Exposure

by Susan Andersen

  What had her momma meant when she'd said Gracie would be safe with him? There had seemed to be such emphasis on the word. Was there someone out there somewhere who constituted a threat to the child? Just the thought was enough to make his blood run cold.

  He sat down in the ladder-back chair at the tiny table, bumped up the wattage a notch on the lamp hanging overhead, and tried to resume reading. It was a good book, and he'd been enjoying it before Emma Sands had come knocking on his door.

  Now he couldn't concentrate worth a damn on the thing.

  These two females, with their friendly personalities and the little one's damp kisses and the grown one's beautiful body and a mouth he'd like to test for kiss moisture, were starting to wreak all manner of havoc in a life he'd worked very hard to make uneventful. He'd made up his mind to return to this island of his birth, to avoid making any waves this time and to live a nice, quiet, tranquil life. And if he hadn't exactly been greeted with open arms by the people of Port Flannery, he was at least peacefully coexisting with them. Life was pretty much the way he'd expected it to be, and that was the way he wanted it. No surprises.

  So why, he wondered warily, did he have a sudden, uneasy feeling that his days of booking drunks and handing out speeding tickets were numbered?

  * * * * *

  Emma rested her chin on her updrawn knee and gazed out the open latticework of the gazebo. Officially the full moon wasn't until tomorrow night, but this evening's lunar display was in her opinion every bit as spectacular as any the calendar-sanctioned variety could produce. One really had to look hard to realize tonight's moon was perhaps the tiniest bit asymmetrical, and the meticulously kept town square was illuminated so brightly by the wash of stark white moonlight she could see a penny shining on the grass clear over by the sidewalk.

  She breathed deeply of the cool, salt-laden air, exhaled it slowly, and gradually felt most of the tension, which had been making her so jumpy, seep out of her system. This was what she had needed, just a few minutes without walls binding her, without responsibilities.

  She tried to think what she should do next. If she had an ounce of intelligence, she'd pack up Gracie and their few belongings and take off for parts unknown at first light tomorrow. Keep moving; that was the ticket.

  Oui. That was undoubtedly the key if she hoped to escape the detection of Grant's goons on a consistent basis. The only thing was, much as she wanted to stay a few steps ahead of the hirelings she was positive he had out searching for her, she didn't want to leave Flannery Island just yet.

  And wasn't that funny? It didn't make a bit of sense, when she thought about it. She was a city girl, always had been. She liked bright lights and places that stayed open twenty-four hours a day, even if she no longer harbored any particular burning desire to personally frequent them. She didn't know sweet diddly about small towns. The closest she'd ever come to one before now was in a car, breezing through on her way elsewhere.

  On the other hand, a lot had changed since she'd packed what she could, grabbed Grade, and run. She wasn't exactly the same woman she'd been a month ago. It wasn't until she'd actually spent some time on her own, sitting up late in countless hotel rooms, worrying while her daughter slept, that she'd come to realize how directionless she'd grown these past few years. Except for her responsibility to Grade, she'd been drifting aimlessly, casually maintaining an association with a crowd that didn't exactly typify the phrase mature adult.

  Emma realized she was gritting her teeth again and made a conscious effort to loosen them. She inhaled and exhaled a few measured breaths. That was then, not now. She'd grown up, by God; no one could deny her that. She had taken a damn crash course in maturity. She knew her own mind better now, and that made it difficult to deny her feelings. And the fact of the matter was, she liked it here. Although she didn't always agree with the somewhat provincial viewpoints that governed small-town attitudes of people like Ruby, on a personal level she liked the woman very much. She liked Clare. These women had come to seem more real to her than most of the longtime acquaintances who had drifted in and out of her life back home. They had come to seem almost like . . . friends. And that, in all honesty, scared the socks off her. Friendship with her was almost guaranteed to be the kiss of death.

  Yet the idea of having a friend again—a real friend, not some flashy here-and-gone playmate—also soothed her. She contemplated the idea for a moment. Then she thought about the work.

