“You’re not getting off that easy,” she muttered. She marched toward the steps and climbed to the open upper floor. The room had a sloped ceiling that formed a high peak in the center. It was empty except for some boxes piled in the corner. Amy walked to a row of windows, touching one of the panes to tell where the inside stopped and the outside began, now that the darkening dusk had gone from gray-green to gray-black. She felt the glass tremble with the force of the rain and the wind, heard the roar of the storm, the sounds of unsecured objects crashing against the building. With all the windows shut, the hot air had risen to the loft and it was hard to breathe.
Amy stared past the sheets of rain into the disorienting darkness of the storm with a strange, sinking feeling that the worst was yet to come. She turned to Jesse, stooped beneath the slanted ceiling along one wall.
“These windows should be duct-taped as well,” she said.
“We’ll want to move most of the supplies up here too.”
Amy nodded. If a Category Four hurricane hit on this coast, it was unlikely the building would withstand the winds. If it did, the sea would follow with its own drowning fury.
“The sea surges in California can cause more damage than the initial storm.”
“We haven’t heard a report in hours. Damon could have easily turned as they predicted, gotten caught up in a tropical depression and become no more than nasty rain and wind.” But the eyes he now turned away from Amy said otherwise.
A pile of boxes was stacked in the corner. Jesse bent down, opened the top one and shone the flashlight inside. “Just some old papers.” He pulled out a handful, aimed the flashlight at the top one, read it, then the one below it and the one beneath that. “Looks like old bills, business papers.” He dropped the bundle back into the box, rifled among the rest of the pile. “Tax returns, business receipts, stuff like that.” He opened another box. “Canceled checks in here, some old bills.”
When he straightened, Jesse found Amy standing right beside him, a strange expression on her face as if she’d just seen a ghost. A ghost of the past, he feared. He stepped away from her. “Nothing in here to help us.”
As he spoke, he replayed the last few minutes to determine if he’d done or said something to spark such intent interest. He had been about to tell her the truth when the tornado hit. Now he was not sure how to begin. If the hurricane was still heading to the coastal plains, it was predicted to make landfall around midnight. He glanced at his watch. It was just after seven. He had five hours. Five hours to tell her the truth.
“It’s going to be a long night,” he told her.
She nodded as if understanding.
“We should unpack, get settled in.” He aimed the flashlight’s beam toward the stairs, lighting them for her safe descent.
Amy walked to the stairs and climbed down. The sounds of the storm, the clatter, the muted light and, most of all, the man above her, made her feel she had stepped into a dream. She watched Jesse make his way down the stairs. As he’d looked over the papers in the boxes, she’d seen his lips move while he read. The Jesse Boone she’d known fourteen years ago had had the same habit.
So did thousands of other individuals, she told herself. Was she truly seeing signs to confirm her suspicions, or were these ordinary coincidences fueling her fantasy?
Jesse headed to the boxes of supplies, turning his well-shaped backside to her, and Amy found herself admiring his impressive anatomy.
She mentally shook herself and walked over to join him.
Jesse gathered up the blankets and pillows. “I’m going to take these into the storage room, see if the shelves slide out. If Damon does hit, it’s the safest spot.”
“I’ll carry some in,” Amy said, taking half the bedding from his arms. “I want to get that roll of paper towels in there to clean up a little out here.”
In the storage room, Jesse removed the shelves. Amy spread out the blankets, propped the pillows against a wall. She took the paper towels to the sink. The faucet whined as she turned its handle, releasing only a small amount of water before the pipes emptied. When she returned to the main room, she saw Jesse had filled and lit another lantern. The room’s glow heightened to almost cozy.
She took the damp towel and brushed off the front counter’s layer of dust. As she worked, she hummed a tune, trying to concentrate on remembering the song’s words instead of analyzing Jesse’s every mannerism.
He glanced at her several times with a furrowed brow. She hummed a little louder, not so much to spike his irritation but to drown out her suspicions, which insisted on gaining strength instead of being subdued. About fifteen minutes went by. Still she hummed. Jesse’s glances became more frequent, as if he were waiting for her to begin her inquisition anew and bracing himself for the next round. She hummed merrily in defiance of the storm’s fury surrounding them and the questions and confusion within her.
“What is that?” he asked abruptly.
“What is what?” she snapped, startled out of her own thoughts.
“That noise you’re making?”
“It’s a song.” She thought a minute before breaking into a smile. “But I’ll be damned if I remember the name.” She furrowed her brow in concentration and hummed a little louder, bouncing a bit to the beat as if to shake the memory from her subconscious.
“Is that necessary?”
She glanced at him. He seemed preoccupied.
“No. Outside of food, water and oxygen, little is necessary. But there’s a lot we can enjoy.”
“Your attempt at a musical interlude, Doc—I’m not enjoying it.”
The lines on his face had deepened, and the lanterns’ glow shadowed his features. Something was bothering the man.
She smiled, snapping her fingers as she bounced up and down on her toes. “Keep sweet-talking me like that, Sheriff, and I’ll sing for you.”
