by Lisa Gardner
“There are some people who think he performed a very noble act, Maggie.” His lips twisted. “I’m sure my father is one of them.”
“Well! We’re just going to find this account and bring it to a judge!”
“Maggie,” he said calmly, “even if such a thing existed, Ham wouldn’t be so stupid as to use real names. I don’t think one story published in a propaganda publication will overturn a murder conviction.”
“Then we’ll have to find something else!”
“I will.”
“Brandon and C.J. will help us,” she continued unperturbed. “They’re very capable.”
Cain couldn’t take it anymore. He reached out, grabbed her hand and abruptly dragged her against him. His palms framed her face. He held her still and forced her to really look at him as he enunciated slowly, “Maggie, you can’t help me. Don’t you understand yet? There is a very strong chance that I may never be able to prove my innocence. There is a strong chance the police will return me to jail. There is a strong chance Ham will hunt me down, and I’m just not ready to kill my own brother. I don’t have a lot of good options yet, and I will not let you pay for my mistakes. No more. I’m willing to stand alone and I’m willing to die alone if it comes to that. I pay for my choices, no one else. That’s fair.”
He released her face. He took a resolute step back and pointed toward the door. “Please leave, Maggie. Now.”
“No.”
“Please leave, Maggie. Now.”
“No,” she repeated.
His arm began to shake. “Dammit, I said now!”
“And I said no!” Her chest heaved; her eyes grew bright. She fisted her fingers at her sides and stared out at him with blazing defiance. “No, no, no!”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because I can’t help it!” she cried. “Because I want . . . I want to watch you eat in the morning, and . . . and shave over the bathroom sink and brush your teeth and put on your shoes. Because I want to hear more stories about your mother and listen to you sing along with the radio and . . . and I want you to hold me in your arms again and stroke my hair and tell me it’s okay because you’ve got me, it will be all right. And I want to hold you, and I want to stroke your hair and tell you it will be all right. I’ll introduce you to my brothers. I’ll introduce you to my cats and my grandmother—you have to meet my grandmother.
“Because . . . because . . . because I want more out of life than a silly, stupid, damn locket!”
“A locket?”
“That’s right,” she declared fiercely, “a locket.” And then her hand was wrapped tightly around the heart pendant dangling between her breasts. With a sharp tug, she snapped the chain. “I hate this thing,” she said abruptly. “I hate it, I hate it. I wanted a father. I wanted a daddy to be there for me. And this is what I got instead—a cheap locket holding a picture of some woman I don’t even know. But it was what I deserved, you see. Because I never asked him to stay. I never asked him to love me enough to be in my life and not keep running to someone else’s. I just crept around the hallways like a little mouse, so convinced that if I was quiet enough, still enough, I could somehow hold it all together. If I just never made any demands, he would love me, my mother would love me . . . someone would love me.”
She held out the locket and let it drop onto the floor. “What a bunch of hooey. You want something, you have to ask for it. You need something, you have to fight for it. Well, I want you, buster, so I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me.”
His eyes widened, startled by her vehemence as she was startled by her vehemence. He opened his mouth as if to argue further, as if to demand that she leave. Instead, his mouth clamped shut. He looked at her with open, pleading eyes instead, and she could see her own need reflected there. “Maggie,” he whispered. “You are killing me.”
“I know,” she said. “I know.” And abruptly her fingers were on her tattered silk blouse and she was fumbling with the buttons. She wanted it off. She wanted her bare skin pressed against his; she wanted his lips on her cheek, her throat, her breast. She could see by the darkening of his eyes he wanted her, too.
“Stop!” he ordered hoarsely.
“Why?” she pressed fiercely.
“Because . . . because I want to do that! I . . . I want to do that.”
He strode across the room. Two long steps and he was in front of her. Her fingers fell away without protest and his hands seized the silk.
“It won’t change anything,” he whispered feverishly. “It won’t change anything.” But his hands were fast, nimble and urgent on her buttons.
