2000 Kisses

by Christina Skye

  “First a coffee klatch that involves the whole town and now Mae becomes an entrepreneur.” T.J. shook his head. “I go away for a few hours and you’ve turned the whole town upside down.”

  She glanced at him, seeing the twist of his mouth in a wry smile and the glint of approval in his eyes. He’d meant it as a compliment rather than censure.

  “You’re not here to work, Duchess.”

  “No, I’m here to hide,” she said, the reminder of why she’d come here bringing a jolt of fear. “But I can’t stop working, T.J. Ideas can’t be turned on and off like the pump in your waterfall.” She kept talking, driving thoughts of a million dollars and some unnamed threat from her mind. “I usually work with well-established companies whose presence is apparent in the market. But this will mean beginning from the ground up with a sole proprietor in a small town. Mae presented me with a challenge I can’t refuse.”

  “According to Andrew, getting you to take a vacation is the real challenge,” T.J. said, still studying her with a thoroughness that rattled her. “Why don’t you work on that? See where inspiration leads you.”

  “Okay,” she said brightly, “do you have horseback riding at this ranch you own?”

  “That’s not very creative, Duchess,” he chided.

  “It is when you’re from Boston.”

  T.J. chuckled. “Ever been on a horse before?”

  “A living horse?”

  He shook his head and muttered something under his breath. “I figure living is important to get the full effect.”

  “I once put together a magazine layout for a Texas beer. We used felt-covered models of horses with silk cacti and sand trucked in from New Jersey.”

  “Silk cacti?” T.J. gave a strangled cough. “You don’t say.”

  Tess turned to glare at him. “There’s absolutely no reason to laugh. It was all perfectly beautiful and just as realistic as the actual thing, I can assure you. The only thing we didn’t have was the flies and the smell.”

  “There is that.”

  “In the end, everything came off beautifully. The sponsor was thrilled. As I recall, the actor fell off only twice.”

  T.J. ran his tongue along his teeth. “Only twice, you say? That’s mighty fine riding. And how much did you charge for this—er, magazine layout?”

  Tess named a figure that had him swiveling around in shock. “You mind saying that again?”

  She repeated the amount.

  “With that much money, Almost could build a new elementary school and add a wing to the library. And the fire department definitely needs a new backup generator.”

  “I suppose it might seem wasteful to you,” Tess said slowly, “but businesses can die without proper print placement. That’s a fact of life.”

  All of that was true, of course. But his words still left Tess feeling a gnawing discomfort. She frowned at the fire, listening to the coyotes, amazed at how quickly the sound became a natural part of the background to her. “Tell me about them. Why do they sing like that?”

  “Depends on who you ask. The naturalists will tell you they use their cries to attract a mate, or as pack communication, or to keep their young located.” He turned to adjust the blanket on her shoulders and paused as his hand brushed the side of her neck, then skimmed up to trace her jawline.

  “Like whales and dolphins,” she said, her voice ragged with a sudden yearning to be touched more.

  Clearing his throat, he moved his hand away and stared back at the fire. “The tribes say a coyote calls to hear his own voice because he likes the sound so much. Or maybe to trick his prey with his magic songs. His image is seen on ancient petroglyphs in the lands of the Hopi, where he is an animal spirit of the Coyote Clan.” T.J. kept talking, kept staring at the fire as he sat stiffly, keeping his shoulder a good inch away from hers. “To Native Americans today, the coyote is trickster, savior, and fool—capable of heroics and utter savagery, an eternal survivor who is often tricked by his own vanities.”

  Tricked. Was that what had happened to her? Was it still happening as random thoughts strayed to visions that could not possibly be memories? “Like people,” she mused aloud.

  “Exactly,” he said, sounding surprised by her assessment. “Miguel says that people and animals are not so far apart. Animals are just more honest in their motives. That’s why the Native Americans have always believed their spirits were linked with animals.”

  “Do you believe it?” she asked around a yawn.

