by Sharon Sala
While she was trying to regain a sense of self and dignity, the door to the examining room opened, and Toni instinctively looked up as Lane and Dr. Bennett emerged.
All they had done was remove some stitches, but Lane Monday walked out as if someone had removed the weight of the world from his shoulders. He moved with the confidence of a man who could whip snakes, fight bears and love a woman to the point of insanity. At that moment, Toni hated him for not loving her.
The smile on Lane’s face froze as he looked at Toni. Her eyes were shimmering with unshed tears.
All of his joy at being pronounced fit and whole slowly died as he realized it also meant leaving her. Yes, he wanted to be well. And yes, he needed to be back in full swing in the department. He was good at what he did and took pride in that fact. But he hadn’t counted on becoming attracted to the woman who had saved his life. Grateful, yes. In lust and near love, no.
“Take care, Mr. Monday,” Dr. Bennett said, shaking Lane’s hand.
“If you're ever in Tallahassee, give me a call. I'll save you a place beneath a palm tree and an extra-cold long-neck to go with it,” Lane told the man.
The doctor grinned and gave him a thumbs-up before disappearing into the next examining room as Lane turned back to Toni. She looked like a child ready to cry. He would have liked nothing better than to put his arms around her and hug the sadness away, but the little he knew about women told him not to react to her mood unless she gave him permission.
“I'm ready when you are,” he said.
Toni stood. Ready? I will never be ready to tell you goodbye.
When she walked past him and out the door without giving him time to play the gentleman, Lane suffered the slight in quiet. If he wasn’t mistaken, he’d just received permission to react. He caught the door before it slammed shut in his face.
“Just what I like, a woman who speaks her mind,” he said under his breath, and followed her to the sidewalk.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked as they neared her pickup.
When she would have ignored him, he grabbed her arm and then stopped, halting her momentum while he waited patiently for her to respond. Finally she had nowhere to look but at him.
“About what?” she asked.
“About whatever it is that’s bothering you.”
“Why, Marshal, whatever makes you think anything is bothering me?”
The sarcasm in her voice was impossible to miss. If he let himself, he could remember other times during the past week when he knew she would have let their relationship go farther than friendship. Lane had always been the one to call a halt, or refuse to take the next step toward changing it. And yet, for him, there was no other way. If Toni was resentful, he would have to live with that fact, because he couldn’t live with himself knowing that he’d lied to a good woman by making promises he had no intention of keeping. And that was what moving their relationship beyond friendship would be. A lie.
“I don’t know,” he drawled. “Maybe it was the frown on your face, or it could have been the tears in your eyes that gave you away.”
If someone had dropped a rock down her throat and into her stomach, it wouldn’t have made any bigger impact than his accusation had.
“I wasn’t crying,” she muttered, and yanked her arm from his grasp.
“I didn’t say you were crying, Antonette. I said that you had tears in your eyes. If you want, we can pretend they were never there.”
She looked up at him and smiled wryly. “Just like a man. It’s easier to ignore things than to confront them, isn’t it, Lane?”
Oh, damn, I think that I was right. She does hold it against me for being the one to hold back. But before he could think of how to respond, Sheriff Holley shouted at them from across the street.
“Hey, you two, wait up.”
Toni sighed, uncertain whether she felt relief or aggravation for the interruption. It was probably just as well that they’d been interrupted. Their conversation had nowhere to go but down.
“Don’t think you're off the hook. This isn’t finished between us,” Lane growled as the sheriff jumped the curb and came huffing to a halt in front of them.
Finished? That’s where you're wrong, Lane Monday. You can’t finish something that never got started.
Toni did the best she could to hide her despair, but it was difficult. The feeling she had of impending doom was overwhelming. She wasn’t off the hook and knew that better than he did. She was intent upon taking a part of this man from him, and keeping it when he left. That thought, and the fact that she didn’t know how to make it happen, were killing her. She was dying by degrees; she just didn’t know it yet.
And then the sheriff spoke up and ended her mental suicide. “Hey, Toni, I'm glad I saw you two coming out of the doctor’s office,” he said. “It saves me a trip out to your place.”
“Why?” she asked. “Have you learned something new about my calf?”
Holley shrugged. “It’s all in how you want to look at it.”
“How about from every angle?” Lane said, then knew when Toni glared at him that he’d probably overstepped his bounds by insinuating that the sheriff hadn’t done a thorough job.
Holley responded with a whoop of laughter. “Man, I like your style,” he said. “You don’t mess around, do you, boy?”
Lane had to grin. It had been years since anyone had had the nerve to call him boy. He’d outgrown the title long before he should have, simply because of his size.
“No, sir, I don’t suppose I do,” he replied. “So, what’s up? Why were you coming to Toni’s?”
It might have been the way Dan Holley didn’t quite look her in the eye when he spoke, but Toni got the distinct impression that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with what he was about to say.
“I talked to Livvie Sumter about her boys.”
Before Toni could comment, Lane, as usual, took over the conversation and set her impatience on simmer all over again.
