"This is where I landed when you knocked me off the bed.
You were having a nightmare and I was tr ying to wake you up. I got a fist in my shoulder."
"Are you hurt?"
"No," she said, pulling herself to her feet.
His heart was racing, and he was bathed in sweat. Feeling weak and disoriented, he raised the knee of his uninjured leg and rested his forehead on it.
"It must have been a doozy," she remarked. "Do you remember any of it?"
Raising his head, he looked up at her. "Luckily I don't. It scared the shit out of me."
"You're soaking wet. I'll get you a washcloth."
While she was out of the room, he got up, moved to the window, and sat in the straight chair. He raised the shade and was disappointed to see that the day was as dusty and still as it had been when he'd decided to surrender to his lethargy and take a nap. After the heavy rains two weeks ago, they were now in a dry spell. The heat was enervating.
He glanced over his bare shoulder at the twisted, sweaty sheets. "Sorry about that," he remarked to Kendall as she reentered the room.
"It won't be any trouble to change the bed." She hesitated, then added, "This isn't the first time you've had that night mare."
"No?"
"No, but this time was by far the worst. Do you feel better now?"
He nodded and gratefully accepted the glass of lemonade she had carried in on a tray. His hand was shaking. He took several deep swallows of the icy lemonade, then rolled the cold glass against his forehead.
When he felt the cool cloth applied to his back, he was astonished. Ordinarily she went out of her way to avoid touching him.
Now, she moved the cloth across his shoulders, down his sides over his ribs, and along his spine to the small of his back, where sweat had pooled. The soft cloth felt deliciously cool, comforting. Her touch was light.
It reminded him of the way she was with her baby. For whatever else she might be, she was an excellent mother.
Gentle. Giving. Attentive. Loving. She reveled in the role.
The infant prompted easy, natural smiles from her that lit up her face.
He'd observed her, usually when she wasn't aware of it, as she tended to the child. There were times when he almost envied the kid. He couldn't remember his infancy, of course, but being fussed over that way was beyond his imagination.
He doubted that he had ever been loved that wholeheartedly, either as a child or as an adult.
He wondered, too, if he was capable of loving another human being so unselfishly and completely. It bothered him to think not.
"Better?" She rolled the cloth into a compress and laid it against the nape of his neck.
"Yeah. Thanks." Spontaneously he reached behind his head and covered her hand with his. He held the compress against his nape for several moments, her hand sandwiched between his palm and the cloth. "Much better."
"Good."
Eventually he removed his hand and she withdrew hers. He then used the cloth to bathe his chest and stomach, which he suddenly wished were harder, firmer, younger. When he caught Kendall watching him, she turned away quickly.
They both began speaking at once.
"I've brought"
"What's all that for?"
"In a minute," she said, responding to his question. "Give yourself time to catch your breath."
She sat on the edge of the bed and demurely folded her hands in her lap. She wore shorts every day, so her legs had tanned. He figured she shaved them every time she bathed, because they always looked silky smooth. They looked smooth.
He didn't know from experience,- because, since that morning he had kissed her, he hadn't touched her again. For reasons as yet unknown to him, she had instituted a hands-off policy.
He had tried to convince himself that the taboo was okay with him. If that's the way she- wanted it, fine.
But it wasn't fine. He was suffering from a near-terminal case of lust. Living with her as her husband, while conducting himself like a stranger, was becoming more of a strain each day. He pulled his eyes away from her legs and her small, narrow feet.
Who is this woman?
What was she running from? he wondered. And she was running. She could deny it till doomsday, but he knew that something beyond the four walls of this house terrified her.
Several times each night, she left the bed and tiptoed through the rooms, peering out the windows, scanning the yard. For what? He always pretended to sleep through her nocturnal patrols, but he was aware of them. Not knowing the reason for her vigilance bugged him.
Sometimes the frustration of not knowing drove him nuts.
Why wouldn't she confide in him and let him help her? The only reason he could think of was that he was part of her problem. That was an upsetting possibility, but she could have dispelled it with a few simple, straightforward answers.
Fat chance. He had slept beside her every night for two long weeks, but he hadn't won her confidence.
He knew the pattern of her slumberous breathing, but she was still a stranger to him. Even blindfolded he would recognize her scent and the sound of her voice, but she didn't belong to him. He would have bet his life on that.
"How'd you find the pistol?" he asked.
"There aren't that many hiding places accessible to a man on crutches."
Their first morning there, while she had been rummaging around in the kitchen, he had rifled through her things and discovered the pistol in the kid's diaper bag, the last place one would expect to find a lethal weapon. Which confirmed what he had believed all along she had been lying through her teeth. The situation wasn't nearly as harmless as she wanted it to appear.
Naturally, Kendall had become extremely upset when she saw him with the gun. She had accused him of snooping and meddling, to which he confessed, but when she had demented that he return the pistol to her, he had laughed in her face.
