She reached for him.
He was gone.
* * *
He should be, Luke thought, drained. Dry. Spent. Amelia had driven him to the point of madness and then beyond. He'd never had such a wild night in his life, and that it was Amelia who had done it only made it more incredible. He shouldn't even be able to move.
Yet he was strangely churned up, strung so tight that he'd had to do something. He felt like he did after taking folks on a good run down Cherry Creek for the first time: tired from the exertion, but ablaze with exhilaration. He'd tried to stay still; he didn't want to disturb Amelia, especially when she lay sleeping close against him so trustingly. But he knew from experience there was only one way to handle this state of mind, and that was to walk it off.
So here he was, wandering the midnight dark streets of Santiago Beach once more. And thinking.
He wanted to simply revel in what he and Amelia had found, that incredible fire, but he couldn't help wondering what would happen now. Walking away from such incredible passion, something he'd never thought to find for himself, seemed impossible. But so did the idea of his rough and tumble world ever melding with Amelia's quiet existence.
The river was his life. He tried to picture himself living somewhere else—not even Santiago Beach, necessarily, just anywhere that didn't have a river to run. It made him ache inside, an echo of the pain he'd battled every day before he'd escaped this place and found his life.
But picturing himself going back to that life now, never seeing Amelia again, never seeing the flashes of sharp wit dart from behind that reserved mask, never seeing that shy smile, never hearing that sweet laugh again, never having another night like they'd just had...
He shook his head sharply. He told himself not to think about it, not to tarnish the moment, to concentrate on the here and now. Just think about today, not tomorrow. Once that had been the mantra that had helped him survive; now it seemed sadly ineffective.
He couldn't come back here. He knew that. That he was even thinking about it long enough to decide that shocked him. He didn't even like the idea of coming back periodically, although if that was the only way to see her, he supposed he would just have to get over it. Sure, it was a long ride, seven hours each way, but if he had to, he had to. But seeing her once a week—less during the peak rafting season, when they were all working like crazy every day—didn't seem a very satisfying solution. Not to mention the guilt. He'd already been gone longer than he'd planned, and he knew Gary had to be doing double duty to make up for his absence.
He reached Main Street and turned south, toward Amelia's store for no other reason than that it was hers. He stopped in front of it for a moment, looking in the darkened window. The beach display looked rather eerie in the dark, as if the people who had been reading those books in the sun had vanished by nightfall, leaving everything behind.
He could just see the comer of her office from here. Heat blasted through him at the memory of what had almost happened there, which brought on an even more powerful memory of what had happened tonight, in that wonderfully wicked bed of hers.
Keep walking, he told himself, knowing that if he didn't, he was going to head back to her place at a run, slide back into bed with her and make them both even rawer than they already were from a night of making love as if the sun wasn't going to rise.
He walked on, hands jammed in his pockets.
He couldn't picture her leaving here. She was settled here, with a business, a house—her parents' house—why on earth would she leave? And even if she would, what did he have to offer? He lived in a small cabin that wouldn't hold even half of her things, and—
He stopped in his tracks, suddenly realizing what he was thinking. Was he ready for this?
He made himself start walking again.
The idea of being with Amelia day in and day out was certainly attractive, but he knew she wasn't the type for a casual affair. When it came down to it, neither was he; he'd gone through a brief stage as a teenager when he'd mistaken sex for love, when he'd found comfort in the closeness to another person, and had hungered for it from whatever girl would give it to him. But he'd soon realized the girls who would give it to him wanted the tough, notorious Luke McGuire, not a boy looking for a comfort he'd never gotten and hadn't been sure existed.
Gary and his wife had finally shown him what real love was like, the give and take, the mutual concern, the silent communication, the laughter, the tears, the incredible closeness. He'd lived with their example before him for years now, and had pretty much decided it was a very rare miracle. He had never expected to find a woman who made him think it might be possible for him.
Love? Was that what he was feeling? He'd never really been in love before. Had never really been able to picture himself together with anyone in the way Gary and Diane were together.
But he could picture it with Amelia.
His steps slowed. His mind was instinctively shying away from this revelation, looking for something, anything, else to think about, so he could shove this back into his pack and take it out later, when he was calmer. Later, when he wasn't still humming with the pleasure of her touch.
He realized he was nearing the library. That would do, he thought. He would give that crawl space another check. He didn't have the flashlight, but he should be able to hear if anyone was there, in the nighttime silence.
He picked up his pace, glad to have the distraction of a destination. He took the shortcut, the walkway that ran between the community center that faced Main Street and the library that faced Cabrillo Street behind it. The notices posted on the community center bulletin board lifted in the slight sea breeze, drawing his eye for a moment.
His mouth quirked when he saw the flyer for his mother's speech. He let out a compressed breath, surprised at himself when he realized his main reaction was one of amusement. And for the first time he wondered how much worse his life might have been had she not found this outlet for her hatred.
He moved on, leaving the flyer behind him.
He was going to leave the hatred behind him, too, Luke determined as he rounded the comer to head for the library.
And ran head on into David.
