Til Death Do Us Part

by Beverly Barton

  “From that first day, when I saw you astride Washington, I felt alive in a way I couldn’t explain, not even to myself.” She ran her hand down his neck and shoulder, gripping his tense, muscular arm. “And I heard the drums. The drums Annabelle heard when she was with Benjamin.”

  J.T. stared at her with disbelief in his eyes. “You didn’t hear these drums when you were with Joseph?”

  “No. Never.” Breath-robbing love filled her heart as she looked at J.T., at that strong, manly face, and saw pure, undisguised satisfaction. “Don’t you know that I tremble when you look at me? That I shatter into a million pieces every time you touch me? And when you make love to me, I die from the pure pleasure of having you inside me?”

  “Honey, you shouldn’t say things like that to a man. Just look what you’ve done to me.”

  She glanced down and saw that he was once again hard with desire. “How do I make you feel, J.T.?” She slid her hand down his chest, over his stomach and then circled his arousal.

  He sucked in a deep breath. “You make me feel like a twenty-year-old.” He covered her hand with his, tutoring her in the precise moves his body craved. Within minutes, he stilled her caressing strokes. “Too much, honey. I can’t bear any more. Let’s go find a bed before I take you standing up again.”

  He slammed the door shut, locked it, and lifted Joanna in his arms. Carrying her through the first door to the left, he found himself standing in a small, dark room. An old iron bed waited for them, the covers turned down. A fresh bouquet of wildflowers in a glazed pottery vase sat atop the chest of drawers.

  J.T. laid Joanna down on the bed, divested himself of his clothes and gazed down at her. “Every time I look at you, I tremble inside from wanting you so much.” He lowered himself to the bed, straddling her body, aligning himself to perfectly fit her. When his hardness touched her softness, she cried out. “And when we touch, I shatter into a million pieces.” He spread her legs and entered her slowly, taking her with her full cooperation. “And when I’m inside you, making love to you—” he plunged in and then withdrew, only to delve deeper and harder “—I die from the pleasure of it.”

  Their second joining did not possess the raging hunger of the first, but the joy was even deeper and the aftereffects longer lasting.

  J.T. STOOD JUST outside his mother’s house gazing into the distance at the ragged, monolith-type stone formations reaching upward into the crisp, blue, morning sky. His mother had been raised in a fairly traditional Navajo family, or so Elena had told him. Her love affair with the son of a white rancher had been heartbreaking for her parents.

  He had no real memories of his grandparents, could not put faces to the names Elena had given him. He thought he remembered a voice singing to him when he was a small child. Elena said it must have been their grandmother; she had often sung to her.

  Glancing back at the house, he wondered if Joanna had awakened yet or if, naked, warm, and with his scent still clinging to her skin, she lay sleeping peacefully. He had never lived with a woman; had never wanted that close a relationship. He kept his affairs brief and uncommitted. But Joanna was different. And she made him different. Gut-wrenching jealousy was something new to him. He hated that anyone had so much power over him, but he could not deny the fact that the mere thought of another man touching Joanna sent him into a rage.

  Maybe the coffee he’d put on was ready. He sure could use a shot of caffeine. Rubbing his hand over his face, he decided he should shower and shave after he’d downed the first cup of coffee. The small two-bedroom house had one tiny bathroom, with a shower stall and no bathtub. He didn’t mind the idea of sharing a shower with Joanna. He could go back inside, kiss her awake, make love to her again and carry her to the bathroom.

  Just thinking about her aroused him. Hell, he was thirty-seven. He shouldn’t be walking around in a state of partial arousal most of the time because of one sweet little redhead.

  J.T. breathed deeply, taking fresh morning air into his lungs. Reaching upward, he stretched the muscles in his long arms, in his broad back and lean waist. The mud-roofed stone hogan about fifty yards from the house caught his attention. Elena had told him that their mother had been born in that hogan, which now, like her house, was unoccupied. Close by the hogan stood the remains of a ramada. Had his mother, like her mother before her, sat inside that brush arbor, shielded from the sun, weaving intricately designed rugs?