She, however, got the last laugh because she had hidden the bullets somewhere other than the diaper bag. The gun was useless to him. Nevertheless, it had given him a false sense of power to have it in his possession. And surprisingly, he had felt comfortable with it. The weight of it in his hand had been familiar and disturbingly natural. He had handled it without awkwardness. Even though the bullets weren't available, he somehow knew the mechanics of loading and firing, and while he respected the gun, he wasn't afraid of it. Because he had felt so at ease with it, he wondered how he had acquired that familiarity. He had tried to remember if and when he had used a gun, but his memory continued to fail him. Holding that pistol had offered a glimpse into the past; he hated like hell that he no longer had it.
"I'll find it again," he said now.
"Not this time."
"I'll keep looking until I do."
"You won't."
"Who does it belong to?"
"To me."
"Nursing mothers rarely tote pistols, Kendall. What are you doing with a firearm? Did you hold someone at gunpoint and kidnap me? Are you holding me for ransom?"
She laughed at that notion. "How much do you think you're worth? Do you feel rich?"
He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head wryly. "No."
"Remember, you insisted on coming with me. I didn't take you from the hospital against your will."
That's right. She hadn't. So that shot the kidnap and ransom theory to hell. "Have you hidden the gun in the same place you hide the car key?"
"Why have you been searching for the car key?"
"Why have you hidden it?"
"If I presented the car key to you on a silver platter, what would you do with it?" she asked. "You couldn't drive with your left leg."
"I could damn sure try."
"Would you leave Kevin and me stranded here alone?"
He answered with an emphatic yes. "Just like you intend to leave me the first chance you get."
"Well, before I go," she said sarcastically, "there's some thing I must do first. So I'd just as well get it over a
nd done with."
She stood up and reached for the tray she had set on the nightstand. He suspiciously regarded the plastic bottle of rub bing alcohol, the tiny scissors, and the tweezers. "Get what over and done with?"
"I'm going to remove your stitches."
"Like hell you are."
"There's nothing to it."
"Easy for you to say. They're not your stitches. Why can't we go to a doctor?"
She dampened a square of gauze with alcohol. "There's no reason to. You just have to clip them and pull them out. I've seen it done."
"I've seen open-heart surgery. That doesn't mean I can do it."
"When did you see open-heart surgery?"
"I was speaking metaphorically." He motioned toward the tray. "Put all that stuff away. You're not coming at me with those scissors. How do I know you won't jab them into my jugular?"
"If I was going to do that, I would have done it while you slept, and long before now."
She had a point. She wanted to be rid of him, but murder wasn't what she had in mind at least he didn't think so.
"Stop being such a baby and bend your head down." She reached for him, but he grabbed her hands.
"Do you really know what you're doing?"
"Trust me."
"Not in this lifetime."
She rolled her eyes. "There are only a few stitches on the surface. Most of the sutures are beneath the skin. They've dissolved by now."
"How do you know so much?"
"The doctor told me." She gazed down at him, her expression earnest.
"It won't hurt. I promise. The wound has healed."
That much was true. It hadn't hurt him for days; the head aches had disappeared. He was now able to wash his hair. The stitches had become a mild irritant, as had the circular spot surrounding them. His shaved hair was growing back, and the prickly patch on his scalp itched like mad.
Reluctantly he released her hands. "Okay. But if it starts to hurt"
"I'll quit
She placed her hand on his cheek and tipped his head down , then dabbed the sutured area with alcohol. "Hold still," she murmured as she laid the gauze aside and picked up the pair of manicure scissors.
She was gentle. If he hadn't heard the metallic click of the scissors, he wouldn't have known when she clipped the first suture. Of course, he was distracted by other stimuli more potent than pain her breath in his hair, the brush of her thigh against his, her breasts so tantalizingly close to his face.
Maybe he shouldn't have goaded her into baring herself to him. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, a foolproof way of testing her "married" stow. But now he feared it had been a tactical error that had rattled him more than her.
Because now when he noticed the sway of her breasts beneath her nightgown or her T-shirt, he had a mental picture of wet dream caliber.
"Are you okay?" she asked suddenly.
"Yeah, sure."
"Is your leg bothering you?"
"No."
"Then what's the matter?"
"Nothing."
"Well, stop fidgeting. I can't do this if you don't sit still."
"Just finish, okay?" he said crossly.
She returned the scissors to the tray and picked up the tweezers. "You might feel a slight"
"Ow!"
"Tug."
"Ow!"
She stepped back and placed her hands on her hips, stretching her T-shirt across her breasts, detailing their shape. "Do you want to do this yourself?"
I want to do you, his mind shouted.
"Tell me and I'll stop," she said.
"You've gone this far, just get the damn things out."
When she was finished, she blotted the area again with alcohol. It stung slightly, but he didn't complain.
Making one final dab with the moist gauze, she said, "As soon as your hair grows out, you'll be as good as new."
"Not quite."
"You mean the amnesia? No glimmers of memory?"
"Don't pretend to be disappointed. You don't want me to remember. Do you?"
"Of course I do."
"Then why won't you help me along? You're very stingy when it comes to information."
