by Sharon Sala
“God,” he said softly, and braked in reflex. He was at the point of wondering whether to fight or run when Glory awoke and stirred.
“Are we home?” She rubbed sleepily at her eyes, and it was only after Wyatt grabbed her by the arm that she realized something was wrong.
She looked up. “It’s all right,” she said. “They’re neighbors.” Before Wyatt could react, she got out of the car, beckoning for him to follow.
When Edward Lee came straggling out of the trees behind them, Wyatt began to relax.
Glory smiled and motioned Wyatt to her side.
“Hey, Mornin’ Glory,” Edward Lee said, and barged through the men as if they were not even there. He threw his arms around her neck, hugging her in a happy, childlike way. “Me and Daddy have been waitin’ for you.”
Glory nodded, and then watched as Edward Lee’s father took him in hand. Although Liam Fowler was a very big man, his touch and words were slow and gentle.
“That’s enough, Edward Lee. We came to talk business, remember?”
Edward Lee smiled, pleased to be a part of anything his father did. And then he remembered Wyatt and pointed.
“This is Wyatt Hatfield. Wyatt is my friend,” he announced.
“That’s good, son.” Liam Fowler’s teeth were white through the thickness of his beard, as he acknowledged Wyatt with a nod. “But we need to do what we came to do, remember?”
Wyatt tensed. “And that is?”
“We came to warn you,” Liam said. “There’s a stranger in the woods.”
Glory swayed. The shock on her face was too new to hide. She turned and fell into Wyatt’s arms with a muffled moan. “Oh, God, will this never end?”
“Don’t, honey,” Wyatt said softly, and wrapped his arms firmly around her, willing her to feel his strength, because it was all that he had to give.
Because she was too weary and heartsick to stand on her own, she let Wyatt hold her, trusting him to face what she could not.
The men shuffled their feet, looking everywhere but at each other, uncomfortable with her fear because they had no way to stop it.
“How do you know about the stranger?” Wyatt asked. “Did you see him? Did you talk to him?”
Several of the men chuckled and then they all looked to Liam Fowler to answer. Obviously they knew more than they were telling.
Liam smiled. “You could say that,” he said. “Now, back to the business of why we’re here.” He gave Wyatt a long, considering look. “My son says that you’re a good man.”
Edward Lee almost strutted with importance. It wasn’t often that grown men took anything he said to heart.
Wyatt smiled at him, and then waited.
“He says that you came to take care of Glory,” Liam persisted.
“Yes, sir, I did that,” Wyatt said.
“We feel right ashamed that it took a stranger to do what we should have done on our own,” Liam said. “Glory sort of belongs to us now, what with her family passin’ and all.”
Wyatt’s arms tightened around Glory’s shoulders. “No, sir. She doesn’t belong to you. Not anymore.”
When Glory suddenly stilled then shifted within his embrace, Wyatt tightened his hold and looked down, wondering if she would challenge him here in front of everyone. To his relief, he saw nothing but surprise and a little bit of shock, and knew that she hadn’t been prepared for what he’d said.
The men came to attention, each gauging Wyatt with new interest as they heard and accepted the underlying message of his words. He’d laid claim to a woman most of them feared. More than one of them wondered if he knew what he was getting into, but as was their way, no one voiced a concern. Live and let live was a motto that had served them well for several centuries, and they had no reason to change their beliefs. Not even for a stranger.
Finally, it was Liam who broke the silence. “So, it’s that way, then?”
Wyatt nodded.
Liam reached out, touching the crown of Glory’s head in a gentle caress. “Glory, girl, are you of the same mind?”
Without looking at Wyatt, she turned, facing the men within the safety of Wyatt’s arms. “Yes, sir, I suppose that I am.”
So great was his joy that Wyatt wanted to grin. But this wasn’t the time, and with these somber men judging his every move, it also wasn’t the place. Like dark crows on a fence, they watched, unmoving, waiting for the big, bearded man to speak for them all. So he did.