  “The longer I live out here, the more I’m inclined to accept it as possible. And when Miguel tells me his stories of the beginning times, he makes it sound completely plausible. Even if he almost manages to frighten me with that chant voice of his.”

  “Tell me one of Miguel’s stories,” Tess whispered. Something compelled her to ask, to listen, to understand, as if it were important to her personally, necessary for some journey she was undertaking.

  T.J. gave a faint smile. “Well, Duchess, it all started like this.” He fixed his gaze on the fire, refusing to give in to the urge to kiss the top of her head, to tip her face up for another kind of kiss. “The Great Spirit made Coyote to bring fire and create the tribes in all parts of the earth. Coyote killed evil creatures and brought many languages to men. Finally his task was done, and the Great Spirit sent him away and told the tribes that he and Coyote would return when Earth Woman was very old. Coyote would come first, and by that the tribes would know that the Great Spirit was soon to return. With him would come all the dead spirits, and in that time all the peoples of earth would live together in peace.”

  Tess leaned her head on his shoulder, wanting the night and the fire and the sound of his voice mingling with the calls of the coyotes to go on forever. In this moment, it seemed right and natural and she could even accept that it was preordained. She was too tired and too content to argue otherwise, even with herself. “Tell me more.”

  She sounded like a small child asking for a bedtime story with her sleepy voice and the trust she’d given him in the simple act of laying her head on his shoulder. The trouble was that she didn’t look or feel like a child, and T.J. didn’t think he could take much more of her trust. All day she’d infuriated and exasperated, fascinated and tempted him. Through everything, she’d handled herself well, with her independence a poignant counterpoint to the helplessness of her situation. Now he was having a hard time resisting the simple comfort she asked for so ingenuously.

  T.J.’s chest rose and fell as he wrapped his arm around her, feeling the trust she gave him like a balm to his own torment over what he’d done that day. Tomorrow everything would be back to normal. Tess would be fighting his protection and stirring up the town into enterprising fervor. Crimes would be committed and he might be called to deal with them in ways that diminished his humanity.

  But right now that world seemed very far away and he wasn’t inclined to invite it back in.

  Which was exactly why he had to do just that.

  “Not tonight,” he said gruffly as he rose to his feet and leaned down to scoop her up in his arms. Her eyes were closed and from the peaceful expression on her face, he knew she was more than halfway into a deep sleep. Focusing on that fact alone, he carried her back to her bedroom, painfully aware of the way her body curled into his, of her perfume and the warmth of her hair as it brushed his shoulder.

  He muttered a curse for that awareness, knowing it was completely wrong. He and Tess came from different worlds and he’d been down that road before with disastrous results. Relationships conducted by commute never worked and he couldn’t see Tess thriving in a place like Almost once the novelty wore off. Right now he wanted to believe that she was just as much a novelty to him.

  If he really concentrated, he knew he could come up with another hundred reasons why he should keep his hands off her.

  But all the reasons, formed and unformed, scattered as she opened her eyes.

  “I don’t want to go to bed,” she murmured. “I like your stories.�
��

  He stared back at her, unsmiling, his good intentions feeling more like his downfall than his salvation. “Not a chance, Duchess.” Not a chance in hell. Not when he liked the way she looked in his blanket. And in his house.

  He liked it far too much.

  His hands tightened their hold, feeling the source of his frustration in her softness. He couldn’t get her back to her room and out of reach fast enough, even if he did hate himself in the morning. Kicking her door open with his foot, he laid her on her bed, adjusted the covers over her, and stalked out of the room, barely able to keep from slamming the door.

  “Sleep well,” he muttered grimly. “I sure as hell won’t.”

  11

  T.J. awoke to gunfire.

  Thankfully, it was the hollow pop of territorial revolvers worn by steely-eyed lawmen from a different time. As a boy, he’d dreamed often about Almost’s historic old jail. Usually his dreams focused on his great-grandfather and his violent death. But tonight his dreams had included a woman, though he couldn’t seem to recall any details.

  Wide awake now, T.J. rolled over and checked his watch: 5:12 AM.

