Memories at Midnight

by Joanna Wayne

  “I have to. I can’t leave with so many things unsettled between us. Don’t you see? You have the memories. All I have is whispers of what we were like together. Echoes of what it was like when we made love.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  “Lucky that I don’t remember how good it was, or that I don’t know how wrong we were together?”

  “Let it go.”

  He was pleading. But so was she. If she let it go now, they might never reach this point again—not if she was leaving tomorrow. Releasing his hand, she scurried up a few more rungs. “What were we, Clint?” She tossed the taunt over her shoulder. “Too good to give it another try, or so bad you can’t bear to touch me again?”

  He leaned into the ladder. “Did you remember something today? Is that what this is about?”

  “I remember something now.” Her words stuck in her throat, coming out a hoarse whisper.

  “What is it you remember, Darlene?”

  “A feeling. An ache.” She trembled, and her voice broke at the admission. “I remember being in this loft with my pulse racing so fast I thought I might die with wanting you.”

  The ladder shook as Clint climbed aboard. She raced to the top and still beat him by only a few heart-stopping seconds. She rolled away from the opening, straw scattering under her, sticking to her hair and crawling into her boots.

  Clint slid into the hay beside her, propped on one elbow, his face mere inches from hers. His fingers walked the flesh of her arm, climbed to her shoulder and then outlined her lips in warm, circular, sensual movements.

  “I’ll tell you what loving you was like.”

  She could all but hear the pain inside him as the words escaped his mouth. That was how husky, how desperate they sounded in the quiet of the moment.

  “Loving you was like being ten years old and riding the fastest horse, leaving all the others far behind. Like riding the Ferris wheel at the county fair by yourself for the very first time and getting stopped at the top.” His breath was hot on her flesh, his lips touching the lobe of her ear as he whispered. “Loving you was like fireworks on the Fourth of July, exploding into a million dazzling colors.”

  He stopped talking and his fingers stilled. She sensed a chill between them as he pulled away ever so slightly and directed his next words to the rough planks of the ceiling. “Fireworks that exploded brilliantly and then dissolved into nothing more than smoke on a restless wind.”

  “Why, Clint? What made it dissolve? What split us up?”

  He tossed his hat and rolled to lie flat on his back, dropping his head to the pillow of hay. “The magic died.”

  “I don’t believe that.” This time she rolled on her side, pressing her body into his. “If the magic had died, you wouldn’t be here lying beside me now. I wouldn’t be burning inside with wanting you. You wouldn’t be fighting so hard not to let me know that you want me the same way.”

  “Is that what you think, Darlene, that I can’t get the taste of you off my lips, can’t get the thrill of you out of my soul?”

  “Yes.”

  The word was no more than a movement of her lips, a mingling of breaths as she touched her mouth to his. By choice, she stole away his chance to argue, robbed him of time to convince his body to lie the way his lips had done.

  He shuddered beneath her as the kiss deepened, groaned in bittersweet agony as his arms wrapped around her, and his hands splayed across her back.

  The kiss swam through her senses, filling her body with a yearning so intense that she struggled for breath. But still, she couldn’t pull away—not with her body pressing into his, her heart beating against his chest, his hard need for her thrusting against the stiff fabric of his jeans.

  Finally, struggling for breath, he rolled her off him and settled her on her side. His fingers tore clumsily at the buttons on her shirt. She didn’t help him, didn’t want to rush one second. She had to grab what she could, savor all the precious moments of anticipation. She ran a finger down his abdomen and then tugged his own shirt from his waistband.

  When the last button was finally released, Clint tore her shirt loose, pushing it back from her shoulders and burying his face in the heated swell of her breasts. She trembled as his tongue circled nipples already peaked to an erotic high. His fingers seared her flesh, working their way around her to loose the hook that held her bra.

  Each movement, each touch, brought new waves of pleasure. Shifting, she began to undress him, needing to feel as well as see his bare, ruggedly bronzed chest against the soft, untanned flesh of her breasts.