“Then that’s fine,” Liam said, and offered Wyatt his hand. “Know that while you’re on this land, within the boundaries of our hills, you will be safe. We guarantee that to you. But when you take her away from here, her safety is in your hands.”
Aware of the solemnity of the moment, Glory stepped aside as Wyatt moved forward, taking the hand that was offered. And then each man passed, sealing their vow with a firm handshake and a long hard look. When it was over, they had new respect for the stranger who’d come into their midst, and Wyatt felt relief that he was no longer in this alone. And then he noticed that Edward Lee had stayed behind.
“Edward Lee, aren’t you going to shake my hand, too?”
Wyatt’s quiet voice broke the awkward silence, and his request made a friend of Liam Fowler for life. Wyatt had instinctively understood how the young man wanted so badly to belong.
He looked to his father, a poignant plea in his voice. “Daddy?”
Liam nodded, then took a long, deep breath as Edward Lee mimicked the seriousness of the occasion by offering Wyatt his hand without his usual smile. But the moment the handshake was over, he threw his arms around Wyatt’s neck in a boisterous hug, and when he turned back around, the smile on his face was infectious. Everyone laughed. But not at him…with him. His joy was impossible to ignore.
“Then we’ll be going,” Liam said, and smiled gently at Glory. “Rest easy tonight, little girl. Your man just got himself some help.”
“I don’t know how to thank you,” Wyatt said. “But be careful. Whoever is trying to harm Glory isn’t giving up.”
They nodded, then walked away. They were almost into the trees when Glory called out, then ran toward them. They paused and turned, waiting for whatever she had to say.
She stopped a few feet away, unaware that she’d stopped in a halo of late-evening sun. The blue of her dress matched the color of her eyes, and the hair drifting around her face and down her back lifted and fell with the demands of the breeze blowing through the clearing. More than one man had the notion that he was standing before an angel. Her eyes were brimming, her lips shaking with unshed emotion. But her voice was steady as she said what was in her heart.
“God bless you,” she whispered. “My daddy was proud to call you his friends. Now I understand why.”
Moved beyond words, they took her praise in stoic silence, and when they were certain she was through, turned and walked away without answering. Glory watched until they were gone, and then she turned.
Wyatt was waiting, and the look in his eyes made her shake. He was her man. He’d laid a claim before her people that they did not take lightly. And from the expression on his face, neither did he.
Chapter 11
Glory’s eyes widened as Wyatt started toward her. Later, she would remember thinking that he moved like a big cat, powerful, but full of grace. But now, there was nothing on her mind but the look on his face and the way that his eyes raked her body.
She held her breath, wondering if she was woman enough to hold this wild, footloose man. And when he was close enough to touch her, he combed his fingers through the hair on either side of her face, and lowered his head. When his mouth moved across her face and centered upon her lips, the breath she’d been holding slipped out on a sigh. The impact of the joining was unexpected. She wasn’t prepared for the reverence in his touch, or the desperation with which he held her.
Wyatt was absorbed by her love, drawn into a force that he couldn’t control. It took everything he had to remember that they were standing in plain
sight of whoever cared to look, and that she was still bruised and sore from yesterday’s scrape with death. He groaned, then lifted his head, and when she would have protested, he silenced her plea by pressing his forefinger across her lips.
“Glory, I’m sorry. I almost forgot that you…”
“Take me to bed. Make me forget all this horror. Give me something to remember besides fear. I’m so tired of being afraid.”
Ah, God.
She slipped beneath his arm, the top of her head way below his chin, and then looked up. Her silver-blue stare widened apprehensively as she waited for his response.
At that moment, Wyatt wasn’t so sure that he couldn’t have walked on water.
“I love you, Glory Dixon.”
“I know,” she said softly. “It’s why I asked.”
Hand in hand, they entered the cabin, for once safe in the knowledge that someone was watching their backs. The lock clicked loudly within the silence of the old rooms, and then there was nothing to be heard but the ticking of Granny’s clock on the mantel, and the heartbeats hammering in their ears.