Chapter 16
Luke expected David to run when he grabbed his arm, but the boy just stood there. He was clearly startled by his brother's sudden appearance, but he looked chastened and small somehow, his usual cocky demeanor vanished. There were smudges of dirt on his cheek and jaw, and his clothes were a bit worse for wear. He looked ragged, afraid and exhausted.
For Luke, it was like looking back in time at himself, and while he was still pretty peeved at the boy for trying to rip off Amelia, he couldn't bring himself to vent at him now. Besides, if Amelia could forgive the kid, he certainly could. He was his brother, after all.
"You win," he said.
David looked up. "What?"
"I didn't think anybody could be stupider than I was at your age. Obviously I was wrong."
That didn't even get a rise out of him. The boy just lowered his gaze to his shoes again, as if he didn't even have the energy to fight back anymore. Luke had been there, too, down, beaten, on the edge of giving up. The last of his anger died away. He reached out and put his arm around his brother's shoulders. He drew the boy over to a bench in the library courtyard. David stiffened, as if he were going to resist sitting down, but then gave in.
"Good thing being stupid now doesn't mean you have to be stupid forever," Luke said.
David shook his head. Luke sighed. "It doesn't," he insisted. "Look, Amelia was pretty upset about the check. She felt... as betrayed as you did when I couldn't take you to live with me."
David's shoulders shook under his arm. He couldn't really see the boy's face, but he could guess what it looked like. His natural urge was to comfort his brother, but he also knew that he would never have a better chance to get through to him. Knew that with all his defenses down, the boy might actually listen, and if he wai
ted until he recovered a little, those defenses would get in the way again. So instead of easing up, he bore down.
"You know, if you'd needed money that badly and you wouldn't come to me, you could have asked her. I'll bet she'd have helped. You didn't have to steal that check."
"I didn't steal it! I didn't even know they did it!"
The words broke from the boy in a rush. He sounded desperate, the kind of desperate Luke knew too well, when nobody would believe you, even when you were telling the truth.
Maybe Amelia had been right all along about who had taken the check. He decided to push a little more.
"Then those are some friends you have there. Cornering a lone woman like that, waving a knife at her so she doesn't notice when they rip her off."
David's head snapped up. Luke saw his eyes gleam for a moment in the dark.
"At least you weren't with them then. That would have broken her heart."
David lowered his gaze once more. "I wouldn't hurt Amelia."
There was a strange, almost vibrating tension in David's voice. It made Luke frown uneasily. And again he had to force himself to be tough. If had any influence left with his brother at all, he had to use it now.
"Then why did you try and pass that check?"
"They made me."
Luke gave a disbelieving snort. "Oh, please. That's such a kid's excuse. "They made me,'" he repeated, in a babyish voice.
"They did!" David's voice rose. "It wasn't my fault. I wouldn't hurt Amelia! But I couldn't stop them. I tried, I really tried, but I couldn't, and now they're gonna do it, and it'll be my fault!"
Luke went very still. Something had changed here, something important. That slip of tense wasn't an accident. David wasn't just talking about the check anymore; Luke could feel it. "Going to do what?"
David didn't answer. Luke heard a ragged sniffle, knew the boy was fighting breaking down completely. He reached out and gripped his brother's shoulders, turning him to face him. He saw then, in the dim glow of the building's exterior lights, that what he'd thought was dirt were instead bruises. Fresh ones, if he was any judge, and he was.
"David!" he snapped. "What are they going to do?"
David swallowed. "I can't tell you. They'll beat me up."
"Looks like they already have."
"They'll do it worse."
"I may help them along if you don't tell me what the hell is going on."
David cringed, then said, "They're... really mad at Amelia for that night you guys got in a fight. Snake doesn't like it that a girl made them run."
"I'll bet he doesn't," Luke said, suppressing a grin at the memory of Amelia's flying kick. Then, abruptly, he made the connection. "You mean they want revenge? On Amelia?"
David didn't answer, but Luke knew. His stomach knotted.
The thought of Amelia hurt, or worse, struck a terror into him that no raging torrent of a river ever had. And in that moment he knew just how deep his feelings for her ran. He had his answer; it was most definitely love.
"And you claim them as yow friends," he said to David acidly.
"I thought they were. But they were just using me." David did sniff this time. "I found out they only let me hang out with them because of where I live. They wanted an excuse to hang out in that neighborhood."
"So they could rip off the houses," Luke guessed, and David nodded miserably.
"I thought they were my friends," he whined. "I thought they were like you, and it would make my mom mad if I hung with them. She didn't even care that my dad died, and I wanted to get back at her—''
"Just shut up!" Luke found himself suddenly devoid of patience, compassion and gentleness. "Why don't you grow up? At least you had a dad who loved you for fifteen years. But do you appreciate that? Do you try to honor his memory? No, you go out and find a bunch of dirty, stupid losers for friends, cowards who gang up on a woman."
David was shuddering now, his shoulders heaving as he gulped back sobs. Luke was merciless, both out of his rage that anyone would deliberately hurt Amelia and his certainty that only by hitting absolute bottom could David start over, as he had.
"If they had any balls they'd come after me, not Amelia. And you're turning into one of them, a sneaking, sniveling coward who lets guys who are just using him coerce him into stealing from the best friend he has left."