  “Did I always need you so desperately?” she whispered, as her hands reached beneath his shirt and frolicked in the curl of dark hairs.

  “Never as much as I needed you. Though I never stopped hoping that you would.”

  “I do now, Clint. I want you so badly, I feel the throbbing clear through to my soul.”

  “For now you do.” He rocked her to him, his lips on her mouth and then her neck, tracing a fiery path that seared to the very core of her longing. “But I can’t fight it any longer. I’ll take now.”

  The words were like a reprieve, releasing the last remnants of his restraint, freeing him to make love to her the way she wanted it. Unbridled. Free and wild as the Texas wind.

  He tore the clothes from her body in quick bursts of energy, punctuating each success with kisses and moans of pleasure. She wanted the thrill to last forever, but knew they would both die of unfulfilled passion if he didn’t move to possess her all the way—and soon.

  “I can’t wait any longer, Darlene. I’m bursting with the need of you.”

  “I know. I’m ready. I think I always have been.”

  He lifted himself over her, his naked, muscular body gleaming in the incandescent shivers of the last light of day. She guided him into her, quivering as he entered. The anticipation had been exquisite. But the thrill of melting with him, her heart racing, her insides dissolving into liquid fire, was pure ecstasy. She cried out in pleasure, and then exploded with him as he thrust quickly before driving their passion home.

  Minutes later, still warm and glowing, she felt the wetness of a tear on her check. She wiped it away with the back of her hand.

  Clint pulled away enough to see her face. “Did I hurt you?”

  “Oh, no. It’s nothing like that.”

  “You’re not sorry, are you?”

  She trembled at the disappointment that came through in his voice. “I’m only sorry about one thing.”

  His body tensed, and she hurried to ease his concern. “I’m sorry for losing even one second of the memory of loving you before.” She buried her head in his chest.

  “Don’t be,” he whispered, holding her to him as though he would never let her go. “It was never more perfect than this.”

  For once, she believed him completely. She knew, even though she had no idea where or how she knew the truth of it, that this had been more than two people finding satisfaction in the act of making love.

  This was love.

  But the afterglow of passion would fade all too soon. Probably one second after she informed Clint that she would not be boarding a plane bound for Washington, D.C., in the morning.

  JAMES MARSHALL McCORD SAT in the dank motel, his hand circling a glass of bourbon. He reached to massage the pain in his leg, drawing back his hand when he remembered that the leg was no longer there. It didn’t bother him much anymore, though it had crushed him when he’d woken up and found it gone.

  But even then, he’d never been sorry about the action that had cost him the leg. Loss was part of living. The same way loving was. The same way work and responsibility were. A man did what he had to do, and the truth was that he’d never been sorry for much of anything he’d done, as long as his heart was in the right place.

  A man had to live with himself, first; his family, second; his neighbors, third. From the dusty trails of Vaquero, Texas, to the wide, plush halls of the White House. It all boiled down to the fundamentals
of life. A real man did what he had to do when he had to do it.

  Whether or not he could do it was the measure of a man—his totality. In war and peace. And in love.

  He sipped the whiskey straight—the way he liked it best—so he could enjoy the burn as the amber liquid slid down his throat.

  He wasn’t sorry, but he did have regrets. The biggest one right now was that he’d been forced to pull the trigger on a day so long ago it should be cloaked in obscurity, veiled by time and distance. Instead, the day was as vivid in his mind’s eye as if it had been yesterday. As if that jungle of war he’d endured was still going on around him. So vivid he could still feel the warmth from the flames as the encampment went up in smoke.

  Now he’d drawn Darlene into his own personal nightmare as well. He’d rattled the skeletons of his past in her face, and then left her alone to face a madman who had nurtured his hatred for decades, who had held on to it until the need for revenge had eaten away at his brain and left him no more than an insane assassin.