  A cloud of dust a good half mile up the road alerted J.T. that a vehicle was approaching. Although he was reasonably sure their early-morning visitor had to be a family member, his gut instincts warned him not to take anything for granted. He unlocked the Jeep, lifted his rifle out of the back and turned to await their guest.

  Joanna opened the front door and stepped outside. “J.T.?”

  Snapping his head around, J.T. took in the sight of Joanna standing there wearing nothing but his unbuttoned shirt. “Go back inside, honey. And put on some clothes.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Probably not, but you don’t want to welcome our first guest that way, do you?”

  Nodding agreement, she went back inside. J.T. watched and waited while the cloud of dust grew larger and thinner. Suddenly he recognized Joseph Ornelas’s truck. Hell and damnation, what did that man want?

  Joseph pulled his truck to a stop behind J.T.’s Jeep. Smiling, he got out and walked toward J.T., calling out the typical Navajo greeting.

  “Yá’ át’ ééh,” Joseph said.

  “You’re out and about mighty early.” J.T. glared at his handsome, younger cousin.

  “I have some news—official news—for Joanna.” Joseph glanced at the house. “Is she still asleep?”

  “What sort of official news? Something about Plott?”

  “In a way.” Joseph looked up when he saw the front door open. “Ah, there you are, nizhóní. I have good news for you.”

  When J.T. saw Joanna, he sucked in his breath. His cousin had been right to call her beautiful. She’d brushed her hair back into a hastily tied ponytail. Tendrils of red hair curled around her makeup-free face. Her billowing striped caftan hid the luscious curves of her body, the body J.T. now knew so well.

  J.T. clamped his hand down on Joseph’s shoulder, leaned toward him and whispered, “Any news for Joanna, good or bad, goes through me first. Remember that. You have my cellular phone number. From now on, use it.”

  “What sort of good news?” Joanna rushed out to meet Joseph, stopping abruptly when she saw the look in J.T.’s glittering eye.

  Stepping out of J.T.’s grasp, Joseph glanced back and forth from his bare-chested cousin to Joanna. “Claire Andrews has been found. Alive.”

  “Oh, thank God.” Without thinking, Joanna threw her arms around Joseph and hugged him.

  Returning her hug, Joseph looked over her shoulder at J.T., who glared back at him. Joanna withdrew from Joseph, grabbed J.T.’s hand and smiled at him. Reaching out, he tenderly wiped the happy tears from her cheeks.

  “Come inside and tell us everything,” Joanna said. “Have coffee with us.”

  Joseph hesitated until J.T. said, “Join us for breakfast, cousin.”

  Joseph followed them into his aunt Mary’s house, through the living room and into the small, neat kitchen.

  “How did Claire escape from Lenny Plott?” Joanna asked as she set out earthenware mugs for the three of them.

  “Plott never had her,” Joseph said.

  “What?” Joanna and J.T. said in unison.

  “Seems she panicked and ran away without telling her boyfriend or anyone else. When she’d had a chance to calm down and think clearly, she realized what her parents, her boyfriend and everyone would think. She called her mother to let her know she’s all right. Her mother told the FBI that Claire is in California, but she doesn’t want anyone to know exactly where.”

  “But Lenny Plott will find her. She needs protection. Doesn’t she realize that?” Joanna lifted the coffeepot and poured the hot black liquid i
nto their mugs.

  “If Plott can find her, the FBI can find her.” J.T. ran the back of his hand across Joanna’s cheek.

  “Let’s just hope that the FBI finds her first.” Closing her eyes, Joanna pressed the side of her face against J.T.’s caressing hand.

  He knew what she was thinking and wished he could erase the fear from her heart. But all he could do was guard her and wait. Wait for the FBI to apprehend Plott or for Plott to make a move on Joanna. Perhaps it would be easier on Joanna if the FBI found Plott and returned him to prison, but on a very primitive level, J.T. longed for a confrontation with the monster who had brutalized her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  J.T. CAME UP behind Joanna, slipped his arms around her and drew her up against his chest. “Ayoigo shil hózhó.”

  Leaning backward, she tilted her head. He nuzzled her neck, then kissed her on the jaw. “What did you just say to me?” she whispered.

