by Amelia Autin
“We planned it for a Saturday, Mandy’s busiest day at her bookstore. Neither of us counted on her showing up at the reservoir where she thought Callahan was working, where the explosion was set to go off.”
Keira’s gaze was glued to his face. “Why? Why did she show up?”
Cody’s expression was grim. “She went there to tell him something. Something important. She just didn’t get there in time.”
“So, what happened?”
“She saw the explosion from the road. She thought Callahan was inside the truck. She crashed trying to reach him. She lost their baby. She almost lost her life.” The choppy little sentences were spoken without emotion, but Keira knew Cody was bleeding inside.
A long silence followed, and Keira waited patiently. Then Cody said, “Callahan had to disappear for the deception to work. D’Arcy had arranged for federal marshals to whisk Callahan away to safety immediately after the explosion. McKinnon was one of them. For security reasons, I wasn’t told where he was going. But everything was in place to convince Pennington that Callahan was dead, and that I’d obeyed orders. We, none of us, considered how Mandy would take it, and Callahan didn’t find out about the crash...or the baby, until a year later.”
“So she lost the man she loved, and she lost his baby,” Keira said, trying to imagine what Mandy had gone through. Now that she’d witnessed firsthand the love between Ryan and Mandy Callahan, the enormity of what Mandy had to have felt swept through her, leaving her more shaken than she wanted to admit. “If I were Mandy I wouldn’t want to live,” she whispered under her breath, but Cody’s sharp ears heard her.
“Yeah, that’s exactly how she reacted. I was there when she regained consciousness in the hospital. I didn’t have to tell her—she already knew. But...” His eyes darkened with remembered pain.
“Part of me was tempted to tell her Callahan was still alive, but would that have made it any easier on her with him gone? To know the explosion was faked, that her desperate attempt to save him was meaningless? That her baby didn’t have to die?”
Keira blinked against the prickling sensation that was a precursor to tears, and waited until the sensation subsided. “No,” she confirmed softly. “It wouldn’t have been any easier to bear.”
“I don’t know what I would have done if I’d been in Callahan’s situation,” Cody said. “His choices were limited. Maybe I’d have done the same thing—I just don’t know. But Callahan had decided Mandy needed to be protected, no matter what. He chose to leave her, chose to let her think he was dead. He didn’t know....”
He drew in his breath sharply. “Mandy says I should have found a way to tell her the truth. Callahan says he trusted me to watch over her while he led the wolves off the scent. I was damned either way.”
“A no-win situation,” Keira agreed.
“All Mandy’s friends were worried about her after Callahan ‘died,’ not just me.” Cody’s next words came out harshly. “She lost weight. She wasn’t sleeping. She looked like hell. We were all afraid she’d—” He broke off, obviously suffering with the memory.
“Suicide?” Keira asked, feeling she already knew the answer.
Cody nodded reluctantly. “She’d tried once before, in the hospital right after it happened. I don’t think she really intended to...but...we were all still afraid for her afterwards.” He fell silent, and Keira knew he was back in that time, reliving the events as they occurred.
Then he picked up the thread of the story. “It started snowing the day before New Year’s Eve—a real three-day blizzard. As sheriff, I always checked on the local residents when there was bad weather, especially the most vulnerable ones, the ones who lived alone.”
Keira could see where this was heading. “So you went to check on Mandy.”
“Yeah. New Year’s Day. I should have sent one of my deputies,” he said roughly, “but I...didn’t.”
“What happened then?”
“Mandy had downed the remains of a bottle of whiskey the night before. She told me she just wanted to sleep for once without having nightmares. She wasn’t drunk that next morning, but she was in bad shape emotionally.” Cody’s gaze was turned inward, and Keira knew he blamed himself for everything that followed.
“There’s some excuse for Mandy—Callahan was dead, or so she thought. I knew he was alive—there’s no excuse for me.” His eyebrows drew together in an expression that combined both self-condemnation and honest bewilderment. “Callahan once accused me of planning it. I’ve gone over it in my mind a thousand times since then, and I don’t think I did, but...who ever really knows why we do what we do?”