  Operating on the theory that the more closed doors between them the better, he had moved to his own bed last night once he was certain that Tess was finally asleep, freed from whatever strange disorientation had gripped her during the storm. She’d said it herself—she was a creative person and Almost’s beautiful surroundings invited the imagination to run wild. His had been running pretty wild itself since he’d first seen her with her hair like fire in the sun and a tire track running down the back of her expensive suede jacket.

  Muttering, he bunched the pillow over his head and closed his eyes, trying to go back to sleep. Ten minutes later he gave up, knowing the effort was wasted. With a sigh he swung the blanket over his shoulder and stood up to stretch. The sun was just peering over the horizon, where the Chiricahua Mountains cast tall shadows over the valley.

  Barefoot, T.J. padded along the hall and took a quick glance into Tess’s room. He had to grin at the sight of her body sprawled sideways on the bed with three different blankets tangled around her. The woman was definitely a hard sleeper.

  And T.J. found that he enjoyed watching her sleep.

  The plain truth was that T.J. liked women. He liked their laughter and their perfume, and he liked holding them in his arms while they slow danced cheek to cheek. It had been too damned long since he’d enjoyed a night out instead of tending to some kind of official business.

  He hadn’t expected Andrew’s baby sister to be like this. He certainly hadn’t expected to feel the gut-wrenching force of desire that he had experienced last night in the storm. T.J. sighed. What he needed now was an ice-cold shower followed by lots of caffeine.

  Ten minutes later most of his sleepiness had cleared. T.J. put in a quick call to Tom Martinez, who assured him the night had been quiet except for a false alarm at the high school and one drunk-driving arrest. The storm had shorted out several backup generators, but emergency equipment was restored quickly. Reassured by the news, T.J. made himself a cup of coffee and headed off to his computer, hidden behind a bleached-pine armoire in his office.

  He’d had a bad feeling about Tess’s situation from the first moment Andrew O’Mara called him. He was isolated here in Almost, but crime had no boundaries, and in the last year there had been four cases of counterfeit currency at the local banks. T.J. stayed abreast of developments, including high-tech money laundering through the use of Smart Cards and Internet accounts. Just six months ago, he had attended a high-level conference in Denver on the subject, and the technical skills used by criminals had stunned him. Andrew O’Mara was right to be worried about Tess’s safety. Crime was a growth industry, especially the kind of crime that involved high-tech electronic procedures.

  Coffee in hand, T.J. stared at the newest state law enforcement reports. A quick scan showed no unusual activity in the area of counterfeiting or banking fraud. Next he logged in with three law enforcement contacts scattered around the country, asking if they had noticed any suspicious electronic wire transactions. While he waited for answers, he poured himself another cup of coffee and settled in for a more detailed search of the regional bulletins.

  As he had expected, the banking community remained ultracautious about any mention of possible Y2K computer failures. No one wanted widespread public panic and a run on the U.S. banking system. But as T.J. accessed specialized networks that were closed to the average citizen, he picked up irregularities reported in a dozen cities. No criminal source had been identified.

  His best contact for updated information would be Andrew O’Mara, who would divulge facts—in the interest of protecting his sister—that the government might be reluctant to release to the public.

  McCall reached for the phone and punched in Andrew’s number, then waited while a dignified secretary checked to see if he was taking calls.

  “O’Mara here.” Andrew answered tersely.

  T.J. had a bad feeling that the strain in his friend’s voice had something to do with Tess. O’Mara was usually a cool head in a crisis, but this time it was personal—a situation that had chilling undertones for any law-enforcement officer.

  “It’s T.J.”

  “Good. I was about to call you. There are some things you need to know.”

  T.J. definitely didn’t like the sound of that.

  Seven o’clock came and went.

  T.J. couldn’t remain patient any longer and headed for the kitchen to pour another cup of the coffee he’d made earlier. Mug in hand, he ambled to the door of Tess’s room.

  She was still asleep, her blankets tangled on the floor, the sheet twisted across her legs. He looked away fast before temptation could kick in. He hated to wake her but he needed to go into town in an hour and check on a few things, and he wasn’t about to leave her there with only Maria for protection.