David broke, tears streaming down his bruised face. Luke felt a pang; having the brother you'd once idolized chew you to bits couldn't be easy.
"I didn't mean it," David hiccuped. "I just wanted her to care. I just wanted her to notice he was gone!"
Luke knew who he meant, but right now his mother didn't concern him. "What are they planning?"
"I don't know."
"Don't give me any bull. What are they planning?"
"I don't know!" David insisted. "They wouldn't tell me. I tried to get them to, but that's when they started hitting me."
"They must have said something. You must have heard something."
David shook his head. "I don't know anything! They beat me up and then told me to get lost, 'cuz Snake didn't want me riding in his new car."
Luke stiffened. "He was getting a car?"
David hiccuped again, then nodded. "He bought it with the cash he got from selling the VCRs and camcorders they ripped off from all our neighbors. It's not new, but he was gettin' a big stereo put in today, with a CD changer."
Luke felt a chill. A gang of thugs. Knives. A thirst for revenge. They dump the one kid who doesn't want to play.
And now they had wheels.
"Why didn't he want you in it?"
"I dunno." David wiped at his eyes. "He said something about tonight bein' a special night, with the car, I guess, and I should just wait and be quiet."
A special night...
Amelia.
"Son of a bitch!"
Luke's heart slammed into overdrive, and he leapt to his feet. David gaped at him.
"What's wrong?" he asked, a little timidly. Luke grabbed him by one arm and hauled him to his feet.
"Don't you get it, you idiot? They're going after Amelia tonight! They're going after her, and I left her there, all alone."
David swayed on his feet. Luke cut him no slack.
"Your house is closer," he snapped, and started dragging the boy at a run. But as the situation penetrated David's emotionally battered mind, soon Luke didn't have to drag him; David started running on his own.
It was two blocks, mostly uphill, but Luke never let his pace falter. He had to get to Amelia, and this was the quickest way, even if it meant facing his mother again. Nothing mattered beside Amelia's safety, and he was very much afraid he might already be too late.
* * *
Amelia sat in the bed Luke had called deliciously wicked and wondered why he'd left her. She wrapped her arms around her knees, curling up against the pain. It didn't help. She bit her lip, fighting tears. She tried not to look when the bedside clock clicked over another minute; she knew it was nearly one, knew it all too well.
When she'd awakened alone, she'd hoped he was just somewhere else in the house. She could see he wasn't in the bathroom off her bedroom, but she'd waited, certain he was here and would be back with her any moment. The kitchen, perhaps, getting a drink, or maybe needing something from the saddlebag on his bike. She'd even blushed then, thinking that if they kept this up, he was going to need a very large box of condoms.
But he hadn't come back. And his clothes, the clothes she'd helped him shed so eagerly, were gone. Even his shoes, which seemed somehow the most ominous thing of all.
She'd looked for a note on his pillow, on the nightstand, the dresser, some sign, anything. She'd found nothing. And now she was just sitting here, an aching, ridiculous stereotype of a weeping, abandoned woman.
Just how big a fool had she been? Now that he'd gotten what he'd wanted, had he just abandoned her? Was she already forgotten, nothing more than a memory among many memories? They'd never talked about that,
about past lovers, fool that she was. She'd thought about it, but she'd wanted him no matter what the answer, so she cravenly hadn't asked.
I wonder where I rank on that list of memories?
It didn't seem possible. How could she doubt him, after the hours they'd just spent? He'd made love to her with a wild urgency she couldn't believe was faked. And then with a gentle tenderness that was even harder to believe wasn't real.
But she was admittedly naive, and Luke was undoubtedly gone.
Okay, she told herself firmly, he's gone. He could have a perfectly good reason. Something he forgot he had to do, or maybe he'd had an idea about David and hadn't wanted to wake her while he checked it out.
But he would have left a note, wouldn't he? Or would he? She didn't have enough experience in such things to judge. Was it asking too much to expect him to let her know? Was she hopelessly old-fashioned, or was Luke too much of a free spirit to be tied down by a woman who panicked when she woke up alone?
It hit her then, belatedly. She'd awakened alone. Luke had already been gone. But she hadn't heard a thing. She wasn't surprised, after the night they'd spent, that she'd slept through him rising, getting dressed and leaving the house.
But there was no way on earth she would have slept through the snarl of the Harley starting up.
She leapt out of bed and fairly raced out of her bedroom, across the living room and into the kitchen, where a side window looked out onto the carport, where he'd parked the bike. She leaned over the sink, peering through the darkness.
Just in front of her car's bumper, she saw the faint gleam of a polished black fender, the slightly brighter gleam of a silver pipe lower down.
Her heels hit the floor. Her eyes brimmed and overflowed. She bit her lip, and her fingers curled into fists.
He had left her a message. The biggest one he could.
He was coming back.
She started to laugh at herself through the tears and nearly choked. Lord, if that wasn't the perfect demonstration of her idiotic state. She was a fool, all right.
But at least she wasn't the kind of fool she'd thought she was.
The Reture of Luke McGuire Page 19