Between Dusk and Dawn

by Alfie Thompson

  She stepped around the ugly weapon and started for the stairs.

  "Where are you going?" Sam asked hoarsely, watching her with hooded, haunted eyes. "We've got to talk."

  "I know." She attempted to protect her body from his eyes with the brief shorts that had been rendered useless as a cover by a long tear up one side.

  She'd acted like an animal. But even as she thought about it, her skin tingled and a throbbing ache grew again.

  "Let me get dressed. I'll be right back down."

  He nodded his agreement and his gaze skittered away. She had the impression that if she wasn't too embarrassed to look, she'd find powerful, hard proof that he shared her mindless, irresponsible, irrepressible desire.

  In her room, she grabbed sweats, then in the act of put­ting them on, changed her mind and stripped back down. Answers could wait another ten minutes while she took a shower.

  The water soothed and teased her overly sensitive skin. She could think of nothing but Sam's magical effect on her. She finally flipped the knob to cold.

  Sam borrowed her shower when she was done, and she was setting the table when he came back down. He'd draped a towel loosely about his hips and it didn't do a thing to hide that his cold shower hadn't been very effective.

  She was relieved when he took his scattered clothes into the bathroom and dressed.

  "I've fixed some omelets," she said for something to say. "I'll bet you're ready for a cup of coffee?"

  "Desperate would be a little more accurate."

  He leaned back against the counter behind her and she turned to give him a mug. He took it, then caught her hand.

  Setting the coffee behind him, he lifted her chin with the fingers of the other hand. "You're avoiding my eyes," he said.

  "I'm embarrassed," she said blithely.

  "And still scared?"

  "Sort of."

  "Sort of?" He nudged the underside of her chin, subtly hinting that she should meet his eyes.

  She tentatively dampened her lips and gulped some cour­age. "You making 1— Our having sex," she began again determinedly, "doesn't really change a thing. I mean, we still..."

  "We still have to talk," he said for her.

  "Yeah."

  "So talk," he invited.

  "Over breakfast." She slipped out of the circle of his arms.

  Within minutes they were sitting down with the omelets.

  But her omelet grew cold and unpalatable as Sam talked about growing up in Oklahoma, about playing baseball and earning a college scholarship. He was rueful, but not espe­cially bitter about the appendicitis and surgery that had kept him on the bench just when the major league teams were scouting, wining and dining some of his peers.

  "That's where you got the scar—"

  "Yep." He caught her hand. "And if you want to finish this conversation, don't remind me of the way you touched it."

  "I don't remember any spec—"

  "Give me your hand and I'll give you a demonstration and we can forget everything else again for a while." His dark eyes were as icy hot as black diamonds. Oh, yes! This was the way Sam Barton was supposed to be.

  "How disappointing. Appendicitis?" she teased. "I imagined some great heroic military adventure and you off saving the world from—"

  "What was supposed to be my lifetime career in the mil­itary lasted exactly two years and seven months." He was somber again.

  "Why?"

  "A discharge." He'd finished his meal and pushed his plate away.

  Jonna got up and grabbed the coffeepot. The change in his mood made her hesitant to hear what was next. "What happened?"

  She refilled their mugs as he continued. "Mom had breast cancer. She'd ignored it too long. I asked for compassion­ate leave." He shrugged. "I requested the discharge when she died."

  "But I don't see--"

  "Denise."

  And Jonna knew they were back to the heart of the mat­ter. The house seemed to sigh around them. "So tell me about Denise."

  "She was only fourteen when Mom died," he said, and he was definitely light-years away from her kitchen. "I was all she had. She was nine years younger than me, an after­thought or an accident. I never asked Mom which. She was unplanned but greatly loved. Denise couldn't remember our dad—he died when she was four."

  "That would have made you only... what?"

  "Thirteen. But the situation was totally different. I had Mom. And my grandparents—Dad's folks—lived with us. It was a tough time, because my dad was a wonderful man who kept us all stable, but we had each other. After Mom's death, Denise had no one."

  She had you! she wanted to protest. Instead, she gave in to the impulse to reach for his hand and wondered exactly what he'd meant when he said "My dad kept us all stable." She had a suspicion it meant Sam had accepted the posi­tion as family stabilizer at age thirteen.

  "So then the job at the college?"

  He nodded.

  "With Denise I needed something flexible, and Barry— we went to school together—helped me get hired. Denise and I moved to Texas. The position guaranteed her a tui­tion-free college education." He rose and took both their plates to the sink. "And I was promoted to Head of Secu­rity when my supervisor retired two years later. You know the rest."

  Hardly.

  He prowled about the room like a caged tiger. He stopped at the counter, propped his hands against it and leaned, staring across the room and out over the rolling prairie.