He turned back to the boxes as if surrendering. “We’ll wait to take these things upstairs. If Damon does hit, the wind will come first, then the water.” He lifted the box and set it against a wall.
Lord, she’d thought he would be thankful she wasn’t asking any more questions. Not that she was finished. She needed to be certain that the man before her was not the Jesse Boone she knew.
And what if he was?
Her humming stopped.
What if he was?
New thoughts caused chaos in her mind.
What if he was?
She had been so focused on determining if the man before her was the Jesse Boone who had broken her heart fourteen years ago or merely a stranger with the same name that she hadn’t thought any farther.
What if it was the same man she’d loved, and yes, she realized with a sobering, almost-terrifying wash of emotion, had never stopped loving?
He looked at her as she stopped humming, the intensity of the flames seeming to sharpen his features, darken his eyes. He watched her. His lips parted as if he had something to say.
What if it was him?
“Where’s the duct tape?” she asked with a sudden urge to stay busy.
“I’ll do that,” he said.
She arranged the food supplies, paper and plastic ware neatly on the counter, put a box of disposable cleansing towels from her medical supplies in the bathroom. Jesse finished taping the windows upstairs and down. He returned to the counter, where Amy had pulled over two stools and was wiping the dust off them. He took in her attempts to arrange the supplies. She looked at the large silvery Xs across the windows. Their eyes met.
She smiled as if amused by their efforts. “If Damon does hit, we don’t stand a chance in hell, do we?”
He smiled back, knowing she was right. “I’ll worry about that when it happens.”
Her eyes held steady on his. “What do we do now?”
“Wait.”
She barked a dry laugh, exposing the tension inside her. “I don’t do ‘wait’ very well.”
“Surprise, surprise,” he said as she straightened an alre
ady straight row of bottled water. “Unfortunately, the alternatives are slim.”
She moved out from behind the counter to a window as if watching would hasten what was to come.
“Are you hungry?”
Surprisingly she wasn’t, although it had been several hours since they’d eaten. Nor was she tired, the adrenaline from the day’s events overstimulating her system.
“I’ve got a deck of cards,” she heard him suggest behind her. She turned. Jesse had sat down on a stool and was slipping the cards out of their container. He shuffled. “Beats you singing to me.”
She sensed he was trying to make her smile. It worked. She walked over to the counter and sat on a stool. “Poker, five card draw. Up to four cards with an ace, three without an ace, jacks wild.”
He looked impressed. “And here I figured you for a ‘Go Fish’ kind of gal.”
She tapped the top of the deck. “Deal, cowboy.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he drawled.
She grabbed the box of pink-and-white licorice from the tidy stack of food, opened it and counted out equal amounts of the candy.
“We’re playing for Good & Plenty?” Jesse asked, amused.
“No fun unless the stakes are high.”
Jesse’s face sobered slightly. “Is that your philosophy in cards or life, Doc?”
“Both,” she said, picking up the hand dealt her.
Neither spoke as they reviewed their cards, their expressions serious as they arranged their hands. Amy settled on her stool, gave Jesse a low-lidded look. “What’s the ante?”
“Four.” Jesse slid the candies into the middle of the countertop between them.
Amy nodded approval as she added her candies to the pile. “Feeling lucky, Sheriff?” She grinned at him.
The smile he gave her almost toppled her off her stool. “Quit stalling. Place your bet and take your punishment.”
She laughed easily, the kind of laugh that seeped into a man’s bones and turned them soft. One grin and she had him. Jesse would tell her the truth, tell her everything before the night was over, but not yet. He did not know what would happen once he did, but for the moment, he would not worry. He would sit here, the woman he’d always loved across from him, and be grateful. He’d been given a wonderful gift. It might not last long, possibly only a few hours at the most. Plus, he’d already wasted a day trying to keep his secret safe and protect Amy from the truth. A whole day—so much more than he had ever expected to receive. He now realized God in his strange, mysterious ways had answered his untold prayers and given Amy back to him—if only for a few hours.
Feeling lucky? She’d asked him. He looked at her and smiled. She had no idea.
Outside the storm raged around them, the winds thunderous, the darkness almost complete. Inside, in the lanterns’ light, Jesse watched Amy study her cards with the intensity she applied to everything. When she looked up, her eyes took a moment to focus. A flash of surprise lit their blue-green depths as if she was startled to see him there. She smiled, turning Jesse to Jell-O, as she laid two cards face down. “I’ll take two.”
He watched her as she slid over the new cards. Her eyes still on him, she picked them up. Her gaze flickered to the cards, her expression revealing nothing. She inserted them into her hand, shuffled another card to the opposite side. She looked up at him, her hand of cards held close, her smile mysterious. She added two more candies to the pile.
“Feeling lucky,” he teased her, wanting the smile to remain on her face.
“You’ll rue the day I walked into your tiny town, Sheriff.”
He kept smiling as he discarded and drew one card from the deck, afraid if he didn’t, the anguish inside him would spill over, out his every emotion. He met her bet.
“Call?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Read ’em and weep, Sheriff.” She fanned her cards onto the counter. “Three of a kind. All ladies.”
He sighed as he stacked his cards face down. “Beats my two deuces.”
