Truly, Madly, Dangerously

by Linda Winstead Jones

  “Why not call them tonight?” Truman asked, his voice tight.

  “I’d rather wait. Just a few days.”

  “Don’t want them to know what you’ve stepped in here, do you?”

  “Not really,” she admitted as she backed to the door and laid her hand on the knob.

  Truman didn’t chase her, and he didn’t try to change her mind. He reclined on the bed, but he didn’t take his eyes off her. “One of these days you’re going to have to trust somebody. It might as well be me.”

  Without responding, Sadie opened the door and stepped into the night, glad for the slap of fresh cool air on her hot face.

  Old business. What a load of bull.

  Truman called his mother and told her where he was. Good thing he called when he did. She’d heard the rumors and was in a state of panic. It took him a good fifteen minutes to convince her that he was not moving back in with her until his cabin was released.

  When that was done he called Kennedy. He didn’t want his brother getting the story from their mother. With the slant she was sure to put on it, Kennedy would feel like he had to show up to offer support. The last thing Truman wanted was an entourage.

  What he wanted was Sadie Harlow in his bed, but she obviously had no desire to repeat what had happened last night.

  Old business.

  When he’d finished talking to family, Truman called a few deputies, friends who would stand by him if he asked them to. He thanked them for their offers of help but declined. He didn’t want to drag any of them down with him.

  He was on his own.

  Kathy was gone. She’d obviously regretted her confession and decided to run before Sadie used what she knew as a bargaining tool with the ABI.

  No jury in the world would convict Kathy, not if the story she’d told Sadie yesterday afternoon was true. Apparently the stepfather had assaulted her in a rage, that one time, and when he’d come back for more—on the kitchen table, no less—Kathy had picked up a cast-iron skillet and hit him over the head.

  She’d run from the house, scared and in a panic, her mind on one thing only. Escape. But when she’d called a friend a couple of weeks later, she’d gotten the news of her stepfather’s demise. She’d been running and hiding ever since.

  After she’d heard the tale, Sadie had tried to convince Kathy to turn herself in. Running and constantly looking over her shoulder was a lousy way to live, and there would be no end to it until Kathy faced the past. Sadie had even offered to make the trip home with the girl, as soon as this ridiculous mess in Garth was cleared up and she was free to go.

  And now, Kathy was gone. Her room was clean, and she’d left her uniform on the bed and a note on the front counter. The uniform was neatly folded. The note read simply, “Sorry. K.C.”

  Sorry. If Sadie didn’t have more pressing matters on her mind she’d chase the girl down today and try to talk some sense into her! Kathy wouldn’t have a normal life until she put the past behind her.

  But she didn’t have time to chase Kathy. And besides, what did Sadie Harlow know about a normal life?

  Sitting in her room above the motel office, she looked down at Truman’s room and the loaner truck parked by his door. Was what had happened truly old business, as she’d told him? Did she feel a fondness for him because they’d slept together and it was so good? Or was there more?

  She’d never get the chance to find out. The further away from Truman she stayed, the better off he’d be. Hadn’t she done enough to him already?

  He’d be a good sheriff. He fit in here. Everybody loved him, and eventually they’d forget that he’d made the mistake of sleeping with Sadie Harlow.

  One night was forgivable. A true involvement—a relationship, a commitment, love—that could ruin him.

  Aunt Lillian returned from church, still pale thanks to all the excitement in her usually sedate life. Sadie had stirred up Lillian’s life as well as Truman’s. The woman would’ve been better off if she’d never agreed to take her sister’s kid in. She would definitely have been better off if she’d called on someone else for help when she needed it. Anyone else.

  Her footsteps on the stairs were unusually slow and heavy. Of course she had been subjected to gossip and curious stares at church. The gossip and the stares would’ve hurt, and considering what was going on, Lillian had surely expected to be the object of some curiosity. But she’d gone to church anyway, because she always attended and she took great comfort from it, and no one was going to take that comfort away from her.

  There was a soft knock on Sadie’s door. Before she had a chance to respond, the door opened and Lillian stepped inside. She closed the door behind her, softly but soundly.

