by Sala, Sharon
“It will be again. Let me help.”
But it wasn’t really help. It was more like laying claim. He stripped her so fast she didn’t have time to be embarrassed. All of a sudden she was naked and Tate was coming out of his own clothes.
He slid onto the bed beside her, then cupped her breast and rolled her nipple between his thumb and finger, just enough to make her ache.
“I left a pretty girl and came back to a magnificent woman. You take my breath away.”
She combed her fingers through his hair the way she used to, loving the springy feel of it beneath her palms.
“Make love to me, Tate. I’ve learned the hard way that nothing lasts forever. I don’t want to die never knowing this again.”
His eyes narrowed sharply. “Don’t say that! You won’t die. I won’t let him hurt you.”
She shook her head. He couldn’t promise that, and anyway, she didn’t want to think about tomorrow.
“Just love me now. I won’t ask for more.”
So he did—smothering her with kisses, turning her on with his hands and his mouth until she was out of her mind.
Ignoring the pull of her healing stitches, she reached for him, encircling his erection with her fingers, feeling the surge of blood beneath the surface as it pulsed between her hands.
“Be with me...love me,” she whispered.
He rose up and then over her, parted her legs with a knee and then slid inside. She was hot and wet, and he came close to losing control before they even began.
Nola locked her legs around his waist as he braced himself above her, and when he began to move, she began to cry.
“Don’t,” he whispered, kissing the tears running down the sides of her face.
“Don’t talk,” she said, and kissed him long and hard until he forgot about words.
Nola closed her eyes, and just like that, the eight years without him were gone. She remembered it all: the catch in his breath, the beat of his heart, the play of muscles across his back. The blood rush in her body was almost frightening in its intensity. Making love with Tate meant relinquishing control, and she’d done it. With every thrust of his body, he took her closer to the edge. It felt good to play with fire when he was the one fanning the flames.
Tate had long since lost his ability to focus. He was just riding out the madness that was dragging him ever closer to the little death. When the climax hit him, she was already coming. All he could do was hold her, because he was beyond thought.
Nola moaned as the last ripples of her climax rolled through her.
“Oh, sweet Lord,” she whispered.
Tate kissed her chin, then her lips.
“I missed you, baby.”
“I missed you, too,” she said.
“I can’t move.”
She sighed. “And I don’t want to.”
Just as Tate closed his eyes, his cell phone began to ring.
“Oh, man,” he groaned, then rolled over and got the phone out of a pocket in his jeans.
“Is the television on?” Cameron asked.
“No, why?”
“Turn it on...pick a channel...any channel. Nola is front-page news.”
“Damn it,” Tate muttered, and grabbed his jeans as he headed for the living room.
Nola flew out of bed, dressing quickly as she followed him up the hall. She was still trying to wrestle her sore arm into her shirtsleeve when she heard her name on TV.
“What the hell?”
Tate upped the volume as they stared at the picture on the screen and listened to the newsreader.
“This is a still shot of well-known regional artist Nola Landry coming out of the doctor’s office. Miss Landry has just been identified as the only witness to the serial killer known as the Stormchaser. Although she says she was never close enough to see his face, she did witness the cold-blooded murder of three people who were stranded on the roof of their house just outside Queens Crossing, Louisiana. Landry herself was clinging to the branches of a tree she had climbed to escape the water’s wrath, hanging on for her life when the murders happened. Hours later she was rescued by members of the Louisiana National Guard in one of their choppers. Just two days ago the Stormchaser, in an effort to silence his only witness, made an attempt on her life at a local Red Cross shelter, where she, along with dozens of other locals, had taken refuge after losing their homes. She has since been moved to an unknown location. Federal agents are on the scene, following the killer’s trail, but as yet have been unable to name a suspect. Landry has garnered a reputation as a talented painter, and people in the art world are praying for her safety. These are examples of some of her work hanging in a gallery in Savannah, Georgia.”
Nola dropped onto the sofa, her eyes wide with disbelief.
“Oh. My. God. They pretty much told everything about me but my current address and dress size.”
Tate sighed. “We knew this would happen when they got the pictures, remember?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what I thought would happen, but it wasn’t this.”
“Your paintings are amazing.”
She shoved a shaky hand through her hair. “Thank you for pointing out the silver lining in the storm cloud.”
He grinned. “You’re welcome.”
She climbed into his lap and wrapped her arm around his neck.
“Well, I always wanted to be famous. When I was little, I used to pray to God to make me famous. Obviously I wasn’t specific enough. I should have added that I wanted to be famous for my paintings, not for surviving a serial killer’s attack.”
He kissed her chin and pulled her close.
“Nola Jean Landry, I sincerely love you to the depths of my soul,” he said, laughing. “Here I was, fearing you were going to go off the deep end, and instead you’re complaining about the price of fame.”
She kissed the side of his cheek and then his mouth, lingering long enough that she made him groan before she pulled back.
