Between Dusk and Dawn

by Alfie Thompson

  "Oh, I am. It’s just..." She fluttered her hand help­lessly and knew that she was scowling, something she did a lot when she wasn't sure how to explain something. "It’s just that suddenly I'm not doing what I wanted to do at all."

  "What was it you wanted to do?"

  "I wanted to design nice middle-class houses, you know?" she asked sheepishly. "Homes that families could afford and enjoy."

  He raised an eyebrow and looked around him again. "Isn't that what this is?"

  "Pretty much. This is affordable, energy-efficient, cozy."

  "But this isn't what you're designing now?"

  "The one I designed for Bob was very energy-efficient, but it's almost three times this size—it's the class of homes my design won in, Energy-Efficient Luxury Class—and now with all the publicity, I'm custom-designing two- and three- million-dollar homes. I can't keep up."

  "Sounds like good business to me."

  "Especially since I've been struggling just to make ends meet since I left the architectural firm I was with and came back here."

  "So why are you here?" he asked.

  "I love it," she said simply. "I didn't think I wanted to come back and then Dad had his first heart attack. He bribed me with this house—said he would pay for any kind of house I wanted to design if I built it here—and promised he would leave me alone and support me in my ‘ivory tower' until I could get my free-lance career off the ground and support myself. He knew that's what I eventually wanted."

  “And it didn't work out that way?"

  "Of course not. I built my house and then he promptly had another heart attack and I ended up running the farm until he died. With his direction, of course."

  A sympathetic smile hovered on his face. "The best laid plans..."

  "You speak from experience?"

  "I had my own plans until my mother changed them."

  Sam quickly took another bite. The closed look was in place again.

  He obviously wasn't going to answer any questions along that line. "What were you doing before you came here? You never did say last night." He'd told her about his farm-re­lated experiences last evening but they hadn't gone into any details, and she didn't think working around his grandfath­er's wheat farm while he was growing up had much to do with what he'd been doing lately.

  "I was working security," he said.

  "Like a security guard?" she asked.

  "Close enough."

  "At a bank or something?"

  "At a college," he said. "And before that, I was in the service."

  "So what brought you here? How did you find out about this job?" she said.

  "I wanted a change of scenery. The Midwest sounded good. I started calling around, talking to people I knew in the area."

  Calling around? "Were you the one calling and asking questions about me a couple of weeks ago?" she asked, certain of the answer before she finished the question.

  "How'd you know?" He produced a tautly stretched grin that gave him the sheepish look of a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

  "This is a small town, Sam. Believe me, everyone keeps tabs on everyone else. No one has any secrets." She got up to pour herself another cup of coffee. "Why?"

  She resumed her place across from him and he picked up both plates, carrying them to the sink. Cleaning up the kitchen seemed automatic. He must live alone, she de­cided.

  "Like I said, I wanted a break from what I'd been doing. A second start. A friend in Emporia gave me a lead in this area and after a lot of dead ends, I heard you might have a opening. It was worth checking out." He closed the dish­washer and at the same time shuttered his face, lowering his eyes. "Do you want me to start this?"

  "No, there'll be more, later." Her eyes narrowed. "Someone was calling and asking questions about me a good two weeks before Max told me he was leaving."

  He shrugged. "You wouldn't be the first employer to be the last to know."

  He was probably right. Max's wife hadn't been happy here. Jonna'd known they'd both looked at this as a tem­porary stop until something better came along. Max had probably had feelers out for a long time, the same as Sam. And Sam's call and questions had led him to Moss.

  "Well, you're obviously willing and capable of doing the job and I'm glad you found me." She rose reluctantly. "And we'd better both get busy or I'm not going to be ready to leave next week. With doing the farm stuff for the past week, I'm way behind."

  "So what do you want me to do, boss?" Jonna found the tinge of cockiness in his voice very appealing. "The truck? The fences?"

  Jonna let herself enjoy looking at him for a second. "The truck would be a good start. Then the fences."

  "A slave driver, huh?"

  She laughed and everything suddenly felt right with the world. And with Sam Barton.

  "And what are you going to do the rest of the day?"

  His question took her by surprise.

  "I mean, if I have questions, can I come back here? Will you be available?"

  "I'm going into town in a little while to run some er­rands, but I'll be back around noon."

  Sam's casual smile stayed firmly fixed, but one of the nearly unnoticeable lines over his brows twitched and deep­ened. The air around her felt thick, tense again.

  "If you aren't sure about something, put it off till this afternoon," she reassured him. "I can't think of a thing that can't wait that long."

  He said okay, thanked her for breakfast, then let himself quietly out the back door. Instead of going directly up to her office as she'd intended, Jonna went to the sliding glass doors and opened them. She told herself she was checking out the day, but stepping onto the narrow deck, she watched him go.

