by Rachel Lee
“Save me from what?”
“Sin,” he answered.
Her grip tightened on the knitting needle. “Leave me alone.”
“No.” He stepped toward her.
Grabbing the edge of the metal wastebasket, with more strength than she would have believed she had, she swung it at him. She wanted his head, but got his shoulder.
It didn’t stop him at all. Now she was down to her knitting needle and the box cutter in her pocket.
Then she gasped again. In an instant he whipped out an ugly hunting knife with a blade so highly polished it caught the vanishing light and sparkled.
“That wasn’t very nice.”
She pulled out the box cutter, extending the blade. “I’ll scream.”
“Too late.”
He swung the knife toward her neck. Instinct made her duck just in time and he missed her. Her adrenaline hit hyperdrive. It filled her with strength and banished fear. She didn’t even wonder where Austin was.
As she straightened, she managed to kick out with her left leg. She caught him in the thigh, but she didn’t manage to get his knee.
Focus! The command was loud in her head. From somewhere in the distance she heard pounding footsteps. He didn’t seem to hear them at all.
He jabbed at her this time, and she managed to jump to the side. The blade missed her, but she didn’t miss him. Driving forward with her right arm, she jabbed him with the knitting needle right in the soft part of his stomach.
God, he was possessed! He didn’t even seem to feel it. Instead, he edged closer and readied another swing with the knife. She whirled out of line with his swing and used the box cutter savagely on his arm. This time she got a reaction. He dropped the knife.
“You,” she said in a tight angry voice, “killed my mother.”
“She deserved it.”
“Nobody deserves to be murdered. Except possibly you.”
He pulled out yet another knife, holding it in his other hand. She didn’t draw away, but moved into the fight, aware she could take a fatal wound but beyond caring.
Her needle took another jab at his midsection. He was ready this time, though, and turned away from the box cutter. He wasn’t going to be disarmed again.
So she took another swipe with it, this time at his face. Savage satisfaction filled her as blood started to stream down his face.
“Next,” she said, “is your throat.”
At that point he bellowed and barged straight toward her, knife high.
All of sudden she was no longer alone. A fist came out of the darkness, hitting the guy’s left arm from underneath, driving it upward. The second knife fell.
Then she realized Austin had taken over. He wasted no time pummeling the man to the ground. “Call the police,” he said to Corey.
She hesitated only a moment, watching as Austin punched the guy again.
Then she ran inside and dialed 911. She heard the sirens even before she hung up.
Then she dashed back outside and saw her mother’s killer lying facedown on the filthy pavement. Austin was tying his hands behind him with plastic cuffs.
“You will never believe,” he said, “why I was late. I’m sorry. But you seemed to have things pretty well in hand.”
“I still want to cut his throat.”
Austin looked up then. “No, you don’t,” he said gently. “You have enough bad memories.”
“This might be a good memory.”
“I doubt it.” But he pulled the guy’s head back. “Have at it if you want. Before the cops arrive.”
The adrenaline deserted her as swiftly as it had arrived. She started shaking, dropped the box cutter and slid down the wall until she was sitting.
“No,” she said. “You’re right.”
She stared at the monster, knowing for sure now that there was nothing supernatural about him. An ordinary man. Sick, but ordinary.
Oddly, she felt as if the last of a very old weight lifted from her shoulders.
* * *
The rest of the night and the next day passed in a blinding whirl. Corey answered questions. The guy was in jail. She sat at the sheriff’s office, sometimes nodding off in a chair. Velma, the dispatcher, finally showed her to a cot in the back.
It didn’t help. The minute she lay down, everything returned, all of it, in excruciating detail. Finally she went back out front because at least out there she wasn’t alone with memory. Other people came and went, talking about the past night, talking about other things. It helped.
Austin sat nearby, taking his turn at answering questions. He’d apologized again for being late, and explained what had happened.
One of those weird things in life, being knocked out by a drunk in an alley. He’d had to have a couple of staples in his scalp.
She, however, was untouched physically, but she felt she’d gone miles away emotionally and mentally. She wondered if they would let her go home. Maybe she could crawl into bed with Austin and find her way back.
In the late afternoon, he stepped outside to take a phone call. When he returned, he squatted in front of her.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asked as he took her hands in his.
“Eventually. I think I’m exhausted or something.”
“You’re still in shock, too. It’ll be okay.” He squeezed her hands. “I have some bad news. I’ve got to catch a flight for Washington tonight.”
Her heart stopped. “Tonight?”
He nodded. “They need some more information, and I can’t do it over the phone.”
“Will you be gone long?” Dimly she realized she didn’t even have the right to ask that.
“I don’t know exactly, but I promise I’ll be back. We have a trip to take, remember?”
Then he leaned forward, and heedless of everyone in the room, he kissed her. “Trust me,” he murmured.
“I do.”
