by Joanna Wayne
She pulled her left hand from beneath the table and centered it over the unlit candle. The hand was smooth, the nails were neatly manicured and painted bright red and…
“Omigosh!” Caroline said. “You’re engaged?”
“Yes!”
“When did that happen?”
“Last night. Believe me, I was as surprised as you are.”
“You’re engaged to Jack?”
“Yes. What do you think?”
“It’s kind of sudden, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but he thinks we shouldn’t wait.”
“What’s the hurry?”
“Jack says if we’re in love, we shouldn’t wait. We should grab every moment of time we have together and cherish it.”
Caroline had only met Jack a couple of times, but he hadn’t seemed the kind of man to utter anything quite that gushy. He hadn’t seemed the marrying type, either.
“You don’t look very pleased about this,” Becky said.
“I just didn’t know you and Jack were that serious.”
“Sometimes love comes in a heartbeat.”
“Did Jack say that, too?”
“No. I heard that on the biography channel. But it’s true. I’ve always believed in love at first sight. And then I met Jack.”
“How long have you known him?”
“A couple of weeks. He came in the restaurant one day for lunch and we hit it off, so I invited him to my birthday party.”
“Do you know anything about him?”
“C’mon, Caroline, what’s there to know? He’s funny and sexy—and his parents have lots of money, so I know he’s not marrying me for mine.”
“Have you met them?”
“No, but I’m sure I will soon.”
“Have you told your parents?”
“Yes. They’re skeptical like you, but they’ll come around, as long as I’m married in the church. Which I will be. I want a big, perfect wedding. And I want you to be my maid of honor.”
“I’m flattered, but you must have a lot closer friends than me. You still see high-school and college friends, and we don’t go back nearly that far.”
“Sometimes new friends are the best.”
“Sometimes.” But right now she didn’t feel like a friend at all. A friend would tell Becky that she was moving too fast—not that Becky would have listened to her.
They ordered salads and Becky insisted they have a bottle of celebration champagne. Caroline barely touched her salad, which was a mistake, since she drank two full glasses of champagne. Somehow she made it through an hour of listening to Becky talk of wedding plans and how cute Jack was when he popped the question.
She decided it best not to drive, so she took a cab back to the office after Becky exacted a promise that she’d go with her to Atlanta the following week to look at wedding dresses.
It was a promise Caroline hoped she wouldn’t have to keep. But maybe she was being too cynical. Love probably was a many-splendored thing when it was right. It was just that it hurt like hell when it was wrong.
Not that she knew firsthand. She was not and never had been in love with anyone, and she was certainly not anywhere near in love with Sam Turner. She wasn’t. It was the champagne that was making her miss him so much right now.
“CAROLINE, GET IN here.”
She stopped typing and looked up. John was standing at the door to his office, his face red and puckered, a folded newspaper in his hand. Whatever his problem was, it wasn’t her fault. He’d approved all her copy before the paper ran.
Still, it was best to humor him when he was in one of these moods. She hit Save, slipped her shoes back on and obeyed his command.
He handed her the paper the second they were behind closed doors. “Care to explain this?”
Her pulse rate soared, and at that moment she could have killed Sam Turner with her bare hands.
“THERE’S A WOMAN here to see you, Sam, and she looks mad.”
“Tell her I’m not in.”
“Sorry. Someone already told her you were.”
“Great. Send her in.”
He walked to his desk and stood behind it, steeling himself for whoever would barrel into his office and lay into him because he hadn’t caught the infamous Prentice Park Killer yet. It would be the second one today.
But it was Caroline who marched into his office, kicking the door shut behind her. Without saying a word, she crossed the room and slammed a tabloid news magazine down in front of him.
One of the headline articles was circled in red. His eyes went there first and to the picture of Caroline, at the scene of Sally Martin’s murder, wearing her slinky red dress. And under it, a caption that read, “Prentice Newspaper Reporter Has Secret Identity.”
He scanned the article, his stomach pumping acid. It was all there in black and white. Her name change and ostensible details of her life at Grace Girls’ Home, in Meyers Bickham Children’s Home and in a foster home before that. All there. Right down to being found in an alley trash bin.
The article also raised questions, suggested that Caroline had been fired from her teaching job and had interfered with the murder investigation by frightening witnesses into keeping quiet about what they’d seen.
If you read between the lines, you might even think she sympathized with the killer, if she wasn’t downright in cahoots with him. No wonder Caroline was livid.
“I don’t know where they got any of this, but it wasn’t from me.”
“Then someone in your office leaked it to them. And they wouldn’t have had it to leak if you hadn’t seen fit to go snooping in my past. You may not have scattered the misguided facts, but you opened the box.”
He hated the accusation in her eyes, hated it more because he deserved it. He hadn’t meant to pull out her past and shove her nose into it, hadn’t meant to hurt her. But he had.
“I don’t know what I can say, Caroline, except that I never planned any of this.”
“But it doesn’t really matter. I’m just a reporter. Say it, Sam. Say I’m just an annoying reporter, a piece of trash that got in your way.” Her voice broke. She was shaking, eaten up with anger and hurt.
