by Sharon Sala
Something within Lane started to surface. His lawman instincts had kicked in. There were some more questions he wanted to ask. “Surely the missing chickens are out there. Maybe they just flew off and are somewhere up a tree.”
“Maybe,” Toni said, “but chickens can’t fly far, usually no more than a few yards.” She shrugged and looked away.
Lane could see that she didn’t buy his theory, either, and truth be known, he didn’t think much of it himself.
“So how did the dog actually die?” Lane asked.
Toni turned. Lane felt her fear from across the room.
“A broken neck.”
“Well, damn,” he whispered, and this time the thought bubbled again. A little harder. A little longer.
“I've got to go feed the livestock,” she said, starting out the door. “If you want to watch television or read, feel free to look through Daddy’s things. I haven’t been able to pack them away.” Her lip quivered. “At least not yet.”
“Where were you going?” Lane asked, remembering the pickup with its load of hay.
“To the back forty. I have ten, cow and calf pairs. I like to feed the mamas more when they're nursing than the cows that range. It’s been so dry this spring that the grass is short. I've been supplementing their pasture grass with hay.”
“I'm going with you.”
Toni looked startled. She knew her mouth was open, but she couldn’t seem to help it. The last time someone had followed her at work, it had been her father. And he’d simply been telling her what to do, not actually helping to get it done.
“I don’t need any help,” she said. “You can’t lift because of your stitches and bad knee, and I'm strong as an—”
“Antonette, in spite of my aches and pains, I am not the man with whom you should be arguing strength.”
She couldn’t help it, but her gaze went straight to his broad shoulders and massive chest beneath the soft plaid shirt he was wearing. Finally, she looked up and caught his cold, blue glare as he continued.
“I said, I'm going with you. You have no business roaming all over these damned mountains alone, especially after what happened at Justin’s. What if it’s a bear that’s the culprit, for God’s sake? Do you want one to walk up on you while you're babying those cows?”
She paled. She hadn’t thought of that possibility. There were still places in the mountains that were wild and unfettered. And something big had broken the dog’s neck. A swipe of a bear paw would just about fill that bill.
Determined not to show how deeply his warning had affected her, Toni shrugged. “Okay, okay. I'm sure it’s no big deal, but you can come if you promise not to be a back-seat driver. I don’t like to be told what to do.”
Lane grinned. “Now why am I not surprised?” he drawled, and pulled a piece of straw out of her ponytail as she started past him.
Toni glared, then stomped out the door, refusing to admit, even to herself, that she was darned glad he was behind her all the way.
* * *
She fed the cows without incident, and with little argument from Lane, other than his telling her she shouldn’t be lifting all that weight. She’d made fun of his concerns, but secretly cherished the thought that he believed she could actually have a fragile bone in her body. If she had one, she had yet to discover its location. But for the time being, she was perfectly willing to let Lane keep his fantasies about her. If he thought she looked weak and helpless, then God love him for being a fool. He was the first man who had ever told her she was too little to do something.
It was when they started back to the house that Lane’s perception of Toni took a sharp right into shock.
“I need to stop here a minute,” Toni said, parking beneath the trees that lined the dirt path. “I'm missing a good hammer and I think I may have lost it the night of the flood.”
Lane’s attention piqued. That would be the night she’d pulled him out of Chaney Creek. “Where are you going to look? There has got to be at least a thousand trees between here and the house.”
The pickup door slammed behind her as she started down the incline.
“Oh, I know where to look,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s either where I dumped the fencing materials when I went back for you, or where I loaded you onto the wagon.”
“I want to see.”
She paused and turned. The expression on his face made her shiver, but not with fear. Anticipation threaded through her system, reminding her that the tension between them did not run on anger, but on interest.
“So come,” she said. “But watch where you walk. It’s downhill most of the way. You don’t want to pull out your stitches.”
No, I damn sure don’t, he thought, and then sighed when he saw that she was waiting on the path for him to catch up. He should have known that she would be ready, if necessary, to offer another shoulder to lean on.
Toni girl, how am I going to manage the rest of my days without you telling me what to do? And without you to catch me if I fall?
“It’s not here,” she said after carefully searching beneath the trees where she’d parked the night she’d seen him caught in the flood. “I'm going farther downhill. You may want to wait here. It’s almost a quarter of a...” His glare ended her advice and sent her down the hill with him only steps behind.
“Tell me,” Lane said when he figured she’d cooled down enough to talk to him again.
“Tell you what?” she asked.
“About that night.”
She shrugged. “What’s to tell? You already know I’d been fixing my fence. I was on the ATV, and luckily for you, pulling a wagon.” She paused and looked back. “You know, the one that’s in the backyard near the garden.”
Lane nodded.
“When I saw the storm coming, I tried to hurry. But the wagon was full of posts and wire, and the mud was too thick to get up much speed. By the time I got to the foot of the hill, it was raining pretty hard. I left the ATV because I was afraid I might get stuck going up the hill. I would rather be wet than stuck in red clay, any day.”
