by Sharon Sala
He flushed. “I didn’t mean to...I just wanted to make sure that you were...” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, shoot, Toni. You know what I mean.”
She grinned as two of his children burst out the front door in a fit of shrieks and joy at the sight of a new day.
“And you know what I mean,” she said.
He looked over his shoulder at the noise, then shrugged and answered her smile with one of his own. “I guess I do,” he said. “It is hard to get over a headache in this house.”
She cried all the way home, thinking of the quiet that awaited her, wishing it were not so.
* * *
Lane put down his pen and hung up the phone. There was nothing left to be done but wait for tomorrow and leave the same way that he’d come. It was amazing how well law enforcement agencies could work together when called upon to do so. He’d been through a number of cases where the difficulty in the job came not from the crime itself, but from having to fight for the right to do his job and not step on someone else’s territory and toes.
Tomorrow.
The word was, in itself, an abomination. If she didn’t come tonight, he wouldn’t see her again. He’d promised himself that much. She deserved to be able to make the choice. And while he’d found himself and his thoughts wandering far too often toward a tall, dark-eyed woman and the way she fit in his arms, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—let himself forget Sharla, or the way that she’d died.
Remember the disbelief on her face. Remember her pain...and the blood. Remember, you fool, that it was all your fault.
Lane shuddered and buried his face in his hands. How could he forget? He didn’t need to be reminded that she’d died because of him. What he needed to remember was the vow that he’d made when it had happened. Never again. Never again.
“Are you finished?” Dan asked.
Lane lifted his head. Probably, and I just don’t know it. But he didn’t say it, and thankfully, the sheriff did not remark on the lonely expression in Lane Monday’s eyes.
“I am now,” Lane said, and handed the stack of files to Dan. “I do reports, but I don’t do files.” He grinned to soften his remark. “Besides, I don’t know where you want them.”
Dan took them and tossed them on his desk. “Time enough for filing tomorrow. Come on, man. I'm treating you to the biggest steak dinner Knoxville has to offer.”
The thought of food made him sick. “I think I'll pass,” he said. “I’d rather grab a sandwich and an early night. The chopper should be here by daybreak tomorrow.”
Dan nodded as he extended his hand. “Monday, we've had one hell of a ride the past two weeks, from pulling you out of Chaney Creek to sending Rice home in a body bag. I can’t say that I'm sorry this is over. My fishing is way behind schedule as it is.”
Lane smiled back and took the handshake that the sheriff offered. “Take care, Holley, and remember my invitation.”
“Yeah, right. Palm trees. Cold long-necks.” He grinned as he walked away.
And I would trade every damn one of them for a long night with a sweet woman named Antonette, Lane thought.
Moments later he was gone, retracing the path that he’d worn between the Smoky Mountain Motel and the sheriff’s office in Chaney. Hours later, he was inside the room with his back to the wall, watching a door that he feared wouldn’t open.
* * *
It was almost dark. Toni paced her living room floor, telling herself that she was simply asking for heartache, and then reminding herself what she would get in return. What was a little heartache compared to the joy of making love with Lane? How could it hurt to give it one more try?
“All right, mister. It can’t possibly hurt me any more than it has already,” she muttered as she grabbed her purse on the way out the door. “Besides, I pay what I owe.” And she owed him her life.
Minutes later, the silence of the night was broken by the sound of her truck as she drove away, and then all was quiet on the hill above Chaney Creek.
* * *
Four cabins sat in a neat, straight row, facing away from the main street of Chaney. Four distinct little bungalows that had been built during the late fifties when it was “cute” to have awnings on every window. Little, white, one-room houses with green shingles and shutters and small picket fences.
The Smoky Mountain Motel was not doing a booming business. Three of the bungalows were dark and shuttered. It was the one on the far end with the light that drew Toni like a moth to a flame, pulling her closer to a fire that she knew could destroy her, if she let it.
Her truck’s engine was barely running above idle as she coasted to a quiet stop near the edge of the mini-picket fence in front of Lane’s bungalow. When she killed the engine and slipped the key into her pocket, she had a moment of anxiety, wondering if she was making a mistake, and then knew that the only mistake would be in leaving. For her, the decision had already been made.
But having come, it did not stop her legs from shaking, or make her heartbeat slow down. It didn’t make it any easier to knock, and then stand and wait for him to appear.
But when he opened the door, blocking the opening with his size and intensity, the look on his face was of such overwhelming relief that she knew she had not been the only one in fear. When Lane stepped silently aside to allow her to enter, she did so with a graceful finality that was not lost on the watching man.
Toni took his silence as what it was intended to be, filling her mind with the sight of this man to remember when he would be gone.
“Ah, God, lady. You know how to make a man weak. I didn’t think you would come.”
Moments later, she was in his arms. I didn’t know how to stay away, she thought, and then thought became impossible.
Lane couldn’t get past the fear of yesterday when they had come around the curve in the road and he’d seen her in Emmit Rice’s arms. So limp. So still. The experience made her presence here now that more precious.