“Well, thank God,” Lane muttered. “I hope to hell you told her to keep them off of other people’s property, and I hope you told them the next time they think about frightening someone like they did Toni, they'll have to answer to an authority other than their mother.”
Dan pursed his mouth as he worried the day-old whiskers on his chin. “That’s just it,” he said. “Those three oldest boys of hers, the ones who usually commit all the thievery, are gone. Livvie says they're in Nashville on a construction job.” He shrugged, then looked Lane straight in the eye. “That part of her story checks out.”
Toni watched a nerve jumping in Lane’s cheek. Why did he keep worrying this thing to death? Unfortunately for all concerned, Samuel Sumter’s children were not the only ones in the area capable of stealing.
“And?” Lane urged.
“She says Samuel’s missing.”
This time, Toni took the lead in the conversation and threw her hands up in disgust. “But, Dan, that’s not news. He leaves her each time she has a baby, and we all know it. So it was probably Samuel who killed my calf, and not his boys. I'll bet if you look real hard, you'll find where he’s camping. He’s probably sulking because Livvie has to devote her attention to a new baby and not him. I think the man’s a skunk.”
Dan grinned. “I know what you think, Toni. You've made that perfectly clear more than once to anyone who will listen.”
Her eyes flashed, then darkened, while the sheriff smiled. Above everything else, she despised condescension. And when Lane’s hand slid across her shoulder in companionable silence, he might as well have patted her on the head and said “good dog,” while he was at it, because that was exactly how she took it. It was, for Toni, the spark that lit her fuse.
“What’s that for?” she said, pushing his hand from her shoulder. “And don’t pretend to be on my side about anything, okay? I don’t need to be babied. I can take care of myself. If I tell you Samuel Sumter probably stole my calf, then why can’t I be right? Do you have any othe
r suggestions that make more sense?”
His surprise turned to hurt, but was hidden by the lowering of his lashes. Then a flash of how unfair she was being to him turned it all to anger as he resisted the urge to shake her silly.
“Damn it, Toni, there is no my side or your side. You're the most aggravating, irritable female I've met in years. You would fry the hair off a cat and then wonder where it had gone. I touched your shoulder, not your butt. And believe me, it won’t happen again.”
He turned away without giving her time to argue as he refocused his attention on the sheriff.
Toni was furious with herself and with Lane. She was taking all of her disappointment out on a man who didn’t deserve it, but for the life of her, she couldn’t seem to stop.
“Darn man,” she muttered. Unwilling to stay and listen while they continued to ignore her presence, she went to the pickup and missed hearing the rest of the conversation.
Lane heard her mumble, and would have liked nothing better than to bend her over his knee. It took everything he had to concentrate on what he needed to ask. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—leave Toni alone on her farm without knowing all there was to know.
It was that instinct alone that made him a good lawman and a formidable enemy. Willing himself not to watch her walk away, he gave the sheriff his full attention.
“Reese and Palmer left this morning, so I'm out of touch with the downriver search for Emmit Rice’s body. Are there any reports?” Lane asked.
Holley frowned. “No. But I assure you that when and if I get one, you'll be one of the first to know what it says.” He squinted slightly as he tilted his head to get a better look at Lane’s face. “You know what?”
“What?” Lane asked.
“I think something’s going through that bulldog mind of yours that you aren’t telling me. Are you of a mind to share?”
Lane shrugged. Saying anything before all the facts were in was not his way. “There’s nothing to tell,” he said. “I'm just checking every aspect of this mess before I leave.”
“And when would that be?” he asked.
“Tomorrow,” Lane said, squinting his eyes to gaze at the jet trail in the sky overhead. It was easier than facing what he’d just said.
“So if you hear anything, give me a call,” Lane continued. “You have my number at the office.”
“I'll do just that,” the sheriff said, then walked away.
Lane crawled into the passenger side of the pickup and slammed the door behind him. A long, silent minute passed without any sound or movement from either one of them. And then they both chose the same instant to say their piece.
“I'm sorry...”
They spoke in unison, then stopped at the same time. The coincidence of their mutual apology was too odd to ignore. Toni sighed and leaned back in the seat while Lane grinned.
“You first,” she said, and tried to ignore how small the interior of the cab felt with him taking up over half the seat.
“Lady, you won’t catch me in that again,” Lane told her with a chuckle. “No way. Ladies first.”
She grinned in spite of her determination not to give him an inch. Oh, damn you, Lane Monday. How can I stay mad and protect my heart if you keep behaving like this?
“I overreacted. I'm sorry,” she said, and knew it sounded grudging, but it was the best that she could do without throwing her arms around him and begging him to stay.
“Apology accepted,” he replied, wanting her to look at him, but he could tell by the way she kept biting her lower lip that she wasn’t about to do that. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. And I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings about anything.”
Toni wanted to cry. Her feelings were so miserable that an apology was never going to be enough to take away the pain. But from Lane, it was all she was going to get.
“You're forgiven, too,” she said.
“Well, thank God,” Lane muttered, and tried not to resent her halfhearted apology. That was his thanks for behaving like a gentleman, a sore-as-a-boil woman who wouldn’t give him the time of day.
