Tribute

by Nora Roberts

  “The three women you were with knew your house would be vacant?”

  “That’s right. My neighbor knew, as he called me while I was out. My father knew, and my neighbor’s parents. I suppose Mrs. Morrow’s husband knew, or could have. Basically, Detective, pretty much anyone who had any interest in my whereabouts could have known or found out.”

  “Miss McGowan, I’m going to suggest you get yourself a security system.”

  “Is that what you’d suggest?”

  “This area is lightly developed, it’s part of its charm. You’re relatively remote here, and your property has been a repeated target of vandalism. We’re doing what we can. But if I were you, I’d take steps to protect my property.”

  “You can believe I will.”

  Cilla pushed to her feet when she heard Ford’s voice, raised in obvious frustration as he argued with one of the cops currently prowling her house and grounds. “That’s my neighbor. I’d like him to come in.”

  Wilson signaled. A moment later Ford rushed in. “Are you hurt? Are you all right?” He took her face in his hands. “What happened now?”

  “Someone broke in while I was out. They did a number on two of the second-floor bathrooms.”

  “Mr. Sawyer, where were you this afternoon and evening, between two and eleven?”

  “Detective Wilson—”

  “It’s okay.” Ford took Cilla’s hand, squeezed it. “I was home working until about four. I went out to buy some wine and some flowers for my mother. I had dinner at my parents’, got there about five. Got home, I don’t know, about nine, maybe nine-thirty. I watched some TV, fell asleep on the couch. When I surfaced, I started upstairs. I looked out the front door—it’s a habit now—and I saw the cops.”

  “Ms. McGowan stated you knew she wasn’t home.”

  “Yeah, I called her to invite her to dinner at my parents’. No, walked over first to invite her. She didn’t answer, and I got a little worried, with everything that’s been going on. Then I called. And a little while later, I talked to my father; my mother wanted me to stop and pick up some milk. I told him I was trying to reach Cilla to ask her over, and he said he’d run into her dad, and that she was out with girlfriends.”

  “What time did you come over here?”

  “Ah, about three, some after, I guess. I walked to the barn when you didn’t answer, but the lock was on, and I walked around the house. I was worried, a little. Everything looked okay. Where did they break in?”

  “Back door,” she told him.

  “The back door was fine when I did the walk-around. How bad is it?”

  “Way bad enough.”

  “You can fix it.” He reached for her hand. “You know how.”

  She shook her head, walked over to sit on the steps. “I’m tired.” After scrubbing her hands over her face, she dropped them into her lap. “I’m tired of it all.”

  “Why don’t you go over to my place, get some sleep? I’ll bunk here so somebody’s in the house.”

  “If I leave, I’m not going to come back. I need to think about that. I need to see if staying here matters anymore. Because right now? I just don’t know.”

  “I’ll stay with you. I’ll take the sleeping bag. Are you going to leave any cops here?” Ford demanded of Wilson.

  Wilson nodded. “We’ll leave a radio car and two officers outside. Ms. McGowan? I don’t know if it makes any difference to the way you’re feeling, but this is starting to piss me off.”

  She offered Wilson a sigh. “Get in line.”

  WHILE FORD WENT over to get the dog, she fixed plywood over the broken glass herself—a kind of symbol. At that moment, Cilla wasn’t sure if it was a symbol of defense or defeat. When she set down the hammer, all she felt was brutal fa tigue.

  “You don’t have to take the sleeping bag. It’s a big bed, and you’re too decent a guy to try anything under the circumstances. And the fact is, I don’t want to sleep alone.”

  “Okay. Come on. We’ll figure everything out tomorrow.”

  “He used my own tools to ruin things.” She let Ford lead her through the house, up the stairs. “It makes it worse somehow.”

  In the bedroom, she toed off her shoes. Then pulled off her shirt. And had just enough left in her to be touched and amused when Ford cleared his throat, turned his back.

  Spock, on the other hand, cocked his head and—if it was possible—ogled.

  “He didn’t bust up the johns,” she said as she changed into a tank and cotton pants. “I don’t know if he ran out of steam, or if he knew the tiles, the sinks, the block were all more expensive and would take more time and trouble to replace. He’d be right about that. But you don’t have to go outside if you have to pee.”

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  “You can turn around now.”

  She crawled onto the bed, didn’t bother to turn it down. “You don’t have to sleep in your clothes. I don’t know if I’m as decent as you, but I’m too damn tired to start up anything.”

  Taking her at her word, he stripped down to his boxers, then stretched out on the bed, leaving plenty of space between them.