  “I’ll leave,” Sadie offered without turning to look at her aunt.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Lillian responded.

  “But I know people are talking…”

  “People are morons.”

  Sadie turned in her chair to look up at her aunt in her Sunday best, complete with a small navy blue hat that matched her dress and shoes. Lillian had taken special care with her appearance this morning, knowing that she’d face closer scrutiny than usual.

  Lillian was strong in a way Sadie could never be.

  “I’m going to find the killer, and then I’m going to get out of town,” Sadie said. “I won’t come back, this time. I promise.”

  “Don’t you dare say such a thing,” Lillian snapped. “This is your home…”

  “I don’t have a home,” Sadie interrupted. “I never did.”

  Lillian lifted her chin and her face paled, and Sadie felt a rush of regret. Her aunt had tried to make this home; if it didn’t work, it was Sadie’s own fault. Not Lillian’s.

  “Maybe you don’t consider this your home,” Lillian said smartly, “but what about Truman? Are you just going to walk away from him?”

  “Yes.” A tickle of something unwanted traveled down her arms, down her spine.

  “That’s hardly fair.”

  Sadie didn’t want to shock and dismay her aunt, but she couldn’t have the woman playing matchmaker and thinking that there was more to Sadie and Truman than met the eye.

  With all the stories that were flying about, it would be impossible to deny what had happened. But she could put her own slant on things. “Truman was just for fun. That’s all. Recreation. A convenient diversion.”

  “Bull hockey,” Lillian cracked, her voice harsh.

  Sadie actually smiled. “It is possible to have a completely casual relationship with a man in this day and age.”

  “Not for you,” Lillian said. “You’re too much like your mother, you know. She was so fragile when it came to her emotions.”

  “I am not fragile, not in any way,” Sadie protested.

  “I see the way you look at Truman,” Lillian argued, “and I see the way he looks at you.”

  “That’s just physical.”

  Lillian shook her head. “Tell me the truth, Sadie Mae. How many men have you slept with?”

  “Aunt Lillian!”

  “Woman to woman, and if you don’t tell me the truth I’ll know it.”

  For a moment Sadie sat there with her mouth tightly closed and her face expressionless. Lillian gave no sign of giving up.

  “Three,” Sadie finally said.

  “Loved all three of them, didn’t you?”

  Sadie swallowed. “At the time…” Oh, God, she was about to admit that she was actually in love with Truman McCain. “Yes. But I always choose badly,” she said. “I let my heart and my body tell me where to go, and they’re always wrong.”

  “Not this time,” Lillian said softly. “Don’t let an old mistake rob you of a chance at real happiness.”

  Sadie looked out the window, unable to meet her aunt’s telling stare. “My happiness doesn’t matter. If I…I could ruin Truman’s chance at having what he wants.”

  “How do you know what he wants?”

  Because I know the man to the pit of his soul.
“The sheriff’s office, a home, babies named after presidents…”

  “And how are you going to keep him from getting those things?”

  “Just by being here,” Sadie answered softly.

  “Hogwash,” Lillian said. “After his exciting life blew up in his face, Truman McCain came back to Garth and put on a happy grin for everyone. He said all the right things whenever anyone asked him about his knee or the divorce or what it was like not to be a star anymore. He got himself a job and made some new friends, and he even went out on a few dates.”

  “See? He’s doing fine.”

  “He is not doing fine,” Lillian cracked. “Until you came back home, there wasn’t a speck of fire in the boy. I remember him as a teenager. He was full of fire, back in those days, and since he came back here I wondered if the fire still simmered inside him. It does, I know that now.”

  “But…”

  “But nothing,” Lillian interrupted. “You woke him up, Sadie. You lit that fire. And now you’re just going to walk away? That’s hardly fair.”

  “He’ll be better off without me. Fire is…highly overrated.”

  “You really are just like your mother,” Lillian said without heat. “She would never listen to me, either. You don’t know how hard I tried to get her to move here after your father died.”