“I can’t say that. It’s not true.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. Sam swallowed hard, trying to keep some kind of control when her pain was literally tearing him apart. But he couldn’t keep control, not when she was crying. He pulled her into his arms.
She beat her fists against his chest, but the tears were coming in torrents now, running down her cheeks and onto his shirt. Finally she quit fighting and just let him hold her while she cried.
When the sobbing stopped, she pulled away. The mood was strained, awkward, confusing. He could have held her forever. That part was easy. It was the talking that was difficult. But he felt he had to say something. The bottom line was that this was all his fault.
“The article doesn’t change you, Caroline. You’re still the same person you were before it was printed.”
“I’ll probably lose my job.” She looked away as if she couldn’t bear to have him in her sight. That hurt, but he understood it. “And I’ll have to leave Prentice. Everyone will hate me when they think I’ve hurt the investigation. I’d thought that living here in the Billingham home would change things. Thought I’d fit in. Make friends. Put down roots.”
Her voice was soft, as if the tears had washed away the anger and left only the heartache. “This will blow over,” Sam said. “No one puts any stake in what those tabloids say.”
“But it’s mostly true.”
“Not the part that would anger people. You haven’t hindered the investigation. You got Trudy to talk.”
“And almost got her killed.”
“That wasn’t your doing.”
“Forget it, Sam. I came here prepared to take all my anger and hurt out on you, but I can’t. Not when you don’t fight back.”
“I don’t want to fight you, Caroline.”
She finally met his gaze,
though he couldn’t read the intensity in her dark eyes. He only knew they captivated him, made him ache for something elusive and indefinable.
“What do you want, Sam? You kiss me senseless, then never touch me again. You treat me as if I’m a nosy, irritating reporter, have me investigated, then take me in your arms when I explode and hold me while I cry. You’re like a groundhog who ventures out of his hole for a glimpse of the sunshine only to scurry back into the darkness every time he feels the heat.”
And he was feeling the heat now. But there was no crawling into a hole, not with Caroline’s eyes boring into his. “I don’t deal well with emotional issues.”
“Wow. What a revelation. I’m getting out of here, Sam. I’m not sure I’ll be on staff at the Prentice Times after today, but if I can help you with Trudy Mitchell, give me a call.”
She didn’t allow him time to respond, just picked up her tabloid and marched away. He was tempted to go after her, knew there had to be something he should say, but as usual he didn’t have a clue what it was.
He’d love to slam his fist into somebody. The tabloid reporter. The person in the police department who’d leaked the information. A lot of good any of that would do except make him feel better—and get him a lawsuit.
He opened the desk drawer and took out his snapshot of Peg. There was no comfort in it. If anything, he felt she was condemning him, too, telling him he was a coward for not moving on and that it was past time he let her rest in peace.
But mostly the snapshot reminded him that there was a killer out there and that Caroline was still in danger. He’d let a madman get to Peg. He could not let one get to Caroline.
Only, how in hell was he going to stop him?
SAM SPENT the rest of the day at Auburn, interviewing people who’d known Sally Martin before she’d flunked out and returned to Prentice. He’d talked to the ex-boyfriend a couple of days ago. The guy had an airtight alibi that checked out. Even if he hadn’t, Sam would have had a difficult time believing he had ever done anything worse than maybe cheat on a calculus exam. Nothing else Sam had discovered raised any red flags, either.
As long as Sam was actively working on the case, he’d managed to keep Caroline on the fringes of his mind. But now he was alone in his car and driving back to Prentice, and she was all he could think about.
She had him figured out. He’d been in his hole ever since Peg had died. It was a long time to live in the darkness, and he wasn’t sure he could ever crawl out. And even if he did, he didn’t know if he and Caroline could make it together.
Right now, all he knew was that he was a man and she was a woman and he wanted to be with her so badly he could taste it. She might throw him out. That was a chance he’d have to take.
He drove straight to her house, but this time he didn’t park half a block away. He parked in front of her house and strode up the walkway. The emotions he wasn’t supposed to have were jumping around inside him like a frog in a burlap bag as he rang the bell and waited.
He had no idea what he’d say when she opened the door. He needn’t have worried. The knob turned, the door eased open and she stood in front of him dressed in a lacy black teddie that hugged her hips and caressed her breasts. He couldn’t have said a word if his life had depended on it.
Chapter Ten
Sam stood in the doorway, desire for her coursing through him. He ached to take Caroline in his arms, carry her off to the bedroom and make love to her. But it wasn’t his way and he had no idea what her way was. So he stammered over a hello and then made a stupid cop statement. “Why did you open the door without making sure it was safe first?”
“I made sure. I looked through the peephole.”
So she’d known it was him, and she hadn’t bothered to throw on a robe. That had to mean something. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About my being afraid to crawl out of my hole.”
“And did you crawl out, Sam? Is that why you’re here? Because I’ve had a hell of a day, and right now I really need you to hold me and make me feel desirable. If you can’t do that, then just leave. I can’t possibly take any more talk of killers and stalkers and sick rehashes of every bad thing that’s ever happened in my life.”