  Sam's stride was as restrained as the foreboding day. He scanned the horizon as intently as if he would be expected to draw it from memory later.

  Clouds rode ominously low in the vast sky, mirroring the suddenly oppressive feeling in her chest, but the day was gauzy bright. It was the kind of day people around here valued—very little wind, cool without being cold, a clean nip in the air that energized as it filled your lungs. The weather held hints of dark winter things to come and subtly issued warnings to take advantage while you could. It wouldn't last long.

  As he turned his dark head toward the east, she saw his brows lower over squinting eyes. He looked intense and more than a little intimidating.

  Despite the sun spilling over her as it eased out from be­hind a cloud, she shivered as his slow, even step gradually shortened, then reduced him to nothingness over the rise.

  She was certain he knew she was watching him. She felt his awareness in prickles along her skin.

  The breeze picked up for a second, shaping the sweats she'd put on when she got out of the shower to her legs. Chilled, she stepped inside and ordered herself upstairs to work.

  From her office, she had a much better view of the farm­yard, and she stopped a few feet from the darkened win­dows.

  Sam glanced up, directly toward the spot where she was standing. Even though he couldn't possibly see her—the day was bright, the house dark—she withdrew a little farther into the room.

  He found her anyway. She felt his eyes focus on exactly the point where she stood as surely as she felt her heart stop.

  She managed to sit herself down at her drafting table only when he finally disappeared into the barn. But she didn't manage to concentrate. She couldn't quit thinking about Sam. And not just as a hired hand.

  He was the most attractive man she'd seen in a long time, with a lean strength and an easy grace that made her jeal­ous. And those dark eyes, despite the troubled shadows be­neath them, seemed to see directly into her soul. With every fiber of her being, Jonna knew the loneliness she'd seen in Sam too closely resembled her own. And even as Sam's in­tensity unnerved her, it drew her and made her won­der…and think about all sorts of things she'd managed not to think about for a long while.

  Maybe all the things she had read were true. Maybe her biological
clock was winding down. Could some primitive compulsion to mate be stronger than her sanity? She squirmed uncomfortably. She didn't even want to consider how eagerly she had accepted his slightest suggestion about how Magic had gotten out.

  Jonna reached down and stroked the cat's head. "That is how it happened, isn't it?"

  Magic stretched lazily as if she was comfortable with Sam's explanation and Jonna went to work.

  She was in the process of putting an address label on the preliminary drawings she had to get in the mail when her father's rusty, red-and-white, dual-cab pickup wheezed up the sharply inclined drive a little later. She couldn't have been more surprised if her father himself had been driving it.

  She flew down the stairs, still carrying the mailing tube. Sam got out of the vehicle as she flung open the door.

  "You got it fixed?"

  He paced determinedly toward her. “Temporarily. I've got it jury-rigged for now." He shrugged. "Once I get into town to get a new part, it'll run just fine."

  "I can't believe you have it running."

  "I don't dare turn it off."

  ' 'Do you want me to get whatever it is you need while I'm in town? Write it down so I know wha—"

  "You sound like there's no real hurry to get started on the fences," he interrupted. "Can they can wait until tomor­row?"

  She frowned. "I guess as long as they're in good shape before winter sets in..."

  "I was thinking maybe I should go with you. I need the part. I need supplies," he added. "And I'd like to get some gloves before I start work on the fences." He extended one of his hands. They were uncallused and his long fingers looked expressive and strong.

  Her arm tingled, remembering the way his fingers had felt touching her.

  "And of course food—"

  "Coffee, for sure," Jonna suggested, impatient with herself for helping him come up with excuses. He'd come up with plenty of his own. "I don't supply it on a regular basis first thing in the morning.'' She snapped the cardboard tube against her leg decisively. "You may as well come with me. I have to finish getting this ready to mail. Then I need to do something with my makeup and hair.''

  A carefully impersonal admiration flickered in his eyes and she checked her watch so he wouldn't think she'd stopped to dig for a compliment. "We'll go in about... fif­teen, twenty minutes?"

  "I'll be ready," he said, climbing back into her father's old truck. "Down by the barn?"

  She nodded.

  * * *

  "I see what you mean about the terrain," Sam said as they finally started for town in Jonna's truck. "You don't see these little gullies until you're right on them. Do you ever get used to it?"

  She slanted him a curious look, surprised that he was so observant. But then, Sam didn't miss much, she decided. "That’s exactly what I meant about getting to know the lay of the land on horseback."

  He nodded at another small ravine. "The vast nothing­ness. Then the surprises. Do you ever feel like you really know your own land?"

