by Sharon Ervin
She hesitated, gazed toward the window, staring for a moment at the midmorning brightness. “I still don’t know the answer to that.”
His eyes remained fixed on her face. “You were the cure. We can talk some other time about all the other stuff that ailed him, like a family business, parental expectations, successes that came too easy and too early, pressure, fear about keeping ahead of the game, that kind of stuff.”
She gave him a gentle smile. “Anyway, I decided I wasn’t the only hostage. I wanted to help Bo escape from whatever was holding him captive, too. He was wonderfully kind, despite the occasional grumpiness. And generous. He shared everything he had.”
“Including his bed,” Alex interrupted.
She squinted at him from the corners of her eyes. “Including his bed.” The squint relaxed. “When Franklin came to get me, I didn’t take time to think.” She wanted him to understand. “If I had, I wouldn’t have gone. That could have been a disaster. It almost was.”
Allowing a forgiving smile, he nodded, encouraging her to continue.
“Bo saved me from Franklin and my own stupidity.
“Oh yes,” she said, interrupting herself, “that was an amazing knife throw, clipping his fingers like that.”
He grinned. “Yes, wasn’t it? I was actually aiming for his head. I led him a little too much. I couldn’t hit his hand like that again in a million throws. Now, please continue.”
She took a deep breath. “Even after I was safe, later that night, I was frightened; too frightened to sleep without awful, awful nightmares. Bo put me in his bed and comforted me. He held me but he didn’t touch me in any sexually suggestive way.
“Lying in his arms that night was when I first started thinking I might love him.”
Smiling, Alex shifted his position and Sara glanced at his face. He appeared to be uncomfortable, made to feel awkward by her account of her close relationship with another man--another man who was him. She bowed her head. This whole situation was terribly confusing.
“Keep talking.” Alex was being kind, encouraging her, like Bo would do.
She slid the fingers of both hands together, back and forth, repeatedly. “I did love him then, although I kept trying to rationalize, to analyze my feelings. I thought it might just be sympathy, like a bleeding heart might feel for an injured animal.”
He touched her shoulder and slid his index finger down her arm. “But you knew it was more than that, didn’t you, Sara? And you knew he felt that way too, didn’t you?”
She looked intently into his face. “Eventually, yes, I knew. I could tell by the way he looked at me. I mean I thought he might be feeling it too. But he was too kind, too gentle to take advantage of me, as confused as I was, while I was his guest or his prisoner or whatever it was I was.”
Alex watched her closely. “But you knew exactly what you were doing when you asked him to take off his shirts that day, didn’t you? You weren’t so naive as to think that was an innocent request, were you?”
She shook her head, looking at her hands and whispered, “No. I knew. And what happened was what I wanted to happen, only I hadn’t really planned to go that far. Things got out of control--at least out of my control--in a hurry.
“After that I loved him desperately.” She covered her mouth with one hand, her eyes darting to his face, silently pleading for his understanding. She tapped her fingers on her chin as she continued talking. “I loved him so much he became part of me, inside me, even when he wasn’t.”
The gorgeous man on her sofa countered quietly. “He loved you before that morning, more than he had ever loved another living thing, Sara. After you made love, he was desperate to hold onto you. Before that, he hadn’t dared plan a future with you in it. Afterward, it was obvious, the connection worked both ways. He began formulating long-term plans thinking you could have a life together.”
Alex did not attempt to touch her again and she was glad. In her confusion, she was prepared to bolt if he made any move at all. She turned a harsh glare back on him.
“But, after our intimacy--something we repeated again and again--he refused to cut his hair so I could see him. I begged him to. If he loved me, why did he refuse such an insignificant request?”
Alex returned her pensive gaze. “Maybe in his plan, it was important for you not be able to recognize him or to describe his features.”
She stared glumly at the easy chair. “I thought he was trying to get rid of me, that he didn’t want me to be able to find him again. And that’s pretty much what the FBI agent in charge said when he debriefed me.”
“Why would Bo have shown you in so many ways how much he loved you, and then abandoned you?”
Her mouth pursed, and she leveled her gaze at him. “The usual reason a man tries to convince a woman he loves her, to get in her pants.”
“But you and he had been intimate over the course of several days and, admit it, you could feel him loving you more every single day, couldn’t you?”
Her uncertainty became a frown of confusion. “Yes. It was hard to figure out. Except,” she said brightening, “I thought maybe he was feeling bad about his girlfriend, a little Mexican girl. Mrs. Johnson called her his ‘hot tamale.’ The day we were leaving, he took off on his motorcycle to tell his tamale good-bye before he left.”
A chuckle burbled in his throat but did not break loose. “That’s not where he went. He went to the Johnsons to give them his guns and some other things, including a bill of sale for his livestock, so they could have the benefit of the eggs and milk and the animals. In return, they would feed and care for the stock. They’d have legal ownership, in case anyone came nosing around, asking about their new acquisitions.”
“Oh.” Sara’s scowl dissolved. “That was a good idea. I may not have mentioned; in addition to being compassionate, I think Bo may also be pretty smart.”
Alex grinned. “I’ve thought that about him myself.”