  It had been coming in fairly steadily since she'd arrived in town, which had saved her from having to dip into the traveler's checks. The financial aspect was without question an important consideration for a woman in her situation. But even more significant was having gainful employment for the first time since Grant had more or less adopted her back when Big Eddy was sent up. Being useful had given her back a sense of purpose she hadn't even realized she'd been missing. She'd allowed Grant to assume fiscal responsibility for her for far too long. And she couldn't even blame him for it, really. It was one thing to have allowed it back when she was a minor, but after she'd graduated from Tulane she had no excuse for not having taken care of herself.

  That was water under the bridge, however. The real question was did she remain or did she go? She knew what the pros were for staying. And she understood well the one big con, the chance she took if she didn't keep moving. She wasn't even going to think about her strange attraction to Sheriff Elvis Donnelly. In the final analysis that would have nothing to do with her decision anyway.

  Really.

  Keeping the earnest assurance firmly in the foreground of her mind, she nevertheless found herself moving quickly back toward her room. Her heart lightened with each step she took, for she had made up her mind. Her choice had in all probability been made before she'd ever begun to consciously mull over her options, but she knew now that she was staying, at least for a while, and it felt . . . liberating.

  She burst into the room, smiled brilliantly, and crossed straight over to Elvis, whose head had shot up at her entrance. She grasped his cheeks in both her hands, bent down, and planted a light kiss on his lips. "Merci beau-coup," she whispered, then lowered her head to give him another exuberant peck.

  The next thing she knew, she was being yanked down to straddle his lap. His hook flashed with the speed of light to clip into the back belt-loop of her jeans and the rest of the prosthesis pressed her hard against him. His right fist tangled in her hair. It gripped tight and pulled—ripping her mouth away from his.

  She stared at him across the short distance that separated them, feeling pushy and foolish, regretting a personality that forever seemed to allow her to do things without first thinking them through. Afraid it would start to quiver and make her look even dumber than she already felt, she sucked in her bottom lip. Elvis made a funny, rumbling sort of sound down deep in his chest and his head flashed forward. Startled, Emma's lip slid free with a little pop as her head reared back. His strong white teeth sank into her bottom lip, capturing it.

  Then he just sat there for a moment, breath sawing out of his lungs to gust against her sensitive lips, blazing blue eyes heavy-lidded, arm hard behind her hips, keeping her pressed firmly forward and abruptly aware of his aroused state.

  Eyes locked with hers, he scraped his teeth over the sensitized inner membrane of her captured lip and then closed his lips around it and sucked. Softly.

  Firmly.

  Hard.

  A tiny, almost inaudible "Oh!" exploded out of Emma's lungs, and her fingers bit into the hard biceps they'd latched onto when he'd first jerked her off her feet. She scooted forward, tilting her pelvis to align the crotch of her jeans with the faded cloth of his fly where it covered the rigid length of his erection.

  Her heels caught in the back rungs of the chair she straddled, and she tightened her thighs.

  She was a woman given to impulsiveness and such had been the case with the kiss she'd bestowed upon him a moment ago. It had been a whim, a kind of a ... thank you. For unquestioningly agr
eeing to sit with Gracie. For being contained and competent. For bringing out a feeling of womanliness in her that she hadn't experienced in a very long time. Thank you's were forgotten, however, as she plastered herself against his chest. Lifting her hand to stroke her fingertips over the raised scar tissue intersecting his cheek, she rubbed her breasts against him and rocked upon his lap. There was an aching throbbing between her legs that dictated her actions. It pulsed insistently with every beat of her heart.

  Then abruptly, all that heat was ripped away. The hand stroking Elvis' face was gripped by the wrist in fierce fingers and wrenched away with such force it peeled her upper torso from his chest. The hook through her belt loop yanked, sliding her hips back an inch or two. She found herself sitting upright on his knees, staring down in consternation into a thunderous expression.

  "Is that your game, then?" he demanded in a raspy voice. "You're one of those?"

  "Hmmm?" She blinked in confusion. "One of whose?"

