ANNIE AND THE OUTLAW

by Sharon Sala

  Finally she heard his footsteps receding, and then the door to her room closed. It was then that the tears came, and with them, the knowledge that she bad no reason to cry. He'd warned her that he had no room for promises in his life. And yet Annie knew that she wasn't actually crying because he couldn't promise her anything. She was crying because it wouldn't have mattered if he had.

  * * *

  The next morning the newspapers and television stations were full of the phantom hero who'd dared the fires of hell and saved a child from the burning building. The grainy footage of the rescue was played and replayed the entire day, but luckily for Gabriel, the thick, billowing smoke had hidden his face.

  Annie didn't understand his reticence and wondered again if she was harboring a man who was on the run from something … or someone. She didn't want to think that Gabriel had a lurid past. But all she had to do was catch him unaware and look, really look, at the hard expression he wore when he thought no one was watching, and her fears came back twofold.

  * * *

  The intercom buzzed, an indication that an announcement from the principal's office would be forthcoming. Annie paused in the middle of her lecture and waited without looking at the back of the room, where she knew Gabriel was watching her every move. Since the night they had made love, little more than quiet politeness had passed between them. Each evening, immediately after they got home, Gabriel would disappear into his room and come out only to eat or run the occasional errand for her. Yet his looks had gentled, and she would have sworn she saw constant regret coloring the expression on his face.

  Twice she'd tried to pay him for his duties as a bodyguard, and each time she'd yanked the check back, his anger so fierce that she'd half expected to see that he'd lopped her hand off at the wrist.

  While part of her understood that something had changed between them, the other part of her needed to fulfill her own promise and alleviate the guilt she felt over what had happened the night of the fire. She'd all but begged him for intimacy, and after he'd warned her there was no future in it for either of them.

  She fumbled with the papers on her desk as she waited for Allen Baker to make his announcement, desperately trying to ignore the feelings that had returned with her thoughts of making love with Gabe.

  Gabriel's eyes narrowed as he watched her look at everyone and everything but him. In a way he understood her need to maintain the distance between them, and in another way he resented the hell out of the fact that she'd been able to do it. Since the moment she'd opened the shower and walked into his arms, she'd been more deeply imbedded in his senses than the heat and smoke from that fire.

  "This concerns all graduating seniors," Allen Baker said, his voice slightly distorted from the microphone. "Please remember that graduation practice will be right after school today. Try to attend. It will help the actual ceremony go much more smoothly this weekend."

  He signed off with a short witticism that no one laughed at, leaving the class oddly silent.

  Damon Tuttle fidgeted in his seat and stared at Annie with his old hatred as she turned her back to the class and began writing an assignment on the blackboard.

  Gabriel sensed an imminent eruption, and still he was surprised by the anger with which it came.

  "You bitch!" Damon Tuttle shouted as he stood up from his desk and threw his book toward Annie.

  Gabriel bolted for the front of the room, but not in time to stop the book. He winced, then breathed a quick sigh of relief as he saw Annie duck. Two students near the door jumped up and ran into the hall.

  Gabriel heard their footsteps echoing toward what he hoped was the principal's office. He had no time to be dealing with anything except the fact that Damon Tuttle had just pulled a knife and jumped over two desks in an effort to get to Annie.

  "Annie, run!" Gabriel shouted, then said a prayer as he made a flying leap, catching Damon at the back of the legs and sending them both falling across desks and then rolling onto the floor. The piny scent of cleaning solvent came up and hit Gabriel in the face as he and Damon rolled over and over on the floor, fighting desperately with each other for control of the knife.

  Damon Tuttle's pupils were dilated, his nostrils flared, as venomous curses poured from his mouth.

  A Security guard burst into the room, with Allen Baker right behind him. Among the three of them. They managed to subdue Damon Tuttle without anyone being injured.

  And when the knife in Damon's hand fell to the floor at Allen Baker's feet, he could only stare in stunned disbelief.

  The security guard slapped handcuffs on Damon as sirens were heard in the distance.

  "I'll get you, you bitch," Damon kept shouting. "You won't get away with this. You'll be sorry you gave me grief!"

  Gabriel shook as he grabbed the youth's arm and yanked him around to face him.

  "She didn't give you anything but a chance at a better life," Gabe said.

  Damon spat on Gabriel's boots, then looked up with hate-filled eyes. "She didn't give me nothin'. Anything I have … I gave myself," he yelled back, screaming and kicking out at the guard and the principal alike.

  "Take him out of here," Allen Baker ordered, and then he stepped aside in undisguised fear as Damon's glare of hatred was turned on him.

  Damon was still screaming and cursing when they dragged him out the door and into a patrol car.

  "Is anyone hurt?" Annie asked quickly, searching the room as students began rearranging their belongings and moving desks back into place. The tremor in her voice was evident, but no fear showed in her movements. As usual, in her classroom, Annie was in total control.

  "No, ma'am," several students echoed.

  "Then please take your seats. Turn to the last chapter of the book and begin reviewing the quiz. Test tomorrow."

  With that she walked out of the room and into the hall.

