Before Sunrise

by Diana Palmer

  “It wasn’t like this before,” she tried to put it into words. “I was scared!”

  He kissed her wet eyelids closed. “And this is only the beginning,” he whispered. “We’ve barely begun.”

  She drew back, her eyes seeking his. She was still shivering. “Really?”

  “Really.” He bent and kissed her tenderly. “But we have to stop for now.”

  “Why?” she asked, anguished.

  He smiled indulgently. “When I pull out of you, it will become immediately clear,” he mused wickedly.

  His hips lifted, and she ground her teeth together.

  “Too much of even a good thing,” he said when they were lying side by side, “can be overkill. See what I mean?”

  She grimaced. “I didn’t realize.”

  He sighed. “There’s something else you didn’t realize.”

  She lifted both eyebrows.

  He indicated his body.

  It took her a minute to realize why she was looking at him. “Oops,” she said.

  “Oops is not a name I’d like to give our first child,” he informed her with black humor.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  PHOEBE SAT UP alongside him, her body still throbbing faintly with the aftereffects of pleasure. She was shivering, and her hair was still wet. Now, her body was, too, from the incredible heat of their coming together.

  He sprawled back on the pillows, his dark eyes possessive and affectionate as he studied her.

  “There wasn’t time,” she began defensively.

  His lean hand spread along her soft thigh. He smiled quizzically. “Have I lodged a complaint?” he asked softly. “I only said that I didn’t want to call our baby ‘Oops.’”

  Her heart ran wild. “Are we having one right away, then?”

  His eyebrow arched and his expression was purely wicked. “If we keep this up, undoubtedly. I actually had something in my wallet, too.”

  She made a face. “I was too busy trying to get my clothes off to ask.”

  He chuckled. “That makes two of us.”

  She searched over his lean, powerful body with hungry, soft eyes. “It felt…like it.”

  He lifted an eyebrow.

  “Like…making a baby must feel,” she faltered, coloring. “I thought, last time, that it couldn’t get any better.”

  His eyes darkened. “I thought that, myself. But we reached a level I’ve never been to.”

  “Really?” she whispered, fascinated, because he was far more experienced than she was.

  He drew in a long, slow breath as he studied her intensely. “Phoebe…” He paused, looking worried. “It’s hard to find the right words…”

  “It’s all right,” she interrupted, anxious in case he was feeling guilty again and trying to back away from commitment. “You don’t have to say anything.”

  His hand caught hers and pulled her down into his arms. But he didn’t kiss her. He wrapped her up against him and just held her, his breathing steady and comforting in the minutes that followed.

  “When I wrap up this case,” he said huskily, “we’ll talk.”

  She nuzzled her cheek against his hair-roughened chest. It was a reprieve, of sorts. He wasn’t promising anything. But she knew that he felt something for her, even if it was only desire. Perhaps it was more. “Okay.”

  His hand smoothed her damp hair. He was feeling things so profound that he couldn’t manage to voice them. He hoped she understood. He was almost certain that she did. He felt at peace for the first time in recent years. He stared at the ceiling, unseeing, as the soft weight of her body against him triggered a painful arousal. He groaned.

  She felt the tension and sat up, her eyes homing to that part of him that betrayed his innermost thoughts.

  Her eyes met his. “I would let you,” she said gently.

  He sat up and kissed her, fiercely. “Lovers don’t inflict deliberate pain on each other,” he whispered. He smiled at her. “Thank you. But it’s just a reflex.” He leaned toward her conspiratorially. “I’m sore, too.”

  Her eyes widened, brightened. She laughed. “You are?”

  “I am.” He got up and pulled her up with him, his eyes enjoying her nudity. “So suppose we have another quick shower, put our clothes back on, and see if Drake would like to bring Tina and Joseph out here for Thanksgiving dinner?”

  She studied him hungrily. “That would be nice.”

  He bent and kissed her eyelids tenderly. “We’re both spent, for the time being. Maybe that isn’t a bad thing,” he added, his eyes twinkling. “I need to concentrate on business for a few days, instead of your breasts.” He glanced at them and groaned. “Do you have any idea how beautiful they are?”

