TEMPERATURE'S RISING

by Donna Sterling

  "You saved my son's life," she cried, "just like you saved mine. I'll never be able to thank you enough. I don't care what he says—I'm dropping that lawsuit. Now that Bob and I are getting married, I won't have to live with Grant anymore."

  "Excuse me, Ms. Agnes." The sheriff lumbered up beside her. "Would you mind giving me the rest of your, uh, fairy-moan stuff? I'd like to take a close look at it."

  "I'll give you the bottle, but it's empty. Someone drained it." In a loud whisper, she theorized, "I believe it was Grant. He didn't want me dating Bob. But after I used it that one time, I didn't need any more of the pheromone enhancer."

  "I'll take the bottle, please, ma'am," the sheriff said.

  As Agnes led him up the steps and into the house, a raspy cry came from the stretcher. One of the paramedics bent to listen. "He's talking about snakes coming at him. Purple dragon snakes." The young man listened awhile longer, then glanced at Jack. "He says you sent them, Doc, and that he's going to sue you for everything you've got."

  "Guess I'd better be careful, then, or I'll be finding purple dragon snakes in my car."

  The paramedic exchanged a droll glance with him and carried the stretcher to the ambulance. The driver called out, "You coming with us, Doc?"

  "Hell, no. He's all yours."

  The ambulance pulled out of the driveway. Callie came to stand beside Jack as he watched the ambulance speed away. "I've always wanted to slit his throat," he muttered. "Somehow this wasn't the way I pictured it."

  Callie bit her lip with a wry smile. At least he'd managed to hold the comment until they were alone. "So he knew from the beginning what had caused her hallucinations, didn't he?"

  Jack glanced at her as if he hadn't realized anyone stood beside him. "Of course he knew. She told him she'd used her 'pheromone enhancer,' and probably explained that it was made from herbs and mushrooms by her friend in India. Wouldn't that tip you off?"

  "Of course." Callie pondered that for a moment, then shook her head at Grant's deceit. "He planted it in your car to make a jury believe you carry hallucinogens around with you."

  "That's right. I would have lost all credibility."

  She glanced at him anxiously. "Do you think he'll try to cause you more trouble?"

  "I doubt it. He'll have too many other things on his mind. After he'd caused Becky so many problems, I hired an investigator to keep an eye on him. We came up with a few leads that interested the FBI. Seems that Tierney's been involved in quite a few shady real estate dealings. I believe the feds will have enough to put him away for a long time."

  Now that she fully understood Grant's unscrupulous nature, Callie didn't find that surprising at all. And she didn't waste her time thinking about it.

  The troubling uncertainty she'd noticed before had returned to Jack's gaze, and the silence that fell between them suddenly felt awkward. Nothing seemed as important as answering the questions he wasn't asking her.

  "Can we go somewhere private to talk?" she asked.

  He gestured toward a wooded pathway that ran between Tierney's property and his. Callie knew from her childhood that the path led to a pier over the beach. Silently she preceded him through a fragrant thicket of cedars, oaks and palms, her heart aching at the continued awkwardness between them.

  The shady coolness of the woods soon gave way to hot, hazy sunshine as they traipsed between swaying sea oats and mountainous sand dunes, then onto the weathered, wooden planks of the pier. Tumultuous gray-green waves crested into whitecaps on either side of them until they reached the very end of the pier, where the water was deeper and swells rolled in majestic silence.

  Callie lifted her face to the salty gulf breeze and inhaled the fortifying tang of the sea before she turned to face Jack. His shaggy golden hair glimmered and danced in the wind, but his dark-eyed gaze remained sober and watchful.

  How many times had they fished from this pier together, or swum, or shoved each other in? Countless times, and never had a silence intruded as heavily as this one.

  "Jack, I'm sorry that I ever got involved in this investigation." She leaned against the end rail, and he leaned against the side one. "I shouldn't have."

  He lifted a shoulder in a shrug but didn't comment.

  "I called Meg this morning," she continued, desperately missing his smile, "and withdrew from the investigation."

  He inclined his head and stared at her. "So your breakfast with Tierney was purely social?"

  "No! I'd promised Meg that I'd stop by and explain my reason for withdrawing from the case."

  "Which was…?"

  Her throat tightened with emotion. "I, uh, lost my objectivity."

  He pursed his mouth and gazed out at the sea.