“How could you ever think you aren’t desirable? I’ve wanted to make love to you since that first night when you were prancing around in your red dress and throwing up in the bushes.”
“So don’t talk about it, Sam. Just do it.”
And then she was in his arms. He kissed her over and over again. On her lips, her forehead, her long, thick eyelashes, the tip of her nose. And she kissed right back.
He lost all control. Forgot to think or reason. He just wanted to kiss her and touch her and hold her. All of her. His fingers slid beneath the straps of the black teddie. He lifted them and let them fall down her shoulders.
His breath caught and held for one long, excruciating moment, while desire pounded every part of his body. He fought just to keep from falling with her to the floor and ravishing her like some Neanderthal taking his woman.
Somehow he forced himself to go more slowly. He kissed and sucked each nipple in turn, then cradled her beautiful breasts in his hands. She stood there, trembling. At first he thought she was afraid, and he shuddered to think she might change her mind and push him away now that his body was on fire for her.
“Don’t stop, Sam. Please, don’t stop. I need this. I need you.”
So he slid his hands down the smooth flesh of her abdomen until he brushed across the curly hairs at the apex of her thighs. When he dipped his fingers lower, he discovered that she was hot and wet, ready for him. And he couldn’t wait to be inside her, to have her as hungry for him as he was for her.
She wriggled out of the teddie completely, and the black lace slipped to the floor. Her body glowed in the soft light of the table lamp, and she slipped her arms around him and kissed him, sweet, yet intense. He felt as if she’d reached inside him and touched parts of his soul, bringing it back to life.
Even crazed with desire, he knew that this was more than just sex and that Caroline was offering more than her perfect body. She was offering herself. No pretense. No expectations. Just sweet passion for the taking. If she’d asked for the moon at that minute, he’d have spent his last breath trying to get it for her.
But all she wanted was him.
“Light a fire, Sam.”
“Now?”
“Yes. In the drawing room. Everything else in my life is in utter chaos, and I need one perfect memory to hold on to after you’ve gone.”
He wanted to promise that he’d never be gone, that he’d be right here forever, but even out of his mind with desire, he knew he couldn’t make that promise. Not yet.
“I’ll light the fire. Just don’t go away, Caroline. Promise me this isn’t a dream and you’re not going to disappear on me.”
“It is a dream, but I’m not going to disappear.”
She led the way to the drawing room. While he built a fire, she threw some big pillows onto the plush Persian rug, then turned on some music. Something classical he’d heard before but couldn’t name.
When the first flames danced toward the chimney, he turned around and found her staring at him. “Let me undress you, Sam.”
He shuddered in anticipation as she stripped the shirt from his back, then loosened his belt and unzipped his jeans. The first feeling was sweet relief that the bulge had room to spread, but when she dipped her hands inside his shorts and held him, he knew he couldn’t hold back much longer.
He shoved his jeans and shorts over his hips and kicked out of them, then fell to the floor with Caroline in a tangle of arms and legs. She kissed him again, then crawled on top of him and fit her body over his. She moaned when he thrust inside her. He wanted to make it last, but he couldn’t. So he just let go. No barriers. No thoughts of anything except sweet, beautiful Caroline.
She came with him, moaning and calling his name as they went over the top.
“Than
k you, Sam. That was wonderful. Perfect in every way.”
“Oh, Caroline, you really don’t know, do you.”
“Know what?”
“That the perfection is you.”
CAROLINE LAY in Sam’s arms long after the lovemaking was through. She didn’t want to move, didn’t want to break the magical spell that came with sweet fulfillment.
Sam wasn’t the first man she’d ever been with, though there hadn’t been many. But it was different tonight. For one thing, she’d needed it so badly. When a woman’s world fell apart, it was nice to have strong arms hold her tight and have a man make her feel as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
But Caroline hadn’t needed just any man. She’d needed Sam. She wouldn’t even begin to try to figure out why he affected her the way he did. There probably wasn’t an answer for that, anyway. If there was, dating and falling in love would be a science, instead of a magical adventure.
She started to get up, but Sam tightened his hold and pulled her close. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“We can’t just lie here all night.”
“Who made that ridiculous rule?”
She kissed him again, on the mouth so that their breaths mingled and she could taste the salty sweetness of him. “You stay here. I’ll go to the kitchen and get us a snack. Do you like cheese and crackers?”
“Not as much as I like what’s already in my arms.”
“This isn’t like you, Sam, saying nice things to a reporter.”
“This isn’t going in the newspaper, is it?”
“Front page. With pictures.”
“Then we should do it again, make sure we get it right,” he said. “But you’re right.” He slid the flat of his hand down her abdomen, looking into her eyes all the while. “This isn’t like me. I don’t feel like me tonight.”
“Is that good?”
“Absolutely, considering I usually feel like I’ve been wired to explode at any second.”
“How do you feel?”
“Satisfied. Indulged. Amazed that you’d want me. What about you?”