He swallowed hard. “Mandy was grieving, and I loved her. I just wanted to...but it was the worst mistake of my life. Afterward, she wept as if her heart was breaking. God!” he said. “I never want to hear a woman cry like that again, especially if I’m the cause.”
He was silent for so long Keira finally asked him, “Then what?”
“Then Callahan returned for Mandy almost a year after his ‘death.’ He’d had plastic surgery to disguise his face, but he had no way of knowing his cover was already blown, that his ‘death’ had already been revealed as a fake. Pennington’s conviction had been overturned by the appellate court, the prosecutors were panicking because without Callahan there was no case left to prosecute, and D’Arcy had no choice but to disclose to them that Callahan was still alive, still available to testify.”
He looked at her, his eyes bleak. “Remember what I told you, and what D’Arcy said about Larry Brooks betraying Callahan’s partner, Josh Thurman? D’Arcy still didn’t know Brooks was in the militia, and he dispatched Brooks and McKinnon to bring Callahan in. As soon as he heard Callahan was alive, Brooks informed Pennington, and I had to do some fast tap dancing to explain how it came about I hadn’t killed him the year before.”
Keira thought about asking him how he escaped Pennington’s wrath, but decided against it. She wanted to hear the end of this story first.
“Brooks firebombed Mandy’s house on Pennington’s orders to get Callahan. It almost worked. Everyone thought Mandy was dead—only Brooks and Pennington knew the real target was Callahan, and they thought he was dead, too. Callahan figured it was safer for Mandy and him to play dead until he could work out a plan. They hid out in my cabin—just as they did after Tressler’s death.” He sighed. “Most of the rest of the story you already know. But Callahan and Mandy almost didn’t reunite...because of me.”
Keira knew she had to ask. “Who told him?”
“I think Mandy intended to, but before she could find a way, he guessed. He confronted us, and...I...I told him the truth.” He shook his head and added softly, “He deserved to know. It wasn’t right not to tell him—I know how I would have felt. But he’s a proud man. Very possessive of Mandy.”
“That had to hurt him where he was most vulnerable.”
“Yeah.” Cody’s tone indicated this was a gross understatement. “Even worse, he still needed my help setting the trap for Pennington. It galled him—I know that—but he didn’t have much of a choice. It wasn’t just his life at stake. It was Mandy’s, too. And despite everything, he still loved her.”
Keira carefully digested what Cody had told her. While it still hurt to think of how much he had once loved Mandy, she honestly believed he hadn’t planned to seduce her that fateful New Year’s Day. Cody just wasn’t that kind of man. It happened; he regretted it; he accepted his responsibility. But he couldn’t change it—he just had to live with it. He could even put himself in the other man’s shoes and say he didn’t blame Callahan for hating his guts.
But Cody wasn’t quite finished. “Callahan still loved her. And she...she never loved anyone but him. So I told him,” he added in a low voice.
Keira turned a perplexed face toward him. “Told him what?”
Cody smiled crookedly. “The other truth Callahan deserved to know.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I told him Mandy cried...
after I made love to her.”
“Oh, Cody.” Her tender heart, the one she hid from the world, ached for him, for the wound to his pride...and his heart. But she was also fiercely proud of him. What other man would have done it? What other man would have pocketed his masculine ego, suppressed his own love for a woman, to atone for something he hadn’t planned but still blamed himself for? She couldn’t think of any man...except for him. It was another reason to love him. Another in an ever-growing list of reasons.
She wanted to cry for him, but tears were one of the things she’d denied herself for years. And besides, tears weren’t what he needed right now. He needed to know she understood. She put her hand on his, curling her fingers and squeezing to let him know she empathized with what he had gone through. His hand turned so that it was clasping hers, and she stared at it for a moment. Her hand looked so small wrapped in his hand.
