by Vella Munn
“You’d be good at it.”
“Hm.” Jack gripped the back of his gown and walked over to the window. Suddenly he turned. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
Reed did. He hadn’t wanted to; his inner turmoil was none of Jack’s business. But maybe he spilled everything because Jack was the only one who might possibly understand.
Reed sighed. “I don’t know what to call it. If I say smoke screen, it sounds as if she deliberately kept things from me. I don’t think it was like that. Or if it was, it was because too many things were going on inside her. Things she couldn’t share with me.”
“Why do you think she couldn’t?”
“I don’t know—” Reed started to say, but stopped himself. He wasn’t going to throw up a smoke screen of his own. Jack would see through it. And more important, so would he. “I’m no good at knowing what’s going on inside people, Jack. I wasn’t what my mother needed. She needed so damn much. I couldn’t give it to her. And then Mara— She knew. She got close to me and then she knew.”
“This is gibberish.”
Was it? “What good am I for her?” Reed moaned, pain filling him. “I should have known. She went through a nightmare. I should have known it wasn’t over when she couldn’t identify her attacker. But I couldn’t get into her head.” He sagged. “I’ve never been in anyone’s head.”
“Yeah.” Jack erased the distance separating the two men. “Just like you weren’t rummaging around in my brain.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Figure it out. Think about getting my sister out here and bringing me roses and not leaving me to rot in self-pity, and then tell me about not knowing anything about someone else’s head.”
Reed spent a couple of necessary hours with the district attorney reconstructing the gang’s organization. But despite the need for concentration, his mind drifted constantly to Mara. He knew what pleased her in bed. He knew she loved the beat of the ocean and the silence of the desert. Her home meant a great deal to her. She loved her family and shared a special relationship with Clint.
He’d given her more of himself than he’d ever given another human being. Not as much as he now wanted to turn over to her, but a start. Only, he hadn’t gotten enough in return.
Why?
She had to give him answers, and maybe once he had those answers, he’d know whether Jack was right.
Mara received an invitation to have dinner with Frank and Rennie Chambers. She tried to beg off, but Rennie wouldn’t take no for an answer. The lineup was still on Rennie’s mind, and she wanted to talk to Mara about it. “I know we can’t change what happened,” Rennie pointed out. “But I’ll feel better after I’ve talked it out.”
Mara wasn’t sure anything would help her, but the alternative was to sit home waiting for the phone to ring and the wrong man to be on the line. She wouldn’t be gone long. She could leave Lobo inside where he’d be safe, turn on her answering machine. If that animal called, maybe a trace could still be attempted.
Mara didn’t take the Corvette. Instead she picked up the keys to one of the loaners and called Detective Kline to let him know she wouldn’t be home for the next couple of hours.
Mara had barely stepped inside the Chamberses’ house when she was handed a glass of wine. “Rennie’s been chewing over that blasted lineup since it happened,” Frank explained. “She keeps saying that if she’d been more observant, she would have been able to make an identification. I’ve told her and told her, the only thing I care about is that she’s alive.”
Rennie leaned against her husband, her eyes glistening. “I don’t know how many men would have hung in there the way Frank has. Some couldn’t handle knowing what had happened to their wife.”
“Don’t,” Frank warned. “Don’t ever think that.”
Rennie blinked away tears. “I was a basket case when I got out of the hospital. I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to move, to get a gun, to put bars on the windows. It wasn’t just the rape. It was…the other things.”
“Past tense, sweetheart. We’re putting this behind us, remember?” Frank soothed his wife while Mara’s loneliness sliced into her and left her breathless.
The dinner conversation began tentatively, but before it was over Rennie had told Mara everything she’d been subjected to. Mara kept looking at Frank, searching for any sign that he wasn’t handling this. But what he said was that his wife had done what was necessary to stay alive. She was still the woman he loved; nothing that animal had done could change that.
Mara’s eyes were hot and dry. Rennie had Frank and a close, concerned family. Mara had lost Reed.
She hadn’t been able to talk to him and she’d lost him.
“Mara? Have you… Do you feel different now?”
“What do you mean, different?” Mara asked.
“The way you look at life. The way you feel about yourself.”
“I’m not sure. So much has been happening.”
“What kind of things?”
Mara breathed deeply and willed herself to plunge on. “I met a man right after I was abducted. Our relationship… There were times when it was wonderful. But I didn’t see enough of him.” No. That wasn’t the truth. “He’s a brave and committed man. I tried to be like that—”
“You’re speaking in the past tense,” Rennie said gently.
Past tense. Two horrible, horrible words. “What do you want me to say?”
“To me, nothing. What makes you think things can’t be right for you and this man?”
“Because—” Mara was crying, silent, unspent tears, “—it’s too late.”
“It’s never too late.”
“I lied to him.”