But when she neither moved nor made an effort to start the engine, he didn’t have the guts to ask her why. If she had another purpose for coming to town besides bringing him to see the doctor, she was going to have to reveal it herself.
Toni was sick with anxiety. The thought of tomorrow was agonizing. Lane had consumed exactly seven days of her life, and when he left, he would be taking her heart with him. And while she had faced his rejection too many times to hope that he might actually care for her, she was having difficulty giving up her dream of bearing this man’s child.
How do I ask him? How does a woman say...sleep with me and give me a baby.
Toni groaned, then hit the steering wheel with the flat of her hand, aware that as she did, Lane visibly jerked in reflex to the action.
“So, how does your leg feel?” she asked as if she hadn’t just made her frustration clear.
Lane gawked. That was, without doubt, the most inane question she’d asked him since they’d met. He knew good and well that the state of his leg was not what was on her mind at the moment.
“It feels fine,” he said. Unlike you, I might add. But he wisely kept the postscript to himself.
She gritted her teeth, then nodded. “Good. That’s really good, I'm glad.”
Lane turned to face her. “Toni...”
It was more a warning than a question. She knew he wasn’t buying her conversational feint any more than she was.
“If you're through here, we may as well head back home. I've got all sorts of chores,” she told him.
He sighed, then turned to look out the window. She wouldn’t say what she was thinking, and he’d already made up his mind to keep his feelings for her to himself, so there was no point in dwelling on what each of them was unwilling to say.
“Fine. It'll give me time to pack,” he said. “I hope when Reese and Palmer took off this morning, they left me their rental car as they’d promised. Otherwise, I'll have to beg another ride from you tomorrow when it’s time for me to leave.”
It was the wrong thing for him to have said.
Damn you! Damn you, Lane Monday. All you can think about is leaving!
With an angry twist of her wrist, Toni turned the ignition key and brought the engine to life, gunning it, backing up and then slamming the gears into drive before Lane had time to react. When they turned the corner that led out of town on less than four wheels, he braced himself with his hands against the dashboard and growled.
“I hadn’t planned on being airborne quite this soon.”
Toni reacted, but not in the way he’d expected. No sooner had he said the words than her foot hit the brake. She pulled over to the side of the road, got out of the pickup and walked around to the passenger’s side without looking up. She opened his door.
“You drive,” she said quietly. “I don’t think I feel so good.”
“Damn it, Antonette, don’t do this. Not to me, or to yourself.”
It was then that she looked up. Her expression was bland, her voice low and controlled. Only her eyes, dark and nearly blinded from pain, gave her away.
“I don’t know what the hell you're talking about,” she said quietly. “I'm doing nothing except asking you to drive.”
He swore and scooted across the seat. When she crawled into the spot he’d just vacated, he would have sworn that he saw her hand linger on the place where he’d just sat. But when he looked again, he decided he must have been mistaken. She was busy buckling up her seat belt and digging into her purse.
They made the rest of the drive home in total silence.
* * *
Toni went about her chores like a woman in mourning. Lane watched from a distance as she checked on the livestock, then wisely gave her space when they’d returned to the house. While he suspected that she harbored feelings for him, he had no way of knowing that.
And that was the death of her dream for a child. It was, f
or Toni, over. She didn’t know how to flirt, and she knew that she didn’t have the guts to just ask him for sex. There would be no time left for happenstance to intervene because tomorrow he would be gone.
By nightfall, she had slipped into an “ignore the devastation and it will go away” mood.
She might be fooling herself, but she wasn’t fooling Lane. Her misery, like his, was visible. One had only to look at the set of her jaw, or the stance that she took when she believed no one was around, as if she were bracing herself for a mortal blow, to know that she was hurting.
As for Lane, his agony was of a different sort. He’d already faced the fact that he was drawn by more than debt to the woman who’d saved his life. He’d held her and kissed her. He’d tasted woman and wanted more.
Tonight would be their last night together. While it was only their second night alone in the old farmhouse, it was going to be the longest eight hours of his life.
Sleeping wasn’t an option. He needed to maintain his determination to leave her as intact as the day that they had met. The thought of pursuing intimacy with her was overshadowed by his admiration for her as a woman. He could not take what she offered and give nothing back. And nothing was all that he had to give.
And so they sidestepped each other all evening, and laughed uneasily at things that were not funny, and when it came time to go to bed, they parted without saying good-night. It was far too close to saying goodbye.
* * *
Toni lay on her side, dry-eyed and aching, and clutched the sheet beneath her chin as she rolled herself into a ball.
I will not cry. I will not cry.
When she tried to smooth out the sheet and get some sleep, she realized that it was nothing but a wad, and yanked it off of the bed in a fit of anger, throwing it onto the floor before falling flat on her stomach across the bed, daring herself to rest.
In spite of the air conditioner humming in the window, her nightgown felt hot and stuck to her skin in limp persistence. She untwisted it, then flopped around some more, trying to find a comfortable spot.