  Her eyes laughed. “They’re small.”

  “Bull.” He bent and drew his lips over them. “They’re perfect. I ache every time I look at them.” He laughed suddenly.

  “What’s funny?”

  “I was trying to picture you, three years ago, stripping off your blouse for me.”

  She flushed. “I was a little prudish back then.”

  “Not anymore,” he said with a grin.

  She laughed. “Not anymore.” She traced his lips with her fingertips. Her eyes, as they met his, were dark with remembered pain. “I wanted so badly to lure you up to my motel room after the graduation exercises,” she murmured.

  “I wanted that, too. But I had a premonition,” he added quietly. “No, I don’t have my father’s gift of precognition. But I had a feeling of utter doom. As it turned out, I was right. I’m sorry that I hurt you so badly,” he ground out. “When Drake told me that you’d been suicidal…”

  “He said that?” she exclaimed.

  “He heard it from Marie,” he replied.

  “But, I wasn’t,” she corrected him at once. “Before I came to North Carolina, I took too many pills for a headache and scared Aunt Derrie to death,” she added. “But I didn’t want to die.” She smiled ruefully. “Actually I wanted to live so that I could get even with you,” she chuckled. “Revenge kept me going. And then you walked into my office like a stranger.”

  “It was a bad day,” he said.

  “For me, too.” Her eyes adored him then she grimaced. “If I lost you again…!”

  He caught her up in his arms and the sentence died under the hard, hungry pressure of his mouth. “I’ll never let you go,” he whispered. “Never! When they lay me down in the dark, I’ll still be whispering your name…!”

  She sobbed, clinging to him, as the kiss grew and grew and finally climaxed, leaving them both weak and shivery. They held each other close, unspeaking, for long minutes until they were finally able to draw apart.

  She wiped at the tears in her eyes. He bent and kissed them away. “Don’t cry,” he whispered tenderly. “I won’t ever leave you again. I swear it.”

  “Don’t you get shot and die,” she said firmly.

  He smiled. “No. I won’t do that, either.”

  She smiled back, a little wetly.

  He sighed. “I could eat if you feel like cooking. You do the turkey and dressing, and I’ll open all the cans.” He grinned.

  “And I thought you were going to offer to make bread.”

  He pursed his lips. “I made bread once. My father tried to feed his to the dog, and the dog ran away. I haven’t made bread since.”

  “In that case,” she said sweetly, “I’ll get out some cans for you to open!”

  DRAKE SHOWED up with Tina and Joseph barely two hours later. Alice Jones arrived at the same time they did, having accepted Cortez’s phoned invitation. He knew she had no family or close friends and she was good company.

  That was, until Phoebe invited her into the kitchen to help with the turkey. Cortez sat in the living room with Tina and Joseph and Drake, while the two men exchanged the latest results of their interrogations.

  Phoebe had the naked turkey in an aluminum-foil-lined roasting pan, breast side up. She was just putting together the dressing from a messy
mixture of biscuits, corn bread, sage and onions in a big bowl, when she happened to glance at her guest.

  There was Alice, bent over the turkey, frowning. She had her magnifying glass out and was looking pointedly at the breast area.

  “Alice?” Phoebe began slowly.

  “Blunt force trauma to the sternum,” Alice was murmuring to herself. “Entrance wound right here. Bruising. Some tissue loss…”

  “Alice, for God’s sake, it’s a dead turkey!” Phoebe burst out.

  Alice gave her a blank stare. “Of course it’s dead. I just want to know how it died. I mean, if there was fowl play…” She grinned.

  Phoebe groaned aloud and threw a dishcloth at her.

  “What’s going on in there?” Cortez called from the living room.

  “Alice is conducting a postmortem on the turkey!” Phoebe yelled back.

  “You’re not invited to Christmas dinner, Alice,” he threatened.

  “Can I help it if there’s a dead body in the kitchen?” Alice wailed. “I have to keep my skills honed! Besides,” she muttered, scowling at the bird, “I think this bird is a murder victim.”