“Liar,” she whispered and pressed her lips against his pounding pulse.
Her blouse fell away, battered silk floating down delicately to the carpet. She didn’t wait for his fingers but attacked the buttons of her skirt while his fingers efficiently released her bra. She stood naked in just fifteen seconds. Cain joined her with a negligent flick of his wrist that sent the towel crumpling to the floor.
For a moment she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. She stood just inches from him, her eyes drinking in every detail. His strong, square-cut jaw was covered with soft, flaxen whiskers that reminded her of wheat lightened by an August sun. His chest was smooth, broad and sculpted, his neck corded, his collarbone creased, his nipples dark brown and hard. The pale coloring wasn’t quite right for him, she thought. He should be lightly golden, not dark bronze but lightly tan from running along mountain streams with the sun deflecting off the water onto his skin. Prison had robbed him of that nourishment as it must have robbed him of so much else.
She raised a single hand and flattened it against his chest. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’ve never seen . . . never seen anything so lovely.”
“Don’t talk. Just let me touch you.”
She nodded mutely.
Cain’s hand reached out. He was surprised to see that it was trembling. He didn’t touch her skin right away—it was so delicate, so translucent he was afraid he would mar it with his fingerprints. Instead he picked up a handful of her hair, feeling the thick, spongy mass, warm and vibrant in his hand. He opened his fist, and the silky strands wrapped sinuously around his fingers, his thumb, his wrist, his forearm. In the dawning light of morning, her hair glowed with an inner fire, like raw energy that was gathering, preparing and waiting to be unleashed.
He wanted that hair cascading over his lips, his throat, his chest. He wanted to bury his face in it, inhale the sweet scent of shampoo and drown in the vibrant life.
She stood so still, like a doe on the verge of flight, he wasn’t even sure she understood just how beautiful, how extraordinarily strong she was.
He took one step forward, hooked his arm beneath her knees and swung her against his chest effortlessly. Two more strides and he tossed her onto the bed, listening to her breathless laugh of surprise and anticipation, following her quickly onto the sinking, queen-size mattress.
The bed dipped drastically beneath his weight, conveniently rolling Maggie into his body. He saw her eyes, heavy-lidded and luminescent. Her hands were half-fisted by her sides and he could tell she was slightly nervous, slightly afraid. It grounded him enough to slow him down.
“I would like to touch you,” he whispered bluntly. “For a long time. May I?”
She nodded wordlessly, her eyes now wide.
He stretched out his body, supporting himself on his right elbow as his left hand reached out and lightly touched her cheek. She flinched and he frowned, beginning to realize just how wary and hesitant she had become. He was a large man and he knew she was inexperienced.
He could take it slow. For her.
He brushed back her hair, fanning it around her on the worn white pillow, combing his fingers through the strands until they gleamed a deep, golden red. Then he traced his thumb down her oval face, sliding his fingers down her throat, finally settling the base of his palm against her pounding pulse point. Her small, high
breasts rose and fell rapidly. Her hips squirmed a bit against the bedspread.
His body began to truly ache. She was so warm, so generous, and it had been so long since he’d felt like anything other than stone. So long since he’d really let himself remember the simple pleasure of human touch.
He ducked his head and found her lips. Her neck arched instantly, her mouth opening, her arms curving around his neck. She pressed her lithe body against his lushly and he almost fell apart.
Suddenly he was raining kisses across her lip, her brow, her cheek. He nuzzled her throat, kissed her neck and drifted his lips even lower to the soft, tender flesh he had to taste. She sighed his name. She arched against him hopelessly, guiding his head to her breast, offering herself to him so sweetly it stung his eyes and thickened his throat.
His lips curved around her nipple. He tasted her, rose petal soft and dewy earnest. Her skin smelled of carnations and rain-swept skies. Her flesh filled him, consumed, drew him down into sweet places he’d never known.