  He shook her, and the expression on his face was beyond definition. There was rage there, certainly. Lust. Repugnance. And . . . hurt? Oh, surely not. "You're one of those women who get off on deformities, right?" His mouth twisted bitterly. "God, I shoulda known you were too good to be true. Well, hey. Ya like the scar, baby, just wait'll ya see what I can do to you with my stump."

  Emma's head snapped back as if she'd been jabbed with a cattle prod. Nose wrinkling, lips forming a perfect round O of distaste, she stared down at him incredulously, unable to believe he'd actually said such a thing. "That's . . . mon Dieu, that is so . . ."

  "Accurate?" he supplied. "Dead-on exact?"

  "Sick!" She struggled to climb off his lap. Without discernible effort, he held her still.

  "Oh, come off it, will ya?" he demanded in low-voiced fury. "You don't have to pretend with me, okay? Christ! Let's at least have a little honesty between us."

  "Oh, but oui, let us by all means be honest." Shifting abruptly beneath his hold, she snapped, "Mon Dieu, you wouldn't know what to do with honesty if it came up and bit you on the butt!" She reared away from him as far as she could, finding it hard to believe he'd actually said that. "Let go of me," she demanded stiffly.

  He muttered something truly obscene. Then releasing his grip on her, he held his hands wide of his body in an ostentatious show of compliance. He eyed her contemptuously as she rose to her feet. "I thought you would at least be up front about this," he said with cool disdain, looking up at her as she straightened to her full height. "I gotta hand it to you though, doll, you're more subtle than most. Your little fetish isn't as overt as some I've run across." He shook his head. "The kid should have been the real tip-off, though."

  Emma went very still. "The kid?" she whispered. Cold sweat trickled down her spine. "Gracie? "

  "You got another?" he demanded scornfully. "Yes, Gracie. When she was so unaffected by my disfigurements, I should have known right then mine wasn't the first messed-up face or body she'd ever seen. You've fucked around with my kind often enough for her to be comfortable with freaks, I take it."

  "You sonofabitch!" Emma swung out wildly, slapping at his head. "You goddam, twisted sonofa—"

  Elvis grabbed for her hands, capturing and then transferring them to his one good hand. His fingers closed around her wrists and gave them a hard jerk, yanking her back down on his knees. "Knock it the hell off," he said through his teeth. "If you think I'm gonna just sit here and let you hit me, sister, you've got another think comin'. I could throw your butt in jail for assaulting an officer—goddam it!"

  She'd butted her head into his throat. Before he recovered from that blow, she butted him in the chin with such force his teeth clashed together with an audible click. Shit! If his tongue had been between them it would have been hamburger.

  Unfortunately for Emma, his hard jawbone connecting with the top of her head also came close to knocking her out. For a second her vision went dark except for the bright explosions of color that interspersed blackness with glorious pyrotechnics. Elvis apparently wasn't taking any chances, however, for his hook tangled in her hair and roughly jerked her head back until her neck arched under the strain. Nausea swelled in her throat, tears streamed from her eyes; but her voice was low and steady as she stared him straight in the eyes.

  "You can slander me till hell freezes over, Sheriff," she said through gritted teeth. "But you keep your filthy tongue off my bebe or I swear I'll make you rue the day you were evah born." The nausea was abating and she took a deep breath, glaring at him with cold distaste. "Gracie likes you—God only knows why," she said, furious. "It sure as hell can't be for your sunny personality, but she likes you. If you do anything, anything at all to hurt her, Mr. Donnelly, I will kill you."

  She was eight inches shorter than he, probably weighed less than half as much, and he had her practically hog-tied. Accordingly, it should have been a ludicrous threat.

  It wasn't. He believed her implicitly. Unlocking his hook, he let her hair slide free.

  Looking at her, Elvis realized he'd made a huge error in judgment. She was seriously offended, not because she'd been called to account for a perversion that she'd just as soon not admit to, but because she couldn't comprehend such a thing in the first place and he'd accused her—accused her child—for Christ's sake, of ...Ah, shit. What was he supposed to say? He wasn't accustomed to being in the wrong; usually he was the one being wronged. Besides, there was no valid excuse he could offer. It was just . . . when he'd felt her rubbing herself all over him like the answer to his hottest fantasy and she'd reached up to stroke his scar like it was some goddam talisman . . . well, he'd gone a little nuts, is all. He'd overreacted.