  He knocked softly on the door. “Tess? Time to rise and shine.”

  Something that sounded like a pillow hit the door, followed by more muttering.

  So the lady had a temper in the morning, did she? T.J. smiled at the idea as fantasies immediately took form about inventive ways that he could soothe that temper on top of those tangled blankets.

  Even if he could never allow them to become more than fantasies.

  T.J. walked into her room, eased back a corner of the pillow, and held a steaming cup of coffee a few inches from her nose, ready to move fast if she flung out her arm.

  “Ummmm.”

  He blew coffee-scented steam toward her face and was rewarded with a little squirm of her body beneath the drifty bit of lace that passed for her nightshirt. One arm emerged, followed by the edge of her face.

  “Where’s that millennium cruise file, Annie?” she muttered. “And I need the caterer’s bill.”

  T.J. watched, enjoying the sunlight on her creamy skin, liking the sight of her in that big white bed. “Right here, Ma’am,” he said crisply.

  “What about the new chocolate program?” she moaned. “Maybe a cooking seminar would work. Invitation only, of course.”

  “Of course,” T.J. agreed gravely.

  “Dessert for the press. Only chocolate dishes. Ummmm.”

  T.J. lifted one of the pillows. “Do you always plot out business projects in your sleep?”

  Tess’s face appeared, shadowed and sleepy. “T.J.? Is that you?”

  “No other man in sight.”

  “Is it AM or PM?”

  “AM.”

  Her eyes opened wide, then locked on the coffee in his hand. “If that’s caffeine you’re holding, you can name your price, cowboy.”

  “Now, that could be a dangerous offer.”

  Tess sat up sleepily, her hair a glorious cloud of color around her pale cheeks.

  The sight of her slammed right into his solar plexus. The skinny straps of her silky top kept slipping off her shoulders, and T.J. decided it would be a good idea for him to look away before
he did something stupid.

  Like drop to his knees and howl.

  “The coffee’s right over here. I warn you, it’s not that wimpy stuff with the pretty white froth. This is real cowboy coffee, the kind that will put hair on your chest.”

  “Just as long as it’s hot and has caffeine,” Tess muttered. “Where is it?” She shoved the strap back onto her shoulder and peered at him sleepily.

  Grinning, T.J. backstepped toward the door. “It will be right beside me in the kitchen.”

  “There’s one thing you’d better understand, Sheriff. It’s dangerous to get between me and my morning coffee.”

  T.J. tossed her a robe and headed back into the hallway. If he stayed any longer to watch those long legs emerge from beneath the sheets, he might do something unforgivable, like pull her down and make certain that they didn’t leave the bed for hours.

  Dammit, what was wrong with him? He’d never had a problem controlling his fantasies before.

  “Coffee,” Tess rasped in the pleading voice of a desert traveler dying of thirst.

  He smelled her before he turned and saw her standing in the doorway of her room, her perfume a complicated blend of citrus, cinnamon, and hyacinth.

  T.J. took pity on her and handed over the cup, watching her gulp greedily. A heartbeat later, she made a strangled sound, squinting down at the cup. “What’s in there, boiled shoe leather?”

  “Equal parts fire and brimstone, to hear Grady tell it.”

  “That stuff should be classed as a lethal weapon.” Tess took another swallow, shuddered, then tied her robe tighter and followed him to the kitchen. Once she was there, she shoved a shining tangle of hair off her face and immediately began to wrestle with her fancy silver coffee machine. As she did, her robe slid open to reveal those amazing legs of hers.

  There was something painfully arousing about watching her pad around barefoot in his house, T.J. discovered. She was growing on him, he thought grimly. She was claiming his thoughts and stirring his body.

  But he knew that the minute she was out of danger, Tess would jump in that fancy car of hers and head back to Boston and her high-powered career. Then T.J. would be standing here alone, trying to remember her perfume, trying to forget her radiant eyes and how her laughter had filled a room.