"I've brought your supper up here, just as you requested," she said to Jeannie, who willed herself not to blush. "Just leave everything on the tray when you're finished, and I'll take care of it in the morning."
"Thank you." Jeannie smiled at Ollie, then turned her attention to the silver tray that the housekeeper had placed on the Battenburg-lace-covered round table.
Ollie excused herself, leaving Jeannie and Sam alone. Lifting the cloth covering the tray, Sam surveyed the contents of their meal. Chicken salad, croissants, fresh fruit and cheese.
"Sit down, please." Jeannie lifted her eyes and glanced directly at Sam.
"Ladies first." He pulled out her chair and seated her, his hand brushing her shoulder. He sat across from her, watching while she poured hot tea into the delicate Lenox cups. Her hands quivered ever so slightly. Sam glanced down at the china plate containing a mound of freshly prepared chicken salad lying on a bed of crisp lettuce.
He made her nervous. Sam found that realization strangely reassuring. Obviously he wasn't the only one experiencing an unnerving, unwanted attraction. Since arriving in Biloxi yesterday, Sam had felt unbalanced, as if his equilibrium were a bit off center. Jeannie Alverson had that effect on him.
With emotions he usually had no trouble keeping under control gone haywire, Sam had no point of reference in how to deal with what he felt. He was torn between his desire to protect Jeannie at all costs and to repay the debt he owed her for saving his life, and another, equally strong desire. The desire to claim her, body and soul … his primeval masculine need to possess. Heaven help him if he ever acted on his desires—heaven help them both.
"You aren't eating." Jeannie's smile trembled, her brown eyes questioning his silent absorption in his dinner plate.
Picking up his fork, he lifted a small portion of salad to his mouth and ate. He nodded, then glanced at Jeannie. "It's delicious."
But not as delicious as her mouth last night, when he'd taken one tender kiss. Being with her, wanting her so desperately and knowing he was totally wrong for her, only added to Sam's confusion. He had never known a woman like Jeannie, and he'd have bet his last dime that she'd never known a man like him. They were poles apart, opposite ends of a spectrum—a physical man and a spiritual woman.
He had once run away from his past, from the painful memories and the woman who had saved his life. Now he was trapped by a promise he'd made, captured by his own deepest, most primitive needs. Needs that could destroy him if he didn't keep them under control.
They ate in silence, each sneaking occasional glances at the other. The room was utterly, devastatingly quiet, the steady tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the hallway and the clink of silver against china the only sounds.
If the silence continued much longer, Jeannie thought she might scream. How had this happened, this long stretch of tense stillness? They were aware of each other to such a heightened degree that Jeannie began to sense Sam's thoughts. The moment she realized he was fighting the desire to kiss her, she immediately withdrew, ending the connection.
Jeannie's telepathic abilities had always been extremely limited. She and Manton could converse, and in the last days of Miriam's life, they had been able to connect. But Sam was the only other person with whom she had shared this rare joining, and he would not admit it, even to himself.
Scooting back his chair, Sam stood, then tossed his linen napkin down on the table and glared at Jeannie. "You were doing it again, weren't you? Trying to get inside my head."
Tilting her chin defiantly, she looked up at him. "I couldn't have made the connection without your cooperation. You were connecting with me, too. That's why I was able to sense what you were feeling."
He rounded the table so quickly that when he hauled Jeannie to her feet, she cried out in alarm. She clung to his arms, feeling the bulging muscles beneath his jacket and shirt.
"Don't do it again! I don't want any connection, any 'spiritual joining.' Got it?"
"You want to kiss me," she said. "That's why you're so angry. You don't like my knowing how much you'd like to kiss me."
"What?"
"I'd like to kiss you, too."
"Lady, are you out of your mind?"
"Maybe I am, but I've never been truly kissed by a man, and the thought of your kissing me intrigues me."
"You're paying me to be your bodyguard," Sam said. "Not your lover."
She covered his lips with her fingertips. "Shhh. I'm not asking you to make love to me, just to kiss me. What's wrong, Mr. Dundee, are you afraid to kiss me?"
