by Diana Palmer
“Good night,” he said when she passed him.
She murmured a reply and walked swiftly from the office. Outside, she stood on the top step and looked out over the town she knew as well as Missoula, where she’d lived for the first nineteen years of her life.
A sense of being adrift came over her. She didn’t feel she belonged anywhere. It was daunting to be thirty-six and feel she’d accomplished little, belonged nowhere, had no ties to the future. She’d once had such high expectations of life.
Unable to face the empty cottage, pleasant as it was, she headed for the café instead of her car. As she’d expected, Lily Mae was there.
“Tracy, come join us,” the widow called across the room as soon as Tracy entered. The restaurant owner was with her, both of them drinking iced tea.
Tracy spoke, then asked, “Have you eaten?”
“Yes, but I’ll stay while you eat,” Lily Mae volunteered. “We’ve heard about the cowboy. It was all over the TV today. Tell us about it. Do you have any clues as to who he is?”
Tracy received a sympathetic smile from Melissa Avery.
“No,” she replied. “We’re searching the missing-persons files at present, but there’re no real prospects.” She repeated some of the information she’d given Judd earlier.
“I think it’s terrible,” Melissa said.
“Yes,” Tracy agreed, thinking of the young cowboy, dying alone like that.
“Why is it mostly men who can’t seem to stick with their responsibilities?” the waitress went on. “They run off and leave their wives and children all alone.” She stopped abruptly. “Excuse me. I have to take care of the register.”
When she left, Lily Mae leaned close. “Her father ran out on them years ago.”
Tracy was at once curious. “How long ago?”
“Well, let’s see, that must have been when I was married to my first husband. Yes…yes, it was.”
Lily Mae counted time in three eras—husband number one, husband number two and husband number three. Was Samuel Thaddeus Roper to be husband number four?
“Melissa must be close to thirty,” Lily Mae recounted. “She was just a baby when it happened.”
“About thirty years? How old was her father when he left?”
Lily Mae studied Tracy, then understanding dawned in her eyes. She shook her head and leaned close again. “The bones don’t belong to Charles Avery. He left town with that Baxter girl.”
“Lexine?” Tracy couldn’t keep the surprise from showing.
“Yes, that was the one.” Lily Mae gave a disgusted grimace. “That girl was trouble from the word go, always wanting something more than she had, putting on airs and all.”
Tracy wasn’t interested in Lexine’s sordid past. “I didn’t see a missing-person report on Charles Avery.”
“Well, I expect his wife was too embarrassed. Everyone knew he’d been carrying on something awful with Lexine Baxter. Then one day he climbed in his pickup and disappeared.” Lily Mae leaned closer. “The cook that used to be at the Kincaid ranch—she was a cousin to my first husband, bless their souls—saw Lexine driving the truck that same day. So the whole county knew they’d taken off together. It was terrible for his wife, humiliated and left with two kids to raise…”
She shut up when Melissa joined them again and the conversation became general. After she ate, Tracy walked down the block in the evening air, which was cooling off nicely.
The story of Melissa Avery’s father saddened her. People made such foolish choices, such stupid mistakes. As she had done when she’d asked Judd for a divorce? She didn’t want to think about it.
She climbed into her car, stopped at the grocery store, then drove home. The sky was almost dark when she arrived. After putting the groceries away and changing clothes, she sat on the porch.
Deciding a walk would help her sleep, she started out. She’d gone a half block when she realized where she was heading. She kept on walking until she came to the house.
For the first time, there was a light on in the living room window and she could see inside. She stopped across the street, staying in the shadows. She waited, wanting to see the child who lived there, whether it was a little boy or girl.
The screen door slammed at the house next door to the one she and Judd had built. A boy dashed outside and peered around the yard with a flashlight. He looked to be nine or ten, a bit older than Thadd had been.
When he couldn’t find what he wanted, he ran out the front gate, down the lane and through the gate next door. He went up to the front door and knocked.
The door opened. Judd stepped outside.
Tracy’s heart stopped, started, skipped several beats, then pounded so hard her chest hurt. Breathing became difficult.
“Hi, Sheriff, did you see my soccer ball today? I can’t find it anywhere,” the boy sang out. It was obvious he and his neighbor were on comfortable terms.
“Hi, Jimmy. No, I haven’t seen it since that day it was by the porch steps. When was the last time you remember using it?”
“Um…uh, I think it was day before yesterday. Me and Mike were playing in the road. I had to go in…oh, I bet he took it with him ’cause I had to go to the dentist.”
“Give him a call, why don’t you? Let me know if you don’t find it. I’ll help you look tomorrow.”
“Right. Thanks. I’ll call Mike now. Will you help me over the fence?”
“Sure.” Judd followed his young neighbor to the rail fence, which had “cultivated” blackberries growing along it. He easily lifted the boy across the barrier and set him down on the other side.
“Thanks,” Jimmy called and ran toward his house.
Judd watched him go. The streetlight illuminated his smile for a second before he turned back to his own house. He stopped suddenly and tilted his head as if listening, then he swung around.
Tracy stepped from the shadows and walked across the road. At the open gate, she hesitated, then walked through.
