by Sharon Sala
Chapter 6
Wyatt sat across the table from Glory, nursing a cup of coffee and watching the play of emotions upon her face as she went through the photographs she’d been given yesterday. At least they gave her pleasure, which was more than he could do. He’d lain in bed last night right across the hall from her door, listening for nearly an hour to her muffled sobs. It had been all he could do not to cross the hall and yank her out of that bed and into his arms. No one should have to cry like that alone.
Glory knew that Wyatt was watching her. Those dark eyes of his did things to her fantasies they had no business doing. They made her think things she shouldn’t, and want things she couldn’t have. She should be thinking of him as nothing but a kind stranger, yet with each passing hour, he became more of a permanent fixture in her thoughts.
She sighed.
Thinking like that could get her hurt…very, very badly, and losing her family had been hurt enough. This man had already admitted to having doubts about himself. She didn’t need to be falling for a man who would be here today and gone tomorrow. Glory was a forever kind of woman. She needed a forever kind of man.
The pictures slipped from her fingers and into her lap as she closed her eyes and leaned back against the couch, letting herself imagine what forever with Wyatt Hatfield might be like.
As her eyes closed and her head tilted backward, Wyatt froze. The delicate arch of her bare neck and the flutter of those gold-tinged eyelashes upon her cheeks were a taunting temptation to a man with deep need. He set his cup aside then got up, intent on walking out of the room before he got himself in trouble, wishing he’d gone to run the errands instead of Lane. But when he reached the doorway, he made a mistake. He looked back and got caught in a silver-blue spell.
There was a question in her eyes and a stillness in her body, as if she were waiting for something to happen. Wyatt ached for her…and for himself, well aware of just what it might be if he didn’t readjust his thinking.
Suddenly, some of the pictures slid out of her lap onto the floor. He reacted before he remembered his intention to keep his distance, and was on his knees at her side, scooping them up and placing them on the table, before she could move.
Glory focused her attention on his hands, seeing strength in the broad palms, tenderness in the long, supple fingers and determination in the man himself as he persisted until every picture that she’d dropped was picked up. Forgetting the fact that he could tap into her thoughts at any given moment, she pictured those hands moving upon her body instead, and softly sighed.
“Here you go,” he said, and started to drop the last of the pictures in her lap when an image drifted through his mind. Skin…smooth to the touch, dampened by a faint sheen of perspiration. A pulse racing beneath it…a heartbeat gone wild beneath his fingertips. He rocked back on his feet and looked up at her.
Ah, God, Wyatt thought.
Glory saw the tension in his body, heard his swift intake of breath and remembered too late that, once again, she’d let him inside her mind. She held her breath, afraid to speak. How would he react, and what should she do? Ignore it…and him?
And then he lifted the pictures out of her lap and dropped them onto the cushion beside her, taking the decision out of her hands.
Mouths met. The introduction was short. It went from tentative to demanding in three short ticks of a clock.
Her lips were as soft as he’d imagined, yielding to a silent question he did not have the nerve to ask, then begging for more of the same. The sweetness of her compliance and the shock of their connection were more than he’d bargained for. Her breath was swift upon his cheek, her passion unexpected, and when he lifted his head from the kiss, as yet unfulfilled.
Oh, Wyatt!
“My sentiments exactly,” he whispered, and ran his thumb across her lips where his mouth had just been. “Lord help us, Glory, but where do we go from here?”
Outside, the pup began to bark. Wyatt was on his feet in an instant, and out the door. The moment had passed.
Glory groaned, then buried her face in her hands. She’d been saved from having to respond. It was a small, but much needed, respite, because she had no answer for Wyatt. Not now, and maybe, not ever.
Lane followed Wyatt back into the house, unaware of what he’d interrupted, and blurted out what had been on his mind all night.
“Glory, can you turn that psychic business of yours on at will?”
She seemed startled by the question, yet understanding dawned as to where he was leading.
“I’ve never tried. In fact, it’s been quite the opposite. I’ve tried more than once to stop what I see, but I’ve never tried to start it.”
“Don’t you think now might be a good time to practice?” he asked.
Wyatt wanted to argue. Instinct told him this was too much too soon, but it was Glory’s life that was on the line. It was her family who’d died. The least he could do was let her make the decision. Yet when she nodded, he frowned.
“Are you sure?” Wyatt asked.
She looked at him with a clear gaze. “About some things, no. About this, yes.”
He didn’t have to be a genius to read between the lines of her answer. She wasn’t sure about what had just happened between them, but she was ready to try anything in order to find the person responsible for her father’s and brother’s deaths. All in all, he had to admit that her answer was more than fair.
“Then let’s go,” Lane said.
“Where to?” she asked.
“To where it all started.”
Glory blanched, and in a panic, looked to Wyatt for support.
“I’m with you all the way,” he said softly. “Want to walk, or ride?”
“Ride, I think. The sooner we get there, the sooner it’s over.”