Glory was the first to move. She slid her hands beneath her hair, tugging at a zipper that wouldn’t give.
“Help me, Wyatt. I think my hair’s caught.”
And so am I, he thought, but never voiced his fear.
He thrust his hands beneath her gold strands, moving the heavy weight of her hair aside so he could see. His fingers shook as he unwound a strand from the metal tab. When it was free, he lifted the tab and pulled.
Slowly. Lower.
Revealing the delicate body that was so much a part of the woman he loved. Impulsively, he slid his hands beneath the fabric, circling her body and coming to rest upon the gentle thrust of her breasts. Glory sighed, then moaned, arching into his palms.
He shook, burning with the need to plunge deep within the sweetness of the woman in his hands, and yet he resisted. She wasn’t ready. It wasn’t time. She wanted to forget, and he hoped to hell he could remember what he was supposed to do, because every breath that he took was driving sanity further and further from his mind.
“Glory.”
Her name was a whisper on his lips as she moved out of his grasp. When her dress fell at her feet in a pool of blue, leaving her with nothing on but a scrap of nylon that barely covered her hips, he started to shake.
Twice he tried to unbutton his shirt, and each time, his fingers kept slipping off the buttons.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered, then yanked.
Buttons popped and rolled across the floor. Boots went one direction, his blue jeans another. Before Glory had time to think, he had her in his arms and was moving toward the bed with a distinct gleam in his eye.
They fell onto the quilt in a tangle of arms and legs as the last of their clothes hit the floor. At the last minute, Wyatt remembered protection, and scrambled for the drawer in the bedside table.
There was no time for slow, easy loving, or soft, whispered promises. The passion between them was about to ignite. Glory’s hands were on his shoulders, urging him down when he moved between her legs. When he slid inside, her eyelids fluttered, and then she wrapped her arms around his neck and followed where he wanted to go.
Rocking with the rhythm of their bodies, moments became endless as that sweet fire began to build. It was the time when the feeling was so good that it felt like it could go on forever. And then urgency slipped into the act, honing nerves already at the point of breaking.
One minute Wyatt was still in control, and the next thing he knew, she was arching up to meet him and crying out his name. He looked down, saw himself reflected in the pupils of her eyes, and felt as if he were drowning. A faint look of surprise was etched across her face as shock wave after shock wave ebbed and flowed throughout her body. Caught in the undertow, Wyatt couldn’t pull back, and then didn’t want to. He spilled all he was in the sweet act of love.
For Glory, time ceased. The problems of the world outside were momentarily forgotten. There was nothing that mattered but the man in her arms, and the love in his eyes. Seconds later he collapsed, lying with his head upon her breasts, and his fists tangled tightly in her hair.
Replete from their loving, Glory reached out with a satisfied sigh, tracing the breadth of his shoulders and combing her fingers through his hair, letting the thick, black strands fall where they might. Just as the sun sank below the horizon, she felt him relax and remembered last night, and how he’d stood watch while she slept.
Sleep, my love, she thought.
“Am I?” Wyatt asked.
Glory smiled. He’d done it again. “Are you what?” she asked, knowing full well what he was angling for.
“Your love.”
“What do you think?” she whispered.
He lifted his head, his eyes still black from burned-out passion. “I think I’m in heaven.”
She grinned. “No, you’re in my arms, and in Granny’s bed.”
He rolled, moving her from bottom to top. “Like I said…I’m in heaven.”
Before Glory could settle into a comfortable spot, Wyatt’s hands were doing things to her that, at the moment, she wouldn’t have thought it possible to feel.
She gasped, then moved against his fingers in a tantalizing circle. “I don’t know about heaven,” she whispered, and then closed her eyes and bit her lower lip, savoring the tiny spikes of pleasure that he’d already started. “But if you stop what you’re doing anytime soon, you’ll be in trouble.”
