by Rachel Lee
“I remember working at the pharmacy because so many employees couldn’t make it in.”
“No snow days for you, huh?”
She didn’t answer directly. “How many did you actually get? Look at you now.”
“Well, when I was younger, but yeah. Once I got big enough to be a decent help around here, I didn’t get them, either.”
“So it was ordinary. Nothing to feel bad about.”
“Not for me. Of course, I didn’t have to work with your father.”
That at last elicited a laugh from her, and the laugh eased the remaining tension.
He stopped bouncing as he began to feel warmer. She went to the refrigerator and found cold cuts, mayonnaise, lettuce. A loaf of homemade bread was waiting to be cut in the bread box.
“Wow, Rosa makes bread, too?”
“Nearly every day. Al and I put it away like there’s no tomorrow.”
She made the sandwiches quickly, two thick ones for him, a half one for herself. It hadn’t been that long since breakfast and she wasn’t hungry, but she hadn’t been out in the cold working for a couple of hours.
“I wish I could help out more around here,” she remarked as they ate. “I feel like baggage most of the time.”
“But you have a job.”
“I’m not really contributing here, though. I want to know more about how this place works, and find things I can do to help. Rosa obviously has the house, but there must be things I can help with.”
“You were exercising the horses,” he reminded her. “My mom used to do that. If you want to get into it, I can teach you how to train them, and we might be able to expand their numbers again. She had quite a nice little business going for herself, training saddle horses and selling them. But it’s a lot more work than the training. She took care of them, too.”
“Is that why you only have a few now?”
“There’s only so much a guy can do. What she was doing took a lot of her day.”
She thought about it and decided she would like working with the horses in bigger ways. Even the caring-for-them part. “Okay. After this other thing is over, if you don’t want to see the last of me, I’d like to give it a try.”
“See the last of you?” He caught on that, his gaze growing troubled. “Don’t think that, Nora. Please.”
She looked down, feeling oddly embarrassed and touched at the same time. “Okay,” she said in a smothered voice.
Just then the wind howled like a banshee and snow rattled against the glass. It was different, but not different enough, and in an instant the nightmare came crashing back.
“He’s coming,” she whispered. It was as if she could feel his approach in her very bones.
Jake pushed back from the table. He seemed to be developing a habit of scooping her up into his arms. He did, then, and carried her to the living room, once again settling with her on his lap, wrapping her in the protective circle of his arms.
“Shh,” he whispered, kissing her head, her face, anything he could reach. “We don’t know that. But even if he is, everyone is watching for him.”
Pointless argument. Sooner or later she would become an easy target again. He’d find a way. “If he gets me,” she whispered, “I don’t want to live.”
“Nora!”
“I’m serious,” she said tautly. “I can’t survive that again. I can’t!”
He tightened his hold on her but didn’t offer any false platitudes. Once had been enough, and despite how much she had forgotten of the torture she had suffered at that man’s hands, she remembered enough, and enough about her lengthy recovery. She couldn’t do it again. Hell, she still wasn’t over the first attack.
“He’ll have to get through me.”
“You won’t always be there.”
“If you want, I’ll staple myself to your side until he’s caught.”
It was such a generous offer, and even in the midst of her terror, swamped by the dark memories, she felt selfish.
“You can’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“What wouldn’t be fair is something happening to you. And I wouldn’t be able to live with the feeling I didn’t do enough to stop it. Anything. So we’re joined at the hip from here on out.”
It took a while, but steadily she battled her way out of the horror and landed once again in the present, wrapped in Jake’s arms, reassured by his strength, thinking that she could spend the rest of her life on his lap just like this, and then maybe she’d always feel safe.
But reality was reality. That man was on the loose, she had no doubt he would come and Jake couldn’t possibly spend every minute playing her bodyguard. She didn’t say so; she didn’t want to make him feel bad. But it was the truth. She gathered as much courage as she could muster and accepted that she might well have to face the creep again. Alone. With only her own wits and skills to help her.
It was not a comforting thought, but a seed of determination, growing for the past few weeks as Jake had taught her self-defense, had given her a new reason to live, grew stronger now. She would survive. She had to.
“You never told me,” he said after a bit, “what you were thinking at the office that seemed to get you down so much.”
“Psychobabble,” she said finally.
“What?”
“Oh, I think I told you I only remember snatches of the attack. A mercy, I guess. But I got to wondering if my interpretation of the creep might be affected by my father. He was never one to put up with defiance, either. So maybe I was misinterpreting his motives. Maybe he doesn’t care that I survived. Maybe I’m scared for no reason. After all, his wife is still alive.”
“And in a coma,” he pointed out.
“Still?”
“Still.”
“God.” She shook her head. “I knew her. She was a nice woman, a good mother. She didn’t deserve that.”
“Neither did you. Bottom line, nobody deserves that.”
The tension had begun to seep out of her muscles and at last she relaxed against him. “You must be so tired of my fears and moods.”