  She reached out, turned off the light. “I’m not going to cry,” she said after a few moments of silence. “But if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you to hold on to me for a while.”

  He shifted to her, turned, then, draping an arm around her, drew her back against his body. “Better?”

  “Yeah.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t know what to do. What I want, what I need, what I should, what I shouldn’t. I just don’t know.”

  He kissed the back of her head, and the quiet gesture pushed tears into her throat. “Whatever it is, you’ll figure it out. Listen, it’s starting to rain again. It’s a nice sound, this time of night. It’s like music. You can just lie here and listen to the music.”

  She listened to the music, how it played on and around the house she’d come to love. And, with his arm curled around her, slipped into exhausted sleep.

  SIXTEEN

  There was music when she woke. The same steady drum and plink of rain that had lulled her to sleep greeted her when she stirred. He’d held on to her, she thought—a little dreamily—when she’d asked. Just held on to her while the rain played and sleep took her under.

  Though she had a dim memory of just dropping down on top of the bed, she found herself cozily tucked in.

  And alone.

  The part of her that didn’t want to face it, didn’t want those memories to clear, urged her to sink down again, to just let the rain and the watery gloom stroke her back to sleep.

  Come too far for that, Cilla, she reminded herself. You’ve come too far for the slide and stroke. Pull it up, face the facts. Decide. Then deal.

  As she pushed herself up to sit, she thought that nagging, practical voice in her head a coldhearted bitch.

  Then she saw the coffee.

  Her insulated travel mug sat on the nightstand. Propped against it, one of her notepads sported a mercilessly accurate and wincingly unflattering sketch depicting exactly how she imagined she looked at that precise moment. Tousled, heavy-eyed, rumpled and scowling. Beneath, in bold block letters, the caption read:I AM COFFEE!!

  DRINK ME!

  (THEN TURN THE PAGE)

  “Funny guy,” she grumbled. She picked up the pad, tossed it on the bed before lifting the mug. The coffee it held was only a few degrees above lukewarm, but it was strong and sweet. And just what the doctor ordered. She indulged, sitting, sipping, letting the coffee give her system that first kick start.

  And idly, turned the page in the notebook.

  She hadn’t expected to laugh, wouldn’t have believed anything could cut through the fog of depression to pull a quick, surprised chuckle out of her.

  He’d drawn her vivid, wide-eyed, exaggerated breasts and biceps bulging out of her sleep tank, hair streaming in an unseen wind, smile full and fierce. The travel mug, a hint of steam puffing out of the drink hole, gripped in her hand.


  “Yeah, you’re a funny guy.”

  Laying the notepad back down, she went to find him.

  She heard the clattering sound when she opened the bedroom door. Glass—no, broken tiles, she decided—against plastic. She wended her way to the master bedroom, pushed open that door, then crossed to the doorway of the bath.

  He’d dug up work gloves, she noted, and a small spade, several empty drywall compound buckets. Two of them were filled with tile shards. It struck her almost harder than it had the night before, to stand there and see the methodical clearing of destruction.

  “You’re losing your status as a morning slug.”

  He dumped another handful of shards, straightened. He scanned her face. “You may have ruined me for life. How’s the coffee?”

  “Welcome. Thanks. You don’t have to do this, Ford.”

  “I don’t know anything about building, but I know a lot about cleaning up.”

  “We’re going to need a lot more than a couple of buckets and a spade.”

  “Yeah, I figured. But I also figured I might as well get started because lying in bed with you on a rainy Sunday morning had me . . . energized.”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  His face remained very solemn. “In polite company.”

  She nodded, stepped over to stare at the cracks and breaks in her glass-block wall. She’d loved the look of that, the patterns in the glass, the way the light stole through. She’d imagined painting the walls a sheer, subtly metallic silver to pick up the glints of chrome. Her classy oasis, and yes, maybe a personal salute to old Hollywood.

  The roots of her roots.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I honestly don’t know if I want to put this back together. If I’ve got it in me to fight this war someone’s declared on me. I didn’t come here to fight wars. I wanted to build something for myself, and for her. Maybe to build something for myself from her. But you know, when the foundation’s cracked, things keep falling down.”

  “It didn’t fall down, Cilla, it was knocked down. That’s a different thing.” He tipped his head to one side, then the other, making a deliberate study of her face. So she saw he understood she meant herself as much as—maybe more than—the room. “I don’t see any cracks.”