  How different would her life have been if she’d lived here all her life? She didn’t even want to contemplate.

  “She wouldn’t have any of it. Stubborn woman, she was determined to make it on her own, and the costs be damned.”

  Sounded familiar. Horribly, deeply familiar.

  “You don’t talk about her much,” Sadie said.

  “Neither do you.”

  “It still hurts.” That shouldn’t be the case, not after all these years, but it was true.

  “I know. It hurts me, too.” Lillian pulled up a chair and sat beside Sadie. For a few moments they both stared out the window, and it was as oddly comfortable as lying in Truman’s arms.

  It was Lillian who spoke first. “You’re going to investigate Aidan Hearn, aren’t you?”

  Sadie nodded, glad to turn her thoughts to something she could pretend to control. “Yeah. I’ll start with him and see what I can find. I already suspect that he was coming here to meet a woman. I hear he had quite the reputation as a ladies’ man.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  Sadie scoffed. “I never met Hearn face to face, not alive that is, but his picture didn’t exactly show a good-lookin’ man. And he was a big guy. Not a fifty-nine-year-old Adonis, if you know what I mean.”

  Lillian nodded gently. “Aidan wasn’t the most handsome man in the world, that’s true. And he had terrible eating habits, which had begun to show on him in the past few years.”

  Aidan?

  “But he could make a woman feel like she was beautiful, even if her days of true beauty were long gone. He knew how to make a woman think, at least for a few hours, that nothing else in the world mattered. He was exciting and passionate and…yes, he had his flaws, and they were big ones. But I don’t regret for a minute…”

  Sadie no longer looked into the parking lot. Her eyes were riveted to Aunt Lillian’s face. A few tears trickled down the woman’s pale cheeks.

  “You…” Sadie choked.

  “Yes. Thirteen months after Jimmy passed, Aidan and I became intimately involved.”

  Sadie’s stomach did a sick flip. “You’re pulling my leg.”

  Lillian shook her head. “No, I’m very serious.”

  “But…he was married.” That wasn’t the only problem with the scenario, but it was the one that shocked her most. Aunt Lillian had always been so devoted to her husband, and she was such a fan of the institution of marriage.

  Tears dribbled down Lillian’s cheeks, ruining her carefully applied makeup. “I tried to rationalize. His marriage was not a good one, at least…that was what he led me to believe. Their children were grown and gone from home, and it’s not like I expected Aidan to leave his wife for me. We just had really great….”

  “Please don’t say another word,” Sadie said quickly.

  Lillian looked at Sadie and smiled shakily. For an instant Sadie saw a woman who was more than a mother and an aunt. She saw an attractive woman who had been lonely and vulnerable after her husband’s passing. A woman who had loved, just as Sadie had loved.

  “Do you think a woman passes the age where she longs to be touched?” Lillian asked, her voice soft but strong. “I knew the affair was wrong, but…Aidan swept me off my feet. He held me, and he loved me, and he made me feel like a beautiful woman. I was so lonely, Sadie. I missed Jimmy so much…” Her voice broke. “So many times I went to Aidan intending to end the relationship, but I couldn’t do it.”

  “Were you with him the night he died?”

  “No! We hadn’t been seeing each other for months. It’s been almost a year, in fact.”

  “Why did it end?” Sadie asked.

  Lillian gathered her strength. “It ended because I fell in love with him, and I just couldn’t bear to carry on in secret any more, knowing that all we’d ever have was an afternoon twice a week, and perhaps a night together when his wife went to visit her sister in Atlanta. After I fell in love with him, the relationship began to seem…untidy.”

  “Did he love you?”

  Lillian shook her head. “No. But he was very possessive, and he was unhappy that I ended the affair. He let me know within a few days that he’d replaced me with a younger woman, one who was prettier and firmer and smarter…”

  “That ass!” Sadie snapped.