“Hardly.”
“Well, I am.”
“With a lot more reason, I guess.” He paused. “The wind sets you off, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, all I can suggest is you listen to it now while you’re safe. To me it makes a cozy sound. I’m inside, warm and safe, and with you. It doesn’t get much better.”
A valid point. With effort, instead of trying to tune out the sound, she forced herself to pay attention to it and try to knit it into her current experience with Jake.
It wasn’t easy. Paying attention to it brought the memories bubbling up again, but she battled them back, forcing herself to stay in the present. It stood among the hardest things she had ever done. It might even take months or years to achieve what he was suggesting.
But she had learned about desensitization during her education, and accepted the rightness of his suggestion. She needed to become desensitized to the wind, and there could be no better place than where she was right now.
And no better way than to not only feel safe but to feel again the slow, almost springlike emergence of desire once again.
* * *
Jake felt her relaxing, but he wasn’t quite ready to, himself, yet. What she had said about not being able to endure another attack, about preferring to die, had struck him right in his heart and gut.
He guessed she had plenty of reason. He’d seen the scars, and he could still only barely imagine the depths of her suffering, horror and fear. For years to come this would haunt her, and his easy solution of trying to unite the sound of the wind to being safe in his arms right now seemed like a paltry offering.
But he hadn’t been kidding. He was going to find a way not to let her out of his sight. He couldn’t quite figure out how, given he had work to do, but he was going to find a way. Even if it meant tasking one of his officers to stay with her if he needed to be away.
H
e couldn’t be 100 percent certain that Langdon would come for her, but he wasn’t willing to risk being wrong about that. She, of all people, despite her memory blanks, probably had the best measure of that man of anyone on the planet. Even the judge hadn’t taken Langdon’s measure well enough to keep him in a cell, but had granted him bail.
This whole situation suggested that Langdon was an emerging serial killer, driven by impulses that sooner or later took control of him. The attack on his wife meant nothing if he removed that context.
The man would keep repeating his attempted murders. Sooner or later he would succeed. In Jake’s mind it seemed clear that the compulsion would keep driving Langdon until he was stopped for good.
Unfortunately, Nora might be right: he might still be after her, wanting to complete the job. Whether it had to do with feeling she had defied him by surviving seemed the least of it to Jake. No, what mattered was Langdon’s failure to fulfill his sick compulsion.
He could, of course, hunt another woman. But since his wife there had been no more reports of attacks. So it seemed likely he was going to take care of Nora, perfect his method and madness then move on to a new victim.
Jake could understand people getting mad beyond all reason and reacting violently. He understood how most people could kill in the right circumstances. What he would never understand was a mind that stalked and hunted victims for the sheer pleasure of it.
But from what little he’d read in the police and medical reports, probably far more than Nora remembered, at least in the medical descriptions of her injuries, he perceived that this guy got pleasure from what he did.
The most dangerous killer of all.
* * *
Gradually Nora felt her reaction to the sound of the wind changing. Maybe because it wasn’t exactly what she had heard in the woods that night as she had made her desperate crawl toward the road. Maybe because Jake’s hold was so comforting.
Regardless, the memories were fading away, and her awareness of the present intensified. Desire, at first a mere seedling, had begun to grow. She wanted him again, and she wanted him now. She wondered if he felt the same, then realized there was only one way she could find out.
Taking every ounce of courage into her hands, she murmured, “I want to make love with you.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
She had sensed a somberness in him, but that vanished instantly.
“I was hoping you’d ask,” he added.
“Then why didn’t you say something?”
“Because,” he said wryly, “sometimes a guy likes to be asked, too. Because I wanted it to be your idea. It feels good.”
She got that instantly. She tilted her head back and smiled at him. “What are we waiting for?”
“You to get off my lap so I can chase you upstairs.”
That was exactly what happened. She slid off his lap, and soon was giggling as he chased her up the stairs, his laugh following her.
There was little finesse as they pulled at each other’s clothing, but a lot of laughs and smiles. A wholly different mood than before. No caution, no surprises, just an eagerness and sense of freedom as if she had cut loose from the darkness that haunted her days.
Such a short time ago she had believed she would never have the guts to let a man see her naked body, or even the desire to, but look at her now.
They tumbled onto the bed, happiness still enveloping them along with the rising scents and heat of desire.
She could smell it. She had smelled it last night, but today she knew what that musky scent was, and it enhanced her pleasure. Life, she was sure, didn’t get much better than this, and to think she had waited all these years to learn that.
But Jake was in no hurry despite their eagerness. He lingered over her breasts, driving her nearly insane as he licked and sucked her nipples until they engorged so much even the whisper of the air felt sensual, until they ached with their fullness. He trailed kisses all over her, much as when he had dealt with her scars, but he didn’t just attend to her scars this time. And when he parted her legs...