But there was still something she didn’t get. “You’ve told me this whole story,” she said, with a puzzled expression on her face, “but you still haven’t explained what ‘amateur’ means.”
Cody’s smile turned rueful. “Six years ago we were so caught up in the hostility between us we both acted like amateurs. Not once, but twice. We knew better, and we knew it could have gotten either or both of us killed, along with Mandy. But it didn’t stop us. It’s just a subtle reminder, that’s all.”
His smile faded away. “Callahan doesn’t hate me anymore—he’s forgiven me. So has Mandy. And I’ve forgiven myself.”
Keira wasn’t sure this last part was true. Cody would always carry that scar on his conscience—it was the way he was made.
“And I no longer love Mandy,” Cody went on. “At least...not that way. She’ll always be a good friend—you can’t wipe out thirty-seven years of friendship—but that’s all. So I don’t hate Callahan, either.” He hesitated, drew a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. “I just envy him.”
A tiny sound of pain escaped Keira, and she drew her hand away as she averted her face, wanting to hide from Cody how much it hurt to think....
“No,” he said, capturing her chin and forcing her to look at him. “I don’t envy him Mandy. Not anymore.” His blue eyes darkened. “I just envy what he has with her. It’s what I’ve always wanted, but never thought I’d find after I lost her.”
He released Keira’s chin, and his fingers slid up, over the curve of her cheek, brushing the curls away from her face before sliding back and tracing the shell of her ear. Keira shuddered at the unexpectedly sensual touch and caught her breath. She wanted to close her eyes, to let herself just feel, but something in his eyes held her spellbound.
“And then...” he whispered, his voice dark and deep, his fingers trailing down her neck to the hollow of her throat where a pulse beat wildly. “And then I met you. And I realized that’s what I want to have...with you.”
Keira couldn’t take it in at first, but it was all there in his face. Love and longing, possessiveness and...hope. She caught her breath again, and this time her eyes closed against the tumult of emotions that swamped her. He loves me, she told herself, and the moment was sweeter than she’d ever imagined it could be.
She leaned toward him, but he didn’t kiss her as she’d expected. He didn’t even draw her into his arms. Her eyes flew open, and she saw he was waiting—waiting for a word from her that she felt the same way.
Cody had bared his soul to her. Could she be any less honest with him? “When I first met Mandy,” she confessed in a low voice, “all I could think about was how much I wished I could have what she had. That I could love someone the way she did. Then later, when I saw Callahan with her, saw the way he loved her with nothing held back, I thought to myself, ‘Cody would love like that.’ And even though I wouldn’t admit it to myself then, I wanted to be loved that way...by you.”
She knew her heart was in her eyes, but somehow it didn’t matter. If she could trust him with her life—and she did—she could trust him with her heart. “Love me,” she whispered. “Please...”
Then she was in his arms, and it was like the first time he’d kissed her. Desire flashed to life, and Keira exulted in the knowledge that he wanted her this much, but that he’d been strong enough to hold himself back...until now.
He stood, pulling her to her feet with him, just looking down at her for a long moment, his hand caressing her cheek. Then he bent and swept her into his arms. At her faint protest he smiled at her, his eyes blazing, and carried her into her bedroom. Keira’s hands crept up around his neck, and for the first time in her life, she accepted that it was okay to feel small and helpless—but only in Cody’s arms. He laid her on the bed and followed her down, his body hard and urgent.
Chapter 13
Cody’s hands were caressing her everywhere. Strong hands, but curiously gentle at the same time, and Keira knew he was remembering the bruises that had long since faded, determined there would never be another. Not from him.
She didn’t care about that. She just loved what it said about him.
Since he couldn’t be, she became the aggressor, tugging his shirt from his jeans, popping the buttons free with an impatience she didn’t recognize in herself, but didn’t question. She wanted his bare skin beneath her hands, wanted to glide her fingertips over his taut muscles, wanted to make him tremble as he fought for control...and lost it.