“Are you all right?” he asked as his hands traced the path of her spine down to the curve of her hips. “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this after what you went through yesterday.”
Toni smiled through her tears. “Oh, no, Lane. That’s exactly why we should. Yesterday, I realized how easy it was to die. Tonight, I want to remember what it feels like to live.”
How easy it is to die. My God, my lady, if you only knew.
“I want you to make love to me again, Lane Monday. One more time.”
Her chin quivered and she hid her face against his chest when he whispered against her cheek, “And just for fun.”
If that was all it was to him, so be it.
But when their clothes fell away, and they met in each other’s arms, what came next was not in the name of fun. Their clasp was as urgent as the heat between their bodies, their breaths as short as the fuse on Lane’s control. Gentleness and foreplay had no part in the fierceness with which he took her to his bed and buried himself inside her. There was nothing left but an overwhelming need to forget everything and everybody except the now in which they lived.
Cognizant thought had come and gone, leaving Toni weak and helpless to everything but the need to meet Lane’s every demand. His weight came hot and heavy upon her as he thrust between her legs, using the skill of his sex to tell her what he could not say. That he wanted. That he needed. That he loved. That he would leave.
And when the wild, unfettered spiral of pleasure began to unwind low in her belly, and when his mouth was on her lips and his hands beneath her hips, she felt a splintering joy and at the same time a rage that this was over before it had ever begun.
Lane thrust a final time, then shook from the effort as he died a slow death in her arms. It would be justice if he did, he thought, and a fitting place in which to go.
“Ah, lady. You take my breath away,” he whispered, and rained kisses across her face and neck, tasting her tears upon his lips.
Their foreheads touched in mutual understanding and agreement
for what had transpired. Their bodies had joined, but it was their souls that had met. Yet, for Lane, there were no words to be said to change what was.
Twice more before morning, they awoke. Once it was Lane who turned to her in desperation. And once it was Toni who rolled over and on top of him, taking him into her before he’d opened his eyes. But the pleasure was too brief and the ending incomplete. They had made love, but could not say the words, leaving Toni feeling cheated and Lane with a burden of guilt.
But it was only one more time...and just for fun.
* * *
The sky outside was turning gray, losing the shadows of night at an alarming rate. Toni had only a matter of minutes in which to leave before the early risers of Chaney caught her in the act.
She dressed without conscious thought, pulling on clothes simply because leaving this room naked was against the law. But in effect, she had already stripped herself, heart and soul, for the world to see. Loving a man who made no promises was as revealing as it got.
She turned at the doorway. Her lips twisted bitterly as she faced the pain of losing this man once again to a life in which she had no place or part.
“We're even, Lane Monday. Fly safe and fly high. I won’t be around next time to save you.”
Moments later, she was gone, unaware that he had been awake from the start, listening to the careful, quiet manner in which she’d dressed, absorbing every breath she’d taken and each step that she’d made away from him. But it had been her parting remark that he knew he might not survive.
“Next time, sweet lady, I won’t even care,” he muttered, and rolled himself out of the bed.
Within the hour he was airborne, up in a flurry of dust and dry grass, above the green cover from the treetops below, back to a place where there were no foggy-top mountains or narrow dirt roads leading to a quiet country farm above a place called Chaney Creek.
Chapter 12
First you get mad, then you get even.
Toni had heard that old saying all of her life. But how, she wondered, could she be mad with anyone except herself? Not once during the two weeks that she’d known Lane Monday had he ever misled her, or given her reason to believe he would do anything other than what he’d done, and that was to leave.
As for getting even, they had more or less parted on that note. She’d saved his life. He’d saved hers. He’d sent her a new dining room set to replace the one that he’d broken. Everything was as nearly normal in her life as it had been before he came. Now there was nothing left for Toni to do but get on with the business of living. How to do that without the tender presence of her towering giant would remain to be seen. She didn’t really have a plan. It was going to have to be dealt with one day at a time.
By the time the first letter came, she had numbed herself with a mindless routine of constant, daily work after which, each night, she would fall into an exhausted, dreamless sleep. So when she saw the Florida postmark, and the broad, even strokes on the envelope spelling her name, she wasn’t prepared for the pain that came from reconnecting with him, even if it was long-distance and through the mail.
* * *
“Just let me out at the mailbox,” Toni said as her brother David slowed down to make the turn into the driveway.
“Surely not here?” her sister-in-law Laura asked. “You'll have to carry your groceries up the hill to the house.”
Toni unwound herself from the seat, unloading a niece and nephew from each knee as she exited the car. “It’s just one sack, and I can always use the exercise. Thanks for the lift,” she added, and waved goodbye to the rambunctious crew who had given her a ride home from town.
Thanks to a blown gasket, her pickup would be in the garage for at least another week. She was at the mercy of whichever family member was heading her way and would be willing to take her with them. This morning it had been David and his wife, Laura, as well as all four of their children. The ride had not been monotonous.
She hefted the sack of groceries to her hip and retrieved the handful of mail from the box, absently sorting through the stack before starting toward home.