  "Sure. But I've been over it more times than I can begin to count—on horseback, in hay trucks, on sleds, bikes, foot. Even so, every once in a while I notice some little detail I hadn't before. You remind yourself that whatever the new discovery, it’s all been there forever and you just over­looked it. It’s kind of timeless." Maybe all this would help him get over his sister's death, she realized.

  Sam sank back in the passenger seat. She could feel him gradually relax, as if verifying that this peacefulness was exactly what he needed. Maybe the rolling prairie would have the same soothing effect on him it often had on her. The infinity of it, the ever-changing sameness did tend to put things into perspective.

  Autumn had transformed the green hills to a murky brown and copper, and the tall grass bent mournfully in the steady breeze, whispering centuries-old secrets as they passed.

  His gaze tested on her for a moment, then turned toward the side window. "It's beautiful in a quiet way. Very rest­ful."

  "It’s not always pleasant," she warned. Clouds still hung oppressively low. "You should see our thunderstorms."

  The storms out here were devastating to watch—dark, hypnotic, sneaking up quietly, then exploding with power. He reminded her of them.

  "They're violent and wild."

  "Hope I get to see one."

  "You will," she assured him. "We have quite a few this time of year."

  He answered with an "Mmm-hmm" and another half mile went by before Jonna broke the silence again. "What college did you say you worked at?" she asked.

  "I'm head of security at North East Texas State," he an­swered absently.

  "That's where I went," she said in amazement.

  "What?" he asked, much too vaguely, intently absorbed with the world outside his window again but sitting straight up in the seat.

  The truck crested a hill and plunged down into a wisp of a low-lying cloud. It seeped under Jonna's skin and chilled her from the inside out.

  "I graduated from NET."

  His mouth curved in one of those rare smiles. "What a coincidence," he drawled.

  Jonna slowed for the city limits and examined his oh-so-indifferent profile. A car pulled onto the highway at the next corner and driving reclaimed her attention. This informa­tion couldn't have come from Moss, she realized. He couldn't keep one college straight from another if his life depended on it, except for his beloved Kansas State. He remembered that only because he was a died-in-the-wool Wildcat football fan.

  "I don't think it's a coincidence," she said quietly. "Why do I get the feeling you know a lot more about me than you should, Sam?" She curved the vehicle into one of the marked spaces in front of the feed store and let it bump gently against the curb.

  He stared at the storefront. His long lashes shaded his dark eyes and emphasized the faint circles beneath them.

  "I was a good Boy Scout. I've always liked being pre­pared. I find out as much as I can about a situation before I put myself into it," he said, not denying he'd more or less investigated her. "The couple of years in the military, the time working in security have exaggerated the habit." The line of his jaw was sharply defined. He was on the defen­sive.

  Jonna gripped the door handle. "It just doesn't seem very reciprocal," she said. "You aren't very anxious to share in­formation with me."

  His mouth tightened. "Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see how my past history—except my work experience—could be of any importance to you. And you know what curiosity did to the cat."

  She shivered. It was an old saying. It didn't sound as if he meant it as a threat and yet—

  "I came about your opening because, God only knows, I need peace. Solitude." He faltered as her gaze lifted to his, but for once he didn't look away. His eyes were brilliant, sharp slivers of pain.

  She curled her hand into a tight ball around the steering wheel. Whatever she wished, a touch couldn't stop his self- inflicted torture.

  "I can't tear open my wounds so you can analyze them and spread them out in the sun for quick healing. Some things are best left alone."

  She shuddered and opened her door, layering a frosty hard glaze of unconcern over her curiosity. "It won't hap­pen again. And as long as you do the work I hired you to do, I guess I don't care about your past—until it affects your work." She clamped her mouth shut.

  He opened his door. A second later he stood outside.

  "Let's get our stuff done." She joined him on the pavement.

  The pickup buzzed an insistent reminder. "Get the keys," he ordered.

  "This is Whit..." she started to say, then lifted a concil­iatory shoulder and reached back in to yank the offending items from the ignition.

  They stepped up onto the curb at the same time and their eyes met. His searched hers. She lowered her gaze and shifted the long strap of her purse to the other arm.

  "Jonna-"

  "Charlie will be out to find out what's going on in a minute." She nodded toward the store. "I really don't look forward to expla
ining something I don't understand my­self."

  * * *

  A joyless smile twisted Sam's lips as he stepped out in front of her toward the building. She avoided public con­frontations. That might be very useful information.

  But not if he didn't think, dammit. He'd relaxed his guard for a few moments and almost blown it all.

  In a few short hours, he'd learned a lot about Jonna. For such an intelligent and capable woman, she had a lot of self-doubt. Unfortunately, he hadn't taken full advantage of the knowledge.