by Diana Palmer
“Hurry,” she said. “I want you.”
He pushed the cutoffs and briefs over his hips, then sat in the chair to work the clothing over the cast. When he rose and crossed the narrow space between the chair and bed, she laid her hand on his thigh, luxuriating in the feel of him.
“The first time I saw you, I thought you were a savage, wild and beautiful and free.” She caressed his thigh, marveling at the hardness of the muscle beneath the taut skin.
When she touched him intimately, stroking the hard length of his erection, he made a low sound in the back of his throat, the sound of a man pushed beyond his limits.
With one mighty sweep, he threw the sheet aside. He pushed her down on the mattress and followed, dragging his injured leg up on the bed with a grunt of pain.
“Be careful,” she said, worried that in their eagerness he might somehow injure it again.
“It’s too late,” he muttered hoarsely. He made a space for himself between her thighs. Then he pushed forward, his flesh hot and rigid against her as he sought entry.
She clasped his hips and drew him inside, pressing her hips upward to meet his downward thrust. Their bodies melded, sliding easily, snugly together. A perfect fit.
He took his weight on his elbows, his solid length covering her while he rested there. A shudder went through him.
“Don’t move.”
“I can’t help it.” She kissed his chest and nuzzled her nose through the crisp hairs. She flicked her tongue against his nipples and felt his body leap within her in response.
He tangled his fingers in her hair and angled her face up until her mouth was level with his. Then he kissed her. And kissed her. And kissed her.
It was wild and beautiful and desperate, each thrust of his tongue a sensuous prelude to the pleasure that would come later.
She clung to him helplessly, running her hands over his back and hips, along his thighs where the muscles were rigid with control. She vaguely realized she’d unleashed a tempest that wouldn’t be contained until the final bolt of lightning jolted between them.
When he slipped a hand between them and stroked her lightly, an explosion of heat rippled through her. He rocked against her, then gasped and was still. She sensed he was fighting to hold back the climatic moment. There was no need.
She cried out as a great surge of tension coiled in her, then unfurled with the acute quickness of a whiplash.
Barriers fell by the wayside. Doubts were forgotten. There was only now and the pulsating intensity between them as he pounded into her, pushed over the edge by her climax.
Before she could think, the tension coiled again, then burst outward so that her entire body seemed to convulse around the point where he thrust so intimately, so pleasurably against her.
She clutched him desperately as the storm rode over her, blinding her, draining her. She heard him gasp, then his entire body went still. Inside, she felt the throbbing release of his seed. He started moving again, slower this time, until he at last rested, spent and panting, on her.
“So beautiful,” she murmured, overcome by the intensity of their passion. “Oh, Judd, it was so beautiful.” Tears slid down her temples into her hair.
Eleven
Judd thought beautiful didn’t begin to describe what had happened between them. Mind-shattering, ecstatic…and, yeah, beautiful—all those terms applied, and then some.
He lingered, not wanting to break the connection between them, not wanting to think beyond the pure contentment of the moment.
And therein lay danger.
He’d been unable to deny the need between them, but he wouldn’t become entangled with her again. He wouldn’t let himself start thinking he had to have her in order to feel alive and whole, although that was the way he felt at the moment.
He’d been through that wringer once. When she’d told him she wanted a divorce, it had been like having open-heart surgery without benefit of anesthesia.
Her tears touched his cheek. He turned his head and sipped the salty moisture from her skin. Inside, something that had been hard and self-preserving went soft and mushy. He fought the need to comfort her.
Awkward with the cumbersome cast, he slowly eased away from her. The summer heat seeped into the house, but he felt the cold when he withdrew from the moist warmth of her body. He lay on his back and sighed as weariness riffled into every muscle.
He was aware of Tracy leaving the bed. He didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t want to see her go. She was a weakness he couldn’t afford, he reminded himself. He had a job he liked in a town full of friends. He didn’t need anything else.
A warm washcloth touched him in a sensitive place, causing him to jump in surprise. He heard her low murmur, reassuring him. Gently, she bathed him, then returned to the bathroom.
He lay there, feeling more vulnerable than he had at the moment of climax. A longing for the things they’d lost stalked his defenses. He felt exposed, his heart laid out raw and quivering on the primitive altar of…lust, he told himself, repeating the word until it felt hard and cold and pure in his mind.
Lust. That was all. Lust.
When Tracy returned to bed, she curled against him. She put one smooth thigh between his the way she used to and laid an arm over his chest. “Does this make your leg hurt?”
“No.”
All pain had been burned away in the hot pounding of his blood through his body. He wiggled his toes, becoming aware of his injuries for the first time since he’d touched her. Caressing her hadn’t bothered his sore hands at all.
Turning slightly, he eased an arm under her head and rested the other on her side. With his thumb, he began stroking the side of her breast. The slow buildup of heat started inside him. He wanted her again.
Ha, when had he ever stopped?
Even making love to another woman hadn’t erased the memory of Tracy’s response—He broke off the thought as another came to him. He hadn’t offered her any protection.