“And...” He urged her to continue.
“And...I heard an explosion and thought lightning had struck something and set it on fire.” She paused, then turned to look at him when she continued. “I still can’t believe that what I saw was you...falling out of the sky...and men dying. It still gives me nightmares just thinking about it.”
Lane was surprised. “I didn’t know that you saw the plane crash,” he said.
“Well, I didn’t know what I saw, either, until you told me differently. All I saw was an orange ball of fire above the trees.” She shuddered, then looked away as she resumed her walk, afraid that he’d seen too much.
“So, what did you do then?” he urged.
“I started to run. I didn’t want the lightning to strike me, too. That’s when...”
She got quiet. Lane knew what came next. But he hadn’t heard it from her. The sheriff had volunteered that information and everything else he’d learned about Toni’s part in saving his life.
Lane caught up with her, and when she wouldn’t stop, he grabbed her by the arm. She had no choice but to give in to his silent demand. She turned and looked up at him.
“Why did you go in after me?” he asked.
She swallowed around a lump in her throat. It was hard to look at the face of a man who had come to mean far too much to her for her own peace of mind.
“Because you couldn’t get out any other way,” she said. “Come on. It’s going to get dark unless we hurry. I won’t be able to look for the hammer.”
Because I couldn’t get out any other way.
The simple statement was deceiving. What she’d done had taken more than nerve. It had taken a stronger spirit and a braver heart than most men would have had.
Lane started walking, one foot in front of the other, barely noticing his sore leg. Going down was easy; coming up was going to be hell. But he wouldn’t have missed this trip with Toni Hatfield f
or anything.
A few minutes later, she stopped and started walking in a circle, her eyes down to the ground as she searched for the missing hammer. Lane kept walking until he came to the edge of the hill overlooking the ravine and stared down into the steadily flowing stream that was Chaney Creek.
Debris from the flood was still caught in the tree roots that sprouted from the creek bank high above the water. A watermark was still visible, and would be for several days until the heat had dried it back to its normal shade of dirty red. A couple of feet from where he was standing, a sharp overhang of rock shaded several square feet of creek beneath. Lane stared, unable to fathom what had happened here...in a storm...in the dark.
“It’s not here, either,” Toni muttered, stomping to the edge of the ravine, then absently staring over to the other side. She pointed. “Look. That side of Chaney Creek is the back edge of Justin’s place. He bought it right after—”
“My God!”
Lane took her by the shoulders and made her look at him. He couldn’t get past the thought of what she’d done. His fingers dug into the soft skin of her shoulders until he felt muscle and bone, and still she seemed too fragile to have pulled them both out of a flood.
“What’s wrong?” Toni asked. “Did you hurt your leg?” She started to kneel to see if blood had seeped through the bandage and into the denim of his jeans. “I knew this was too far for you to—”
He yanked her to her feet. “Don’t kneel at any man’s feet, Antonette. If there’s any kneeling to be done, I should be the one doing it. This has to be where it happened, but I've got to know. How in hell did you get us out?”
He turned her toward the creek, and then couldn’t make himself let her go. It was as if he was suddenly afraid she might fall. And as he held her close against him, she felt his body pressing against her backside like a wall.
She closed her eyes to see more clearly within her mind the night...and the storm.
“I think it was all due to a streak of lightning and a big streak of luck.” She leaned over and pointed to the rock below. “I knew that outcrop of rock was there, and I counted on being able to get a foothold.” She turned and laughed, remembering what had come next. “Even with that, we still almost drowned. I couldn’t get you to turn loose of that log you were holding.”
Her chuckle seemed out of place next to his shock. How could she laugh at nearly losing her life to save his?
He lifted her hands and turned them palms up, rubbing a thumb in the center of each as if testing their strength. Unable to voice his thoughts, all Lane could do was lift them reverently to his face.
He pressed one, then the other to his lips, and when he did, Toni Hatfield forgot the promises she’d made to herself about not caring for this man. She forgot that she’d all but given up thoughts of babies and motherhood. And when he wrapped his arms around her and held her clasped against his chest, Toni wanted to cry.
Why did I have to meet you when it’s too late for you to care? she thought.
One big hand cradled her head, while the other rested low around her waist. She was trapped as neatly as if she were in a vise, and yet she had never felt this cared for or this safe in her life.
“As long as I live, I will never be able to say thank you enough,” Lane said softly, and cupped her face with his hands. “You, Toni Hatfield, are one hell of a woman.”
He leaned down.
Toni saw his intent. She could have objected. She could have moved. She did neither. Instead, she stood and waited for the world to stop, and when his mouth slid across her lips, then centered perfectly on hers, she found that it was her heart that had stopped.
Lane expected her to resist, and when she didn’t, he was not prepared for the soft, open invitation she made when their lips connected.
He felt her tremble and heard her sigh, but when she shifted slightly beneath his touch and then slipped her hands onto his waist to steady herself, he lost sight of what he’d started to do.
