by Cindy Dees
He was on the verge of drifting off to sleep himself when he heard a noise that didn’t belong to the furnace or the creaks of an old house. It wasn’t much—something brushing against something else. Maybe branches of a bush rattling against the house or a person. But it was enough. Instantly alert, he eased his arm out from underneath Anna and rolled out of bed, landing silently on bare feet. He took the pistol with him that he’d stuffed under his pillow.
Crouching, he moved out into the hallway, pistol first. His rifle lay on the floor beside the sofa where he’d left it when he’d bolted into the bedroom to comfort Anna. But the noise had come from the back of the house. Outside. Damn. His pistol would have to provide enough firepower to handle the intruder.
He eased into the combat zone of a kitchen, freezing as he heard a shoe scuff on the back stoop. The back doorknob moved slightly. It was locked, but someone was testing the knob. An intruder was trying to gain entry to the house, was he? Bastard was in for a hell of a nasty surprise, then. A commando was waiting just on the other side of the door.
Brett moved forward, planning to slide to the wall to the right of the door. But from behind him, Reggie growled. It wasn’t loud, just a low rumble in the dog’s chest, but it was enough to spook the wannabe intruder. He heard the slap of running footsteps down the driveway.
Swearing, he sprinted through the house, slowing only enough to scoop up the rifle. He threw open the front door and raced out onto the porch.
Headlights were just disappearing around the corner. He ran out into the front yard to get a better look at the car. The lights belonged to a truck, but he didn’t get a good enough look at the vehicle even to tell its color or model. Dammit. Was that the truck from McMinn Pass?
He went back inside and dialed the sheriff’s office on his cell phone. A deputy was on duty and took his terse report, promising to send a cruiser to spend the rest of the night in front of Anna’s house and to tell Joe about the incident first thing in the morning.
He doubted anyone would be back to bother Anna tonight, but he was glad for the cop car out front. When the cruiser arrived, he had a quiet word with the deputy inside, informing the guy that he was armed inside the house but would be careful not to shoot in the direction of the squad car. He went back inside and sat on the sofa, going through the breathing exercises Spec Ops guys used to calm and focus themselves.
It dawned on him as the last battle readiness finally drained away that his feet were half-frozen. He’d been running around outside barefoot all this time. Taking the rifle with him this time, he went back to Anna’s room.
Thank God. She was still asleep. All the excitement outside hadn’t disturbed her. He lifted the covers and eased into bed beside her. She stirred, turning in her sleep. Her arms came around him and her feet tangled with his.
“What on Earth?” she exclaimed sleepily. “You’re an ice cube!”
“I was outside.”
“What for?”
“Just checking on things.” No need to terrify her after whoever was snooping around had been chased away. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough to let her know that someone was stalking her.
“I don’t deserve you—” she started.
He kissed her to cut off the familiar refrain. Her mouth was soft and warm and lazy beneath his, and he could kiss her like this until the end of time and be a happy man. He leaned over her on one elbow and pushed her hair off her face with his free hand.
Her uninjured hand tugged at his shirt, lifting it up until her palm could smooth over his waist and around to his back. She pulled him down to her, and he was elated to sink into her, kissing her thoroughly, outlining her mouth with his tongue and then dipping inside to all that plump, wet, slippery invitation. Her tongue touched his and it was on. He groaned and deepened the kiss, plunging his free hand into her hair and lifting her to meet him.
His T-shirt bunched up under her fingers, and he stopped kissing her long enough to shrug out of it. She went to work awkwardly on his fly and zipper while he pushed up the oversize T-shirt she’d slept in, being careful of the splint on her wrist.
A sleek, naked hip slid under his hand, the sharp indent of her waist, and then the swelling fullness of her breast filled his palm. His body raged with desire as he wriggled free of his jeans. And then her body was arching up eagerly into his, her bare skin warm and soft. She ran her fingers through his chest hair and then circled a hand around his neck, tugging him down to kiss her again.
It was a miracle that he remembered to pause long enough to don a condom given how badly he wanted to be inside her this very instant.
She was waiting for him with open arms when he returned, and he rolled over onto his back, taking her with him until she sprawled on top of him.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Anna. You do what you want tonight, okay?” Her eyes lit so brightly with possibilities in the dark that he half laughed and half groaned. “Why do I think I’m going to regret saying that?”
“I promise you won’t regret it,” she replied earnestly.
Using her good hand, she pushed upright, straddling his thighs. Running her fingertips around the base of his erection, she cupped him lower, squeezing just enough to make him groan with pleasure. And then she shifted her weight higher, guiding him to her entrance.
He braced himself, gritting his teeth against the storm of pleasure roaring through him. Must. Not. Explode.
She slid onto him, sheathing him by slow degrees in such heat and tightness that he could no longer form words, let alone string them together into thoughts. She rocked her hips experimentally, and a purring noise slipped out of her throat. Pleasure spiked through him almost painfully intense.
She did it again, and this time the groan came from him.