“But what about his hot tamale?”
“Not a consideration. He was teaching the young woman to read and write English. Anything else existed only in the minds of the uninformed.”
“You mean you...he...spoke to her?”
“No, but he listened to her read English and stopped her when she made a mistake. No one else in her family could do that and none of the other neighbors was willing to do it without strings attached.”
Sara’s face twisted with her next question. “He asked me to marry him, then it seemed like he took it back. What was that about?”
“You didn’t mind fooling around with him in secret, but you were horrified at the idea of wagging him back to meet your family and your friends, of being saddled with a misfit. That was like a knife in his back, your being ashamed of him. He thought you had more character, more depth, than that.”
She winced. “Then what made him forgive me?”
“What made it right was your saying you were not only willing to take him with you, but you would try to support him. That was nice. Not necessary, but nice. He’s a rich guy, Sara. Money’s not a problem.”
“Do college professors make that much?”
“No, but a guy whose dad is looking to turn over a small business does, or will.”
“Here in Overt?”
“No, in Tulsa.”
“But you’re here.”
“Temporarily. I’m here to teach for a semester and to woo you. When you feel comfortable about us, we are out of here.” He hesitated. “If that’s all right with you.”
Sara regarded him skeptically. He smiled and held his hands out flat, palms up. Frowning at the offered hands, she made no move to touch them. Instead, she peered at him, still puzzling.
“Bo dumped me at a store out in the boonies.”
“At a bus stop, and he gave you money for a ticket. It was a place where he knew you were safe from Cappy and Franklin and their family. And you didn’t know where he’d gone. With your sense of direction, I’ll bet you couldn’t have found your way bac
k to the cabin from there. You were able to tell your family and the police the truth when they asked.”
“Yes. Well, I didn’t tell people exactly the whole truth.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t tell them about sleeping with Bo.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was nobody’s business.”
“And no one knows that?”
“Yes.” She suddenly felt defiant. “The agent heading up the investigation, Mr. Krisp. When he was just about through interviewing me, he excused my parents and he asked me some questions privately.”
“That was nice of him, to spare you and your parents that embarrassment.”
“Yes.”
“And in order to reward his consideration, you told him you had slept with Bo?”
“No. I just didn’t deny it.”
“Was he shocked or disappointed or angry? What?”
“No. He seemed to know already. He was very kind, treated me like I was some goopy teenager. When I assured him I knew what I was doing, he got haughty and insisted Bo was just horny and that I was an opportunity that fell into his lap.”
Alex winced. “He may have figured Bo for a letch who snatched women regularly for sex.”
“That’s not what he thought and it isn’t true anyway. Bo would never...” Sara’s voice, tense with her sudden anger, faded. She stared into Alex’s eyes, perplexed. “This is ridiculous. What am I doing defending you to you.”
“I didn’t know for sure you knew I was me.”
She allowed a pained little laugh. Reluctantly she placed her hands in his open ones, palms down, one on top of the other. He stroked her long fingers with his, flipping each long nail before mischievously capturing her two thumbs with one hand. She looked at his face, startled. He smiled reassurance and lifted the captive thumbs to his mouth.
“Does my face offend you then?” he asked as she watched him kiss one finger at a time.
She shook her head.
“I know you like my body.”
She hummed her agreement.
“Is my manner offensive to you? The way I smell? My demeanor? My deportment?”
“No, no, no, and no.” She gazed at her hands which he was nuzzling with his open mouth. “Everything about you is marvelous. Nothing about you offends me.”
He lowered his voice. “And do you know I love you?”
Mutely she nodded.
“What else do you need to know, Sara?”
She took a deep breath and raised her eyes from her hands which he held against his mouth, just as he lifted his gaze to hers. “I can’t think of...of anything...anything at all when you’re doing that.”
He stood up, pulling her to her feet. Placing his hands on each side of her face, he lowered his lips to hers.
Familiar? Oh, yes, his kiss was definitely familiar.
He held back, restraining himself. She groaned, the sound lost inside him as she opened her mouth. She sucked at his taunting tongue until he yielded and allowed it to invade. Her breath caught as she welcomed him, her hands tracing the breadth of his arms to his shoulders where they encountered unfamiliar pads beneath the fine worsted wool. Startled, she pulled back.
Holding her gaze with his own, Alex slipped out of his sport coat, removed his tie, unbuttoned his shirt and pulled the shirttail free of his trousers. She stared at his chest, a sight which was also gloriously familiar. Tentatively she pressed her fingers to one pectoral muscle, which he flexed at her contact.
A series of knocks disturbed their ritual before the apartment door burst open.
Libby Cook stood still as the expressions on her face ran a spectrum; from the silly smile she flashed at Sara, to the sultry look as she recognized Alex, to suspicion, realization, and fury as she appraised the freeze frame scene before her.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Libby’s eyes darted from Sara to Alex and back to settle accusingly on Sara.
Sara took two steps around the sofa, moving to Libby who sidled forward into the room. Sara reached around her friend to shut the door. Alex made no attempt to close his open shirt and Libby gazed unabashedly at his bare chest.