Strangely Mara felt a little better by the time she returned home. She hadn’t expected to cave in around Frank and Rennie, but once the emotions broke free, she hadn’t had any control over them. She desperately needed to believe that things weren’t over between her and Reed, that it wasn’t too late for them. But Reed had fallen in love with a woman who didn’t exist. There were so many hard truths to be faced.
Mara knew how to admit them to herself; hadn’t she stepped back from her family’s life and created one that worked for her? But she’d never told her family how she felt, and now she’d extended that self-protective silence to Reed, and it was ruining something precious.
At least she’d come to grips with that reality, Mara thought as she headed down the long drive leading to her mobile home. She and Reed had had a wonderful relationship, one built on wind and waves. It might be over, but she would always have the memory.
Even if the memory would have to last her for the rest of her life.
Mara parked close to the front door and, aided by the porch light she’d left on, walked quickly to the front door. The moment she unlocked it, Lobo barreled past her. The hackles at the back of his neck stood up. He was panting, his legs trembling in excitement. He divided his attention between her and their surroundings, his low growl a song of warning.
“There’s someone here?”
Lobo continued to growl.
Mara turned and faced the night. She reached down and touched the top of Lobo’s head, taking comfort from the animal’s presence.
Her attacker had said he’d kill Lobo.
But Lobo wasn’t dead.
A week ago, maybe no more than a day ago, Mara wouldn’t have been standing in the dark, facing the night. But changes were taking place inside her; a certain commitment had been made. Instead of getting in her car and running away, she held her house door open and stepped back, letting Lobo go inside first. She heard the dog moving about and then slid forward and snapped on the light.
Five minutes later Mara was convinced that no one was or had been inside. Then she picked up the phone and dialed the police. “I know who you are,” the man on the other end of the line assured her. “Detective Kline said I was to act, pronto, on any call from you. It’s going to take us a while to get out there. Is
there anyone close by?”
There was a man. But they couldn’t speak to each other.
Mara poured herself a glass of water and walked into the living room. Her shoes pinched and she kicked them off. She didn’t bother with turning on the TV because she needed to listen to the night.
When she heard the car coming down the drive, Mara jumped to her feet and pulled aside the curtain. The vehicle was a bloodred Jag.
Chapter Fifteen
Mara stepped outside. She met Reed before he was halfway to the house. “Did the police call you?” She kept her voice neutral.
“The police? No. Should they have?”
The porch light was strong. Mara noted that the weariness hadn’t left his eyes, but he had changed his clothes. There was a small hole in the left knee of his jeans. His T-shirt looked as if it had laid in the dryer too long. She shouldn’t feel like this. A wise woman would be able to look at a man without what they’d almost been to each other undermining everything. “What are you doing here?”
“Not out here. I want to go inside.”
“I don’t remember inviting you.”
Reed pushed past her. “I think we’ve gone beyond waiting for invitations, Mara.”
Mara stared as he walked through the open door and into her mobile home. She wanted to run. If she’d been wearing shoes, she’d have darted into the night and let the desert surround her. She wouldn’t return until Reed was gone.
No, the pocket of sanity left in her insisted. She wouldn’t run from Reed.
Confused, Mara could only follow after him. He hadn’t sat. Instead he waited for her to close the door. Absently he patted Lobo. “He’s inside again.”
“Yes.” Reed had done more than walk into her house. He’d once again taken it over, and now he was trying to take her over, too. If she wasn’t careful, he might succeed.
“Did you think I’d come back?”
Mara had no idea how she was supposed to answer that question. If she said nothing, he might read too much into her silence. If she said the wrong thing, he could turn her words against her. “You walked out on me last night. I didn’t know what to think.”
“You wanted me to leave, remember? There wasn’t anything to say. Then.”
“And there is now?”
“Yeah. Are you going to sit down?”
“Are you?”
Reed’s laugh carried no warmth. “I think I’m going to have to.”
Not want, have to. Was it possible that this wasn’t any easier on him than it was on her? Mara perched on the arm of the couch, ready to jump if his words became something she couldn’t handle. For so long that she could barely handle it, Reed remained silent. Slowly, so slowly that it nearly undid her, the tight line of his mouth eased. She’d seen him smile so little. She wondered what it took to make him laugh. “It’s after midnight,” he said. “You aren’t ready for bed.”
“What?”
“You asked if the police sent me out here.”
“And you said they hadn’t.”
“I’m going to have to drag it out of you, aren’t I?”
She could tell him yes, but to what purpose? Mara was incredibly weary of trying to walk a line between what she was and what Reed needed her to be. She’d learned a great deal since last night. The most important was that she couldn’t be anything except what she was, for anyone. With emotion riding the crest of her words, she told him about coming home from an evening with another victim and finding Lobo upset.
“I don’t have any proof he was here,” she said with her hands wrapped around her knees. She felt small. Small and yet somehow safe. “But it isn’t like Lobo to act like that. And there have been threats. Maybe that man’s playing with me.”
“I know about the threats.”