Judd strode to her. They stood there in the whispery soft night, the rustlings of the pine needles, the sigh of the wind from the mountains surrounding them.
“You live here?” she asked.
She hardly recognized her own voice, it was so strained. Her throat ached with emotion she couldn’t allow to escape.
“Yes.”
“How…why?”
“It came on the market a couple of years ago. I decided to buy it back.”
“I see.” She didn’t, not really.
“It was a good buy.” His tone was hard, defensive. “I always liked the location. The privacy,” he added, as if this explained everything.
She got her emotions under control, even managed a smile. “It’s well built. I can vouch for that. Is it…has it changed much…inside?”
He stared at her, searching her expression with a closed moodiness in his eyes. “They finished the storage room upstairs and made it into a sitting room.”
“Oh. That sounds nice. I’d like to see it, if I may,” she said on impulse.
She didn’t need a lot of light to see the stiffness in his shoulders. He didn’t want her inside.
That hurt.
“Sometime,” she quickly added. “Maybe before I leave, you’ll give me the dime tour.” She laughed to show she was joking and backed up a step. “Well, I’d better go. It’s late.”
She turned to leave, feeling his animosity like a whiplash against her back.
“You can see it now if you’d like,” he said just before she stepped through the gate.
“It’s too much trouble.” She faced him, wondering why he so disliked the thought of her being there.
“It’s okay.” He sounded resigned. He gestured for her to precede him down the path.
At the front door, he reached around her and opened it, waiting for her to go inside before he let it slam softly behind them. She gazed eagerly around the entrance area.
The hallway that led to the kitchen was paved with natural stone that ha
d been sealed and polished. To the right was a step down into the living room; to the left was a family room. Each could be closed off from the hall by double French doors.
A television was on in the family room. Judd crossed the polished oak floors and turned it off, then closed the oak cabinets they’d built into one end of the room to hold the TV, stereo and the many books they’d accumulated.
Someone had added plaid swags over the windows, which had wooden blinds for privacy. The material matched the green-blue-and-black plaid of the sofa. A braided rug defined the sitting area. When they’d lived there as a family, they’d given Thadd’s room to the grandparents when they’d visited and put Thadd on the sofa in the family room.
The living room had a blue-velvet sofa with two velvet chairs in blue-and-green stripes. The swags over those windows matched the chairs. An oriental rug picked up the colors in jewel tones.
“It’s well coordinated,” she remarked.
He nodded.
She drifted toward the kitchen. It stretched the width of the house. The master bedroom opened off one side of it. Both rooms had views of the ten acres of woods behind the house. Outside, a deck made a nice place for cookouts and summer entertaining.
The stairs were located between the family room and the kitchen. She went up the treads, noting the carpet. She and Judd hadn’t used carpeting because she was allergic to dust. Plain floors were better for her.
The upstairs bedroom held a queen-size bed, two tables, two lamps, a rocking chair and an old-fashioned oak dresser. A telephone and note pad were conveniently placed on one of the bedside tables. The wallpaper Thadd had chosen was gone, and the walls were a creamy white. The bed cover was the only spot of color—a deep green velour blanket, soft and luxurious looking.
The storage room was gone, its door removed and widened into an arch. The bathroom between the two rooms had been enlarged to include a shower stall. Bookcases had been added to the walls around the stair landing, transforming it into an attractive foyer. The whole of the upstairs made a private retreat.
“This is very nice,” she murmured. “Very nice.”
“Thanks.”
“Did you do it?”
“I redid the bath to add the shower. I thought it would be better…for when there was company.”
She wondered what company he had. His parents. His sister and her husband and two kids. A cousin he’d once been close to and the cousin’s current girlfriend. She hadn’t much liked having the cousin visit. He’d had a different woman each time.
“Very nice,” she repeated.
She turned and nearly ran into him. She hadn’t realized he was standing quite so close, one step down from her.
Their lips were nearly on the same level. She drew a shaky breath as the tension escalated to storm intensity.
Eight
Tracy moved first. She laid her hands, both of them, flat against his chest. She wasn’t trying to ward him off. It was simply that the need to caress him, to feel his warmth, was more than she could resist at this moment.
It seemed the world stood still, listening, waiting to see what would happen. She waited, too.
A glance into his eyes informed her that he was fully aware of the escalating tension between them. She saw the tendons in his neck stand out as if he fought for control.
He removed his hand from the banister.
She felt it settle lightly at her waist, large and warm and somehow comforting. She sighed shakily, knowing they were on dangerous ground, but unable to force herself to retreat.
Longing poured into the molten core of her, then spiraled outward until she felt consumed by needs she’d denied for years. A harsh pulse of desire beat its way through her veins.
“I want you,” she whispered. “I—I shouldn’t…but I do.”
His hand tightened on her. “A person would be crazy to get mixed up in all this again,” he said in a husky tone that mixed mockery with a moody anger. “I’ve been bitten by the spider of passion before. It’s a sure bet for misery.”
She lifted her palms as if stung and tried to step back.
