Aching inside and seeking only to ease the pain, she gave him a sorrowful smile. "You're the world's biggest loser, Dillon," she said softly. "You don't need me to destroy your life. You've been doing a fine job of that on your own."
With that, she stood up, went into the bathroom and closed the door. Sliding to the floor, she hid her face in her arms and, for what she swore would be the first and last time for Dillon, she cried.
* * *
Dinnertime came and went without notice. Ashley made no offer to cook. If he was hungry, Dillon was capable of fixing his own meal, but he tended to lose his appetite when things went really wrong.
He couldn't imagine anything being more wrong than his life was tonight.
You're the world's biggest loser, Dillon.They werehis own words, but that didn't make hearing them in Ashley's voice any easier to bear. Neither did knowing that he deserved that insult and any other she might offer.
He'd thought the past eleven months had been miserable, but he was learning a whole new meaning for the word this evening. He should have insisted that Seth take him to jail. He would much rather take his chances with Vickers and the rest of them than spend one more silent, awkward, painful hour with Ashley.
It was time for bed. Earlier this afternoon, he'd had such plans for tonight. He'd intended to spend the entire evening making love with her, resting only when their bodies demanded it, saying the longest, sweetest, most intense goodbye anyone had ever said.
Instead, they hadn't spoken since she'd shut herself away in the bathroom.
Rising from the sofa, he walked past her chair, where she'd spent the past two hours working on her cross-stitch, and to the bed. He turned down the covers, removed his sling and shut off the lamp. After kicking off his shoes, he sat on the bed to remove his socks and sweatshirt.
That done, for a moment he simply sat there. He was more tired tonight than he could remember ever being, but it wasn't a physical fatigue. He would welcome that; he could crawl into bed, close his eyes and sleep until it was gone, until his body was well rested. No, this was a spiritual weariness, and all the rest in the world couldn't heal it.
But Ashley could.
There should be something shameful about wanting her after what she'd done, but he couldn't produce the shame. All he felt was the wanting. The need. The loss.
And the betrayal. It was still there, a painful emptiness centered somewhere in his middle, a place that throbbed at odd moments, that ached with the knowledge that she had liedtohim, had misled and deceived him. It hurt in ways he had never experienced with an intensity that he hoped to never again experience.
But all the anger, all the hurt, all the disillusionment didn't change the facts.
He needed her companionship, her support and her faith. He needed to hold on to her. He needed to touch her, to draw strength from her. He needed to love her.
Hedid love her—although this evening a person would have trouble seeing it in the way he'd treated her.
Across the room, she put her needlework away, turned out the lamp and gathered an armful of quilts from the wooden stand. He watched as she spread them in front of the fireplace, each one adding its cushioning to the braided rug there. When she was done, she went into the bathroom, closing the door quietly behind her.
Dillon stood up and unfastened his jeans. Instead of pulling them off, though, he left the bedside and went to her pallet. Picking up each quilt, he folded them as carefully as she'd laid them out, stacking them over the arm of the couch. He was shaking out the next to the last when the bathroom door opened again. She came a half-dozen feet into the room before seeing him and stopping short.
She was wearing her nightgown and holding the wooden-handled brush in one hand. Ready to torment him, he thought, swallowing hard. That was all he needed—Ashley in that barely-there gown sitting in front of the fire brushing her long blond hair—to bring him to his knees. To make him beg for mercy, for relief, for sweet, swift death.
He folded the quilt in half one last time, added it to the pile,then bent to pick up the last one. Instead of folding it, though, he wrapped his hands tightly in the fabric. "I can't—" His voice was harsh, hoarse, the words unintelligible. After clearing his throat, he tried again. "I can't do this, Ash."
She remained exactly where she was. "Do what?"
"Waste our time like this. In another day or two, the sheriff is going to take me in. He's going to lock me up, and I promise you, there's not a judge in North Carolina who will let me out on bail, not after last week's escape and last year's flight. This may be the last time we have together for a hell of a long time, and I can't spend it being angry."
"Seth isn't going to arrest you."
"When he can't find evidence against Russell and Armstrong, he'll have no choice. I'm still the only one who's been charged. I'm still the only one they can take to trial. Someone has to pay—"
"But it won't be you."
His smile was a poor effort. "I wish I shared your faith." But he didn't. He just couldn't believe that, after a lifetime of things going wrong, now when he was in the worst predicament of all, fate was going to work in his favor.
"You're not nine years old anymore," she argued, "and Seth isn't a grade-school principal. This isn't two little boys pointing fingers at each other, saying'I didn't do it,he did it.' We're talking about points of law, Dillon. Evidence.Proof."
"And what if Seth doesn't find evidence that the others are involved? What if he doesn't find proof that I was framed?I go to trial.I go to prison."
At last she came a few steps closer. "The evidence exists—unless Bradley and Armstrong committed the perfect crime. Do you honestly believe they're that smart, that good?"