  In his own defense, he had run into a couple of women like that before, women who got off on scars, on amputations, the more bizarre the disfigurement the better. Encounters like that weren't something one ever forgot. The things those women had wanted him to do had left him feeling hollow and vaguely ill, and when he had thought Emma . . . "I'm sorry," he said belatedly.

  And apparently inadequately. Emma stared at him, sucking on her bottom lip. God, he wished she wouldn't do that; it drove him crazy. He could sit on his hormones forever if he had to, though. What he really wanted was her esteem back. Her normally warm brown eyes were cool and distant. For the first time since he'd originally seen her in Bill's garage, there wasn't an iota of friendliness in them when she looked at him. He hadn't realized just how much he'd valued her warm approbation until it was taken away.

  She couldn't even be bothered to rail at him anymore. "Let go of me," was all she said, but her tone was cool, tinged with distaste. It was as if she had simply written him off.

  He released her and she rose to her feet, promptly stepping back out of his reach. Ah, man, this wasn't right; this was all screwed up. He had to try to make her understand: "Emma, listen, I'm—"

  "Mommy?"

  They both froze. Then, as one, they turned to face the bed.

  Gracie was struggling to sit up beneath the constricting blankets. She yawned and knuckled her tangled, baby-fine blond curls away from sleep-flushed cheeks.

  Emma was across the room in a flash, bending over her daughter. "Hey, angel pie," she murmured. "What are you doin' awake?"

  "Heard sumpin', Maman." She spotted Elvis over her mother's shoulder. "Hi, Shewiff."

  "Hiya, kid."

  "I'm fwee, you know," she said and gave him a sleepy smile. Without protest she allowed her mother to tuck her back down into her nest of blankets. Rolling onto her stomach, she drew her knees up beneath her, tucked in her arms, and within seconds was sound asleep again.

  "Why does she keep telling me that?" Elvis asked in bewilderment, watching Emma helplessly as she marched over to the door and pointedly held it open.

  "Because she just turned three last month and she's proud of it," Emma replied coolly, and then added stiffly, "thank you for watching her for me."

  "Emma, I'm really sor—"

  "Good night, Sheriff."


  "Listen, please, I'd like to explain—"

  "Good night."

  Then he was somehow on the other side of the door and it was being firmly shut in his face. Shit! He stared at the sturdy old portal in dismay. How the hell had everything gotten so far out of his control?

  * * * * *

  Grant Woodard glanced up from his work when the intercom buzzed, eyeing the telephone with barely suppressed irritation. Thumping down his index finger to mark his place on the spreadsheets he was perusing, he jabbed the button down with a free finger. "Yes, Rosa," he said.

  "I'm sorry to intrude, Mr.Woodard," she said with the same calm efficiency she bestowed upon everything she did. "But you did say you wanted to hear from Mr. Hackett the minute he called."

  Grant snapped upright. "Yes, I did."

  "He's on line two, sir."

  "Thank you, Rosa." The words were barely out of his mouth before he cut her off by punching down and activating the second line on his phone. "What have you got for me, Hackett?" he demanded. "Have you found her yet?"

  "Yeah, I think I have. I can't be a hundred percent certain until I check it out for myself, sir, but there's a small town called Port Flannery on a little island in Washington State, and I'm pretty sure that's where she is. I thought it best to check in with you first, though, boss, to see how you want it handled before I go to the island. Given the size of the town there's always the possibility she'll hear of my interest, and I don't want to spook her into running."

  Grant stared at the portrait of Emma and Grade that stood in an elaborate gold frame on the corner of his desk. "Do you think you can verify her location without alerting her?"

  "Yes. It shouldn't be a problem as long as I take my time and don't make direct inquiries. But what do I do once I've located her, sir? If she's there, do you want me to bring her home?"