  “I thought Eddie was giving us both Saad lessons. Haven’t you been paying attention in class? I just told you that I’m happy.” J.T. gazed down at the sleeping child resting in the baby bed. Joey Whitehorn’s fat little thumb lay in the corner of his open mouth. A pang of something unfamiliar hit J.T. square in the stomach. He had never thought much about having children of his own, hadn’t really wanted any. But recently, since getting to know Kate and Ed’s children and seeing the way Joanna acted around them, J.T. had begun to think about a family of his own. What sort of father would he be? He’d had no example set for him, hadn’t known his real father and despised the kind of parental figure his grandfather had been.

  “While Eddie has been giving you daily Saad lessons, I’ve been painting, or had you forgotten?”

  “How could I forget, when I’m the guy who’s posing for the damned thing?”

  Taking his hand, Joanna led him quietly from the room, closing the door only halfway behind them. Once in the living room, she slipped her arm around his waist.

  “Joseph offered to pose for me,” she said. “If you don’t want to continue as my model, I can ask him.”

  “Forget it, honey.” J.T. jerked her around and into his arms, smothering her face and neck with quick, warm kisses. “I’m going to be the only naked Navajo brave you ever paint.”

  “You’re painting J.T. without his clothes on?” Eddie Whitehorn stood in the kitchen doorway, his wide-eyed sister at his side.

  Little Eddie had been appalled when he’d learned J.T. couldn’t speak Saad and had made a point of coming by every day for the past four days to give him a lesson. When Joanna had volunteered for them to spend the day at the Whitehorns’ taking care of all three children so Ed and Kate could spend their Saturday alone in Gallup, J.T. had opposed the idea. When he had reminded her of exactly why they were hiding away on the reservation, she pointed out that it was highly unlikely that Lenny Plott could discover their whereabouts, at least not this soon. So, J.T. had reluctantly agreed to help babysit. After all, he had thought, how much trouble could three little kids be?

  J.T. groaned. “I thought you two were outside playing.”

  “We were, but Summer got thirsty and I had to bring her in for a glass of water.” Eddie led Summer into the living room, then stopped and stared up at J.T. “If Joanna gets to see you without your clothes on, do you get to see her without hers on?”

  Joanna covered her mouth, smothering a laugh behind her hand. J.T. cleared his throat. He didn’t know anything about kids, had never been around any until he brought Joanna to the reservation a few days ago. How was he supposed to reply to Eddie’s question? He had no idea how to handle this situation.

  “I’m an artist,” Joanna said. “You already know that, don’t you, Eddie?”

  The child nodded his head. “So?”

  “Well, I went to school, to a college in Virginia, and took classes in art. Sometimes all the art students drew pictures of models who didn’t have on any clothes. That’s the way we learned how to draw the human body.”

  “Yeah?” Eddie twisted his mouth into a frown, scratched his head and blew out a huffing breath. “If I go to the Navajo Community College in Tsaile and take art classes, will I get to see people naked?”

  Smiling, J.T. looked at Joanna as if to say, “You started this, honey. Finish it.”

  The sound of Joey whimpering saved Joanna from thinking of an appropriate reply. “I’ll go get him,” she told J.T.

  “I’m hungry,” Summer whined. “When are we gonna eat supper?”

  “Go get Joey,” J.T. said. “I’ll handle this.”

  “Could we have some ice cream?” Eddie asked. “Mama’s got some in the freezer.”

  “Fruit,” Joanna called out from the hallway. “One apple each, but no ice cream until after supper.”

  “Ah,” both children groaned in unison.

  After Joanna changed Joey’s diaper, she brought him into the living room, sat down in the rocker near the window and began singing to him. His little eyelids fluttered, but every time he heard his older siblings’ voices, his eyes opened wide and he tried to sit up.

  Coming out of the kitchen, J.T. tossed Eddie and Summer an apple apiece, then motioned for them to follow him out onto the porch. When J.T. sat down on the steps, Summer crawled up in his lap and Eddie sat down beside him.

  “Tell us a story, J.T.,” Summer said, looking up at him with big brown eyes he found impossible to resist.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know any stories,” J.T admitted. “What about you, Eddie, do you know a story you could tell Summer and me?”