Then he rose, shared a few words with Gage, and left. It was Gage who took her home finally.
Austin wouldn’t be back, she told herself. Why would he? He had come here to find his footing in normal life again, and all she had done was get him wrapped up in her abnormal life. He’d be a fool to come back.
Besides, their paths in life couldn’t possibly meet. Her work was here, his was there. He’d been kind to her, he’d helped her in a lot of ways, but she could see absolutely no reason he would really want a basket case like her.
He’d be wise to stay away, and she’d be wise to stop thinking of him.
Trust him? Of course she trusted him. But what she trusted him to do was what he believed would be best for both of them. And she could think of a whole lot of reasons he might think avoiding her would be best.
She’d looked at herself and didn’t much like what she had found. She needed to change the habits of a lifetime, and who’d want to put up with that?
Never had the house or her life felt as empty as they did now.
Chapter 14
Coming back to Conard City was neither the hardest nor the easiest thing Austin had ever done. He was definitely edgy, though, wondering how Corey would welcome him.
Over the past month, he’d called a number of times, and with each call he felt her withdrawing more. She had less to say, she sounded cooler and more distant. The barriers were rising again, and he had only himself and his job to blame.
He still had the house key, so he let himself in. All his stuff was exactly where he had left it. He supposed that was a good sign, that she hadn’t just boxed it all up and donated it.
He glanced at his watch and saw that she would be home soon. He thought about opening her curtains, but the night was chilly and dark already, and they probably provided insulation. The house was cool, as if the heat wasn’t on,
and he wondered if he should look for the thermostat.
He did nothing. Finally he made a pot of coffee and sat at the table waiting for judgment. Waiting for his Viking princess to return, probably all covered in frost.
She had every right to feel he had abandoned her, despite his calls. After all, no promises had been made, and his departure had been sudden, as if he just wanted to get away.
But one way or another, he wanted this settled. He wanted her to understand why he’d had to go. Why he’d come back.
At long last the front door opened. He heard her freeze just inside the door.
“I’m in the kitchen,” he called out so she didn’t have to wonder why she smelled coffee and who was in her house.
He heard her drop the mail on the hall table and hang her jacket on the coat tree inside the door. Her footsteps sounded heavy with reluctance. He’d done that to her by bailing at exactly the worst time possible.
But there was something else, too. He needed to be sure she didn’t just want him for a security blanket. Better not to be wanted at all. He hoped the month had given her lots of time to sort things out, regardless of how it went for him. He’d figured out a lot himself.
She appeared in the doorway at last, and his first look at her expression made his chest tighten. Cold, distant. She’d thrown him out of her life. Now he was just a loose end she wanted to tie off.
“Hi,” she said finally.
“Want some coffee? You look cold.”
Her hesitation was visible. “Sure,” she said finally. She entered the kitchen slowly and sat across the table from where he was seated.
“How are things going?” he asked her. He needed her to speak, to engage in any way possible.
“All right.”
“The guy we caught?”
At that her face animated a little. “They found enough stuff on his computer to charge him with my mother’s murder and my attempted murder. He was writing letters he apparently wanted to send to people around town. Longer than the ones he sent me. In fact, I got just one more note two days later.”
“What did it say?”
“‘Your mother deserved it. You do, too.ʼ”
“God!” He could only shake his head. “What the hell got into him?”
“Apparently Lew Cumbers felt he needed to clean up the streets of this town. He knew my mother was a lesbian, and when she ran with me to Denver he followed her. Then, just before you arrived, he decided I was another pervert, too. His word, not mine.”
“How did he reach that brilliant conclusion?”
“Like we thought. I never dated. I confined my friendships mostly to women. I only rented the apartment upstairs to women. He thought they were actually my lovers.”
Austin could only shake his head. “What a sick creep.”
“Especially the part about keeping this town safe. It seems he had delusions of being a hero of some kind.”
“I am so sorry.”
“Me, too. But it’s over now.”
She barely looked at him, and he felt an ache in his heart. “Do you hate me now?”
That startled her. “I don’t hate you,” she said, glancing at him. “I get you have a job and all of that.”
“But it was a horrible time for me to leave. I wished I could postpone it, but I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
The question challenged him, but he had an answer. “Nobody’s supposed to know this, so keep it under your hat.”
She gave a stiff nod.
“I was under subpoena to testify at some closed-door congressional hearings. You don’t keep those guys waiting.”
At last he had her attention. It was a step in the right direction, but as he sat there feeling more frightened by the minute, he understood something. He kept it to himself. It might only make things worse.
“Really? You had to do that?”
“Yeah, little old me. I guess I was expensive, for one thing. Putting someone undercover often is. They wanted me to justify what I’d done. Then my bosses wanted me to justify the whole operation, not just my part of it. So we had to answer endless questions about the efficacy of ATF’s role south of the border.”
“How did it come out?”
