by Linda Turner
Ordering himself to straighten up, he poured them both a glass of milk, then defiantly returned to the dining room. After the way he’d stared at her, he half expected Summer to ask him what was wrong, but she seemed even less inclined to talk than he did. Silence stretched between them and was broken only by an occasional comment that could have been exchanged between two strangers.
Her stomach knotted with nerves, Summer had never eaten such an uncomfortable meal in her life. She’d thought last night, when they’d sat at the intimate table in his bedroom, had been awkward, but that was nothing compared to this. And for the life of her, she didn’t know why. She’d thought she hid her feelings well—Gavin couldn’t possibly know how obsessed with him she’d become—but every time she looked up, he was frowning at her as if he couldn’t quite figure her out. Tension vibrated on the air between them, setting her heart pounding in her breast. She tried to eat, but her appetite was nonexistent, and all she could do was stir her soup and occasionally nibble at her sandwich.
They both decided at the same time that they’d had enough.
“I’m done.”
“Me, too. Thanks for fixing everything. I’ll clean up.”
“Here, let me get that. You’ve had a rough day.”
They came to their feet simultaneously, each moving to grab something from the table, only to find themselves face-to-face and kissing-close. Her heart pounding like a drum, Summer froze. With a will of their own, her eyes dropped to the sensuous line of his mouth. And with an ease that stunned her, she remembered the taste of him on her tongue.
Move! a voice in her head ordered sharply. Move before you do something stupid.
She should have. It certainly would have been the smart thing to do. But suddenly there was an ache low in her belly and a pain in her heart, and all she wanted to do was to step into his arms and to let him hold her. And why shouldn’t she? she wondered resentfully. All of her life, she’d always followed the rules, always done what her head told her to do instead of her heart. Just this once, why couldn’t she throw caution to the wind and just follow her heart? Could that really be so wrong?
Even as she questioned her own needs, she knew she wasn’t like other women. It didn’t matter what others were doing—she’d promised Gavin that their relationship would be strictly business, and she had no intention of going back on her word. Even if kissing him was all she could think of.
Considering that, there was nothing she could do but drag in a steadying breath and take a quick step backward. “You’re right,” she said huskily. “It has been a rough day, so if you don’t mind cleaning up, I think I will go on up to bed. Good night.”
Her heart pounding in her breast, she slipped past him and hurried up the stairs. She didn’t glance back to see if he watched her, but with every step, she could feel his eyes on her. If he’d said just one word to call her back, she might not have been able to resist him. Before he could, she rushed into the master bedroom as if the hounds of hell were after her.
Long after Summer had escaped upstairs, Gavin found reasons to linger downstairs. He told himself that he wasn’t sleepy, that he had chores to do that he’d let slide and this was just as good a time as any to take care of them, but a man could only lie to himself for so long before he was forced to face the truth. And when the mantel clock in the living room struck midnight and he realized he was putting off going to bed so he could organize the supplies in his study, he knew he was in trouble and that trouble had a name.
Summer.
What was he going to do with her? he wondered in frustration. He’d been so sure he could do this. After all, how difficult could it be, living with someone you weren’t involved with? There were no emotional ties to tangle things up—it was like having a roommate. You lived under the same roof but you lived different lives.
But you don’t share your bed with a roommate, a caustic voice in his head reminded him. And you certainly don’t hug and kiss one. Not if you want them to remain just a roommate.
And therein lay the problem, he thought grimly. Every time he touched her, every time he wrapped his arms around her, it was harder to let her go. And he didn’t know what the hell to do about it. They were caught in a trap of their own making. When they were in public, they had to act like newlyweds. But the situation wasn’t much better at home. With the cleaning service coming in twice a week, they might as well have been living with half the town. They couldn’t even bring in another bed without it being commented on, so they were forced to continue to sleep together.
Which was why he was rearranging the supplies in his study at midnight.
Suddenly imagining the maid’s face when she found not only the office supplies, but the spice rack in the kitchen, arranged alphabetically, he couldn’t help but grin. She’d think either he or Summer had lost their mind, and he couldn’t say he blamed her. It was a little screwy. And so was putting off going to bed. He couldn’t stay up all night for the next year, so he might as well learn to deal with the situation now.
Resigned, he locked up and turned out the lights, then made his way upstairs. Just as he’d hoped, Summer was already asleep. Sprawled on her stomach, with her face turned away from him, she was out cold. Moving quietly across the room, he turned out the light she’d left on in the bathroom, then undressed and slipped into bed without making a sound. She never budged.
Gavin released the breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding and grinned triumphantly in the darkness. This wasn’t going to be so difficult, after all, he thought, congratulating himself. He could do this every night, wait until he was sure she was asleep before he came to bed, and everything would work out just fine.
It sounded good, but the thought had hardly registered when Summer’s dreams suddenly grew restless. Muttering under her breath, she whimpered, and in the next instant she turned and before he quite knew how it happened, she was pressed up against him and crying softly in her sleep.