  It was there that Gabriel caught her.

  His arm was on her wrist as she spun around. The look in his eyes was wild. A thin trickle of blood ran from the corner of his lip. Annie dug in her pocket for a tissue. She had started to blot the blood with shaking hands when Gabriel stopped her.

  "Why the hell didn't you run?" Gabriel asked, his voice rough with dying panic.

  "Because it was my classroom. Those are my students. If I'd run, one of them might have suffered, instead."

  "Oh, God, Annie," Gabriel said, and pulled her into his arms. For the first time since they'd made love he was holding her, and he knew then that it wouldn't be the last.

  "He hurt you," she said, and buried her face against his chest.

  "He didn't hurt me, Annie. I hurt myself."

  She looked up. His blue eyes were blazing with a fire she could not miss. At that moment she knew that what he'd just said had nothing to do with Damon and everything to do with them.

  She sighed and then let him pull her back into his arms.

  For whatever time they had left, she would not deny him, or herself, anything.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  «^»

  Their feelings were out in the open. The knowing and the wanting no longer had to be hidden. But it didn't make that first step toward each other any easier.

  Glances were swift, smiles easier, but still uncomfortable, and the air between them was thick with unspoken emotions as they drove home from school.

  Annie went straight to her room to change, while Gabe lingered in the front of the apartment, prowling from kitchen to living room and back again, uncertain which way to go with the shift in their relationship.

  He'd promised her nothing, and she'd accepted that … and whatever else he was willing to give. But the professional Annie O'Brien was at odds with the one he saw at home. The one at school let no one intrude on her territory. She was proud and protective of all her students. Except for Damon Tuttle, she even made excuses for the troublemakers.

  But that Annie didn't fit with the Annie who'd taken a total stranger into her home, offered him a bed and t
hen slept only feet away with nothing more than a few yards of carpeting and a couple of doors between them. Why had she taken such chances with her own safety? He could have been far more of a danger than three Damon Tuttles.

  Gabe stalked to the window and stared out into the street, fingering his lip, which had been cut during the fight, and remembering the night of the fire and the abandon with which Annie had come to him. His gut kicked as his body reacted to the memory of them together in the shower, wet and naked, and the way she'd calmly accepted his warning of "no promises."

  He frowned. Either she was lying to herself or to him about her feelings, because in all his long years, he'd never known another woman who would accept his making love without also making promises. And knowing he couldn't make them made him sick. Never before, in the millions of miles that he'd traveled, had he ever regretted the fact that he couldn't say what he was sure Annie needed to hear.

  He leaned his forehead against the windowpane, letting the lingering warmth from the heat of the day soothe the ache between his eyes as he wished that his life had been different. And then, at that notion, he laughed aloud.

  Hell! If it had been different, I would have been dust long ago and never have known my Annie.

  At the same moment that he realized he'd thought of her as his, she walked up behind him. It was the shock of that realization and the feel of her hands on his back that made him react as he did.

  "Are you all right?" Annie asked, remembering the viciousness with which Damon had fought and the strength that Gabe had used to subdue him.

  "No," Gabe growled, and pulled her off her feet and into his arms.

  Her own reaction was instinctive. Annie held on. She had no other choice as he carried her down the hall toward his room.

  "You shouldn't be carrying me," Annie said. "You may be hurt."

  "I am hurting," he said, as he reached the side of the bed. He turned her in his arms and slid her body slowly down against his own as he set her back on her feet.

  "I hurt here," he said; emotion thick in his voice, as he took her hand and splayed it across his chest, watching with intensity as her fingers traced the feel of his heartbeat. "And I hurt here," he continued, and took her hand, moving it from his chest to the growing ache between his legs.

  Annie gasped at the seductive familiarity and then found herself cupping him instead of withdrawing, instantly drawn into the promise of passion hovering behind a curtain of blue jeans.

  At her touch, Gabe lost control. If only she'd pulled back or made a sound of complaint, given any indication that he'd overstepped a boundary, he might have stopped. But she hadn't moved except to trace the power of his need and caress it even more as it pushed against her hand.

  "Annie!"

  Her name echoed loudly in the silence, and then she began to shake as his hands tore at her clothing, yanking at buttons, struggling with zippers, furious with whatever stood between him and the need she'd created.

  With every garment he pulled off, her own passion grew. By the time she was naked, her hands were trembling. She unzipped his jeans and felt him, shivering from the onslaught of feelings that swept through her. She felt omnipotent, as if she were holding on to lightning, just waiting for the thunderbolt that would take her to heaven. Her legs went weak as she tried to pull the shirt from his back, suddenly anxious for the feelings that she knew he was capable of creating within her.

  "No," he groaned, as red pinpoints of light began to appear before his eyes. He was too far gone to take the time to undress. "No time," he said, and braced his legs as he lifted her up and then impaled her on his engorged manhood.

  Annie's gasp slid across his senses as she braced herself against his chest.

  She felt his mouth at her temple and sighed with anxious expectation for what was coming. Just as the room began to spin, she inadvertently looked down and saw how their bodies were melding. The image was staggering, and her head snapped back in an instant need to see his face, to know if what he was experiencing was as powerful and out of control as she imagined. She wasn't prepared for his desperation.