  Jonna, one arm resting across the back of the chair, cra­dled her chin in her hand and studied him. He was easy to watch. There was something very seductive and sensual about the way his dark hair curved over his forehead and around his ears. There was something haunting about the way his piercing eyes could absently look right through you one time, and seem to see your soul the next. And those long elegant but capable-looking hands. She shivered, remem­bering the way they had trailed along her skin.

  "What would you be doing if your mother hadn't died?" she asked.

  "I have no idea," he admitted. "I felt comfortable in the service. I could see myself staying there a lifetime. In fact, just before Mom got sick, I'd been selected to attend train­ing for special services."

  "You mean like the Green Berets?"

  "Something like that," he said, finally looking her way with a self-deprecating grin. "It's funny you should men­tion it. I used to imagine myself as the hero off saving the world from the bad guys in some great adventure."

  "And now instead you save coeds." For a second, she pictured a man optimistic enough to believe he could make a difference. She tried to imagine him without the shadows and with a youthful innocence filling his eyes instead. But the tiny lines around them were hard from too much real­ity, and as she watched, a cold glint edged out the idealism.

  "In the end, I couldn't even save my sister," he said.

  "Sam?" Somehow, she was by his side. Her hand ca­ressed his arm.

  "I promised I would take care of her," he went on life­lessly. "And I couldn't save her."

  A million unshed tears filled his raspy voice. She'd never met a man who needed to cry more than Sam did. Had he let himself when his mother's death put an end to his own dreams? Had he even shed a tear when Denise died?

  "And even when I knew what was going on, I couldn't convince anyone else." His tortured voice held condemna­tion directed only at himself. Jonna wondered if this was the first time he'd said aloud some of the things he'd been damning himself for over and over again since his sister's death. "I couldn't stop the third murder from happening."

  Suddenly, his intensity, his torment was turned on her. He gripped her arms so hard she bit her lip to keep from crying out. "The bastard won't get you, I promise."

  "Sam. Oh, Sam." She didn't realize she was crying until his hands abruptly loosened and with one gentle thumb, he wiped away a tear.

  "I've hurt you," he whispered.

  "No," she denied, even as she felt the fiery tingle of bruises forming under the skin whe
re his fingers had been. But that didn't account for even one of the tears. They were his. The ones he wouldn't let himself shed.

  "Sam." She pushed his name past the massive lump in her throat, letting her fingers dip into the hair falling softly over his brow.

  And then he was kissing her and she wasn't sure which one of them initiated it. All she knew was that, as she opened her mouth beneath his, he gasped her breath away. And as his tongue dipped inside, outlining her lips, she felt it in her soul. It was as if he was trying to fully compensate for every past hurt.

  But while he was offering solace for ancient sins, and sheltering her from the bad guys, who was going to protect her heart from him?

  It grazed her mind that any protective measure might be too late.

  "Oh, Jonna. This is crazy, but I want to make love to you again."

  "Please." Her plea lingered against his mouth.

  "I can't seem to get enough of you."

  Her thoughts exactly.

  "But this time, it's going to be right," he whispered.

  She felt herself nodding an agreement, even as her mind searched for anything wrong in the way he'd made love to her before. "Come," she said, her fingers lacing in his. She led him up the stairs and to her room.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I'd better go do the chores," he said as they dressed later.

  "I'll help," she said and they left her house together.

  They worked companionably. Candy was obviously dis­gruntled at having been made to wait an extra four hours for breakfast. She forgave all when Jonna offered the mare the apple she'd brought. "See. Just like I promised."

  The promise seemed so far away.

  Everything—and nothing—had changed between her and Sam. Their conversation was more intimate, but still im­personal. He still looked haunted, the dark circles beneath his eyes were even more pronounced. And she watched him warily for signs of... what? She didn't know.

  And he could touch her with his gaze from fifty yards away and make her want him.

  They had made... had sex—her mind amended. But the word she avoided lingered and carried so many mysteries and implications that her brain backed away from the sub­ject from sheer overload.

  "What next?" Sam asked as he rechecked the latch on the corral and reached to brush something from her cheek. "Dust," he explained.

  Dust. It was an excuse. He'd touched her because he needed to—and Jiminy Christmas—her imagination was really out of control now. She suppressed a sigh.

  "The cattle in the north pasture need new salt blocks," she said, damping down her fantasy with the mundane.

  "I can do that," he offered. "Don't you have things you need to do?"

  "Lots," she admitted, impatient with him for not want­ing her company and with herself for jumping to that con­clusion. "But I won't be able to do any of it before I leave."

  "Tomorrow."