It happened so fast, he didn’t have time to do anything but slip his arms around her. She was crying! What else could he do? Just lie there like a board and do nothing to comfort her? He had his faults, but he wasn’t a monster. After everything she had done for him, he reasoned, the least he could do was try to soothe her when she had troubled dreams. After all, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t held her before while she cried.
But, he soon discovered, holding her in her sleep—in bed—was a heck of a lot different from holding her in her truck. Asleep, with her defenses down, she snuggled against the length of him as her tears gradually dried, and she didn’t have a clue what she did to him. Every nerve ending in his body screamed with awareness at her closeness, but he couldn’t have pushed her away to save his soul. Not when she felt so fantastic in his arms.
She shifted into a more comfortable position, and it was all Gavin could do to hold back a groan. If she’d awakened then, he didn’t know where he would have found the strength to let her go, but she only sighed softly against his chest and drifted into a deeper sleep. A muscle clenching in his jaw, Gavin reminded himself that he wasn’t the kind of man who would take advantage of a sleeping woman. If he had been, Summer would have been in serious trouble. As it was, it was still a very long time before Gavin was able to relax his guard enough to fall asleep.
With less than a week left before the trial began, Gavin and Summer quickly became Whitehorn’s most visible couple. Going everywhere hand in hand, they went to a play at the local theater, danced at a country-western nightspot, shopped for things for the house at the mall in Bozeman. And everywhere they went, they made an impression.
The problem was, they weren’t sure it was the impression they wanted. People stared and whispered behind their backs, and the diehards who refused to even consider the possibility that Gavin might be innocent cut them dead. While there was no question that some of the locals were beginning to wonder whether Gavin was actually capable of murdering the mother of his little girl, the vast majority still treated him a
s though he were some sort of amoral monster who’d been let loose among them.
Summer didn’t know what else they could do. They’d even gone out to dinner with her family to show people that Gavin had been accepted by the Kincaids, but it seemed to have done little good. With time running out, there appeared to be a very real possibility that Gavin would be convicted.
Seated across from him at the Hip Hop the day before the trial was scheduled to begin, Summer tried to paste on a bright smile, but it was a weak attempt at best, and just about everyone in the place saw through it. “I’m sorry, Gavin,” she said quietly. “I really thought this would work.”
“Don’t give up yet,” he replied. “We don’t know that it hasn’t.”
“But you heard that DJ on the radio talking about the poll the radio station did. Three out of five people think you’re guilty.”
“So two out of five don’t,” he countered logically. “We just have to have faith that whoever gets picked for the jury will keep an open mind until they hear all the evidence.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then it doesn’t matter what we do. I’m screwed.”
Seated at the booth behind Gavin, Micky Culver had to agree. Most people had already made up their minds one way or another, and things didn’t look good for Nighthawk. Unless something drastic happened pretty damn quick, the good doctor was going to prison for a murder he didn’t commit.
And that infuriated Micky. Damn Audra! How could she do this? How could she sleep nights knowing that an innocent man was going to spend the rest of his life in prison for something she did? Did she even care? She certainly didn’t act like it. She’d been flirting around town as if she didn’t have a care in the world, adding her voice to the rest of the judgmental jackasses who were so quick to condemn a man down on his luck, and he’d even heard she was taking bets on how many years Nighthawk would get. The word on the street was she was betting on life without parole.
And it sickened Micky. When she’d moved out last week, claiming she couldn’t stand living in his dump of a trailer any longer, he hadn’t said a word to stop her. He loved her, God help him, and his gut knotted at the thought of losing her, but there was a part of him that hated what she was doing to Gavin Nighthawk. Another man might have turned her in in a heartbeat, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do that. Not yet. She was his Audra, his beautiful blond princess, and he adored her. He had to believe she would do the right thing—he just had to give her time.
It wasn’t easy, though, to stand back and watch what she’d become. She wasn’t the Audra he’d first fallen in love with. She’d been sweet and loving and all she’d cared about was having fun. Then Lexine had come into her life and everything had changed.
He told himself that Audra’s mother had her so screwed up, she just didn’t realize what she was doing. That was the only explanation. He had to talk to her, had to make her understand that if she let Gavin Nighthawk take the rap for her, her conscience would haunt her for the rest of her life. She’d never be able to live with herself.
She’d do the right thing, he assured himself as he left fifty cents on his table for the waitress, then paid his bill and went looking for Audra. Once he made her understand that she really didn’t have any other option but to tell the truth, she’d come clean and finally break the hold Lexine had on her. Maybe then, he’d have his old Audra back and life could return to normal.
But when he spent the rest of the day and evening searching for her at all her favorite haunts, he couldn’t find her anywhere. Then he figured out where she was—out in the woods, looking for that damn sapphire mine Lexine was so obsessed with.
Just thinking about it gave him the willies. He’d gone out there to the old Baxter spread a couple of times to help her search for the lost mine, but the place had spooked him. The entire time they were there, he’d kept looking around, half expecting to see Christina Montgomery’s ghost watching their every move. Audra had laughed at him, but he hadn’t seen anything funny about the situation. She’d killed the woman there, for God’s sake! He didn’t care what anyone said—the dead did come back to haunt people who’d done them wrong. If he’d been Audra, he wouldn’t have gone within a hundred miles of those damn woods.