  There were louder groans from the living room. Phoebe just laughed as she went back to her dressing.

  IT WAS LIKE A BIG FAMILY, Phoebe thought, looking around the table at her guests. Drake was talking nonstop to Cortez, but he seemed to be ignoring Tina. In fact, Tina seemed to be ignoring him, too. She had Joseph in her lap because Phoebe didn’t have a high chair, and she was ladeling little bits of cranberry sauce and turkey into his mouth and washing it down with milk.

  After dinner, Drake went out onto the front porch. Phoebe followed him, noting that two of the other three adults were in a heated argument over forensic blood spatter patterns while Tina cuddled Joseph and looked angry.

  Drake stood at the end of the porch, glaring at the distant mountains.

  “Hey. What’s wrong with you?” Phoebe asked gently.

  He glanced at her and grimaced. “Tina and I had an argument.”

  “Why?”

  His dark eyes slid over Phoebe quietly. “I just mentioned how much fun you were to be around at the museum, how much you knew about the history of my people. How intelligent you were.”

  “And?”

  “Tina’s only got a high school education,” he murmured, “like me, and she doesn’t know a lot about history. She’s temperamental, too. She’ll laugh at something I say one minute, and get her back up the next.” His lips made a thin line. “Maybe she should go back to Asheville and marry Mr. Perfect Police Officer. To hear her tell it, he can wrestle sharks and chew up nails.”

  “Maybe she’s trying to make you jealous,” she suggested.

  He laughed hollowly. “I thought we were on the verge of something good,” he said, almost talking to himself. “But she’s jealous of you.” His eyes narrowed. “Are she and the FBI in there,” he indicated the living room, “close cousins? Or are they distantly related and she’s got a flaming crush on him?”

  “Why…I don’t know,” she faltered. “He just said they were cousins.” Phoebe’s heart jumped uncomfortably. “Why would you think she’s got a crush on him?” she hedged.

  “Well, she doesn’t talk about anybody else, even the policeman in Asheville,” he said irritably. “It’s Jeremiah this, Jeremiah that. She thinks he’s perfect. Whatever I do, he could do it better. That includes driving, talking, making conversation and breathing.”

  She went closer to him, smiling. “Listen, first days are always hard. Maybe she’s feeling you out, you know?”

  He reached out and toyed with a strand of her blond hair. “You’re a nice woman,” he said solemnly. “And I mean that in a nice way. I honestly like you.”

  She grinned. “I like you, too, Drake.”

  He smiled back at her. They stood close together on the porch, commiserating.

  It was innocent. But to two pair of dark eyes looking through the living-room window, it didn’t look innocent at all.

  IT GOT WORSE when Cortez received a call from Bennett about Walks Far’s condition in the hospital. The Bennett Construction Company foreman was conscious.

  “I’ll have to go and talk to him,” Cortez told Tina after speaking with the man. “We’ll need to leave.”

  “I can’t go!” Phoebe said at once, waving her arms at the table and dirty dishes. “I have to clean up here and put the food away.”

  “I’ll wait and drive you back,” Drake said easily. “I’m not on call until seven.”

  “Thanks, Drake,” Phoebe said, smiling at him.

  Two pair of eyes glared at him. He didn’t notice.

  Alice Jones saw trouble brewing and gathered up her purse and jacket. “Well, I appreciate lunch, but I’m going, too. I have a report to write about our dead body.”

  “You’re going to write a report on our turkey?” Phoebe exclaimed.

  Alice gave her a condescending look. “The murder victim in the cave, Phoebe. It’s senseless to write a report on the turkey.” She raised an eyebrow. “We just ate all the evidence.” She grinned.

  Phoebe laughed, shaking her head. “How I’ve missed you, Alice.”

  “I know, I have that effect on people,” Alice agreed. “There’s a medical examiner back in Texas who’s crying his eyes out as we speak because I resigned to take this job.”

  “He has my full sympathy. But you could take the rest of the day off, you know,” Phoebe advised. “It’s still Thanksgiving.”

  “I live for my work,” Alice said with a grin. “My van’s right outside.”

  “You drove the evidence van here?” Cortez asked, wide-eyed.