He devoured her. He kneaded her breast; he suckled her nipple as greedily as a child. She arched up, she cried out his name, and his lips pursed harder.
His pulse thundered in his ear. He couldn’t think anymore. No more logic, no more chessboards or binary riddles. Maggie filled him, and for a dangerous, hovering minute, he thought he might need her as he’d never needed anyone. And a part of him wanted to plunge over the abyss and surrender to her completely.
“Please,” she whimpered, “please.”
He raised his head. Dimly he was aware of moisture staining his cheeks but he wasn’t sure how it had gotten there. His hand moved down her body, his fingers splaying across her gently sloping belly, then curving down to the warm apex of her thighs. Her hair felt soft and coaxing. Her legs parted for him immediately, and she arched against his palm.
He cupped her. He moved his hand in stirring little circles, his dark gaze watching the sweat bead her upper lip. Her eyes were closed, her red-blond lashes glimmering like gold upon her flushed cheeks. Her neck had arched back and she had surrendered herself to his touch completely, with a fresh, guileless greed that squeezed his chest.
Her knees came up, her thighs spreading even farther, letting him in even deeper. He dipped in one finger, then two, feeling her unbelievably moist core. She contracted around him and it was too much.
He was a man, only a man and it had been so long. . . . He wanted her legs around his waist. He wanted himself impaled in her, moving in her, dying in her.
Too much sentiment. Not enough logic. What had happened to his control? To hell with it all.
He swept his body over hers, his mouth closing upon her lips, suckling her tongue. Her arms swept around his shoulders, her legs settled around his waist and he was lost.
One smooth thrust and he rent her asunder.
She stiffened immediately, her body suddenly rigid, her nails sinking into his back. She was tight, too tight.
“Relax,” he whispered tightly and stroked her hip. “Relax, sweetheart. Trust me.”
He heard her breath released as a sigh. Her body sank around him, becoming supple and pliable. He stroked her hip again and then again until he felt the last of the tension leave her and the pain washed from her face to be filled with slow wonder.
“Yes,” he murmured. “Like that.”
He moved slowly, gritting his teeth with the effort, fighting his own impulses and desperate, maniacal need. She was so tight and so moist. Hot and burning and she was killing him, absolutely killing him, and he was defenseless against it.
His eyes closed. He couldn’t bear to look at her anymore; he couldn’t bear to think. “You give me too much,” he whispered and sank into her as deep as he could go.
She sighed his name and urged him deeper.
His hips rolled, small rocking motions that slowly built the tempo. Her breathing increased its pace and he heard her first gasp as the pleasure overrode reason. He arched his hips back and her legs tightened around him instinctively and thrust him back into her body.
His neck corded. His teeth bared and his biceps bulged and suddenly the pace was out of his control. It was fast and urgent and he wanted the release so badly that for a suspended beat of time, he couldn’t find it. It was too much, too grand, too brilliant, too overwhelming for one man to take. It would shatter him and he hated being shattered. It would stand out forever in his mind and he resented the binds that memory forged.
None of that mattered. Maggie cried out his name, then screamed her release and he did shatter. Into a million sharp, glittering shards, his body combusted. His head fell forward. His hips collapsed into hers and he buried his lips against her throat and shuddered and shuddered and shuddered against her body.
He whispered her name. She held him even tighter and everything was all right.
Chapter 12
Seven fifteen a.m.
The battered blue ’79 pickup truck rumbled along the road, the fan belt held on by baling twine but the tires brand-new and bought just for this trip. It was a Chevrolet, of course—you should always buy American. On the left of the rear bumper a sticker proclaimed, “My definition of gun control is hitting the target with every shot.” On the right a second sticker emphasized, “You can have my gun when you pry it out of my cold, dead hand.”