With one hand, he tightened his hold around her waist, and with the other he grasped her chin. "All right, if you're sure it's what you want. Just remember that it doesn't mean anything. I've kissed a hundred women before you, and will probably kiss a hundred more before I die."
"Then I expect you're very good at this, at kissing, aren't you?"
Her eyelids fluttered. She clutched his arms. Drawing her up against him, Sam slipped his hand under the wavy fall of her hair and gripped her neck. His heartbeat roared in his ears like the hum of his Cessna's twin engines.
A steady, throbbing ache spread through him, threatening to overpower his restraint. When he lowered his head, his lips just making contact with hers, she seemed to melt into him, to become a part of him. He felt her surrender, her eager compliance, in every cell of his body.
Of all the women he'd known, all the pretty faces, all the luscious bodies, not one had ever sent him into a panic. But then, he had never wanted anyone the way he wanted Jeannie. And it was that need, that raging, all-consuming need, that frightened the intrepid Sam Dundee.
"I'm no good for you," he warned her. Or was he warning himself? "So don't let this kiss give you any ideas."
Slipping her arms around his neck, she closed her eyes and welcomed his kiss. Her soft, sweet, giving lips met his. Innocent and untutored, she gave herself over completely to his mastery, absorbing the undeniable pleasure he was experiencing, realizing that she felt their shared enjoyment in the kiss.
Opening her mouth on a sigh, Jeannie accepted the tender thrust of his tongue, the sensual probing. Her body tingled with excitement. A slow, steady throb of desire began to build inside her.
Sam deepened the kiss. He cupped her buttocks, shifting her body, lifting her up and into him, so that his arousal pulsated against her femininity. She moaned loudly, then slid her tongue inside his mouth, exploring him the way he had her. He ached. She ached even more. He groaned deep in his throat, the power of Jeannie's nearness rendering him helpless against his own masculine needs.
Jeannie cried out from the hot, pounding hunger and demanding desire raging inside her. Sam's hunger. Her desire. She felt them both, and felt them simultaneously.
She scratched his back, her short, rounded nails clawing fiercely at his cashmere jacket. Her body undulated against his, feeding his hunger, fanning the flames of her desire. She was on fire with their combined passion, and was no longer in control of her actions. Sam's needs dictated hers. The greater his desire was for her, the more she desired him.
She overpowered him with the fervor of her response, momentarily stunning him. Slowly ending the kiss, he lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the sitting room and directly toward her bed, then lowered her on top of the quilted pink coverlet. Her arms still draped around his neck, she pulled him downward. With his lips almost touching hers, he braced his hands on each side of her.
He had never expected her to go wild in his arms, had never imagined that sweet, innocent Jeannie possessed the power to bring him to his knees with nothing more than a smoldering kiss.
He looked down at her face, flushed with arousal, her lips red, damp and slightly swollen. "Jeannie?" He wanted to take her and make her his. He wanted to remove her clothes and cover her naked body with his own. He wanted to bury himself deep inside her and find the ecstasy he knew awaited them. But he could not, would not, take advantage of her. He sensed that she had never before felt
this way, that she was experiencing sexual desire for the first time in her life.
Suddenly the truth hit him, like a bullet between the eyes.
This really was the first time for her. The first time she'd ever been kissed. The first time she'd ever been aroused.
"Sam? Is it … is it always like this?" Was it possible that what they were feeling was what normally took place when a man and a woman shared a passionate kiss?
"You can feel what I'm feeling, can't you?" Suddenly he pulled away from her, easing her arms from around his neck as he stood up beside the bed. "Your empathic powers obviously include sharing your partner's arousal."
Jeannie sat up on the bed, looking at Sam, a mixture of wonder and uncertainty in her eyes. "Does it bother you that I—"
"That you're not only inside my head, but my body, as well, when I'm making love to you? Yeah, it bothers me. You actually felt everything I felt!" Sam loosened his tie, then ripped it off his neck and clutched it in his big hand.
She had not only known how much he wanted her and how out of control he'd been, but had felt those exact same emotions. But how could that be?