  “In case I find a dead body, I don’t have to go back to the motel for my tools,” Alice reminded him. “At the rate we’re finding dead bodies lately, that’s not really farfetched,” she added with a scowl.

  “I’m glad you came, Alice,” Phoebe said with a smile. “It was like old times.”

  “I enjoyed it, too.”

  “It was nice to meet you,” Tina told the woman. She picked up Joseph, who was being cranky. “We’ll go, then. Thanks for dinner, Phoebe,” she muttered, but without looking at Phoebe.

  “You’re welcome,” Phoebe said, frowning as she looked after the younger woman. She didn’t understand Tina’s sudden coolness. Drake noticed it and gave Tina a cold look. That only made things worse. She stalked out the door with Joseph fidgeting in her arms. She didn’t waste a word on Drake.

  Cortez started out behind them. He glanced at Phoebe, and he, too, looked unusually distant.

  “Drake, leave her at the motel when you come back into town,” he instructed quietly. “We’ve still got a killer on the loose.”

  “I’ll remember.” Drake hesitated. “If you find out anything from Bennett, how about giving me a heads up?” he asked.

  “If I find out anything useful,” Cortez agreed.

  He went out behind Tina and Joseph, fingering his car keys, without a word of goodbye for either of them. He didn’t look back.

  Phoebe felt sick at her stomach. It was just like last time. In the bedroom, he was every woman’s dream of tenderness. But the minute his clothes went back on, he was all business again. She felt as if there was an incredible distance between them.

  Drake was feeling something similar.

  “Did we just miss something?” he asked as he heard the car and the van start up outside.

  “I wonder,” Phoebe murmured as she started clearing the table.

  CORTEZ WAS BROODING. Only a few hours before, he and Phoebe had been closer than many couples. Their physical attraction only grew. Every time he touched her, it was like starting over again. She was in his blood, in his heart, in his brain. She was part of him. But he’d lost ground, suddenly, and he didn’t know why. Phoebe had looked odd when she and Drake came back inside, and the way she’d stared at him had made him feel empty. Had she suddenly discovered feelings for Drake? Had Cortez pushed her into a physical relationship too s
oon, and now she was regretting it?

  “I can’t believe I was attracted to that guy,” Tina was muttering from the passenger seat. She turned to glance at Joseph in his car seat behind her. “If there’s not something going on there, I’m a turnip.”

  Cortez wasn’t paying attention. His eyes were on the road. He didn’t like the way Phoebe had looked at Drake. The other man was younger and he’d been around for a while, taking Phoebe to lunch and teaching her to shoot a gun. Just how close were they? And if Phoebe felt something—anything—for Cortez, why was she spending so much time with Drake all of a sudden? Was she regretting her relationship with Cortez? Was she trying to back away and using Drake as a blind? She’d been a virgin. She had principles. He’d seduced her, thinking she was experienced. Did she blame him for that?

  “You’re very quiet,” Tina said.

  He shifted in the driver’s seat. “I was thinking about the murder victim,” he lied. “I still need more background information on Bennett.”

  “Work, work, work,” she grumbled.

  “You keep the doors locked,” Cortez replied without acknowledging her comment. He stopped the car just in front of their motel rooms. “Don’t open them for anyone,” he added firmly. “Two people are dead. I don’t want to put either of you at risk,” he said, watching her lift Joseph from the car seat.

  “I’ll be careful,” she replied. “You be careful, too,” she instructed. “You aren’t bulletproof.”

  “I’ll see you later.”

  He waited until they were inside the room before he put the car in gear and drove away.

  THE HOSPITAL WAS CROWDED. November was a cold month and viruses and flu were already going around the mountains.

  Walks Far was in a room on the second floor. He’d briefly regained consciousness, but only to groan in pain. He wasn’t able to answer questions. When Cortez walked in, he startled two people having a whispered, serious conversation. Jeb Bennett of Bennett Construction, and a blond woman with a mole on her cheek. Cortez recognized her immediately as Bennett’s sister, Claudia, from the photograph he’d seen in Bennett’s office.