“I may never know. I’m out of the loop now, unless they come up with more questions. That’s part of the reason I had to stay so long.” Was that a softening he saw in her? A slight thaw of the autumn frost? He couldn’t be sure. Not for the first time in his life, he wished he could read minds.
Finally, she said something that seemed to come out of the blue. “You didn’t have to come back just to keep your promise.”
Fear began escalating to something like panic, and he didn’t panic easily. How had she twisted this around in her mind? “Of course I did. I always keep my promises. What’s more, it’s a promise I wanted to keep.”
Her gaze flickered toward him, then slid away again. He’d lost her. He’d really lost her. She’d found a way to leave him in her past, and he didn’t matter any longer. He felt gut-punched and didn’t know what to do about it.
Maybe he should just get up and leave, write this all off. But he couldn’t make himself do that. He had to find a way to get through.
“This month has been hell,” he said finally, emphatically.
Startled, she looked at him again. “All those hearings?”
“They didn’t even come close to calling you and listening to you grow more and more withdrawn. Did you build your walls again? Climb back into your tower and draw up your hair so I can’t reach you?”
“How dare you!” she said sharply.
“No, how dare you! When I was busy getting behind your walls, you were busy getting behind mine, whether you know it or not. I spent every minute of the last month, except when I had to focus on work, thinking about getting back to you. And all the while I could hear Rapunzel closing off her tower.”
“I am not Rapunzel.”
“No, you’re definitely not. You’re not even the Viking princess I originally saw you as. You deal by hiding. I should have expected it.”
“That’s not fair. I fought that guy. I took that risk.”
“Is that the last risk you’ll ever take?”
Fire flashed in her blue eyes now, better than the ice that had been there before. “Damn you, Austin. You’re here for a few weeks and then you vanish.”
“I didn’t vanish. I called. And you really didn’t want to talk to me, did you? Why? Were you afraid of me? What have I ever done to make you afraid of me?”
“You battered down my defenses and then you hurt me. Isn’t that enough?”
“I never intended to hurt you. And while we’re on the subject of me going away, there’s something you need to understand. I’m taking a desk job in Denver, but that doesn’t mean I’ll never need to be away for a few weeks at a time when something blows up. It’s part of my life, even if I don’t ever again go undercover. And I won’t. But I’ll still need to help with operations that make me leave for a few weeks. If that’s going to cause a problem, maybe we should end this now.”
“End what, exactly?”
He stilled, hammering down his emotions, realizing that she had just revealed the crux. She had no idea that she meant anything at all to him. He’d blown into her life for a few weeks, then vanished. His only promise had been that he would come back. But he hadn’t said why. He hadn’t told her anything that a woman could cling to. He hadn’t given her any assurance of the important things.
“Estoy estupido,” he said succinctly.
“What?”
“I’m stupid. You know, I once had an uncle who gave me some very wise advice about not messing around with virgins.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
; “You haven’t learned to read between the lines.”
She gaped at him, but he’d reached the end of talking. He came around the table, lifted her in his arms and carried her back toward her bedroom.
“Austin! I didn’t agree...”
“I’m through using words. Let’s talk this way.”
If she had struggled, or actually told him to stop, he would have. She didn’t, though, so he stripped them both and carried her down onto her bed.
He was past finesse. He’d been dreaming of being with this woman for an entire month. He let every bit of his hunger show, even when it made him a little rough, and he sure as hell hurried. She didn’t complain, though, and soon the room was full of sighs and moans and the musk of their lovemaking. When at last he entered her, he pumped so hard he dimly wondered if he were bruising her. It didn’t stop him. It was as if he needed to tell her something that no words could.
She climaxed at the same instant he did, but he continued to hold on to her, buried deeply within her because if there was one thing of which he had become absolutely certain, it was that he would never, ever let go of her easily.
* * *
Corey lay sated and stunned beneath his weight. Despite the chill in the house, perspiration slicked her and beads of it ran down her cheeks.
What had just happened? Near violence, she suspected, but so full of pleasure and satisfaction that she felt utterly limp. She would have cried out if he had tried to move away. She needed him on her, needed him in her, and all the time she’d spent assuring herself that she was just fine and that it was okay that Austin was probably gone for good melted away.
She raised her shaking arms to grip his shoulders, holding him even nearer.
“I didn’t want to cling,” she whispered.
For an instant he didn’t move. Then he raised his head. His first remark stunned her. “Why do you keep this place so damn dark?”
He twisted, found the bedside lamp and switched it on. Then he propped himself on his elbows and held her face between his hands. “Cling?”
Her cheeks colored enough to burn. “Cling,” she repeated. “I may not have been with a man before you, but I’m not totally uneducated. I know sex doesn’t mean the same thing to men and women. We tend to get attached. Men don’t. The last thing I wanted you to feel was that I thought you owed me something. That I was clinging to you when you didn’t want me.”