  "Jack, please believe that I never gave Tierney anything. Anything at all! Especially not a report about Sharon Landers."

  He frowned and swung his gaze back to hers. "Did you think I believed him?"

  "Didn't you?"

  "No." They stared at each other in bemusement. "Call me naive or egotistical or thickheaded," he said, "but I just can't bring myself to believe that you would knowingly hurt me."

  The emotion that had clogged her throat now throbbed with renewed pressure. "But when Grant said I turned in that report, I saw the question in your eyes."

  "If a question came into my eyes, Callie, it was when he said I killed a young mother on my operating table, and you said he was lying. As much as I appreciated the blind defense, I won't deny the truth."

  She gaped at him, stunned by the raw pain in his expression, and even more by the reason for it. "The truth? What are you calling 'the truth'?"

  "Tierney might have worded it a little harshly, but Sharon Landers was a patient of mine. A young mother. And she did die on my operating table. I wasn't sure if you knew that, or how you'd feel about me once you did."

  "Oh, Jack, the mistake wasn't yours, and even if it had been, it wouldn't change the way I feel about you."

  He stared at her for a long, fierce moment, then blew out a harsh breath he'd meant as a laugh.

  "I've never been more unsure of how anybody felt about me, Callie. You sent me a message to never contact you again, and you planned to leave without a goodbye. But then the whole time I performed that tracheotomy on Tierney, you stared at me like I was some kind of hero. And now you're looking at me with the kind of warmth I've been waiting forever to see in your eyes."

  That warmth intensified into a bright, beautiful flame, and an unbearable anguish filled him. "Damn it, Callie, no matter how much I want to keep you here, you've got to understand that I'm no hero. What I did back there was a simple emergency procedure that anyone could do. Tierney didn't die, but Sharon Landers did, and I can't guarantee that my next patient won't die, too. I don't know which is worse—having you scorn me as a negligent quack, or revere me as some infallible medical god."

  She recoiled slightly, as if he'd wounded her. "I don't think of you as either one. And I'm sorry that I confused you. I've been confused myself."

  He'd known that. He also knew that in her confusion, she'd built him up into something he wasn't. He ransacked his mind, his heart, for a way to explain his fear that when the inevitable day came and he fell short of the hero he saw reflected in her gaze, her warmth would cool, and though she would never deliberately hurt him, he would lose her in the most final of ways.

  He reached deep for words to explain, but found instead only a painfully chaotic need.

  "Jack," she whispered, laying her palms against his face with infinite tenderness. "It's me. Callie."

  And before he could tame the chaos or mask the need, she did what only Callie could do. She peered through it all with her luminous gray-green eyes and connected with him. Tapped directly into his psyche. Bound him to her with a sharing so deep and steeped in time that fear and doubt lost all power.

  He could be, would be, whatever she needed. Always.

  "I love you, Cal."

  "I love you, too, Jack." Slowly, softly, she kiss
ed him.

  He pulled her against him and kissed her until the sweet, hot joy coursing through him combusted into a deeper yearning. "I want to marry you, Callie," he proclaimed in a gruff, drawn-out whisper against her ear.

  She drew back with a heated, intimate smile. "You do?"

  "Yeah."

  Playfulness mixed with the heat in her gaze and put him on his guard. "Tell you what." She brushed her mouth lightly across his. "Let's play the game you mentioned the other night. I think you called it, 'Please, Jack, please, make love to me.'"

  His body hardened at the very suggestion, and he couldn't help cradling her slim, jean-clad hips to his and capturing her mouth in a hard, possessive kiss. "You did notice that I asked you to marry me," he eventually whispered, "didn't you?"

  "I'm getting to that." She raked her fingers through his hair, smiled into his eyes and nipped at his bottom lip. "If you win the game, I have to marry you."

  He stared at her, unsure whether or not he should be happy about the proposition. The game itself was a brilliant idea, of course. Truly inspired. But… "What if you win?"

  "Then you have to marry me."

  He continued to stare, thoroughly amazed. Just when he thought he couldn't possibly love her more, she proved him wrong again. "You realize that since it's my game," he cautioned, "I get to set the rules."

  "Fair enough."

  Although it took them awhile and a few dozen distracting kisses, they actually managed to reach his house and lock the doors before the game officially started.

  Their first round required a rematch. So did the second. The third had a clear winner, but a formal protest was lodged…

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