"Maybe they're that lucky, because I'm sure as hell not." The words came easily—it was an old habit, puttinghimself down—but the moment he heard them, he wasn't so sure they were true. In the past five days, his luck had been pretty extraordinary. Three men had tried to kill him, but his only injury was as minor as a gunshot wound could be. The car he'd been riding in had rolled side over side into a deep ravine, ending up a bent and twisted wreck, but he had walked away from it. He could have easily died of exposure from the rain and the cold, but he'd found shelter. He could have been captured by one of the search parties, could have gotten hopelessly lost,could have stumbled onto a cabin owned by an unsociable, gun-toting hermit who didn't like strangers, especially those wanted by the law.
All things considered, he had been lucky the past week, and Ashley was the best luck of all.
"You really think this will all work out?" he asked hesitantly.
She nodded.
It was a gamble. If she was wrong, if Seth couldn't find any evidence linking Armstrong and Russell to the robbery, Dillon would surely go to jail. But if she was right… If she was right, he could have everything he'd ever wanted. He could stay here. Marry her. Have a family—children, grandchildren. Grow old. Be happy. Belong.
Blowing his breath out, he folded the last quilt and set it aside. "Do you realize—if Seth does find proof—what you're getting into? You're going to be stuck with me for a long time."
For the first time all evening, the tension that had kept her stiff and remote disappeared, and she slowly smiled. "It could never be long enough."
"You'll have to marry me."
"I guess I will."
"You deserve better."
Shaking her head, she closed the distance between them. "I've never known anyone better than you, Dillon. I've never loved anyone better."
All he had to do was reach out, lay his hands on her shoulders and pull, and she was in his arms, her soft body snug against his. He lowered his head, pressing his cheek against her hair, and closed his eyes, remaining that way for a long time, savoring the feel of her, the scent,the touch. After a while, though, he shifted until his forehead was resting against hers, until all he could see were her clear blue eyes. "If you're wrong…"
"I'm not wrong," she whispered.
"If you are, it'll kill me, Ash. Leaving here, leaving you, being locked up…"
"I'm not wrong," she repeated fiercely. "Trust me, Dillon. Trust Seth. Trust yourself. And pray."
"Oh, darlin', I've been praying since the first moment I saw you."
"For what?" Her voice was husky, teasing, enticing. "That God would deliver you from me?"
He chuckled. "Some part of me knew you were dangerous from the start."
"Youwere the one with the gun."
"And you were the one with the eyes of an angel, a gentle touch, more kindness than I knew what to do with and the loveliestbreast…"
Leaning back in the circle of his arms, she frowned at him. "You didn't see my breasts that first night."
"I got a glimpse when you were changing clothes, and it was enough to give me fantasies." Cupping her face between his palms, he stared hard into her eyes. "I do love you, Ash," he whispered. "Whatever happens … remember that."
Her eyes drifted shut as he bent his head to kiss her. It was a brief kiss, gentle, sweet, then he released her and backed away. It took her a moment to react, another moment to open her eyes, yet another to focus a decidedly bewildered look on him. By then he was already undressed and sliding underneath the covers that blanketed her bed.
"What…?"
"Don't let me interfere with your routine," he replied with a gesture.
She glanced down at the brush in her hand as if she'd never seen it before, then, damnably slowly she smiled. She sat cross-legged on the rug where her bed had so recently been made and unmade, turned slightly toward him and began drawing the brush through her hair with slow, steady motions.
Tempting and tormenting. Last night that was how he had described watching her brush her hair two nights before. Tonight it was no less of either. It made his body hard and his spirit weak. It heated his blood and sent a tremble through his hands. It was tantalizing, teasing and pure, sweet torture.
Gazing into the fire, she began talking, her voice soft,hypnotic . "I picked up this habit from my grandmother. Every night she sat right here and brushed her hair. Those were the only times I ever saw it down. Right up until her death, the first thing she did every morning was put it up in a bun, and the last thing she did every night was sit here and brush it out." She sighed contentedly. "She was a good woman. She believed in hard work, family, God and love. She always said she could tell all she needed to know about a person just by looking into his eyes. She would have looked into your eyes and seen your soul."
As Ashley certainly must have done, Dillon thought, to find anything in him worth loving.
"She was a wonderful woman—beautiful. Tough. Resilient. My grandfather used to say that she had a kind heart, a strong back and a good head on her shoulders—a major compliment from a man of few words like him. Her life wasn't easy. They never had much, and they struggled for what they did have, and three of their eight children died before their second birthdays. But she had this tremendous faith, and she never lost it, not when her babies died, not when her kids grew up and moved away, not even when my grandfather died." She smiled dreamily. "I adored her. I admired her. I wanted tobe her when I grew up."
"I think you succeeded," he murmured. "You're a beautiful woman. You're tough, kind, strong, smart, and you have this amazing faith."
