
“What about her mother?”
“Mrs. Newton was a nice lady. She did a lot of charity work, was active in the church. Hosted a big party every Christmas and did the house up real pretty. A Santa Claus handing out candy to the kids. Stuff like that. She kept T. Dan’s house running smooth, but she knew her place. She didn’t interfere with his life.”
Wick got the picture. “But you said Rennie was happy.”
Robbins gave one of his rare smiles. “Me and Corinne always felt a little sorry for her. She tried so hard to please everybody. Skinny as a rail. Towheaded. Eyes bigger than the rest of her face.”
They still are, Wick thought.
“Smart as a whip. Polite and knew her manners. Mrs. Newton had seen to that. And she could ride like a pro before she got to grade school.” Robbins paused for several moments before saying, “The hell of it was, she thought her daddy hung the moon. She wanted so bad for him to pay attention to her. Everything she did, she did to win T. Dan’s notice and approval.”
He clasped his hands together and in the faint morning light studied the callused, rough skin on the knuckles of this thumbs. Wick saw that one of his thumbnails was completely dark from a recent bruise. He would likely lose the nail.
“Everybody in Dalton knew T. Dan messed around. It wasn’t even a secret from Mrs. Newton. I figure she made her peace with his womanizing early in the marriage. She bore it with dignity, you might say. Ignored the gossip as best she could. Put up a good front.
“But Rennie was just a kid. She didn’t understand the way it was supposed to be between a loving man and wife. She didn’t know any different, because her parents’ marriage had always been the way it was. They were pleasant to one another. Rennie wasn’t old enough to realize that the intimacy was missing.”
He glanced over at Wick, and Wick knew it was to make sure he was still paying attention. H
e was getting to the crux of the story.
“Rennie was about twelve, I think. A rough time for a girl, if my wife is any authority on the subject, and she seems to be. Anyhow, Rennie surprised T. Dan in his office one afternoon. Only she was the one who got the surprise.”
“There was a woman with him.”
“Under him, on the sofa in his office. Rennie’s piano teacher.” He paused and stared straight into the new sun. “That was the end of the happy childhood. Rennie wasn’t a kid anymore.”
Crystal, the waitress in Dalton, had told Wick that Rennie went hog wild about the time her female parts took form. But her emerging sexuality hadn’t been the cause of her personality change at puberty. It had been the discovery of her father’s adultery.
The rebellion made sense. Probably Mrs. Newton had been having mother-daughter talks with Rennie about sex and morality. Rennie had caught her father violating the principles her mother was trying to instill. The experience would have been disillusioning, especially since she worshiped her dad.
It was also a catalytic event. Her promiscuity as a teen had been a fitting punishment for her philandering father and for her mother who turned a blind eye it. The innocent girl had discovered her father in flagrante delicto with her piano teacher, and, as a consequence, became the town slut.
As though following Wick’s train of thought, Robbins said, “These days they call it ‘acting out.’ So Corinne tells me. I think she heard the term on TV. Whatever they call it, Rennie changed overnight. Became a holy terror. Grades went to the cellar. For the next several years she was out of control. Nothing in the way of punishment seemed to take. She defied teachers, anyone with the least bit of authority. T. Dan and Mrs. Newton revoked privileges, but it didn’t do any good.”
“Her father gave her a red Mustang convertible,” Wick said. “I call that sending a child mixed signals.”