"The doctor said"
"The doctor said, the doctor said," he mimicked in a nasty tone. "You claimed not to have any confidence in that fast talking, slick little shit, but you sure as hell quote him when it suits you."
"The doctor said I shouldn't crowd your mind with too much data."
She appeared unfazed by his querulousness and his foul language. Didn't anything fluster this woman? Her reasonable tone of voice and her unflappability didn't calm him, but only made him crankier.
"Prompting you might actually slow the recollection process," she said.
"Your memory will come back when it wants to. We can't hurry it along."
"You're making that up."
she said, "All right, shoot. What do you want to know?"
"Who fathered your baby?"
Finally! An honest, unrehearsed, uncalculated reaction. She was completely taken aback. Obviously she had expected a question about something other than her son's parentage.
"He's not my child," he said with conviction. "I know he's not mine. There's nothing there. I feel no connection to him."
"How can you tell? You never touch him. You hardly even look at him."
"I . . . I can't. He . . . Kids in general, they . . . " What could he say? That they terrified him? She would think he was crazy, and he couldn't blame her. Yet, fear was the word closest to describing how he felt each time he was close to the child.
Kendall was watching him curiously, so he had to say some thing. "It bothers me to hear them whining and crying."
Just thinking about children caused beads of perspiration to pop out on his face. He heard echoes of his recent nightmare, but instead of thing to outrun it, this time he closed his eyes and mentally reached for it, stretching the boundaries of his mind. And this time, he gained an insight that before had escaped him. In his dream, he wanted the children to stop crying. But he realized now that he feared their sudden silence as much as their crying. Because the silence signaled their death. He knew it. He also knew that somehow he was responsible. Jesus.
It was a long while before he opened his eyes. He felt physically drained, shaky and depleted, as though he had once again experienced the nightmare.
Kendall hadn't moved. She was watching him with a mix of concern and apprehension.
"When you tried to unload me in Stephensville, did it have something to do with your baby?" he asked. "What have I got against him?"
"Nothing."
"Don't lie to me, Kendall. I'm holding a grudge against a little baby and I don't know why. Unless I'm simply a heartless bastard, there's a reason for the way I feel toward him. What is it?"
"I don't know."
"Tell me."
"I don't know!"
Chapter 12
"I'm pregnant!
In an effort to contain her exhilaration, Kendall gripped the steering wheel of her car. She laughed out loud and shimmied her shoulders. Anyone who happened to pass her on the street would surely think she had lost her mind, but she was too happy to care.
Did Matt suspect? She didn't think so. It wasn't unusual for her to leave the house shortly after daybreak. She frequently went to her office before the workday officially began so that she could work uninterrupted at her desk.
However, this morning she had gone to her gynecologist's office. She hadn't wanted to say anything to Matt until it had been medically confirmed that the longed-for Burnwood baby had finally been conceived.
She had prevailed upon the doctor and his office staff to keep her secret. News traveled fast in Prosper. She didn't want Matt to hear it from someone else before she had an opportunity to tell him.
At lunch, perhaps? Yes, she would call him and arrange to meet him somewhere. Or perhaps she would wait until tonight over a candlelight dinner.
It was stil
l early when she arrived at the courthouse. Hers was the first car in the parking lot. She seemed to float above the ground as she made her way into the building and through the deserted corridors toward her office.
When she rounded a corner in the hallway, she noticed that the light was on in her office. Roscoe was working early, too.
She poked her head around the open door, but instead of saying a simple good morning, she exclaimed, "Oh my God!"
The custodian nearly leaped out of his skin, but when he saw that it was Kendall, the alarm in his eyes turned to apology. "I was hoping I'd get it cleaned up before you got here, Mrs. Burnwood."
The vandalism was extensive. The windowpane in her door had been shattered, littering the floor with broken glass. File cabinets had been broken into and their contents strewn on every conceivable surface. Law books had been swept from the shelves.
Two African violets, which she had nursed with great care, had been upended onto her desk pad. Their shredded leaves and a mound of muddy potting soil were all that remained on the surface of her desk. Everything else had been thrown to the floor and either ripped, smashed, or broken. The tufted cushions of her leather desk chair had been slashed.
"Who's responsible for this?" she demanded.
"You reckon it's the handiwork of those white trash Crook twins?"
Yes, she did, but she didn't voice her suspicions. She called the city police. Shortly, two officers arrived. They went through the motions of a crime scene investigation, but Ken dall could tell they were halfhearted about it. When they finished dusting for fingerprints, she followed them into the corridor, out of Roscoe's earshot.
"Did you get some usable prints?"
"Hard to say," one replied. "Yours, your secretary's, and that old nigger's are all we'll probably turn up."
The second officer hitched his chin toward the office. "How do you know he didn't do it?"
Kendall was so affronted by the racial slur that for a moment the question didn't register. "Mr. Calloway?" she asked incredulously . "What possible motivation could he have?"
The officers exchanged a glance that silently rebuked her simplemindedness.
One of them said, "We'll let you know if we turn up any significant clues, Mrs. Burnwood. You made any enemies lately?"
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