Of course he did. Some she’d told him about; the others she was sure he’d learned of from Detective Kline. “And you expect me to cope with them, just cope with them, don’t you?”
Reed touched a forefinger to the ragged denim at his knee. “I never said you weren’t coping, and incredibly well.”
“Didn’t you?” Mara challenged. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
He wanted to shake the truth out of her. That irrational need had ruled Reed during the drive out here, but he couldn’t do that to any woman, especially the woman he loved. The knuckles of her hands clutching her knees were white. Her eyes, her huge, open eyes belonged to someone without enough support under her.
He hadn’t seen that vulnerability before. Damn it, he hadn’t wanted to.
“It does matter,” he told her. “Maybe not right now, but it’s going to before we’re through.”
“We are through.”
She couldn’t mean that. “You believe that?”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t know what I believe,” he told her honestly. This journey was so new. He had only the instincts of a man in love to guide him. He wasn’t sure that was enough. “Don’t you want to know why I’m here?” he asked, hoping he was saying the right thing.
Mara shrugged. Reed didn’t know what to read into the gesture, only that he wasn’t immune to it. Or to her. “I’ve been thinking, asking myself questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“The kind that might help me better understand what you’ve been going through. Only, I don’t have the answers. And I don’t know if you’ll give them to me.”
Mara swung to her feet. She sensed where the conversation was going. Despite the danger, she no longer fought it. Yet, how was either of them going to survive what had to be said? “Go on. Ask me,” she challenged.
“Ask you? You don’t know what I’m going to say.”
“I know.” The living room was so small. Why hadn’t she been aware of that before?
“Maybe, no matter what I say, you’ll go on telling me what you think I want to hear.”
“Don’t make the blame all mine,” Mara countered. She hadn’t been given enough time to prepare for this, to plan what she was going to say. “You fly into my life. A few hours later you fly out of it. When we were together—you know what we wound up doing.”
“Yes. We made love. At least making love was part of it.”
Mara sat back down. “Only part?”
“You know the answer to that.”
It was late. Somewhere in Germany her family was preparing for another race. A sixteen-year-old San Diego girl might be sitting in her room doing her homework, still innocent because she’d run. “You don’t know what it’s been like for me.”
“That’s why I’m here. Tell me.”
Tell him. Where would she begin; would there ever be an end? “You don’t know what it feels like to fail.”
“What have you failed at, Mara?”
He was making her name a song. How was she going to see this through if he did that? “At being what you wanted me to be.” That wasn’t enough. In truth, that wasn’t what this was about.
“Tell me about it.”
“Tell… Reed, there have been so many changes in me, so little that’s the same.”
Reed leaned forward. For the first time since they’d sat down he erased a little of the space separating them. “I’ve seen a few of them. You hardly ever drive the Corvette.”
“That isn’t true. I—”
“Maybe you’ve forced yourself behind the wheel, but it hasn’t been the same. Mara, if I asked you to get in it now, what would you say?”
Mara wrapped her arms around her middle. It wasn’t until the gesture was finished that she realized what she’d done.
She didn’t have to explain herself. Not now. Lobo’s growl gave warning of an approaching vehicle. Reed was on his feet first. He strode to the door and opened it. “The police,” he said.
Mara had forgotten that they were going to come out. She walked to the door, herself, careful not to come close to Reed. The young, blond policeman was one she’d never seen, but he was obviously aware of the situation. “
I’m not expecting to find anything in the dark,” he told her. “But if there is someone out there, I’m hoping they’ll see the patrol car and back off.”
The thought that someone might be out in the desert, watching, no longer unnerved her. “He’s been playing with me,” Mara said with a calm that would have been beyond her a week ago. “He threatened—”
“He threatened you?” Reed’s voice was too controlled.
The porch light wasn’t doing enough to ease the shadows surrounding him, and yet, those very shadows drew her to him. “He said he was going to kill Lobo.”
“The hell he is.” Reed snapped his fingers and Lobo, who’d been watching the policeman, stepped to his side. “This has gone far enough. Something has to be done.”
The officer nodded. “That joker’s making a real game out of this, all right. You’re sure there was no one in the house?”
Mara nodded and explained that Lobo had been inside which had made searching the house easy. She’d checked the closets, under her bed, made sure none of the windows had been broken.
“Damn it,” Reed interrupted. “That wasn’t safe.”
“That’s my decision, Reed,” Mara said around lips that barely moved. “I knew he couldn’t have gotten in. I left every door and window locked.”
“Wonderful. Do you see what that animal has done to you? You’re turning your place into a fortress.”
Because she couldn’t deal with him right now, Mara ignored Reed. She asked the policeman to start with the detached and locked garage and moved as if to follow him.
“Mara.” Reed touched her shoulder. She tried to ignore him. “You could have turned around and left when you saw Lobo’s reaction. Why did you stay?”
“I don’t know.”
Reed muttered something she couldn’t hear before setting off with the policeman. She and Lobo walked inside.