Jeannie Alverson really was an empath, Sam admitted to himself. To what degree, he wasn't sure, but he knew for certain that she'd somehow felt exactly what he had felt.
"You sensed what I was feeling, too, didn't you?" she asked, scooting slowly toward the edge of the bed. "Has that ever happened to you?"
"Hell, no! And it didn't happen this time, either." Sam crammed his silk tie into his pocket. "When I have sex with a woman, the only way I know what she's feeling is in the way she responds. And no woman has ever been able to experience what I'm feeling."
Jeannie slid her legs over the side of the bed. Sam stepped out of her reach. "Then what just happened between us was very special, wasn't it?"
"All we did was kiss!" Sam raked his hand through his hair, disheveling it.
She held out her hand to him, bidding him to come to her. "Yes, all we did was kiss."
He stared at her hand. Small, soft, delicate. Did he have the courage to accept what she was offering? All Sam had ever wanted, all he'd ever expected, from a woman was a mutually satisfying, uncommitted relationship.
Jeannie Alverson was a forever kind of woman, a woman who'd want to know everything about a man, a woman who'd want to save his soul.
"I'm in your life again because I want to repay a debt," Sam said. "I'm not here because I want anything from you. I don't want your healing. I don't want your sympathy. And I sure as hell don't want your love."
"You're afraid of me." Her voice held a breathless tremor. "You don't want to share yourself with anyone. You think you deserve to be unhappy and alone for the rest of your life. You see it as your punishment. And you're afraid I have the power to change all that."
"I told you that I'm no good for you. I am the wrong man for you. You deserve—"
"I deserve a man who will truly love me."
"That man isn't me. Not now. Not ever."
Tilting her chin defiantly, Jeannie looked directly at Sam, her bottom lip quivering slightly. Sam glared at her, wishing he'd never kissed her, wishing he wasn't obligated to stay in Biloxi and guard her.
Several sharp taps on the door snapped Jeannie and Sam out of their silent confrontation. Ollie rushed into the room, oblivious to Jeannie's position on the bed. "You gotta come downstairs right now, Mr. Dundee. And hurry!"
"What's wrong, Ollie? You're white as a sheet," Jeannie said.
"I found a package on the front porch. It's a small brown-paper-wrapped package. I don't know where it came from, but it's addressed to Jeannie."
"No one delivered the package?" Sam asked. "You just found it lying on the porch?"
"It could be a present for her, you know." Ollie wrung her hands together. "But what if it's… I mean, there could be something dangerous inside. A snake, or a—"
"A bomb," Jeannie said.
Ollie gasped.
"Where did you put the package?" Sam asked.
"Where did I—? I didn't put it anywhere. I left the thing on the porch."
"Good girl." Sam patted Ollie on the back. "You stay up here with Jeannie. I'll go take a look at our little gift."
Jeannie called out to him. "Sam?"
Halting in the doorway, he turned and looked at her.
"Please, be careful," she said.
"I always am," he told her, then walked out into the hall.
The minute Sam was out of sight, Jeannie turned to Ollie. "Get my cane for me."
"Why do you need your cane? Mr. Dundee said we were to wait up here."
"Ollie, don't ask questions. Just get me a cane. Please."
Obeying, Ollie handed Jeannie a walking stick, then grabbed her by the arm when Jeannie stood and headed straight out the bedroom door. "He'll be furious if you go downstairs."
"I won't get near the package," Jeannie said. "I promise. But I can't sit up here not knowing what's happening."
"Oh, all right. I'll go with you. But I won't take the blame for this. If Mr. Dundee gets all fired up—"
"I take full responsibility."
* * *
The package was just as Ollie had described it. Small, brown-paper-wrapped and lying on the front veranda, only a few inches from the steps. Well, it might be nothing more than a gift from an admirer of Jeannie Alverson. But then again, it might be a bomb. No use taking any chances, Sam decided.
He went back into the house and phoned Lieutenant Painter. "I'll keep an eye on the package until your boys get here," Sam said. "Tell them to make it quick. I don't know how long this thing has been out here, and if it's a bomb, it could be timed." Sam replaced the receiver.