“I love you, too, Special Agent Man, and I am putting my life in your hands, because I don’t know beans about dodging the bad guys.”
All of a sudden things were serious again. Just the thought of being responsible for her life made him sick to his stomach, because the only thing they knew for sure about their killer was how deadly he was.
* * *
Hershel was feeling much better and was in the bathroom shaving. He didn’t like whiskers. They made his face itch. He would go to work tomorrow and ease himself back into the routine while he watched the Feds’ movements and established an escape route before he made his move to snatch the Landry woman. He needed to find out exactly where she’d witnessed him in the act and take her back there. To undo a wrong, he had to go back to the beginning to make it right.
You can’t make anything right if you keep doing everything wrong. You’re crazy, Hershel. You’re certifiably crazy.
“Hush, Louise. I told you I wasn’t the man you married. The sooner you accept that, the happier we’ll both be.”
He rinsed off the shaving cream, eyeing himself in the mirror. In his youth, Louise used to say he looked like a young version of Marlon Brando. Now he looked more like Dick Cheney. Satisfied with his clean, smooth shave, he began drying off. As soon as he was dressed, he moved up front to watch a little TV before going to bed.
He had just turned it on and was channel surfing when a picture of Nola Landry flashed on the screen. He gasped, then raised the volume, listening to the newscaster’s coverage of the story.
Just hearing the media say there was a witness made him crazy. Now they would be laughing at him—saying he’d made a mistake. He had to fix it so the laughing would stop. The only positive out of the entire broadcast was that he now knew the kill site. There was only one location that had three
people waiting for rescue, and he knew exactly where he’d been. He closed his eyes, thinking back to how the area had looked, and vividly remembered going past a stand of partially submerged trees. So that was where she’d been—up one of those trees. Now that was where he would take her, back to the place where the mistake was made. That was how you made mistakes go away.
Hershel Inman, I will never speak to you again if you hurt that poor girl. Do you hear me, Hershel? I mean it!
“I hear you, Louise, now you need to hear me. I will do it, and there’s nothing you can say to stop me. You died and left me alone here, and now I’m doing what has to be done.”
* * *
Nola was showered and in her sweats watching TV when Wade and Cameron came back. She heard a knock at the door, and then Wade calling out.
“It’s just us,” he said as the key turned in the door.
They both came in carrying grocery sacks.
She shut and locked the door behind them as they dumped everything on the island.
“Did you bring ice cream?” she asked.
Wade dug through a bag and pulled out a pint of rocky road ice cream. He took off the lid, stuck a spoon in the container and handed it to her.
“Knock yourself out, honey. That one is all yours.”
She didn’t argue. Instead, she wrapped a paper towel around the carton and headed for the living room with her prize.
“Where’s Tate?” Wade asked.
“In the shower. Oh, wow, this is good. Thank you!”
“We figured it was the least we could do after your television debut.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I’m not talking about that,” she muttered, and scooped up another bite and poked it in her mouth.
“Here he comes. We got your favorite, buddy,” Wade said, and tossed Tate a honey bun.
“Thanks. Did you bring any Pepsi?”
Wade pointed to a twelve-pack on the counter.
Tate poured one in a cup, added some ice and then sat down beside Nola.
“Trade you a bite,” he said.
“Deal,” she said as he tore off a piece of honey bun and fed it to her. Then she scooped up a big bite of ice cream and spooned it into his mouth.
Cameron elbowed Wade, who grinned and nodded.
“We leave and look what happens,” Cameron said.
Tate heard them but ignored them, and Nola no longer cared.
She’d lost her home.
Someone wanted her dead.
The only man she’d ever loved was back in her life.
Some would say that only one out of three wasn’t optimum odds, but life didn’t come with guarantees and she wasn’t wasting a minute of it with what-ifs.
* * *
The morning had dawned clear and cool. It was a good day for early September. The flowers in Don Benton’s flower beds in front of the house were still blooming. Asters and chrysanthemums. Julia had called them hardy flowers when she’d planted them. Even though she was long gone from the house, he’d kept everything just as it had been. It was his way of pretending nothing in his life that mattered had really changed.
But it had. Seeing Tate again had rattled him, and the anger, while not surprising, had been so vicious he would not have been shocked if the two of them had come to blows. He could tell the night he stitched up Nola Landry’s arm that their relationship would most likely resume. He didn’t care. It was nothing to do with him.
When they’d first left, there had been countless sleepless nights when he’d lain awake, trying to figure out who Tate’s father could have been. Finally he’d pushed the jealousy aside and written off his wife and her bastard as a deal gone bad. It didn’t matter who she’d had an affair with. They were both out of his life, and now she was no longer of this world. It had been a shock to learn how she had suffered before she died, but as time passed, he decided life had dealt her exactly what she had deserved.
He had some paperwork to catch up on and then was thinking about a short trip to New Orleans. Maybe spend a couple of days there seeing the sights and visiting old friends. The food was amazing and he needed a break.