  “She was a junkie, a drunk. Maybe she was made into one, exploited, used. Pampered and abused. I know what that’s like. Not on her level, but enough to have a glimmer of what it was for her. I could have tried to build anywhere, but I made a deliberate choice to come here. She’s part of the reason. This place is part of the reason. My own wounded psyche and need to prove my own worth on my own terms. All part of the reason.”

  “Those are good reasons.” He shrugged in that easy way of his. “So you stay, you clean it up. And you build it. On your terms.”

  She shook her head. “You have no idea how screwed up I am.”

  “I’ve got a few clues. How about you? Any idea how strong you are?”

  How could she argue against that straight-line, stubborn conviction? “It vacillates. I’m on a low ebb right now.”

  “Maybe you just need a boost.”

  “More coffee?”

  “A hearty Sunday breakfast.” He pulled off the work gloves, tossed them on the lid of the john. “You don’t have to decide the rest of your life this minute, or today, or tomorrow. Why don’t you give yourself a break? Take a little time. Let’s blow off the day. We’ll get Spock from outside where he’d be chasing his cats about now. Gorge ourselves at The Pancake House, go . . . to the zoo.”

  “It’s raining.”

  “It can’t rain forever.”

  She stared at him a moment, at that relaxed smile, the warm, patient eyes. He’d held on to her, she thought. He’d left her coffee, and made her laugh before she was fully awake. He was cleaning up her mess, and demanding absolutely nothing.

  He believed in her, in a way, on a level no one, not even she, had believed in before.

  “No, it really can’t, can it? It really can’t rain forever.”

  “So, get dressed and we’ll go overload on carbs, then go check out the monkeys.”

  “Actually, the pancakes sound pretty good. After.”

  “After what?”

  She laughed, and this time the sound didn’t seem so surprising. She took hold of the front of his shirt, watched the awareness come into his eyes. “Come back to bed, Ford.”

  “Oh.”

  She backed up, tugging him with her. “It’s just us. Right this minute, I’ve got nothing else on my mind. And I really could use that boost.”

  “Okay.” He scooped her up, closed his mouth over hers.

  When her head stopped spinning, she smiled. “Really nice start.”

  “I’ve been planning it out. Change in venue and basic approach,” he said as he carried her to the bedroom. “But I’m flexible.”

  Her smile was slow, like a long, low purr. “So am I.”

  “Oh, boy.”

  She was laughing as she hooked her arms around his neck, caught his mouth with hers. Just them, she thought as they tumbled onto the bed. Everything else was later. Just them, and the music of the rain. In the soft and lazy light, on the rumpled bed, she let herself sink into the here and now. She drew his shirt up, away, hooked her legs around him and said, “Mmmm.”

  He could have lingered on her mouth, the taste, the shape, the movement of it, endlessly. That wonderful deep dip in her top lip held a world of fascination for him. The sexy, seeking slide of her tongue against his could have held him enthralled for hours.

  But there was so much more. The graceful stem of her neck allured him, the curve of her cheek, the smooth skin just under her jaw offered him countless pleasures as he roamed, as he sampled before finding her lips again.

  The flavors there had become familiar over the weeks since they’d begun this dance, and only the more desirable to him. Now, finally, there would be more.

  He could glide his lips down her, learn the tastes and textures, madden himself with the subtle swell above simple cotton. He teased and tormented them both, lingering there even as she arched up in invitation. He found warmth and silk and secrets while her heart beat strong against his lips. And when his tongue slid under the cotton, when she moaned in approval, he found more.

  He eased the tank up, inch by torturous inch, fingers gliding light as moth wings as he lifted his head to look into her eyes.

  Her heart stuttered. Her body simply sighed.

  “You’re really good at this.”

  “If something’s worth doing . . . I’ve looked at you a lot. In an artistic capacity.” His gaze shifted down as his fingers brushed over her breasts. “I’ve thought about you a lot.”

  Thumbs, fingertips sent shivers through her.

  “I’ve imagined touching you. Watching you while I did. Feeling you tremble under my hands. You’ve been worth waiting for.”

  He lowered his mouth to hers again, taking the kiss deep. Lowered his body to hers. Heat spread where flesh met flesh, sent her pulse to pound. Now her body quivered as he journeyed down it, slow and easy, hands and lips.

  She thought she’d let go when they tumbled onto the bed. But she’d been wrong. That had been acquiescence. This, what he seduced from here, was surrender.

  He touched with a care, a curiosity, as if she were the first woman he’d touched. And made her feel as if she’d never been touched before. Sensations swam and coiled inside her, shimmered over her skin until pleasure coated her like light. And the light bloomed with such intensity she gripped the tangled sheets to anchor herself in the glow.