  A man does what he has to do.

  The words took on the power of a mantra, echoing in McCord’s head. He’d do what he had to do one more time, but he had to work fast: find the man responsible for trying to kill him and Darlene before the man found her.

  The brother of the man he’d killed in Vietnam would find Darlene eventually, McCord knew, unless he stopped him first. He’d kill Darlene—and Clint too, if he got in the way.

  “Clint.” The name lingered on his tongue. Caulder said he’d underestimated the man. Maybe he had, but he could never see the man Clint had grown into without seeing the boy he used to be. Sitting in church between his parents. His mother looking soft and sweet, more like an angel than a mortal. Clint looking so much like the man who’d sired him that it hurt to look at him.

  McCord’s shoulders sagged from fatigue and the weight of his thoughts as he sipped the last of the whiskey. Clint had turned out like his old man in a lot of ways. Too quick to temper, too hardheaded, too proud to chase after the woman he loved. But he was young. He still had lots of time to learn, lots of time to experience life.

  That wasn’t true for McCord. He’d tasted everything life had to offer. That’s why he had to make sure it was he, and not Clint, who dealt with Jake Edwards. Jake, just like his brother, would insist that it be a battle to the death.

  Not that McCord was tired of living. Hell, no! He was graying and maybe slowing down a step every now and then, but he was as exhilarated over the future as ever. Ready to climb on the back of the millennium bull and ride it to the ground. Ready to pack up his boots and saddle and take up residence in the White House if the country wanted his leadership.

  But first he had one more bit of dirty business to take care of. With good luck, it would soon be over. With bad luck...

  He got up from the chair, walked to the window and stared out into the night. He couldn’t let himself think of failure. Push had come to shove. He’d do what he had to do.

  Chapter Twelve

  Clint stretched awake as a mockingbird outside his window launched into a daybreak concert. His limbs ached, blessedly so, from a night of making love, but his body reveled in the comfort of his own bed. He’d all but forgotten how soft a mattress could be after almost a week on his lumpy couch. Giving in to a yawn, he reached for Darlene.

  His insides coiled in anticipation at the prospect of taking her in his arms again and cuddling her naked body against his. He burrowed his hand under the covers and came up with a fistful of pillow.

  He looked over and found what he’d feared. Darlene was no longer beside him. Apprehension did the job usually provided by the first cup of strong coffee; in fact, he shrugged off the dregs of sleep in record time. Swinging his bare legs over the side of the bed, he hit the floor on the run, slowing only long enough to grab his briefs from the floor and wiggle into them.

  The aromas of freshly brewed coffee and frying bacon wafted down the hall from the kitchen. He breathed more easily, and slowed his step. She’d just gotten up before him for a change and was already cooking breakfast. Probably needed to finish packing for her flight home.

  The thought of her leaving hit his already sore and achy body with a wallop to the gut. He sucked it up and kept walking. Last night was every bit as wonderful as he’d dreamed it would be—and a million times worse than he’d feared.

  If anything at all had changed in the way he felt about her, it was that he loved her even more now than he had six years ago, meaning the parting would be pure hell. But at least this time when they said goodbye, they would both be hurting.

  She fancied herself in love with him. Strangely enough, she was convinced that she’d always been. She’d find out differently once her memory returned. Everything new would be old again, and the cowboy who’d saved her life would be just good ol’ Clint Richards from Vaquero, Texas.

  The FBI would welcome her back with open arms, and this week would be history. The same way he’d be history....

  He halted at the kitchen door and stared at the empty coffee cup and the note she’d left beside it. His bare feet slapped against the cold tile as he went to retrieve it. It was too soon for a Dear John. Bernie wouldn’t show up to drive her to the airport for another hour. He picked up the paper and held it up to catch the early light creeping through the window.