She started to move, rocking her hips back and forth, finding a rhythm that made the room go black behind her gorgeous face as the entire world narrowed down to just her riding him, her head thrown back, her good hand on his stomach to balance herself.
His hips refused to stay still and he surged up into her, meeting her where she moved, pressing up every time she pushed down onto him. Deep. So incredibly deep inside her he went. Deep enough to lose himself completely. Deep enough to forget everything but her and the joy she gave him. Deep enough to heal his soul.
She tensed above him and her tempo increased. He reached up to push gently on her stomach, leaning her back over his thighs and increasing the pressure on her pleasure spot.
She cried out, an undulating sound ripped from deep within her, and her internal muscles clenched him spasmodically as she shuddered in violent release. It was arguably the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
He sat up, wrapped his arms around her and rolled her over onto her back without ever leaving her tight, clenching heat. He picked up the rhythm from before, driving deeply into her this time, being careful not to jostle her too much. He reached between them to rub his fingertip across the engorged, pulsing bud of her desire, and she cried out again.
This time he went with her over the edge, his face buried against her neck as he emptied his soul into her. She completely ravaged him, and he was a happy man for it.
He pressed up over her, careful of her splinted wrist. “How’s your head? Any pain?”
She smiled up at him. “How could I feel anything but pleasure with you?”
He leaned down to kiss her gently and carefully disengaged their bodies so he wouldn’t hurt her. “I’m a selfish bastard for making love to you when you’re hurt—”
Soft fingertips pressed against his lips. “You apologize all the time. If I didn’t want that, I would have said something and you would have respected my wishes.”
He might not like her saying she didn’t deserve to be happy all the time, but she had a point, too. He probably did apologize too much. It was just that if she knew about all the baggage inside his hea
d, she might not want to be with him.
“Why were you outside in the middle of the night?” she asked him.
Crap. He’d been hoping to put off this conversation until tomorrow.
“There was someone at your back door trying to get into the house. Someone’s trying to kill you, Anna.”
* * *
She stared up at him in the dark, stunned. Kill her? “That’s ridiculous. It was probably just the wind rattling the doorknob.”
“Not unless the wind sprints for a truck parked in front of your house and peels out down the street when I go outside after him.”
He wasn’t kidding about a stranger having been outside her house! Surely this was some sort of paranoid delusion on his part. Please let it be a delusion. Except he wasn’t the least bit delusional. Had Jimbo come for her? Or was it someone else she didn’t know to fear?
“I was hoping not to have this conversation until tomorrow morning when you’d had a good night’s sleep,” he responded reluctantly.
“I’m wide awake now and not going back to sleep any time soon.”
He sighed and said, “Whoever was driving that truck up in the McMinn Pass intentionally ran you off the road.”
She pounced on his declaration. “How can you be sure about that?”
“I was there. Remember? The truck that hit you passed me to get to you, then waited till that stretch of road with no guardrail and swerved into you until you went over the edge of the road. I saw the whole thing.”
“It could have been an accident. The road was slick, and maybe the driver lost control of his or her truck.”
He rolled his eyes obviously enough that she saw it in the dark. “I assure you. The truck was entirely under control when it rammed you.” He hesitated for a moment, then continued grimly, “After I pulled you out of your car and took you to the clinic, I called Joe Westlake. Before he could get to your car to check it out, someone came back, doused your car in something flammable like gasoline, and lit it on fire. Why would anyone do that unless he was trying to hide evidence?”
“My car burned up?” she exclaimed in dismay. All of a sudden the hypothetical idea of Eddie’s family taking revenge on her was entirely tangible. Someone had killed her car and erased the evidence just like they would do to her if they ever caught her alone.
Whoever ran her off the road could have been the same person who’d just tried to get into her house.
To finish her off.
A sharp desire to live speared into her gut. Huh. Was that because she hadn’t actually faced death before the kid in the diner pulled a knife on her, or was it because she’d met Brett, and her will to live had come surging back?
The practical considerations of getting to and from work when the weather got bad or grocery shopping, or even how she would afford a new car, paled in comparison with the realization that she had a would-be killer stalking her. For real.
“And you’re sure the car didn’t start on fire by itself?” she asked.
“It took me a while to get you out of your car, and nothing was sparking or providing an ignition source for any spilled fuel when I was there.” He continued, “Your car was torched.”
“You said my car wasn’t visible from the side of the road, right?” she asked.
“Correct. Only you, me and whoever was driving that truck knew your car was down there.”
She gulped. “And why destroy my car unless the truck driver had something to hide? Like his paint on my car, maybe?”
“That would be my guess,” Brett replied.
The tightness in her belly only increased as the truth sank into her mind. She was a target. For death.
Brett said grimly, “As for your would-be visitor a little while ago, why would anyone try to get into your house in the middle of the night unless he meant you harm?”
She felt sick to her stomach, hot and cold all over. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“Let me and the sheriff do what we do best. We’ll figure this out.”