Since Abraham Cannon had always believed talk was cheap, he backed up both stickers with a gun rack sporting two rifles in the cab of his truck. The gun rack was also new; he’d carved it with his own two hands from an oak that had been hit by lightning. The grain of the wood was fine and well polished. He’d already taken offers to build several more racks for others, which didn’t surprise him. He was good with his hands and he took his work seriously. In this day and age, a man had to be prepared.
Abraham was prepared now. He wore his orange hunter’s vest over a khaki T-shirt and desert camouflage pants. His utility belt held an army knife, compass, waterproof matches and rudimentary first-aid kit complete with needle and thread should a man have to stitch up a wound—which he’d done twice, as one scar on his lower left calf and one scar across his chin proved. Above the stiff leather of his steel-toed combat boots he’d strapped his hunting knife.
In addition to the two rifles sitting in his gun rack, he carried a sawed-off shotgun beneath his seat and a crossbow on the seat beside him. The crossbow was his weapon of choice and he was one of the best shots in Idaho. He’d the eyes of an eagle and steady hands guided by God himself.
Abraham was not a person who harbored doubts.
Now he listened to the police scanner on his CB with half his attention, while the other half minded the road. Cool morning, damp morning, but the sun was coming out now and the water steaming off the pavement in a beautiful, misty display. It was too brown here, a little too stark for a man who loved mountains. But the red hills carried their own beauty and it was all God’s land.
The scanner crackled to life.
Heading westbound on I-26, Abraham paused on the lonely highway and listened with full attention. His face didn’t change. His lips never moved.
Finally, after two minutes of listening, he simply nodded to himself.
Seven eighteen a.m.
He picked up the pace. He’d catch 395 south to I-20 and head to Bend. He didn’t think he’d have to get that far. No doubt, he’d meet Cain somewhere in between.
A man had to do what a man had to do.
Especially in war.
• • •
“It’s time to move.”
Cain spoke softly, but his voice was firm. Lying beside him, Maggie nodded against the white pillow but didn’t meet his gaze. Instead, she was staring at his hand with rapt attention. She’d splayed his fingers, turning his hand palm up. Now she pressed her own hand against him, her pale skin stunning against his dark complexion, her delicate fingers emphasized by his long, strong digits and thick ridges of yellow calluses. His hand dwarfed hers. It looked as if his grip could crush the fine struct
ure of her bones or snap her wrist. But he wouldn’t do something like that, which they both knew.
He wanted to touch her hair. He wanted to draw down her head and kiss her full, swollen lips once more. He wanted to feel her pulse begin to pound at the base of her graceful throat and listen to her sigh his name.
His gaze returned to her hand, so tiny and delicate and entwined so trustingly in his own. His chest tightened. His throat thickened.
And he felt it all over again, that primal urge to roll her onto her back, to slide into her body and make her his. It was crazy, but he wanted her as powerfully as a man could want a woman. He wanted her to be his in every blatantly chauvinistic sense of the word. He would walk down the streets with his arm around her shoulders so the world would know she was his girl. He would buy her dinner so he could watch the wine redden her cheeks and the food bring delight to her eyes. He would build her a home, give her anything she desired. He would protect her with his body and give his last breath to keep her from harm.
He would give her every part of him, body, heart and soul.
If he had been in the position to give her such things at all.
He repeated quietly, “It’s time to move.”
She looked up at last. “I love your body,” she said simply.
He rolled out of the bed, his body already hard and his hands in fists at his sides. If he’d thought he was strong before, he realized now how weak he could be. And he wasn’t a man who could afford weaknesses.
He stole a glance at the bedside clock. Big red numbers glowed 7:22 a.m. They were still nearly 150 miles from Idaho, with no immediate means of transportation. While Maggie’s shopping venture had saved them prep time, they’d also stayed in bed twenty-two minutes longer than scheduled. They needed to get moving.
Once they were in Idaho, he could let Maggie go. She would be safe from Ham. Cain would return to the mountains he knew better than his own hands, and he would be safe for a bit, too. In the open, he was vulnerable. In the mountains, there was nothing he couldn’t do.