He laughed, then proved that he was man enough to finish what he had started.
Carter Foster stood at the window of his darkened house, peering through the curtains and cursing beneath his breath as the patrol car moved slowly past.
It wasn’t the first time it had circled his neighborhood. In fact, it was a normal patrol for the officer on duty. But in Carter’s mind, he saw the police searching for clues that would destroy his world. Guilt played strange tricks on a criminal’s mind.
He let the curtain drop and began to pace, wondering if he should pack and run before they got on his trail. With every day that Glory Dixon lived, his chances of getting away with murder decreased. And as a man who’d made his living on the good side of the law, he knew exactly how deep his trouble was.
He moved room by room through his house, jumping at shadows that took on sinister forms. Sounds that he’d heard all his life suddenly had ominous qualities he’d never considered. And the bed that he and Betty Jo had shared was an impossible place to rest. He sneaked by the room every night on his way to the guest room, unable to look inside, afraid that Betty Jo’s ghost would be sitting on the side of that bed with lipstick smeared across her face, and a torn dress riding up her white thighs.
“When this is over, I’ll sell the house and move,” he reminded himself. He had started down the hallway to get ready for bed when the phone rang.
Panicked by the unexpected sound, Carter flattened against the wall, and then cursed his stupidity when he realized it was nothing but the phone. He considered just letting it ring, and then knew that with the condition his life was in, he’d better take the call. Yet when he answered, he realized that, once again, he’d made the wrong decision. He should have let it ring.
“It’s me,” Bo growled.
“I can hear that,” Carter sneered. “Now unless you’ve called to tell me that you’ve finished something you so obviously botched last night, I don’t think we have a damn thing to discuss!”
“I called to tell you that you owe me four new tires,” Bo shouted.
Carter rolled his eyes. “Unless you get your butt in gear, I’m not going to owe you anything,” he shouted back.
“Look, this job is more involved than you led me to believe. I ruined four tires today saving my own hide from some crazy hillbilly. You’re gonna pay, or I know someone who’d be interested in my side of the incidents that have been happening to one Miss Glory Dixon.”
Carter went rigid with disbelief. This was
the last damned straw! The imbecile was trying to blackmail him. He took a deep breath and then grinned. Marker’s gorilla brain was no match for his courtroom skills.
“Well, now, I’d be real careful before I went running to the law,” Carter sneered. “They’d have nothing on me, and you have a rap sheet that dates back to your youth. You’re the one who got bitten by a dog, and I’m a respectable lawyer. If some hillbilly took after you, why would they want to blame me? It wasn’t my face that man saw, it was yours. And…to top that off, you’re the one who stole a car and tried to run someone down, in front of the chief of police, no less. Now, you can talk all you want, but there is nothing…absolutely nothing…that links me to you. Not a dollar. Not a piece of paper. Nothing!”
Bo’s response sounded nervous enough. “There’s got to be a reason you want that Dixon woman dead, and I have no reason at all to care one way or another. If I tell them what I—”
Carter was so angry, he was shaking, but it didn’t deter him from ending their argument with a resounding blow. One that got Bo’s attention all too painfully.
“You do what you’re told!” Carter screamed. “That crazy witch could ruin me. But so help me God, if you talk, I’ll make it my personal responsibility to see that you spend the rest of your life behind bars.”
“Now, see here,” Marker growled. “You can’t—”
“Oh, yes, I can,” Carter said. “Now. Either do what you were hired to do, or leave me the hell alone. Understand?”
Bo frowned, then slammed the phone back on the receiver. That had not gone exactly as planned.
“Now what?” he muttered.
He frowned, cursing both Carter and bad luck, and started up the street toward his house. Somewhere between now and morning, he had to find himself four new tires, or he’d never be able to finish the job. And, if he had to steal them, which was his first choice of procedure, he could hardly be rolling the damned things down the street. He needed another pair of hands and a good pickup truck. As he walked, he wondered if his old friend, Frankie Munroe, was still around.