  "Yes." Her heart quickened, thinking of her early- morning flight. She didn't want to leave him almost as much as she hated wondering which Sam would be here waiting when she returned? The lover—the gentle, considerate, heart-stopping man? Or a madman?

  Trust your instincts. She heard Moss's voice as clearly in her head as if he were standing right next to her.

  "You don't need to pack or get ready?" Sam asked.

  "You trying to get rid of me?" She tilted her head, tried to ask it flippantly. But she hadn't fooled him any more than she had herself.

  He jammed his hands in his pockets, and this time she was absolutely positive it wasn't her imagination that con­vinced her the action was taken to keep him from reaching out for her. "You thought you'd hired someone so you wouldn't have to do all this. I don't want to let you down more than I already have. So if you need to do something else... I didn't come here to make your life more diffi­cult."

  "Except for things like my toothbrush, I'm packed. Have been almost a month," she confessed. She shrugged at his raised eyebrow. "I'm overanxious. What can I say? And right now, I just need to keep busy."

  She swung away. "You load the salt blocks and I'll go down and get the mail."

  He caught up with her halfway down the lane. She gazed up at him, surprised.

  "I'm nervous when you get too far away," he admitted, and her heart flipped with some trusting, hopeful emotion.

  They filled what was left of the morning with odd jobs, then Sam fixed canned spaghetti for a late lunch at his house. The bin­oculars and rifle by the dining room window chased icy shivers up her spine.

  "It's ready, Jonna." He brought the hot meal, but the chill had settled like a cloud blocking out the sun. It stayed with her as they used up the afternoon riding more of the fences, even though neither of them pretended after the first hour or so that they were actually doing anything.

  "Tell me about the man who hurt you," Sam invited ca­sually as they rode back toward the barn.

  She cast a sideways glance up at him. She hoped he didn't think she was making an indictment against him, just let­ting him know she'd been around long enough that her ex­pectations weren't overly inflated. "I seem to have no knack whatsoever for judging people in general and men espe­cially." If her dad were around, this man would top his list of dangerous, untrustworthy men. And Jonna would be forced to agree. If he betrayed her like Jeffrey had—

  "You cared about him?" Sam asked.

  "We were engaged." The ultimate betrayal. The ultimate proof that she couldn't tell the difference between good or bad intentions, couldn't tell character and integrity from greed.

  They reached the barn. Sam helped her off the horse. "What happened?"

  "I loaned him thirteen thousand dollars. I haven't seen him since."

  "Then he's a fool."

  "Most of the time I think so," she said blandly. "But I suppose it depends on your point of view. I imagine more than a few people would say I was the fool."

  "Why would you give him thirteen thousand dollars?" He loosened the saddle strap around Candy's abdomen.

  "I had it—Dad's estate. He needed it to pay off the rest of his loan on his car.''

  "Must have been a pretty flashy car."

  Jonna winced and occupied herself with removing the horses' bridles. "He was fresh out of law school, trying to establish a practice in town. But people tend to be slow ac­cepting you, especially as some kind of professional like an attorney, unless you've lived here all your life. It's a vicious circle. You have to prove yourself before anyone trusts you and you can't prove yourself until someone does. He thought a Saab would create that stable and trustworthy image."

  "And did it?"

  "No." She laughed. "If anything, it made people even more suspicious. And since he wasn't well established, he had trouble making the payments. I thought I would give him time to get established by helping him."

  "Then he left town." He took her hand.

  His concern felt warm and caring. But then she wasn't exactly a good judge of character, she re­minded herself with a self-deprecating smile.

  "Quit reprimanding yourself," Sam ordered. "There are some things more important than being able to predict exactly what someone will do."

  "Sure." She would have turned away, but he brought her up short, chest to chest with him.

  "There's an extreme scarcity of people who will give anyone half a chance."

  "They're the wise ones," Jonna said.

  "No, we're the fools, Jonna. We're the ones without courage. This all could have been much different if I'd had the courage to tell you the truth from the beginning."

  I don't know that you're telling me the truth now. You might be far worse than Jeffrey ever thought about being and I find myself trusting you more and more every min­ute.

  "If Leah Darcy hadn't automatically suspected the worst from me, she might be alive now," Sam pointed out.

  "I don't know that I would have believed you, either." Jonna pulled away. "And did you ever consider that it might not have made any difference at all?"

&
nbsp; "That's fatalistic. Like saying we have no choice—"

  "No, it’s just that sometimes, despite our best efforts, things don't always go the way we want them to," she ar­gued.

  A chill seeped into his tightly controlled voice. "Things will be different this time."

  And there was nothing left for Jonna to say. They walked out of the barn into a deep and starless night.