The serenity of the Tennessee hills should have been balm to an empty heart. Towering pines, thick stands of oak, elm and hickory abounded. Along the road, clumps of brown-eyed Susan and wild white daisies grew, adding a splash of color to the green-and-brown palette that was the setting for her home.
With each step that she took, the dust poofed softly around her shoes, coating the clean white canvas with a dusty red shadow. Her blue jeans were nearly new and swished sharply with each stride. Her white shirt had started out crisp and freshly ironed, but now bore the brunt of a morning in town, and wrestling children from front seat to back during the ride home.
Butterflies danced above the heads of wildflowers, bright, flighty droplets of color that added life and spark to the landscape. But Toni didn’t see all this, and even if she had, she would not have been able to appreciate the almost perfect beauty of the land around her. She was too numbed by a Florida postmark and the implications of the letter’s arrival.
She didn’t know how she got inside the house. It was only after she took the pages out of the envelope that she realized she was in the kitchen and sitting in her daddy’s old chair. Holding her breath against the shock of connection, she began to read.
Dear Toni,
I know that we said it before, but I had to say thank you again. Every day I look at myself in the mirror and realize that I owe my life to you. I hope that you are well. I think of you often and wish you all the happiness in the world. You deserve all that life has to give, and so much more.
I will never forget you.
Lane
She looked up from the letter, staring blindly out the open doorway as the pages crumpled beneath her fingers. Her face was pale, her lips compressed as her nostrils flared in quick anger.
“So you wish me the best, do you, Lane? Thank you so much for the bland sentimentality. A drugstore greeting card couldn’t have said it better!”
Angry with herself for having hoped for something more than a bread-and-butter thank-you note, she wadded the letter and tossed it into the trash.
“That’s what I get for getting my hopes up,” she muttered, refusing to give way to tears. “Why won’t I ever learn?”
She tore into her grocery sack, tossing cans into cabinets and slinging her carton of milk into the refrigerator as she berated herself for the hope that she’d let spring.
“This is it, Toni. Your roll in the hay with a lawman is all you're going to get out of life...and it was more than you expected.”
She laughed to keep from crying, but there was no humor, only bitterness, in the sound.
And because she hurt with the days that continued to pass, she lashed out at those around her until everyone, including Justin, began to give her a wide, careful berth. She rarely answered her phone, and when she did, was short to the point of rudeness, no longer willing to listen endlessly to Laura’s latest tale of the children’s antics. The shopping trips that Judy offered were quickly turned down without explanation. Toni hadn’t retreated from life, but she had taken a serious look into regrouping. Rearranging her attitude had to help her get through the pain. It just had to.
* * *
Lane’s days were long, but his nights were longer, endless, hot summer nights in a cool bed with nothing but a pillow to hold. No sweet sigh in his ear. No soft gasp of breath against his lips as he dreamed of making love to Toni.
He had believed that the letter he’d written thanking her for everything one last time would put a knot in the line connecting him to Toni Hatfield. It should have, but it did not.
Foolishly, he’d watched his own mail for days and then weeks, hoping for a simple return note that might echo his own sentiments. Something—anything—that would bind them together again.
But it hadn’t happened, and he tried to accept that it was all for the best. He didn’t need to prolong something that had no hop
e of growing. In his mind, he’d already ruined Sharla’s life to the point that it had caused her death. He wasn’t about to risk his sanity and another woman’s life, not even for love.
And then one day he picked up the phone at work and found himself dialing Toni’s number. By the time it rang seven times, he’d regained enough control of himself to disconnect, and thanked his lucky stars that she hadn’t been in the house to answer.
What, he thought, would he have said if she’d answered? He had no idea, but the question wouldn’t go away, and he couldn’t let go of wondering what might have been.
But, he’d done it! It had happened. He’d dialed her number and the world had not come to an end. He’d made an attempt to contact her that hadn’t interrupted the flow of traffic or initiated another impasse between heads of state. For that reason, it made calling the second time that much easier. And that time, when he still did not get an answer, he told himself it was just as well.
Two days later, without considering his reasons, he bought an answering machine and had it sent Federal Express to Chaney, Tennessee, before he could change his mind. By the time the package was on its way to Toni, he’d convinced himself that what he’d done was only for her own good. In this day and time it only stood to reason that she needed to stay in communication with other people. She was a woman alone in a fairly secluded area. Emmit Rice hadn’t been the only bad man in the world.
Convinced that he’d done nothing out of turn, he settled back into a routine and waited. He didn’t realize that what he’d done, he’d done to stay in touch with her. It was, quite literally, a “reach out and touch someone” gesture that would have made the phone companies proud.
* * *
If Toni’s Hereford bull hadn’t gotten out and into old man Warner’s pasture and serviced four of Warner’s purebred Angus cows before it was removed, Toni might have been in a better frame of mind when the delivery van came up her driveway. But she’d already had to apologize to Silas Warner and commiserate with him about the loss of money he might suffer from having calves born of something other than their registered Angus status.