It was supposed to be a simple thank-you, accompanied by a light, friendly kiss. But the woman who stood within the circle of his arms was accepting more than he’d meant to give.
Lane groaned, and when Toni took one step forward, his hands slid off of her shoulders and down her back, drawing her deeper into the kiss of no return. He vaguely remembered thinking that this couldn’t go on, then Toni’s arms slid around his waist and locked behind his back.
He remembered little of what came afterward beyond a few undeniable facts. Her skin was softer than he’d expected. Her breasts fit his body contours to perfection, and he’d never wanted to be inside a woman this badly in his entire life. But that wasn’t going to happen, not if he had anything to do with it. He couldn’t repay a lady like Antonette by using her body in a fit of lust. Not even if she seemed willing.
He gave up their connection with painful regret as he tore his mouth from hers; then he closed his eyes and rested his chin on the crest of her head.
“Ah, damn,” he said softly as he rubbed his hands up and down the middle of her back in a gentling motion. “I'm sorry, Toni. I didn’t mean to let that go so far.”
Toni’s heart shattered. He was sorry? It was the last thing she’d wanted to hear him say. She ducked her head and tried to laugh as she pushed herself out of his arms. In her mind, things hadn’t gone nearly far enough.
“Forget it,” she said shortly, and hated herself for the bitterness that she heard in her voice. “It was just a kiss. And you're not the first man I've known who’s handed one out, then moved on to something better.”
“That’s not what I...”
He could have saved his excuse for Sunday morning, because Toni was already walking away. And, if he read her reaction correctly, she thought that he’d quit from lack of passion. Guilt overwhelmed him. He’d known her self-esteem was low, but this was ridiculous.
She thinks I stopped because I got bored? Lord have mercy. What does that woman see when she looks in a mirror? Doesn’t she know that she’s beautiful?
He groaned and started uphill, telling himself that he deserved every ache that came with the trip. He hadn’t gotten himself into this kind of condition with no chance of relief since high school. And, to be honest, he wasn’t sure how it had happened from just one kiss. As a rule, he had more control over his emotions than this. But that was before he’d taken the back door into Tennessee, and then been fished out of Chaney Creek like a sack of unwanted pups.
* * *
He ate supper alone, standing at the counter and chewing his sandwich while he watched her from the kitchen window as she worked. The weeds in her garden were suffering the consequences of what had transpired between them. She wielded the hoe with frightening irregularity, as if one false swipe and someone’s head might fall instead of the uprooted weed.
“My stitches will be out in two more days and then I'm gone. How do I make this right before I go?” Lane muttered to himself as he gave up pretending to eat. Toni wouldn’t even look at him, never mind talk to him. He didn’t know how to make things right between them again.
But Lane had a streak of stubbornness that was almost as big as he was. He dumped his sandwich on the counter and headed for the door. “Damn her hide, she’s going to listen to me or else.”
He stomped outside and never realized that his leg hardly hurt at all. He was healing, and at the same time, still suffering from an attack of misplaced indignity.
“Antonette!”
Toni paused and turned. From the look on Lane’s face as he came toward her, the massacre of weeds would have to wait. She’d seen mad on her brothers' faces so often that she recognized anger on sight. It had something to do with the jut of male chin, lower lip and a glower across the forehead. She sighed. As tired as she was, dealing with a wounded ego was going to play hell with her manners.
“You shouted?”
He flushed, then made an effort to lower his voice several octaves before he spoke again. “I've already said I'm so
rry that I overstepped the bounds of friendship you've shown me. I wish to hell that it hadn’t happened. I like watching you smile. I like sharing a meal with you. But I don’t like feeling like Jack the damn Ripper. Can’t we please go back to square one?”
A rush of pleasure came and went so fast that she almost forgot it had ever happened. It was what he’d said after “sorry” that had hurt the most. And it was because he would soon be gone that she had the nerve to say what was in her heart.
“That’s just fine, Mr. Monday. I'm glad I give good service. I'm glad you find my manners pleasing to your taste. And while I don’t feel threatened by your presence in any way, shape or form like I might with Jack the damn Ripper, I do resent the hell out of hearing that you wished you hadn’t kissed me.”
Unintentionally, she leaned closer. Lane was stunned by the depth of anger in her eyes.
“I, personally, was enjoying it when you got an attack of conscience, or guilt or whatever men call it when they don’t want to leave any strings behind.”
“I didn’t mean that I didn’t—”
“Didn’t you just say you wished it hadn’t happened?”
He swallowed and nodded. At this point, answering her was impossible. He might be bigger, but she could outbalk a mule.
“And you want to go back to square one?” she asked.
He sighed and nodded again. Finally they were getting somewhere.
She smirked. “I hope that doesn’t include the handcuffs. I would hate like hell to spend another night on the floor tied to you.” She handed him the hoe. “Oh, and I don’t think my table is up to another parting of the ways, so let’s just agree to disagree on this, and drop the subject altogether. What do you say?”
“I give up.”