The drive was short, but the silence between the trio was long. When Glory got out of the car, she had to make herself look at the spot where her house had been standing. The blackened timbers and the rock foundation more resembled some prehistoric skeleton than the remnants of a home. It hurt to look at it and remember what had happened. But, she reminded herself, that was why she’d come.
Wyatt’s hand cupped her shoulder. “How do you want to do this?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Just let me walk around a little, maybe something will happen. I told you, I’ve never tried this before.”
Lane had already found himself a seat in the shade. He watched Wyatt and Glory from a distance, thinking to himself that there seemed to be a lot more between them than the simple repayment of a debt. Wyatt hovered like a watchdog, and Glory kept looking to him for more than support.
Lane’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as Wyatt caressed the crown of her head, his fingers lingering longer than necessary in the long, silvery length. When he cupped her face with the palm of his hand, an observer might have supposed it were nothing more than a comforting touch. But Lane knew better. He saw the way Glory leaned into Wyatt’s hand, and even from here, he could see a glow on her face that had nothing to do with the heat of the sun. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a slow fire burning beneath those two. Only time would tell whether it caught…or whether it burned out of its own accord.
Wyatt retreated, giving Glory space and time, but watched with a nervous eye as she paused on what was left of the back porch steps.
As she stepped over the block foundation and then down onto the ground below, she stumbled. Instinctively, Wyatt started toward her, but then she caught herself, and so he paused and waited, watching as she started to move through the ash and the rubble.
Wyatt suddenly noticed that something seemed different about the site. It took a few moments for the reality to sink in. “That yellow crime scene tape is gone!”
Lane nodded. “They took it down after the fire marshal left. He said that it was impossible to preserve much of anything out in the open like this, and so he collected all of the evidence that he could. I think they took two or three of the small heating sto
ves in as evidence and took pictures of the rest.”
“This is a hell of a deal, isn’t it?” Wyatt muttered, taking consolation from Lane’s comforting thump on his back.
Time passed slowly for the men, but Glory was reliving an entire lifetime as she walked through the rubble, and it was all too short a time considering what was now left.
She stood, looking out across the broken foundation, trying to picture the man who’d invaded their home, and instead saw herself as a child, running to meet her father as he came in from milking. Seeing, through her mind, the way the solemnity of his expression always broke when he smiled. Almost feeling his hands as they circled her waist, lifting her high over his head and then spinning her around. Hearing his deep, booming laughter when he set her on his shoulders and she used his ears for an anchor by which to hold.
Oh, God, Glory thought, and swayed on her feet, overwhelmed by the emotion.
Angrily, she turned away, unwilling to savor the memory because of her loss. Black soot and ash coated the legs of her jeans and the tops of her boots as she trudged through what had once been rooms. Without walls to hold the love that had abounded within, the area looked pitifully small.
Again she stumbled, and something crunched beneath her boot. She bent over, sifting through the rubble to see what it had been. When she lifted it out, she choked back a sob. “Oh, no! I broke one of J.C.’s arrowheads.”
She looked back down, and then gasped. There were dozens of them everywhere, shattered into remnants of their former beauty. What the explosion and fire hadn’t ruined, the men who’d conducted the investigation had.
Tears flooded her eyes, then poured down her face, streaking the faint coat of ash on her skin as rage sifted through the pain.
Damn this all to hell!
She closed her fingers around the broken bits, squeezing until they cut into the palm of her hand. Anger boiled, then spilled, rocking her with its power. On the verge of a scream, she drew back her arm and threw. The broken pieces skipped through the air like rocks on water, and then disappeared in the grass a good distance away.
She was shaking when she turned, swiping angrily at the tears on her face. Crying would get her nowhere. She’d come to try and help find out who killed her family, not feel sorry for herself.
Wyatt could tell something monumental had just occurred. Her pain was as vivid to him as if it was his own. And when she turned toward them with tears running rampant down her face, he jumped to his feet.
“Damn it, that’s enough,” Wyatt said, and started to go after her.
Lane grabbed him by the arm. “Don’t do it, brother. She’ll stop when she’s ready. Don’t underestimate your woman. She survived real good on her own before you came. She’s tough enough to do it when you’re gone.”
The look Wyatt gave him would have stopped a truck. It was somewhere between anger that Lane had dared to limit the time that was between them, and fear that he might be right.
Wyatt turned, unaware that the look he was giving Glory was full of regret. “She’s not my woman, she’s…Oh hell.”
He bolted across the yard just as she staggered toward them. He caught her before her legs gave way.
“Glory…sweetheart…are you all right?”
His voice was anxious, his hands gentle as he steadied her on her feet. When she looked up, her face was grim and tinged with defeat, and for the first time since he’d come, he heard surrender in the tone of her voice.
“Damn, damn, damn. Nothing worked. Absolutely nothing. I couldn’t think of him for remembering Daddy and J.C. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t do it.”
“To hell with this,” he muttered. “I’m taking you home.”
Her face was flushed and beaded with sweat, but her mouth twisted angrily as she looked over his shoulder. The dust of death was on her clothes, up her nostrils, coating her skin. At that moment, she hated. She hated her father and brother for leaving her, and herself for having survived. Pain came out cloaked in fury as she pointed to where she’d been.