Shock shot through her as he kissed her there. She wasn’t a complete innocent, but it was an utterly new experience for her to feel his fingers stroke and part her petals, and then his tongue start flicking the nub of nerves. The first few touches were almost painful in their intensity, but after a few of them the pleasure overrode everything else.
When at last he nipped her gently, she thought she was flying to the moon.
Desperate now, she tugged at him. He didn’t argue, broke away just long enough to get a condom and then he slid up and over her, filling her with himself in a way that answered a deep craving, filling a place that had never felt filled before.
He didn’t move in her, though. Not immediately. He kissed her and teased her breasts some more, even as her hands clutched at him and stroked whatever she could reach.
Then a wicked impulse seized her, and she pinched his nipples gently. Encouraged by the groan that drew out of him, she pinched a little harder.
“Witch,” he muttered, and at last began to rock into her, meeting her rising hips with his own plunges. He slipped one of his hands beneath her rump, holding her steady for him, controlling the movements of her hips just enough to draw the minutes out.
It was as if he was determined to wring every last drop of pleasure from their union. Aflame with desire, nearly out of her mind, Nora forgot everything except Jake and the blaze he was building in her.
Nothing else mattered. Nothing. She could have died a happy woman right then.
But she didn’t die. She exploded finally in a cascade of completion that ripped through her entire body. Lights sparked behind her eyelids. Her brain seemed to freeze in ecstasy.
A few moments later, he jerked and groaned, following her to heaven.
* * *
Later she lay on top of him, beneath the blankets, reveling in the close contact. He held her, running his hands gently over her back and buttocks. Their breathing had calmed, the perspiration had dried and now she began to inch downward over him, learning his body the way he had already learned hers. She listened to his sighs, to his quiet moans, felt the way his muscles tightened then relaxed at each touch.
She liked being able to make him respond the way he did to her. It made her feel good, but also gave her such a sense of power. Jake, trembling at her touches. An old dream revived, and so much better than the dream had every been.
Finally he laughed and rolled her over. “I’m going to need a warmer room if you want to keep exploring.”
She smiled from the corner of her eye. “You don’t mind?”
“I’m loving it.” As if to prove it, he threw the blanket back and revealed his full glory to her hungry gaze.
But it was chilly. As if the wind had sucked the heat from the house despite the heater that pumped almost continuously.
She gazed on him, feeling her own insides clench with pleasure, even as goose bumps started rising on her own skin.
“Too cold,” he said, and pulled the blanket back up, cocooning them. “Just you wait until the weather improves.”
A promise? She hoped so as he drew against him again. He was a heater himself, rapidly filling their little cocoon with his warmth, easing the chill on her skin.
Tucked away in her memory now, though, was Jake’s well-muscled, perfect body, offered to her until the cold intervened. She liked what she had seen and promised herself that one time soon she was going to explore every inch of that territory. Learn it. Memorize it.
It was only then that she realized the keening wind no longer made her edgy. It simply made her snuggle closer. Another demon had been defeated.
Smiling, she pressed her face into Jake’s shoulder. She just wished that creep wasn’t still out there.
* * *
The wind had eased. Langdon stood at the motel window, watching snow whip across the street out front, but it wasn’t rising very high into the air any longer. He
could see the businesses across the way, and the night sky was no longer gray and yellow with reflected light. It looked black and cold.
He turned on the small TV on the rickety stand and found some weather reporting. The worst conditions were over; tomorrow promised to be sunny and calm.
Smiling to himself, he decided he’d leave before dawn. He might make it all the way to Conard County tomorrow, and then all he’d have to do was locate Nora and get her at the right time.
Just the thought of getting his hands on her again was enough to make him harden and nearly salivate.
But first things first. He needed a meal since he’d slept a lot of the day, and a stroll in the cold to clear his head. Then, later, when the last of the locals were safely tucked in, he’d change his plate with a truck similar to the one he was driving. There was one that had spent the past few days in the motel parking lot. Best to get that plate before the owner decided to move on, too, with the improving weather.
Another day. Then maybe a day to find the woman and figure out his plan. Soon.
Then he’d be off on his grand adventure.
He had to struggle a bit with the compulsion to start out right now, but he won. He was still in control.
For some reason that made him feel very, very good.
Chapter 13
The light of morning was harsh, almost blinding, bouncing off the snow and shattering into a thousand colors. Grass still poked up, uncovered as yet, but the blades looked brown and lost amidst the sparkling white scattered everywhere.
Without the wind, the day felt warmer. The horses seemed delighted as Nora led them from their stalls and into the corral. They nosed around at the ground, but then made their way to the troughs full of hay. Even though they’d had food all along, being outside seemed to enhance their appetites.
She returned to the barn and made a stab at helping Jake and Al muck out their stalls. Rosa’s breakfast was still warm in her belly, and the activity made her feel good.
Even though last night had been anything but inactive. She smiled inwardly, thinking of all the fresh memories she now possessed of Jake. She wished the whiteout had lasted longer, that she could claim just one more day alone with him.