“Libby,” Sara began, then hesitated as she suddenly realized it might still be important to keep Bo’s identity a secret, indirectly, from the FBI. “Libby,” she tried again, “Alex took me to work this morning. I had car trouble.”
“I got that much at the office.” Puffed up with indignation, Libby reluctantly turned her stare from Sara to Alex and back. “So?”
“I had to come home and he brought me.”
“They said you were sick. You don’t look sick to me.”
“Well, I’m better.”
“And?”
Sara turned to Alex and pondered how to explain Libby’s anger without mentioning her friend’s hands-off warning regarding him. She didn’t want to humiliate Libby more than Libby was humiliating herself at the moment.
“Alex, Libby met you first and we have a kind of gentlemen’s agreement, you might say, about friends bird dogging friends’ friends, if you see what I mean.” The statement was more of a plea for help than clarification.
Alex took the hint. “Libby, Sara and I have known each other a long time.”
“Odd. She didn’t mention it.” Libby’s voice was acid. “You’re so close she didn’t recognize you or your name when I mentioned it?”
“I was working undercover when we met, disguised, using an alias. Sara didn’t know what I looked like, or my real name until this morning.”
Sara’s eyes widened in amazement, gawking at Bo/Alex before they darted to Libby. “That’s the truth, Libby.”
Libby leveled a hard look at Alex. “And what’s with your shirt? Is she sewing on a button for you or did I catch you two playing doctor?” Neither spoke. “Or maybe you old friends were merely baring your souls?”
Sara glanced around the room. “Why don’t you sit down, Libby? Let me fix us some tea.”
Alex shook his head, returning Libby’s accusatory glare. “Libby’s not staying, Sara.” He sounded curt.
Libby’s angry stare intensified.
“She’s got no business here and I damn sure don’t intend to explain us to her. A noodle casserole only buys so much.”
Libby gasped and her mouth dropped open.
“Although,” he added, pretending to rethink the statement, “the casserole was good.” He again focused on Libby. “You’ll find your dish outside your apartment door.”
Closing her mouth, Libby glowered at Sara once more, then turned on her heel and stormed out the door, slamming it in her wake.
Sara stood frozen in the kitchen doorway.
Slowly, carefully, Alex walked over to her, brushed his shirt away from both sides of his chest and took her hands. Sara didn’t object as he covered her mouth with his. He lifted and flatted her hands against his bare chest. At her touch, he closed his eyes and drew a deep breath from inside her mouth.
The gentle kiss deepened to one of need, of urgency, hers as well as his.
“You weren’t supposed to look like this,” she whispered, her lips against his mouth as she pushed his shirt off of his shoulders. The shirt floated to the floor. “I had myself psyched, mentally prepared to accept any kind of deformity. I wasn’t prepared for you to be gorgeous. You could have a lot of women, Alex Cadence. Libby, for one.”
“Without you,” he said, his mouth brushing her ear, his voice soft, lulling her, “I’m like a flashlight with no batteries. A shell. When you touch me,” he glanced down at her hands on his chest, “I light up, inside and out. You’re my energy pack, Sara, my power supply.”
He laced his fingers into her hair, kissing her face, her eyes, her throat. His fingers found the gold chain and followed it down, unbuttoning the top two buttons of her blouse to continue his pursuit.
The hand-carved hickory ring lay between the swells of her breasts. He half laughed, half coughed as he regarded
it in disbelief.
“I went back to get this. I thought it’d burned up. I’d have felt a lot better knowing it was here.” He sobered as he fingered the smooth white cleavage encasing the ring.
Nudging his chin aside with her forehead, Sara kissed his chest.
Deliberately, moving cautiously, he unbuttoned the rest of her blouse. When it opened to reveal her bra, he allowed a droll little laugh.
She looked up. “What’s funny?”
“I forgot we were back in civilization. I’m used to you running around unfettered, without the requisite harness.”
Sara reached back to unclasp the bra. Alex removed her blouse and the bra, then stepped behind her. His hands slid deftly along her waist to caressed her midriff. He splayed his hands and pulled her tightly to his chest. As he fondled and captured her full breasts, he hummed an audible sigh.
“I’ve ached to hold you like this again.” His voice sounded hoarse. “Sara, my life had no purpose until you tumbled into it. From that first night, you’re part of everything I think about. I’ll take care of you, my angel. Good, good care of you. I’ll feed you, provide you warm, comfortable places to sleep, and protect you from everything--people, animals, weather. You are the center of my universe.” His voice dropped. “Marry me?”
“Hmmm,” Sara said, affirmatively. Reaching up and back, she clasp her hands around his neck and luxuriated as he continued caressing her. She pivoted in his arms and began unfastening his trousers. Gently, persuasively, he took one of her hands and turned her back toward the couch.
“Let’s fill out this form and get blood tests and do whatever else it takes to get the license.”
She squirmed out of his grasp. “Let’s sleep on it.”
He looked skeptically into her eyes and shook his head. “Not until we’re married.”
“But how do we know we want to get married. Let’s live together, fool around for a couple of months first.”
His eyes narrowed and the smile faded. “No, ma’am. There’s only one way we get back in bed together.”