  “He was very insecure,” Lillian said kindly. “For months he called and dropped by and tried to convince me to meet with him again. When he realized that I wasn’t going to let him back into my life, he decided to punish me by calling in the loan. That’s why I asked you to speak with him. I couldn’t bear to sit down with him over money matters, and I knew he would have to behave reasonably with you where business is concerned. So you see, I am entirely responsible for this mess you’re in.”

  “No…” Sadie reached out and took Lillian’s hand.

  “Yes, this is all my fault.” Her lower lip trembled. “And a man I once loved is dead, and I can’t even mourn him because I don’t want Jennifer to know that I betrayed her father with another man.”

  “She wouldn’t think such a thing.”

  “Yes, she would. Jennifer adored her father. I don’t think she’d accept his death as an excuse for me to replace him in my bed. Besides, letting the news of my affair with Aidan out now wouldn’t serve any purpose. It would hurt his wife, who I discovered too late was not the monster Aidan painted her to be. Worse, it would hurt Jennifer.” Her chin trembled. “This is so hard, Sadie. I can’t even cry for him.”

  Sadie reached out and pulled her aunt’s head into her shoulder. “Of course you can cry for him,” she said softly. “Here and now. I promise not to tell.”

  As the older woman cried on Sadie’s shoulder, Sadie whispered words of comfort and thought of how she’d mourn if anything happened to Truman. The very idea sent an unpleasant chill up her spine.

  A part of her could well imagine staying here in Garth, living in that cabin and making love every night, having babies and naming them after presidents, being a proper sheriff’s wife.

  She did care about Truman. But she didn’t know if she cared enough about him to give up her life for him. That would take love…and she didn’t believe in love anymore. The best thing she could do for him was to stay far, far away.

  Chapter 10

  “What are you doing here?”

  Truman turned his head toward the office doorway. Sadie was dressed conservatively today, in a pleated navy skirt and low heels and a red sweater. The pleats were convenient, when it came to concealing a thigh holster.

  “I’m talking to Rhea,” he answered. “What are you doing here?”

  “I have an appointment,” she said tersely.

  “
Oh,” Rhea said, her voice whiny. “Mr. Elliot had to cancel that appointment. I can reschedule you for Wednesday.”

  For a moment, Sadie looked as though she wanted to argue. But the fight in her eyes died quickly. “Sure. Why not? It’s not like I’m going anywhere before Wednesday rolls around.”

  Rhea penciled in a time for Sadie on Wednesday afternoon. Sadie turned to leave, in an oddly obedient way, and then she pivoted in a manner that made her skirt swish and tease. “McCain, may I speak with you? Outside?”

  Truman smiled at Rhea, told her they’d finish their conversation later, and followed Sadie to the parking lot.

  They had both left their vehicles in the back lot, where the bank employees parked. He hadn’t wanted anyone to see his loaner truck and wonder what he was doing here, and Sadie had probably been thinking the same way. A tall hedge and a Dumpster shielded them from just about all angles. Good. He wanted her alone for a while.

  Standing between his truck and her gray Toyota, her compliant smile died. “I told you I’d handle this on my own,” she snapped.

  “Since when do I take orders from you?”

  Her eyes widened. Apparently she wasn’t accustomed to arguments. She laid down the law, and that was that.

  “This is my problem, not yours,” she insisted.

  Maybe it was time for Sadie to learn that he didn’t roll over easily. “Well, it very quickly became my problem, wouldn’t you say?”

  Sadie looked tempting, with the sweater molded to her breasts and the skirt teasing him with a glimpse of her long legs. Too bad she was fearless in every area of her life but the personal.

  “I’ll handle it,” she said.

  “Do what you’ve gotta do. I’ll do the same.”

  “Damn it, Truman!” She took a step toward him, a step that brought her very, very close. “Stay out of my way!”

  He grabbed her arm, took a well-calculated step, and pressed her against the driver’s-side door of his truck. A simple move, and they were caught between his borrowed pickup and her car, chest to chest and thigh to thigh. There was no one in the back parking lot at the moment. No one was likely to come out here until the bank employees started breaking for lunch. Truman pressed his body to Sadie’s and held her in place. She didn’t fight him; she didn’t so much as tell him to back off.