“I am home, remember?” and she tried to push him away.
Wyatt ignored her anger, understanding it for what it was, and braced her with his hand. She trembled against him like a leaf in a storm.
Lane decided it was a good time to interrupt.
“Look, Glory, don’t let it worry you. It was just an idea. I think I’m going to run into town and check on a few things. You just take it easy. We’ll find him the good old-fashioned way.” And then Lane gave Wyatt a long, considering stare. “I trust you’ll take good care of her?”
Wyatt glared at the knowing look in Lane’s eyes, then ignored him. When he thought about it, his brother-in-law could be a big fat nuisance.
“You’re coming with me, Glory. You need a cool bath, a change of clothes and something to eat.”
His proprietary manner was too new…and at this time, too much to absorb. She pushed his hand away. “Let me be, Wyatt. Don’t you understand? I just want to be left alone.”
Frustration was at the source of her anger, but the fact that he’d been indirectly caught in its path, hurt. He stepped back, holding up his hands as if he’d just been arrested, and gave her the space that she obviously needed.
“You don’t want help? Fine. You don’t want to talk to me? That’s fine, too. But you don’t get to be alone. You can have distance, but you don’t get alone. Not until the son of a bitch is found who set fire to your world. So, do you want to maintain your solitary state in the front seat of my car while I drive, or shall I follow at a discreet distance while you walk?”
Lane hid a grin and headed for his car, thinking he’d be better off gone when the fireworks started. He’d heard that kind of mule-headed attitude before, only it had come out of Toni’s mouth, not Wyatt’s. Obviously that streak ran deep in the Hatfield clan. He wondered if Glory Dixon was up to the fight.
They were still staring, eye to eye, toe to toe, when the sound of Lane’s car could no longer be heard.
Wyatt’s eyes glittered darkly. He’d never wanted to swing a woman over his shoulder as badly as he did at this moment. For two cents, he’d…
I’m sorry.
“Well, hell,” he grumbled, resisting the urge to kiss the droop of her lower lip. “If that’s not just like a woman, expecting me to read her sweet mind for an apology.”
Glory sighed, and then tried to smile. And when she held out her hand, he caught it, holding tighter than necessary as he pulled her up close.
“Apology accepted,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, too.”
“For what?” Glory asked. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Wyatt grinned wryly. “I’d like to get that in writing,” he said. “I know people who’d beg to differ.”
But despair kept pulling her deeper and deeper back into herself. “Dear God, Wyatt, there’s nothing left to do but wait for him to try again.”
He grabbed her by the arms and shook her, hating her for the fatalistic attitude. “Don’t! Don’t you even suggest that to me! You can’t turn my world upside down, get into my mind and then give up on yourself without a damn fight! Do you hear me?”
After that, for a long, silent moment, neither spoke. And then Glory slowly lifted her finger and traced the path of the scar down the side of his face.
“Such a warrior.”
Wyatt’s confusion was obvious. “A what?”
Glory smiled, not much, but enough to let him know that he was off the hook. “You make me think of a warrior. For a while there, I forgot that you’d been a soldier. I’m sorry. I won’t take you lightly, ever again.”
“Well, then,” he muttered, at a loss for anything else to say.
Glory nodded, glad she was forgiven, and then turned back to stare at the rubble. Long minutes passed during which the expression on her face never changed, but when she abruptly straightened and put her hands on her hips, there was a glint in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. Wyatt didn’t know whether to be glad,
or get worried.
“Wyatt.”
“What?”
“I am going to rebuild.”
His heart surged, and then he paled. Dear God, if only I could be that certain about my life.
“And, since you’re bound and determined to dog my steps, you’re about to get as dirty as I am.” She headed for the barn with Wyatt right behind her.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, as she began to push back the wide double doors hanging on tracks.
“I am going to clean house,” she said. “Help me push this last door back. It always sticks.”
Without giving himself time to argue, he did as he was told, and then watched her climb behind the steering wheel of an old one-ton truck that had been parked behind the doors.
“Better move,” she shouted, as the starter ground and the engine kicked to life. “The brakes aren’t so good. I’ll have to coast to a stop.”
“The hell you say,” he muttered, and then quickly moved aside, uncertain what to think of her newfound determination.
It was long past noon when Wyatt tossed the last board on the truck bed that it could possibly hold. Without thinking, he swiped at the sweat running down his face and then remembered the grime on his gloves and groaned. He yanked them off, but it was too late.
Glory turned to see what had happened, then started to smile. He frowned as she grinned.
“Well?” he grumbled, and she laughed aloud.
“What’s so funny?” he said, knowing full well he’d probably smeared ashes all over his face.
Glory closed her eyes and grimaced, pretending to be lost in deep thought, and then started to speak in a high singsong voice.
“I see a man. I see dirt. I see a man with a dirty face. I see…”
Her playful attitude pleased and surprised him, despite the fact that he was the butt of her joke. He grinned, then without warning, scooped her off her feet, threw her over his shoulder and stalked toward the well house near the barn.