His belt was next, then the zipper of his jeans. She couldn’t suppress a gasp as she freed him: hard, throbbing and impossibly large. She stroked him, hesitantly at first, but with a stronger, firmer grip as she gained courage, loving the way he swelled even larger and the way her touch made his breath rasp in his throat.
His hand caught hers and pulled it away. “Don’t,” he said in a strangled voice, and Keira knew he was dangerously close to the edge.
“I want to,” she whispered, her breath deserting her as she thought about making him come this way, about making him lose that iron control.
“Not this time,” he managed, making it a promise for the future. Their future. Then he was undressing her, and it was the seduction she’d imagined, only more. While his hands caressed, he whispered in her ear everything he wanted to do to her. His words as much as his hands aroused her to the point where she ached to have him inside her, to assuage the need he’d created.
Her hands tugged at his hips, telling him what she wanted without the words she was suddenly too shy to say. But he wouldn’t be hurried. His fingers parted the petals of her womanhood, and she gasped, arching toward him.
She knew he could feel the dampness there, so she didn’t understand why he still held back. Instead, one long finger slid inside her, then out again, drawing the dampness up and over the unbearably sensitive nub he found. He rubbed up and down, again and again, occasionally dipping back inside and out again.
Keira couldn’t bear it. Her nipples were so tight they ached, and the pressure building in her loins, in her whole body, was so unexpected she moaned. He soothed her with soft whispers. “Shh. It’s okay. Let it go.” His lips captured one nipple, and his tongue rasped against it, circling around and around, sending shards of electricity throughout her body.
His fingers were still weaving their magic, and she moaned again. This time his lips captured hers, swallowing that moan and the ones that followed. Her breathing grew shallow and hurried, and still his fingers kept stroking her unbearably. She wanted...she wanted....
Then everything her body had been building toward suddenly exploded, and she arched against the seductive hand that had done this to her, clinging to Cody’s arms and crying out his name as the throbbing sensation went on forever.
She floated down to earth, her one thought that she couldn’t bear any more, that her body couldn’t take it. But she was wrong. Blood pounded in her ears, and her breathing was ragged as Cody removed his hand and fitted himself in place. He whispered her name, and her passion-drugged eyes opened—she hadn’t realized they were closed until that moment. He gazed down at her with that same
expression of love and longing, joined by a fierce, possessive desire held firmly in check.
“Tell me,” he demanded in a voice made harsh by passion.
How could she hold back the words that trembled on her lips...and in her heart? She reached up to cradle his face in her hands. “I love you, Cody,” she whispered.
He drew a long, shuddering breath. As if he’d waited only for her avowal before continuing, he surged into her. Then froze. His shocked eyes met hers for a second before they squeezed shut in contrition.
The slight pain of his entry was already receding, replaced by the incredible sensation of having him embedded deep inside her, stretching her, hot and hard and throbbing. Keira didn’t want him to stop. She’d die if he stopped. Her hands grasped his hips and pulled him closer. “Please,” she begged. “Please...”
His blue eyes stared down at her, pain in their depths, and she could read his thoughts. So she said the only thing she could think of in that instant. “You’ll only hurt me if you stop,” she breathed. One hand slid down and touched him intimately. “Please...please, don’t stop...”
His mouth descended, his kiss telling her everything she needed to know about how much he wanted her...needed her. Instinctively she contracted her inner muscles around him, again and again, and he made a rumbling sound deep in his throat. Then he began driving into her, shallow strokes and deep, setting a pace she struggled to keep up with.
Without warning she caught fire again, and then she was racing ahead of him toward something just outside her reach. It grew bigger and bigger as Cody’s tempo increased, and her body was out of her control. She’d wanted to make him lose control, but instead... Her hips thrust up at him to take him deeper as he held tightly and pounded into her. Then everything shattered, and she arched against him one last time as she cried his name, feeling him empty himself inside her.
Keira couldn’t catch her breath. Her body was trembling, and she couldn’t prevent it. Her inner muscles throbbed around his manhood, milking him in a way that seemed both foreign and natural to her.