He was driving down Main Street on his way to the morgue when a car came out of an alley. He caught a glimpse of it from the corner of his eye, and then everything went black.
* * *
Nola was sitting at the island in her sock feet eating cereal and watching Tate make toast. Wade was in the shower, and Cameron was on the phone with the director. She could tell by the way Tate’s head was tilted that he was listening to everything Cameron was saying. Both men had filed their reports on the copycat incident last night before they’d gone to bed, and she guessed they were waiting to see how their boss reacted.
Tate had just watched Nola take her last bite when his cell phone rang. He noticed it was the hospital and assumed it was probably Beaudry, laid up and bored and wanting an update.
“This is Benton,” he said.
“Tate, this is Doctor Tuttle. Your father was in an accident. Someone came out of an alley down on Main and T-boned his car on the driver’s side. He has some internal injuries and is losing a lot of blood.”
Shock sent Tate back to his childhood, to the man who was his hero, then flashed forward to the night that same man had punched him in the face and sent him tumbling down the stairs. Finally he made himself focus.
“What do you need me to do?” he asked.
“I know this is a long shot, but your dad has a rare blood type and with everything going on, we don’t have any on hand. By any chance are you O negative?”
“Yes. Where do I go?”
“Fantastic! Come to the E.R. I’ll have them set up and waiting for you. And, Tate...time is of the essence.”
“I’ll be right there,” he said, then glanced at Nola as he hung up.
“What’s up?” Cameron said.
“Dad was in a wreck, and they don’t have any O negative on hand. I’m going down to donate.”
“Do you want me to go with you?” Nola asked.
“I want you to, but you can’t. Sorry.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Okay, I know you’re right. I hope he’s okay.”
Tate nodded. “I won’t be long,” he said, then grabbed his wallet and gun and was out the door.
“If the old bastard survives, I hope he’ll realize what a mistake he made,” Cameron said.
Just then Wade walked into the kitchen to check on breakfast and noticed they were one short.
“Where’s Tate?”
When Cameron filled him in, his reaction was the same.
“That’s one cold-blooded man. I still can’t wrap my head around what he did to Tate. It’s just crazy.” Then he looked at Nola. “It’s part of what broke you guys up, right?”
She nodded. “Only I didn’t know it until he told me the same day he told you.”
“But you’re both okay now?”
She smiled. “We’re very okay.”
They both gave her a thumbs-up.
“So...what’s on the schedule?” Wade asked.
“You mean besides babysitting me?” she said.
Cameron frowned. “Hey. It’s not babysitting. It’s called protecting a material witness.”
“Which we’re happy to do, because we usually have to order in when that happens. Your cooking skills are a bonus,” Wade said.
She grinned. “Changing the subject now, but has either one of you heard if the river has crested yet?”
“No. That last rain added to the runoff. I heard them predicting it for sometime tomorrow evening, if it doesn’t rain again anytime soon.”
“Thanks,” she said, and then took her bowl to the dishwasher as Wade walked into the kitchen behind her.
“Who made toast?” he asked, pointing to the two slices in the toaster.
“Tate.”
“Don’t want to let them go to waste,” he said, and grabbed a plate.
“Are you ever full?” Nola asked.
Wade shrugged. “It’s a metabolism thing.”
She grinned. “Is that guy talk to get around the fact that you’re a walking garbage disposal?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, and stuffed a half slice of toast in his mouth.
Thirteen
Tate sped through town, taking back alleys to keep from hitting stop signs and red lights. He made it to the hospital in just under eight minutes. He entered the E.R. on the run, and was met by a lab tech and a nurse.
He recognized the nurse but couldn’t remember her name. She, however, knew him.
“This way, Tate,” she said, and led him into an unoccupied bay. “Lie down here and push up your sleeve.”
He did as she asked without saying a word. Within moments they had the needle in a vein and the blood began to flow. He glanced over at the tube, watching the bright red blood running down into the bag and thought about the power contained in the dynamics of a family. Did blood prove you belonged? If you didn’t, did they care? Did belonging isolate you or insulate you? Some families drew closer when tragedy struck and others splintered. He knew where his fell in that scenario.
The nurse was standing beside him, waiting to rush the blood into the O.R. Without knowing the dynamics of his family, she assumed Tate would be concerned about his father’s welfare.
“He’s a tough man, Tate. They’re doing all they can.”
“I’m sure they are. Who was in the other car?”
She grimaced. “Mrs. Coffee. She didn’t make it.”
“Oh, my God,” Tate said, and closed his eyes.
He remembered the little librarian from his high school days and was sad that such a sweet woman’s life would end this way.
“Not much longer,” the tech said.
He glanced at the bag. It was almost full. If this was what saved Don Benton’s life, his dad was going to be pissed.
“That’ll do it,” the tech said, and stopped the flow, pulled the needle and quickly taped it off. “Here you go,” he said, and handed the blood off to the nurse.