  “What do you mean you don’t know any stories?” Eddie asked. “Surely you know about Asdzá Na’adleehe and her two sons?”

  “Who was this Asdzá—?”

  “Changing Woman, the mother-creator of our people. J.T. you don’t know anything, do you? You can’t speak our language and you never heard of Changing Woman.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about her?”

  Eddie eagerly recited the myth of Changing Woman, her husband, the sun, and their offspring—the story his parents had taught him since early childhood. J.T. listened with great interest, realizing that he truly wanted to know more about the Navajo legends. The truth of the matter was, deny it all he wanted, he was half Navajo; a part of his mother and a part of these people.

  Hours later, after the sun had set and the two younger Whitehorn children were asleep, Eddie and J.T. checked on the animals before Eddie went to bed. Then, alone in the living room, J.T. and Joanna slumped down on the sofa and stared at each other.

  “I don’t remember the last time I’ve been this tired,” J.T. said. “Kids can wear you out, can’t they?”

  “They certainly can,” Joanna agreed. “I suppose that’s why it’s a good idea to have them while you’re still young.”

  “I feel as if I’ve been playing twenty questions all day. They want the answers to everything immediately. How on earth do Kate and Ed cope?”

  “I suppose they do what all parents have done since the beginning of time,” Joanna said. “They do the best they can and pray their best is good enough.”

  Kicking off her shoes, Joanna scooted to one end of the sofa, lifted her feet and put them in J.T.’s lap. He massaged her insteps. She sighed.

  “I want children of my own someday,” she said.

  “Do you?” He caressed her ankles.

  “Uh-huh. Have you ever thought about it? About having children?”

  “I’d probably make a lousy father.”

  “Why do you say—” The ringing telephone interrupted Joanna midsentence. Gasping, she shuddered.

  “It’s okay, honey. It’s just my phone.” He lifted her feet so he could stand, then rested them back down on the sofa.

  He picked up his cellular phone from where he’d laid it on the knickknack shelf filled with Kate’s pottery collection. “Blackwood. Yeah. When did it happen? Is she all right? What about Plott?”

  Joanna jumped up from the sofa and rushed over to J.T. Tugging on
his arm, she mouthed the words, “Who is it?”

  “Hold on a minute,” he told the person at the other end of the line. “It’s Dane Carmichael,” he said to Joanna.

  J.T. slid his arm around her waist, drawing her to his side as he finished his brief conversation. He punched the off button on his phone and laid it down on the shelf, then kissed Joanna on the forehead.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Plott found Libby Felton.”

  Joanna gasped. “No. Please, J.T., what happened? Did he—”

  “She’s all right, just badly shaken. Libby’s husband and an FBI agent were both shot, but they saved Libby from Plott.”

  “Is Libby’s husband dead? And the FBI agent?”

  “No. They’re both in the hospital. Libby’s husband is in stable condition and the agent is in critical condition, but he’s expected to live.”

  “When—when did all this happen?” Joanna asked.

  “Before daybreak this morning.”

  “Plott escaped, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah, honey, he did.”

  “He won’t go back to Texas after Libby anytime soon after what happened,” Joanna said. “And it’ll take him a while to find out where Claire is, so that means…that means he’ll come to New Mexico. He’ll go to the ranch.”

  “Only a handful of people know where we are and none of them are about to tell Plott.”

  “He’ll find out. Somehow, he’ll figure out a way to find out where I am and when he does, he’ll come after me.”

  J.T. grabbed her by the shoulders. “Dane is calling in more agents. The FBI will be in full force in Trinidad. No way will Plott get past them.”

  “I hope you’re right. Dear God, I hope you’re right.” J.T. hoped so, too, but any doubts he had, he intended to keep to himself. While reassuring Joanna and keeping things as normal as possible for her, he planned to prepare himself for the worst.

  LENNY PLOTT SEEMED to have vanished from the face of the earth since attempting to kidnap Libby. No one had any idea where he was or what he was plotting, but Joanna knew it was only a matter of time before he resurfaced.