He held her in place with both hands. “No, don’t pull away. It’s something that has to happen. Perhaps when this—” his glance indicated them and the passion neither could deny “—this insanity is played out, then maybe we’ll be free.” He gave a brief, bitter laugh. “Or maybe we’re doomed to stay in this circle of hell forever.”
His bitterness hurt. “Walk away,” she challenged. “Walk away now, and let it be finished.”
He shook his head. “It’s too late.” He lowered his head.
She turned her face to the side. “I don’t know where this will lead…or where it will end.” That was the scary part.
“What does it matter?” He sounded weary and defeated, as if he were as tired as she was of fighting the attraction. “It doesn’t have to lead anywhere. There’s just now, this moment….”
She felt his breath fan over the side of her neck. They spoke without looking at each other, their heads close as if they were whispering secrets in each other’s ears, but other than his hands at her waist and hers trapped between them against his chest, they didn’t touch.
Invoking common sense didn’t help at all, she found. Every part of her wanted what he promised—this moment and the completion it dangled before her like a long-desired gift.
He moved one hand, sliding it behind her, caressing the small of her back, exerting the tiniest bit of pressure to propel her forward.
“And then what?” she asked softly. “There’s always tomorrow to be faced.” Sadness boiled up in her from deep inside. She wanted more than a moment. She wanted tomorrow and the next day and the next….
“Shh.” His lips brushed her hair, her temple, her cheek.
She couldn’t hold her lashes up. They were too heavy. She let her eyes close. He kissed them and her nose, her temple.
Against her hands, she felt his chest lift in a deep breath. A low, throaty sound of male need caressed her ears as he exhaled. Seemingly of their own volition, her hands slipped upward, removing the barrier between them. She wrapped them around his shoulders.
Flashes of heat lightning fused them together, her breasts against his chest. Willpower, good sense, caution went up in flames. She gave a little sob and sought his lips.
He positioned his head, letting her mouth touch his, then he opened his lips and gave her the kiss she yearned for.
It was as if they became locked in mortal combat. He moved his hands restlessly over her body. She did the same, striving to become closer and closer. But each new hold was ultimately unsatisfying.
There was only one closeness that would take away the painful hunger that racked them both, she realized…and fill the emptiness that had lived in her for years.
She moaned when his lips left hers. He kissed the hollow below her ear, then moved swiftly down her neck. He pushed her shirt collar aside and nuzzled her throat, then his hot, wet kisses burned a trail down the V opening to the first button.
He hesitated, but when she said nothing, he reached between them with one hand and flicked the button free. Then another. And another. His lips followed his hands.
At her waist, he pulled the cotton loose from her jeans. She clung to his shoulders when he slipped his hands up her back. The release of her bra caused strange sensations, like Fourth of July sparklers going off inside.
With her eyes closed, she experienced the removal of her clothing through the sense of feel—the whisper of cloth on flesh as the shirt was pushed off her shoulders and down her arms, the lighter sensation, like an echo, when he whisked the bra away.
And then the breathless anticipation as he bent his head toward her. He kissed her breasts, first one, then the other.
A shudder went through him.
She cradled his head against her and stroked through the thick, black waves of his hair, loving the tactile pleasure of touching him.
When he ran his tongue over her hard
ened nipple, she gasped aloud at the intense pleasure. “It’s been so long,” she murmured, her voice breaking as her senses were overwhelmed.
“Forever,” he breathed against her. He drew spirals over her with his tongue, leaving a hot trail of moist desire behind.
He lavished attention on her breasts until she was weak in the knees. “I can’t stand up,” she murmured, clinging to him as her legs trembled uncontrollably.
She felt his arms close around her thighs. He lifted her from the floor, stepped up the remaining stair and proceeded into the bedroom. He laid her on the velour blanket and followed, lying half over her, his thigh nestled between hers.
“It hurts,” she whispered, “to want…like this….” She moved her head restlessly back and forth against the blanket.
He slipped his hand into the hair at her temple and held her still. His eyes as he gazed into hers were haunted by visions she could only guess at. She clamped her teeth into her lower lip, wondering if he would leave her.
Then slowly…slowly…he lowered his head until their lips came together once more. She met the kiss with trembling ardor, eager for his touch. His tongue slipped between her lips, and he stroked her mouth until she responded with wanton demands of her own.
Wildfire enveloped her, and she moaned with ecstasy. He released her mouth and spoke against her lips.
“When you do that…when you moan and let me know how much you want me, it drives me to the wall, right to the wall. I want you, too, but you can tell that, can’t you? A man can’t hide his needs the way a woman can.”
Her heart went all jumpy and nervous in her chest. She knew if they didn’t stop now, they would make love…and then it would be too late to stop.
Too late?
It was already too late. A sob broke through the yearning. She felt his surprise when she wrapped her arms around him and went wild in his arms…simply wild.
She stroked and caressed with her hands and her body, moving against him until every part of her had been touched by him. She heard the whimpering demands that escaped from her parted lips and didn’t care. It had been too long, much, much too long.
Through the red haze of wild hunger, she heard him murmuring to her. “Easy, love, easy. We have plenty of time, hours and hours of time.”