Jimbo Billingham had said specifically that he planned to kill her. She had just never seen him as the kind of guy with any follow-through. He was a lot like Eddie—basically lazy and not inclined to exert himself to do much of anything in life.
As if he’d picked the thought out of her brain, Brett asked, “Did Jimbo specifically say he was going to kill you when he assaulted you at my parents’ house?”
She winced at the memory of Jimbo’s damning words and answered reluctantly, “He said I got away with murdering his brother, and he was going to see to it I get the justice I deserve. Then he put his arm around my throat and...” Her voice faltered, but she pushed onward miserably. “...And he asked me how it felt to be killed. He asked me if...” She squeezed her eyes shut briefly and then forced herself to finish. “He asked if I was as scared as Eddie when he died.”
“What the hell?” Brett exclaimed.
She wanted to curl up and disappear. Just fade away until nothing of her remained. Consciously, she’d thought coming home to Sunny Creek would be anonymous. Quiet. God knew, it was the smallest, most isolated corner of nowhere that she could think of.
But deep in her heart, maybe punishment was what she’d been hoping for when she came back to Eddie’s hometown. How sick was that?
Had it not been for Brett’s abrupt appearance in her life, she might just have let her wannabe murderer succeed. But now? Now, she looked at Brett’s rugged profile in the dark and couldn’t imagine just giving up.
Truth be told, she’d desperately wanted to go back in time to before she’d made the disastrous decision to run away with Eddie. Reset her life. Maybe that was why she’d really come back here—in hopes of getting a do-over at life.
And here she was, getting her do-over, finding a great guy who seemed to like her too, and Eddie was still managing to ruin her life. Although, in his defense, she was the one who’d stuck a knife in his gut and severed a major artery. This was her mess.
Her mess.
She looked up at Brett earnestly. “I really appreciate your offer to help me. Honestly, I do. But this is my problem, and I don’t expect you to get involved in it. You have issues of your own to sort out, and the last thing you need is to take on all of my baggage.”
“You’re not equipped to handle it. I am.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re obligated to handle my problems!” she exclaimed. “In fact, I’d prefer it if you didn’t!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew them to be a lie. She loved the fact that he was willing to help her. She loved feeling safe for a change, and goodness knew, she loved feeling like somebody decent and kind cared for her. But he didn’t get the fact that she truly, genuinely deserved none of it.
He seemed determined to forgive her for any past sins, but he didn’t know the truth. He didn’t understand that she was beyond redemption. Her sin was unforgivable. She might have been able to move that knife, but she hadn’t even tried. She’d been so terrified when Eddie rushed her that she’d frozen. She’d just stood there and watched that blade slide into his belly.
Truthfully, she hadn’t even remembered that she had a knife in her hand. The look in his eyes that night—he was finally going to kill her. The moment had come when he’d snapped completely. She’d known for a while that it was coming, that he was working himself up into enough of a rage to kill her. It took several months, but the escalating violence, the increasingly enraged drunkenness, the verbal threats—they’d created a pattern that was crystal clear to her.
Oh, it was bad enough that she’d stabbed Eddie. But the thing she’d never admitted to anyone, not even to herself until this very minute, was that she’d given up. She’d wanted to die. She’d wanted him to kill her.
And that was the thing she simply couldn’t forgive herself for.
Chapter 13
Anna went back to work at the diner on Monday morning. Her wrist hurt and she still had a lingering headache that no painkiller would touch, but she couldn’t afford to miss any more work. She was going to have to get a car soon, and that would wipe out the rest of her savings. It would have to be a junker, but the weather was going to get too bad soon for her to walk to and from work and the grocery store.
All work on her house would have to come to a stop for the foreseeable future. The new kitchen was due to be installed in about a week. Until then, she would live on canned tuna fish and leftovers from the diner. Patricia and Petunia didn’t mind if the waitresses grabbed a salad or a piece of pie now and then.
How she was going to dig out of her financial hole was overshadowed, however, by the loss of Brett. He’d climbed out of her bed silently, dressed without uttering a word and left her house after she’d lied to him about not wanting his help. At her insistence, he’d taken his guns with him.
When she left for work, she thought she might have glimpsed his truck down the street, but she couldn’t be sure without staring at it, and she wasn’t willing to chance his taking it as an invitation to come talk with her.
A few days later, Hank Mathers stopped by to pick up the various power tools Brett had left at her place. The ranch foreman had been kind to her, inquiring after her health. But he’d also made a point of mentioning that Brett was in a bad way.
Great. Something else to lay at the altar of her failures. She’d hurt a man who was already vulnerable. A good man. A wounded hero.
How much lower could she go?
She trudged through her days, going through the motions of living. But she wasn’t really engaged with anyone or anything around her. Even the arrival of the beautiful new kitchen only made her cry. She had to find a way to pay back the Morgans for it, and she had no idea how she would manage that. She was barely covering her bills now, and she still had a car to buy and the rest of her house to fix up.