“Come to Momma, my little beauties.” Amy wrapped her hands around the pile of Good & Plenty candies and slid them toward her. Jesse gathered the cards—including his own hand with a king high flush—into the deck. Watching her delight at winning was worth risking his soul for a white lie.
She pushed four candies into the space between them. “Ante up, lawman.” She smiled.
Oh yes, he thought as he added his share to the pot, he’d go to hell and back just for her smile. Their gazes locked, held too long. Their isolation, the intimacy of being cut off from everything except each other seemed to pulse in the air like a living, breathing entity. Her smile turned puzzled, as if she felt the connection but didn’t understand why. He looked down, concentrated on dealing a new hand.
“So, are all your family around here, your mom and dad, sisters, brothers?”
Here we go again, Jesse thought. “All that I know about.” He wasn’t ready to reveal more.
She raised a brow as she looked at him over her hand. “You suspect there’s some you don’t know about?”
“Just a figure of speech. How many?” He nodded toward her hand, turning the attention back to the game.
She laid her cards down, her eyes staying on him. “Three.”
He dealt her the cards.
She slipped the cards into her hand. “How many relatives are around here? And are they all as ornery as you?” She added two candies to the pile between them.
“No one’s as ornery as me.” He slapped down two cards, picked replacements off the top of the deck.
“How about tight-lipped?”
He slid the cards one at a time into his hand, keeping his eyes on her. “I like to play my cards close to the chest.” He met her bet and raised her by two. “Call?”
She shifted her gaze to study her hand. Her eyes raised to study him. “You’re bluffing.”
She referred to more than the game. “Prove it,” he challenged.
He saw the gleam in her eye and realized his mistake. Nothing got her juices flowing more than a challenge. She met his bet and raised it by two. She leaned back with a satisfied smile, enjoying herself.
This time he did only have a pair of threes. She’d done it again. Seen right through him. Fourteen years later and he still hadn’t learned a damn thing. He should fold.
He met her bet, raised her three, playing another game now.
He leaned back on the stool with the air of a pleased man. “Take your best shot.”
She studied her cards for several seconds before she looked up at him. No smile now. Only an intensity to her eyes that mesmerized him. He did not move, even as she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his.
Shock rippled through him. Still he did not pull away but leaned into her, tasting her sweet lips and thinking no farther. He heard her own gasping intake of breath and knew she shared his shock. She stood, as if needing to get closer to him, even as they both knew they should pull away, had to pull away.
He rose to meet her, need driving him now as it drove her. It had always been like that between them. Explosive. Fourteen years and the wide separation that had become their lives disappeared beneath the touch of flesh to flesh, two mouths melded together, opening, tasting, drinking, greedy with a power and drive equal to the storm around them. A storm that moved inside them now.
The cards and candy scattered as he cleared the counter to ease her up onto it, his tongue delving deeper, his hands eagerly touching, taking what they’d ached to do since he’d first seen her. She responded with similar fire, exploring him, her need as agonizing as his. But not like this. Not without her knowing the truth. He had to stop.
Her hands roamed along his shoulders. Anxious fingertips explored his back, his chest, as if discovering a new treasure. He propped her up on the counter. Her legs wrapped around him, pulling him tight to her while their mouths stayed locked, never leaving each other but drinking deeper, the need too great, too long unfulfilled, too long denied.
/> He had to stop. He would not, could not go on without her knowing the truth. He had to stop now before it was too late. Yet he couldn’t.
She reached for his hand and placed it on her breast, pressing her softness into his palm. Her body arched, her legs tightened as if she couldn’t get him close enough. He feared it was too late. The crash outside, the tremble of the building that caused her breath to hitch and her body to jerk with surprise called him back, allowed him the second to gain control. He wrenched his mouth from hers, his breathing ragged. Her legs loosened, went limp as a rag doll’s as she pulled back from him. He stepped away, needing space now. Her lips were thick from his kisses, her cheeks flushed. He had to tell her now.
“Amy—”
Her eyes lost their glazed look. “It’s you. You bastard. It’s you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
OUTSIDE, another crash sounded. Inside, Amy’s world collapsed. The moment her lips had touched his, she’d known the truth. No man had ever made her lose control the way Jesse Boone had—not fourteen years ago, not now. Even standing before him now, she still wanted him more than she’d ever wanted any man in her life.
“You bastard,” she cursed him again. She drew on her anger, fanned it high for fear other emotions would take its place. She glared at him. Inside she could feel herself falling, crumbling like an object that had gotten too close to the fire and was now ashes.
“Why?” She spat the question out at him. Their breathing was shallow, their chests heaving from desire and emotion. “Why?” She began to tremble in her fury. Outside the wind rode high with ear-splitting thunder.
“I was with my father on a job in Salt Lake. He was working off the books, laying pipe in a new apartment complex. I helped out after school, Saturdays, carrying pipe, doing the heavy work. The project was three months behind, and everyone was scrambling to get it done. We were working on the fifth floor. My father sweating joints, me running pipe.” He kept his voice level, his gaze steady on her face. His face showed nothing. He’d had fourteen years to tell this story; he could do so without emotion.
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