"You really do think it's a bomb, don't you?" Jeannie stood in the library doorway, Ollie at her side.
Sam jerked around, glaring at her. "What the hell are you doing down here? Didn't I tell you and Ollie to stay upstairs?"
"I would have gone crazy staying up there, wondering what was happening, not knowing if you were all right or not."
"Ollie, take her out the back door and keep her there, even if you have to sit on her."
"Come on, Jeannie." Ollie tugged on Jeannie's arm. "Mr. Dundee's right. If it's a bomb, it could explode any minute now."
"Sam, please come and tell me the minute you know for sure." Her warm brown eyes pleaded with him. "Be very careful. Let the police handle things."
"That's just what I intend to do," Sam said.
After he'd made certain Jeannie and Ollie were out back, he returned to the front porch to wait on the Biloxi police. The wait was short; Lieutenant Painter arrived with the bomb squad in ten minutes flat.
"You think someone left a little present for Ms. Alverson?" Lieutenant Painter asked, stepping around the square-shaped object lying so innocently on the veranda.
"I have no idea, but my gut instincts are scaring the hell out of me." Sam leaned back against the closed front door, bending his knee and bracing the tip of his left foot on the floor. "If this package is from Reeves, then it's obvious the man means business. But what do you want to bet that there will be no way to trace the package and whatever's inside to the good reverend, or anyone else?"
Sam and Rufus Painter watched from afar while the bomb squad took every precaution unwrapping the package and then opening the box within.
One of the policeman laughed, another grunted and cursed. Sam and Lieutenant Painter walked off the porch and down the sidewalk.
"What have you got there, Ivey?" the lieutenant asked.
"You're not going to believe this one," Ivey said. "Come take a look, Lieutenant. This is a new one on me."
When they approached the policemen hovering around the opened package, Ivey turned around and held out a brand new white Bible.
"What the hell?" Painter shook his head.
"A Bible," Sam said. "A white Bible. Maynard Reeves's trademark. But my guess is there isn't a fingerprint on it, other than your men's."
; "Yeah, if it is from Reeves, he's too smart to leave fingerprints," Painter said. "Besides, there's no law against someone sending someone else a Bible, is there?"
"Take a look inside," Ivey said. "Just flip it open where the bookmark is."
Painter eased the pages back. "Hell! Take a look, Dundee."
"I wish I didn't have to show this to Jeannie, but she won't give us any peace until she knows," Sam said. "Any reason why she shouldn't be shown the Bible?"
"No reason I can think of. We can go ahead and show it to her." Lieutenant Painter clasped the Bible in his hand. "I'll go with you and reassure Ms. Alverson that everything's all right. Then we'll take the Bible downtown and have the lab run some tests."
Jeannie met them at the door leading into the kitchen. "Was it a bomb?"
"No bomb," Sam said.
Sam moved out of the way as Jeannie entered the kitchen, Ollie following. "What was it?"
The lieutenant held out the white Bible. "I believe this is yours."
Jeannie stared at the Bible.
"Why, it's the good book," Ollie said. "And you were worried somebody sent Jeannie something to harm her."
"Do you want to see this?" Sam asked Jeannie.
She looked at him, realizing the import of his question. There was more to the gift than the obvious. She nodded. He handed the Bible to her. A white satin ribbon marked a page near the beginning. Jeannie opened the Bible to the specified page and noticed that the white ribbon was dotted with dark red spots. One short verse had been smeared with the same red liquid that dotted the marker.
Jeannie read the verse silently. She swallowed hard, then read it aloud. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
"Who'd send such a thing?" Ollie jerked her head around in Sam's direction, and when he didn't respond, she looked back at Jeannie.
"It's a warning, isn't it?" Jeannie asked.
"What do you think?" Sam lifted the open Bible out of her unsteady hands. Placing the marker and the page to his nose, he sniffed, and then he scratched at the red spots on the marker with his fingernail.
"What are you doing?" Ollie stared at him, perplexed by his actions.
"The stains are blood, aren't they?" A knot of fear formed in Jeannie's throat, threatening to cut off her breathing.
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