  Last night was wonderful. This morning is splendid. I’ve gone for a ride on Brandy. Catch me if you can. Clue: I packed a picnic breakfast to eat at the top of the hill beyond the corral. Meet me under the tallest pine. But first call Bernie and tell him to save himself a trip in to San Antonio. I’ve already canceled my reservation on the flight.

  Clint wadded the paper and tossed it, giving it a kick for good measure when he passed it on his way to the bedroom for a pair of jeans. And to think some men just woke up on Sunday morning to a nice cup of hot coffee and the funny papers.

  CLINT STOPPED on a narrow ridge. The land to the east of him was mostly open pasture. To the west was a hilly wooded area that stretched for half a mile, winding upward to the top of Piney Knoll and then rolling downward to the creek bed. If he’d been forced to search for Darlene without directions it might have taken him hours, but she’d been specific.

  She’d better be where she’d said. He was in no mood for this kind of game, not with a killer on the loose. It was unthinkable that she’d gone off by herself like this, but he wasn’t surprised. Her personality hadn’t changed just because she didn’t remember the past.

  She had never been the kind of woman to take orders, especially his. But this morning’s action was dangerous, and he wouldn’t put up with any more such shenanigans. Like it or not, if she stayed in Vaquero, she was under his protection. Even sleeping with the lawman on duty didn’t change that.

  He led his horse up the rocky incline, talking her through the trail. This wasn’t the easiest of rides, but Darlene was an experienced horsewoman. They’d traveled this path countless times the summer...

  His mind hedged, the way it always did when it came to defining that summer and what had made it so different from any other of his life. The summer he and Darlene had made love. The summer she’d burrowed under his skin and into his heart, carved out her own niche so perfectly that he’d never be able to fit anyone else into it.

  The summer his mother had died. The summer he’d learned things about himself that he’d never wanted to know. The summer he found out what it cost to lose the woman he loved.

  The footing grew less slippery, and he urged his horse to a trot. The worrisome unease that had hounded him ever since he’d found Darlene’s note intensified. He grabbed a deep breath and grappled with his fears.

  The truth was, Darlene was probably safe enough out here, especially since he’d had Dr. Bennigan spread the lies about her. The doctor was to tell anyone who asked that Darlene had suffered significant brain damage and that her memory wouldn’t return. The rumor would have reached half the town by now. Vaquero might be behind the
times in most areas, but its rumor mill was state-of-the-art.

  Darlene would be furious if she found out, but he hadn’t planned on her being around after today to find out. It was the killer he wanted to convince. If Clint could buy some time, he could figure it all out, determine who it was that had been threatening McCord and why. He could put the man behind bars even without McCord’s help.

  He stretched high in the saddle as he reached the top of the grassy knoll, scanning the area quickly. Darlene was probably nearby, enjoying an early morning ride on the back of a magnificent animal. Still, he’d breathe easier once he spotted her.

  He heard her first. She was singing, something current from the radio, though he couldn’t have given it a name if his life depended on it. His fears subsided, but his heart rate doubled. On their first date, she’d sung along with the radio. Knew every word to every song, even the moldy oldies.

  He’d loved it—not that her voice was anything special, but her enthusiasm was infectious. It was hard to be down or to take yourself too seriously when she was belting out an old Beatles tune. He walked his horse toward her, drinking in the sight.

  There was nothing fancy about her. But he loved the way her straight, silky hair blew in the wind. Loved the gentle sway of her hips when she walked. Grew painfully hard at the sight of her cute little bottom in the tight jeans.

  He pulled his hat lower on his head, blocking the first serious rays of morning sun, and chastised himself for entertaining such destructive thoughts. Fool that he was, he liked everything about her. Just as he had six years ago.

  Taking the reins firmly in hand the way he should have done his heart, he rode fast and hard to the top of the hill.

  “HOWDY, MA’AM. This is private property, you know, and you’re trespassing.”

  Darlene smiled at the sound of the exaggerated Texas drawl, relieved that it wasn’t booming anger. “It’s okay. I sleep with the owner.”