She, however, couldn’t stay away, and it was all because of Lexine. The bitch was blackmailing her—he knew, because Audra had told him all about it—and Audra was scared to death she was going to expose her. He had to find her, had to make her understand that if she’d just come clean and tell the police what happened, Lexine could never threaten her again.
After the last search for that damn mine, he’d sworn he’d never go near the place again, but he’d do anything for Audra. Including tramp around in the dark where the Montgomery chick had been murdered just so he could find Audra and talk some sense into her. So ignoring his fear, he headed for the last place on earth he wanted to go.
He didn’t find her. After searching the woods for hours and calling her name until he was hoarse, he finally gave up and went home in defeat. Worried about her—it wasn’t like her to just disappear like that—he was up at dawn and out on the streets, determined to find her. This time, he didn’t have to look far. Her car was parked in front of her new apartment.
Relief washed over him—thank God, she was safe—then the anger hit him. Damn her, she knew how much he loved her. If she was going to disappear for a while, the least she could do was call him and tell him what she was up to so he wouldn’t worry!
Furious with her, he parked in an empty spot reserved for another apartment, then stormed over to her front door. Banging on it loud enough to raise the dead, he doubted that she even heard him. She was a deadhead in the morning and usually slept until noon if she could. Well, not today. He’d stayed awake most of the night worrying about her, and by God, she was going to hear about it!
He had the speech all worked out in his head—it was time she grew up and quit being so self-centered!—but he never got the words out. Without warning, the door was jerked open, but it wasn’t Audra who stood in front of him. It was Buck Simpson, one of the bikers who hung out at the Leather Spoke, a bar on the southside of town that catered to the motorcycle crowd. And he was wearing nothing but a pair of dirty, unsnapped jeans.
Stunned, Micky sputtered, “What the hell are you doing here, Simpson?”
Not the least bit concerned that he’d practically been caught with his pants down, Buck grinned mockingly. “I always did think you were a dim bulb, Culver. God knows what Audra saw in you, but she’s finally wised up. Take a hike. The lady doesn’t want you anymore.”
He started to slam the door in Micky’s face, but Micky snapped his hand up just in time and sent the door crashing open just as Audra stepped into the living room. Dressed in nothing but a T-shirt that fell to mid-thigh, she turned pale at the sight of Micky forcing his way into her living room like an angry bull. “Micky!” she gasped. “W-what are y-you doing here?”
“’Micky,’” he mimicked. “’What are you doing here?’ You little two-timing bitch!” he snarled. “What the devil do you think I’m doing here? I was worried about you. Stupid me, I spent most of the night looking for you, thinking you might be in trouble. And all the time you were with a piece of lowlife trash.”
“Hey!”
Distraught, Audra didn’t even spare Buck a glance. “No, honey. I wasn’t with him. Not that way. How could I be? You’re the one I love—”
“Don’t lie to me!” he roared. “Do I have ‘stupid’ tattooed on my forehead or what? You don’t love me. If you did, you never would have done this!”
“That’s not true!”
“You just used me,” he said flatly. “That’s all you’ve ever done, right from the very beginning. I knew it, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to be with you. And I thought that if I gave you enough time, you’d finally love me the way I love you. But you were just saying what I wanted to hear. Because I knew your secret, and you were protecting
that pretty little ass of yours.”
What little color there was left in her face drained away. “No, Micky! That wasn’t it at all. You know I’ve always been crazy about you.”
“Yeah, right,” he snorted. “Tell it to someone who doesn’t know you so well. The only one you’re crazy about is yourself. Do whatever you have to, say whatever you have to to keep Audra safe, and to hell with the rest of the world. That’s your motto.”
“It is not!”
“Oh, no? So who’s going on trial tomorrow for Christina Montgomery’s murder? It sure isn’t the murderer, is it, Miss Westwood? And you’re just thrilled. Well, here’s a news flash for you, sweetheart,” he sneered. “I’m sick and tired of listening to you gloat. I think it’s time I did Nighthawk a favor.”
He made a move to step past her, and her heart jumped into her throat in alarm. “Where are you going?” she cried, grabbing his arm.
“To the police,” he retorted, shaking her off as if she were a pesky fly. “If I were you, I’d get the hell out of Dodge while I still could.”
Not sparing her another glance, he stormed out, slamming the door after him and leaving behind a silence that was deadly. A scream of denial echoing in her head, Audra stared dazedly at the closed door. No! He couldn’t. He wouldn’t!
“What the hell’s going on, Audra?” Buck growled. “Why’s Culver going to the police? What does he know about the Montgomery murder?”
“The police,” she muttered to herself, ignoring him. “He’s going to the police. Oh, God!”
“Damn it, Audra, quit mumbling and tell me what you know about Christina Montgomery’s murder!”
He yelled at her as if he had the right to, as if she was some simpleminded female who was supposed to jump when he snapped his fingers just because they’d had sex. Well, he could think again. “Get out!” she screeched. “Get out of my apartment. Now! Before I kill you, too!”