  His eyes were burning, blue fire in a face gone taut with passion. His nostrils flared, and the perfect cut of his lips had thinned as his need for this woman sent him out of control.

  "Don't move," Gabriel said harshly. Blood pounded against his eardrums, rocketing through his body in a wild, near-vicious flow as he struggled with his own lust in a need to give her pleasure.

  But Annie didn't—or couldn't—heed the warning. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and as they did, she drew him even farther into her heat.

  Honey flowed around him, moving him too far inside to pull back. With a groan, they fell onto the bed in a tumble of arms and legs, and without missing a beat, Gabriel began to thrust.

  Unable to prolong the passion, unwilling to wait for the thunderous climax he knew was coming, he closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around Annie and let the storm overtake them.

  The suddenness with which it struck left her breathless, with tears washing her cheeks in wild abandon. Her neck arched, her hands clung, as Gabriel rode her toward madness.

  The end came without warning. No buildup of sensations, no increasing fire. Just a blinding flash of heat that seared herself, their bodies, then seeped through their systems, leaving them weak and shaken.

  Gabriel felt her tears on his face and knew a moment of terror. Had he hurt her? How could he have used her so viciously without a thought for her own needs? With a groan, he lifted himself from her body and stared down into her face and the wild tangle he'd made of her hair.

  "Annie, Annie … sweet Lord, but I'm sorry. Don't cry, please don't cry."

  She shuddered and pulled him back into her arms.

  "How can I not?" she asked, as emotion shook her voice. "Beauty always makes me cry."

  Her words stunned him. Shamed by the giving nature of the woman beneath him, he covered her face with gentle kisses of thanksgiving and knew a terrible moment of regret that they would never have a lifetime together.

  Moments later he rid himself of the rest of his clothing and then fell back into bed, wrapping her tight within his embrace as he pulled her head beneath his chin. Slowly her body relaxed against him, and he knew almost to the moment when she fell asleep. It was only then that he could speak, and when he did, he kept repeating the same words softly … over and over. "Annie … my Annie."

  * * *

  Saturday came and went with little notice. It was the next morning before Gabriel realized what Annie was doing. She'd retreated from his bed to her own room shortly upon waking. Now his brow furrowed thoughtfully as he listened to the water running in her shower.

  Just what does she have to do this morning that's important enough to take her out of my arms?

  Gabe rolled out of bed and headed for his own shower. If she was going somewhere, she would still need him at her side. Although Damon Tuttle had been booked and jailed, the judicial system was notorious for releasing the wrong people at the wrong time.

  Minutes later Gabe headed for the kitchen, wearing nothing but a pair of Levi's and a frown. He poured a cup of coffee and then turned with it halfway to his lips as he watched Annie come up the hallway and into the kitchen. She looked different. Suspicion continued to grow.

  "You put up your hair," he said.

  It was more accusation than observation. Gabe took a slow sip of coffee while trying to decipher her nervousness.

  "Is there any more coffee?" Annie asked, knowing full well that the pot had just been made.

  Gabe rolled his eyes and handed her his cup. "Take mine," he said. "You look like you need it worse than I do."

  Her features froze. The moment he said it, he saw her pain. At that instant Gabe wished himself into the next century.

  Annie set the cup down and turned away. Her dress billowed out around her legs as she walked toward the window. Gabe stared at the slender, seductive outline of her body beneath the fragile yellow fabric an
d wished he knew what he'd said that was so bad. He'd already learned that when Annie hurt, so did he. That he'd caused it made the pain nearly unbearable.

  "What? What on earth did I say?" he asked as he followed her to the window, cupping her shoulders with his hands and pulling her toward him until her back rested against his chest. He felt her momentary slump, and then all the muscles in her body tensed as she answered him.

  "Wrong? Nothing's wrong," she mumbled. "It's Sunday. I'm just going to church … that's all."

  He grew still. Church! Oh damn.

  Even now, churches still made him nervous. All he had to do was walk into one, and every feeling he'd suffered from the time he'd been hanged, until he came to facedown in the Kansas dirt, returned in full. Everything he'd seen and heard ricocheted inside his head like a nightmare until he could exit the building.

  He had a feeling that it was God's way of reminding him why he'd been given a second chance. What he was having trouble reconciling was the fact that for the first time in nearly a hundred and fifty years, Annie had given him a reason for living, and it was too late to care.

  "Great … church," he muttered, unaware that she heard him.

  "I don't remember asking you to go," Annie said shortly.

  Gabe stared. Something was terribly wrong. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn that she didn't want him along.

  "You can't ride on the back of my bike in that dress," he said, choosing to ignore her rudeness.

  "I called a cab," she said, and shrugged out of his grasp.

  "I don't have anything to wear," he said.

  Annie smiled in spite of herself. "That's supposed to be my line," she said, and turned.

  Gabe stared down into green eyes welling with tears. Whatever was going on, he had no intention of missing it. He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted her face so that she couldn't miss what he was about to say.