She flashed him a smile that made his breath catch in his chest. "You think it's amazing that I have faith in you. It isn't. I knew the very first night that you weren't some desperate, cold-blooded criminal."
He was starting to feel pretty desperate now, but there was definitely nothing cold about his blood. He was hot enough to burn. Still, he resisted leaving the bed and joining her on the rug, and he stopped himself from calling her over to him on the bed. "If you knew," hebegan, his voice thick and raspy, "then why were you afraid of me?"
"Idid think you were dangerous," she admitted, then grinned. "Turned out I was right. Youare dangerous … and wicked … and handsome … and sexy." Leaning forward, she laid the brush on the stone hearth,then gracefully got to her feet, unfolding, rising, stretching. Backlit by the fire, she came to him slowly, each movement fluid and smooth, pulling her gown over her head as she walked, dropping it to the floor.
Dillon had the presence of mind—just barely—to kick off the covers, which heated his already feverishly hot skin and did nothing to conceal his arousal. When she reached the bed, she didn't stop, didn't hesitate or fumble, but placed one knee on the mattress, moved over him, sank down and so smoothly, so easily took him inside her. Her body was fiery hot, tight, greedily drawing him deeper, until he could offer no more, until she could accept no more.
Resting her hands on the mattress, she leaned over him. There was no denying that she was aroused—her nipples were hard, her skin moist, her body where it held him damp—but her eyes were clear, true blue. Not hazy, not dazed, but sharp, piercing, honest."Ilove you, Dillon, and I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry I gave you reason to doubtme, I'm sorry I couldn't treat your trust with the respect and honor it deserved. But it'll never happen again, I swear to you."
He lightly stroked her hair. "You did what you thought—what might prove to be—best for both of us." He drew a breath that smelled of her unique scents. "I'm sorry, too. I said some things…"
"You were entitled."
He shifted underneath her and felt her body move with him, adjusting, tightening. It sent a shiver up his spine. "One thing I said, that giving up half my life is a reasonable price to pay for spending the rest of it with you… That's true. If I have to go to prison—"
"You won't."
"But if I have to…" He broke off, unable to go on. The enormity of what he wanted to ask, the arrogance of believing he might deserve it, stopped him cold.
But Ashley apparently found it neither enormous nor arrogant. Bending lower, she pressed her mouth against his, rubbing, tasting, then drew back only enough to give the answer he needed to hear. "I'll be here for you, Dillon," she whispered. "Always and forever."
* * *
Chapter 11
«^
He brought the subject up again late the next morning. Ashley was standing at the counter, spreading thick slices of bread with garlic butter, and Dillon was a few feet away, sharpening a paring knife—the closest she could come to a steak knife—on a whetstone with slow, even strokes when abruptly he said, "What I asked for last night…"
She gave him a sidelong smile. "What would that be? As I recall, we both asked for a number of things last night … and got them, too."
Clearly uncomfortable, he turned to look out the window, lifting the curtain just a bit. "If I get convicted… About waiting." After a moment of silence, he faced her again. "I wouldn't ask that of you. Twenty-five years is a hell of a long time. It's your entire life."
"Not quite," she said dryly. "You don't even know how old I am, do you?"
"You're young," he said with a grin. "You'll always be young. That's all I need to know."
"For the record, I'm twenty-nine. And also for the record … this is my home, Dillon. This is where I'll be living in five years, in twenty years, in twenty-five years. This is where I'll be if you're here with me, and this is where you'll find me if you're not."
He started to touch her hair, but drew his hand back before he did. "You're a beautiful young woman, Ash. It's easy to say you'll wait now. But what about a few months or a few years from now? What about when you get lonely? What about when you get tired of living alone?"
"For starters, I'm young, yes, but you're the only man who's ever called me beautiful." She softened the remark with a smile,then went on. "I don't get lonely for just anyone. There are times I miss my parents, times I miss Seth. Ialways miss my granny. But those longings aren't interchangeable. Seeing Seth doesn't make me miss my folks any less. Seeinganyone wouldn't make me miss you any less. Living with someone else wouldn't make up for not living with you."
"You would be wasting your life—"
She stopped
him with a chastening look. "Why are we even discussing this? Let's wait and see what happens. Even if Seth can't find enough evidence to arrest Armstrong and Bradley, he'll find enough to make you look less guilty. He'll create a reasonable doubt. We'll get a good lawyer, and we'll take our chances. Whatever happens, we'll deal with it—both of us, Dillon. You and me. Together."
Rising onto her toes, she pressed a kiss to his mouth,then turned her attention back to the steak, wine and German chocolate cake she was fixing for lunch. Since this was the first bottle of wine she'd ever bought, she had bought a corkscrew, too, but it was nowhere in sight. Talking more to herself than to Dillon—"I know I bought it…I'm sure the clerk put it in the bag … now where could it be?"—she did a quick search of the kitchen,then sighed. "It must have fallen out of the bag in Bessie," she decided.
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