Between them, it had never been necessary. Their clumsy eagerness had resulted in their son’s conception almost as soon as they’d met. During the years after that, there’d been no need for birth control. Tracy had never conceived again.
He wondered if he should mention it. He owed it to her. He cleared his throat. “I didn’t use a condom,” he said.
She raised her head. Her eyes held that sleepy contentment he remembered so well. They also held a question.
“In case you were worried,” he explained. “I’m safe. I’ve never been…you’re the only woman I’ve ever had without taking the proper precautions.”
He wasn’t going to tell her there had been exactly two women in seven years, each of short duration as a lover. With Maris, he hadn’t even gotten that far. He’d realized early on that they were destined to be only friends.
“I’m safe, too,” Tracy said.
For a second, the idea of her with someone else burned a hole in him, then he thrust it aside. He thought he heard sadness in her softly spoken words, but couldn’t figure it out.
“Was there someone?” he asked.
Tracy stiffened for a second, then sighed. Judd, once he was on to something, was more persistent than a hound after a rabbit.
“There was a man who wanted to marry me. I thought I loved him, too. In a way. Except that I couldn’t…each time he touched me, I…froze.”
That was when she’d gone to the psychologist, who’d told her it was time to get over her grief and on with her life. Tracy wondered what the woman would say now, if she talked about going to bed with Judd and about her wild response.
Was this going forward with her life, or backward?
“That didn’t seem to be a problem this time.” Judd stroked the side of her breast some more.
She detected a hint of satisfaction in the words. She frowned at him, letting her irritation show. “I suppose you never had any such problem with the women you’ve dated.”
The slight smile disappeared from his mouth. “No,
” he said truthfully. “There weren’t many.”
She seethed with jealousy, knowing she had no right to, but feeling it just the same.
He touched the frown lines on her forehead. “Two. Very brief, very unsatisfactory.”
A sigh of relief escaped her. She gave him a frank look. “I’m jealous, terribly jealous.” She paused. “I saw Maris touch you the day I arrived and I wanted to hit her.”
“Maris is a good friend, nothing more. It just wasn’t there for us, for either of us. She met someone later.”
“I know. Lily Mae told me she was married.” Tracy sat up in bed and combed her tangled hair with her fingers. “Speaking of Lily Mae, she gave us some soup. Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” he murmured, reaching over and clamping both hands around her waist. “For you.” He sat her astride his hips. “You’re going to have to do all the work this time.”
She bent to him and planted a fierce kiss on his smiling mouth. “Gladly,” she whispered, feeling the fire start all over again. It was a long time before she prepared their dinner.
After they ate, they sat on the sofa and watched TV or read. They ended up making love there, too. Neither of them could get enough of the other.
Tracy held the doors for Judd. When he was settled at his desk, she went into the conference room she used as an office and opened the FBI report. She read it through.
The expert at the forensic labs agreed with her analysis of the age of the bones. He’d also run a blood test. She looked at the type, then picked up the phone and dialed.
“Jackson, I have some news,” she said when she reached the tribal attorney. “Kane sent me the report on the blood samples from the family who think the bones belong to their son. I got word on the bones from the FBI labs today. The chances of that being their long-lost boy are practically zilch. They have no common blood factors.”
“They’ll be disappointed. It’s easier to accept death than to face the fact that the boy doesn’t want to see them.”
They chatted a few more minutes, then hung up. Tracy sat there lost in thoughts of the weekend. Yesterday, she and Judd had spent the entire day together. Their lovemaking had taken place at several spontaneous moments throughout the day, much as it had during their early marriage before Thadd’s birth.
She smiled and yawned. Jimmy had come over after church and played checkers with Judd. Fortunately, about the time Judd had grown restless at the youngster’s prolonged visit, Jimmy’s friend Mark had returned home and come looking for him.
Tracy had sent the two boys off with a sack of cookies to tide them over until their dinner. Over the fence, she’d chatted with Jimmy’s mother about a camping trip the boys would be taking in a couple of weeks with their scout troop, then she’d gone back inside.
Judd had been waiting impatiently for her. As soon as she was inside, he’d locked the front and back doors, closed the shutters and taken her to bed for a nap. Well, they had slept. Eventually.
Yawning again, she admitted she was happy. Beyond that, she wasn’t going to think at present.
A knock at her door brought her to attention. “Come in.”
Rafe Rawlings entered. “Hi. I have something for you.” He handed her a package.
She opened it and found her knapsack and tools. Carefully, she and Rafe sifted through the broken glass of the sample bottles, but the evidence was gone. “Well, I’m pretty sure the short hairs belonged to our cowboy and the long one to…whoever.”
“An Indian?” he asked. “A lot of them wear their hair like Jackson Hawk—long and tied in braids.”
“No, it was probably a wo—” She stopped. That was evidence she meant only Judd and Jackson to have for now.
“A woman?” Rafe jumped right on the tidbit like a crow on a june bug. “Can you tell that by its size or something?”
“An expert doesn’t have to explain her methods,” Judd said from the open door. He limped inside, glad that he’d interrupted when he saw Tracy’s smile of gratitude. “Sara Lewis called. She says she has Native American bones at the museum. Jackson thought you might be interested.”
“Definitely.” Tracy went to the cabinet. “I can compare the thigh bones to the one I have.”
Judd observed the young policeman’s interest as Tracy explained the bone characteristics of the three major human groups. When he left, Judd muttered, “I wonder what the hell he’s up to?”
“I think he’s looking for some clue to his parents,” she said in a pensive tone. “It must be terrible to be totally abandoned by your family.”
“Yeah.” He eyed her as she prepared to leave. “Are you going to the museum?”
“Um-hmm.”
“Don’t go out to the site by yourself,” he requested. He paused, then added, “I’m asking for your word on that.”
She picked up the plastic bag with the femur tucked inside and went to him. “I promise,” she murmured.
The scent of her cologne drifted around them. He remembered her splashing some at various places on her body after her shower that morning. The hunger rose in him.
Unable to resist, he caught her face between his hands and kissed her. A low growl of need escaped him. Every moment seemed to strengthen the bond between them.
When he let her up for air, they stared into each other’s eyes, the passion plain to see. But there were other things there, too—the doubts and the questions.
Where was this going? When would it end?
The telephone on Tracy’s desk rang. She reached out and flicked on the speaker, her eyes still dazed from their embrace. A sense of pride pushed its way into his consciousness. At least he did the same thing to her that she did to him.
He limped back to his office and sat down. Propping his foot on the desk, he picked up a report. But his mind stayed on Tracy.
She was talking to the FBI office, telling them what was going on with the case. “This week?” he heard her say.
His attention caught, he listened as she told her boss that she was sure they’d find more evidence soon. The man was against spending any more time on it.
“Okay, the end of the week,” Tracy said. “Yes, I’ll be off the case then. I’ll tell the sheriff.”
Judd realized he didn’t want to know. Darkness hovered near, threatening to descend at any moment. When she told him she was leaving, what would he say?
Hell, he’d probably break into tears and beg her to stay. She had to know he wanted her. He’d accepted her into his house and his bed. Didn’t that tell her how he felt?
He ran a hand over his face and searched for the emptiness that had saved him before. It wasn’t there. She’d slipped in and filled every lonely crevice of his life. When she left…
Tracy finished her call. She walked into his office with her purse and bag in her hands. He noticed she didn’t meet his eyes. Instead, she’d gone quiet…the way she had before she’d finally admitted the end of their marriage.
To his surprise, she knelt beside him and wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed him. It felt like goodbye.
The secretary stuck her head in the outer door. “Hey, Boss, Sterling wanted to—Oh, excuse me.”
Tracy let him go and stood. A flush crept into her cheeks. The secretary grinned.
“What was Sterling’s problem?” Judd managed to ask in a level voice.
“He wanted to let you know the raid on the mayor’s house went fine. They arrested this little old gray-headed woman who insisted she was the mayor’s mother…as if we were stupid hick cops who’d believe that.”
Tracy’s mouth dropped open.
Judd closed it gently with a fist under her chin. “A hick cop’s idea of a joke,” he explained, a smile lighting his face. “Tell Sterling to use the rubber hoses on the little old lady. We’re after a full confession.”
Tracy was still grinning when she left, after promising Judd she’d be back promptly at noon. A short time later she pulled into the parking lot of the Native American museum.
Several other cars were there. She noticed the license plates. Lots of tourists on the road in August, apparently.
Sara Lewis was busy with a scout troop, but she stopped long enough to show Tracy where the bones were kept.
Tracy was impressed. The collection was housed in protective drawers the same as the Smithsonian used for their archives.
An hour of comparing thigh bones assured her she was right. Her bones belonged to an Anglo, a white cowboy who had trusted the other person enough to turn his back on him…or her, she mused, thinking of the long blond hair with the dark root.
The two-faced woman?
Tracy pictured the setting as she closed the last drawer and repacked her bone. A clandestine meeting…a lover’s quarrel…anger…a thrown rock…then…
But women rarely displayed the type of fury that would result in bashing a person in the back of the head, even if they had knocked the victim down with a rock thrown in anger. Maybe some jealous husband had bashed the cowboy after seeing the young man with his wife. That was more likely.
Anyway, it was all speculation. A scientist was supposed to present the evidence, not make up wild stories.
“Did our collection help?” Sara asked when Tracy emerged from the back room.
“Yes. Thanks so much for letting me use it.” She told the young curator what she’d found and headed back to the office. She needed to call Jackson and tell him the news so that the tribe could quit worrying about the bones. And the case. It was out of their hands.
In fact, it was now in Judd’s jurisdiction. He’d be glad of that. She’d tell him over lunch. Maybe they would have a quiet meal together while they went over the case. Alone in the office while the secretary was at lunch. She smiled.
When she entered Judd’s office half an hour later, she stopped abruptly. A woman was there with him. Holding his hand.
“You poor dear,” the Kincaid woman was saying. “When I heard the news, I couldn’t believe someone had tried to hurt you. This is all so strange. I thought small towns were supposed to be safe from all that.”
“I guess people are the same the world over,” Judd remarked.
