She had drawn blood last night. She had marked him. Another thing she should be ashamed about. But wasn’t. What was happening to her? A log fell over behind her with a soft hiss, sending up a plume of flame. In the sudden flare of light she noticed a patch of pale skin low on his side. She put down the bottle of disinfectant and leaned closer. It was scar tissue, the lumpy, stretched kind of scar from a deep wound. It had healed over, but the pain he must have suffered was obvious. “What happened here?”
“Where?”
Carefully she ran the tip of her finger along the perimeter of the scar. “Down here near your waist.”
His smile disappeared. He reached for his shirt. “A souvenir. From another explosion.”
“When did it happen?”
He moved away from her. “Years ago. I don’t want to talk about it.”
She caught his arm. “Why not? You learned everything there is to know about me before I told you. Why can’t we even things up a bit?”
He shook off her grip and thrust his arms into his sleeves. “Are you sure you want to know, Emma?”
Did she want to know? He had learned about her because of his job, not because he was interested. She had no excuse. She should forget all this, crawl into her sleeping bag alone and close her eyes to these dangerous feelings that stirred inside her. “Yes,” she said softly, placing her hand back on his arm. “I’d like to know about you, Bruce.”
The muscle beneath her fingers hardened with tension. “The scar is where a piece of my car got embedded in my ribs. I never knew which part of the car it was. I never asked. The bomb had been wired to the ignition. I was walking back to my house to get something. I don’t remember what it was. It couldn’t have been important. I was halfway across the lawn when the blast went off.”
She swallowed hard. “You could have been killed.”
“That was the general idea. I was due in court to testify that morning. I was just a beat cop in the suburbs back then, but I had stumbled onto an outfit that was pirating videotapes. Videotapes. They killed an innocent human being over something as trivial as illegal copies of some meaningless movies.”
Killed? The tension in his arm spread. She could see his shoulders stiffen. What he had said clicked in her mind. The bomb had been wired to the ignition, but he had been walking across his lawn. “Who was in the car, Bruce?”
“My wife.”
The pain in those two words slammed through her without warning. She leaned her forehead against his back. His wife. “I'm sorry,” she whispered.
He inhaled shakily but he didn’t pull away. “It was five years ago, one of those April days when the leaves are just starting to come out and the smell of warm earth is in the air and the birds are going crazy finding mates and building nests. Lizzie wanted to drop me off at the courthouse on her way to her doctor’s appointment. She was in a hurry. She was always in a hurry. She was the original Type A personality.”
“You must have loved her deeply,” she said. “I can hear it in your voice.”
“God, yes, I loved her. She was everything to me. She was one of those people that you’d instinctively gravitate toward if you walked into a roomful of strangers. We thought we’d have the rest of our lives. We’d made so many plans. And when she found out about the baby—” He broke off, his breathing ragged.
The pain just kept getting worse. Emma closed her eyes and moved her head from side to side in a slow negative. “Oh, no.”
“She was three months pregnant when they killed her.”
Without hesitation Emma slid her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his back. The night closed around them, the cocooning quiet broken only by scattered crickets and the muted rustle of the dying fire. “How did you ever survive?”
“When I got out of the hospital, I changed jobs. That was my first undercover assignment. It took only three weeks.”
She didn’t need to ask what it was. “Did you get them?”
“Yes. The one who planted the bomb never made it to trial. I wasn’t proud of that case. It was vengeance, not justice. The next case was easier. That’s when I found out that I could lose myself in my work. With the badge and the rule book, I could forget about the pain.”
Echoes of her angry words of the night before came back to her. She tightened her hold on him. “I'm sorry, Bruce. I'm so sorry. I didn’t know. All I could think about was myself. I wish I could take back those things I said.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But I hurt you. All those times I taunted you about your devotion to your job, when I think about that now I feel sick. I was so cruel. I should have thought—”
“We've both done our share of hurting. I haven’t forgotten what I did to you, how I betrayed our friendship, and how I wanted to use you. I've had to take a good look at myself lately, and I realize that all I see is my job, my rigid picture of right and wrong. I haven’t cared who I need to hurt or use along the way.”
“But what you've told me explains so much.”
He covered her hands with his, lacing their fingers together. “It’s a hell of a situation. It has been from the start. You see, I understand why you hate cops, because I know all about grudges. I recognize the rage you feel toward the people you hold responsible for destroying your family. I felt the same way, only I was able to do something about it. I got them. Every time I finish a case, I get another one of them.”
She hung on. She didn’t want to move. He knew about grudges because he knew about loss. He had lost his family and all his plans for his life. He had been a victim of circumstances beyond his control. They were alike. They were both survivors. The bond between them, the instinctive connection she had never been able to explain went far, far deeper than she had ever imagined.
This had happened before, this sudden shift in perception. It was like the time she had seen Bruce without the beard and the fake belly and had realized that her view of him had been all wrong. Only this time it was worse. He wasn’t the unfeeling robot she had wanted to believe. No, he felt, and he hurt and he’d lost. It made sense now. She could understand why he buried himself in his work, why he didn’t want to be close, or to care. She rubbed her cheek against his back, her eyes filling with tears. Yes, she understood. The bond between them was deep. And the problems between them even deeper.
Being a cop was more than merely a job to him. It was how he dealt with the pain he had endured. Hating cops was how she dealt with hers. Oh, God. It was hopeless.
“Last night,” she said. “The bomb in my plane, the explosion, everything must have brought it all back for you.”
“I shouldn’t have told you.”
No, he shouldn’t have, she thought, her mind reeling. “That’s why you lost control, that’s why we...did what we did.”
“What we did was because of us, Emma. You and me. We weren’t thinking of the past, or the future. We needed each other because we needed to reaffirm life.”
“And surviving.”
He paused. “Yes. Surviving. We both carry around the scars of our past, and we've both found our own ways of dealing with it.” He pried one of her hands away from his waist and raised it to his lips. His breath puffed warm and rapid over her knuckles. “It’s late. We’d better get some rest.”
Emma had never felt more connected to another human being in her life. She didn’t want to release her hold on him. She wanted to pull his head to her breasts and let their bodies spin them to the sweet oblivion they had shared before. But they couldn’t make love. Because if she gave in to the urging of her heart at this moment, that’s what the act would be called. And she couldn’t love him. Not him. Please, not him. A tear slipped from beneath her tightly closed eyelids and soaked into the soft fabric of his shirt.
A shudder rippled across his back and he dropped her hand. “Go to sleep, Emma.”
Her arms felt empty as she let them fall to her sides. The cold of the night rushed over her the moment she no longer touched him. Shiverin
g, she eased into her sleeping bag and turned away, curling up on her side. The spruce boughs rustled as Bruce stretched out behind her. The air crackled with emotions held back, with dangerous words left unspoken, with the invitation neither of them was willing to utter. Together, but apart, they lay motionless while the embers of the fire faded to blackness.
Chapter 12
The noise of the engine rose from a roar to a throaty scream as the truck rounded the curve. Logs creaked against the crib of steel ribs that enclosed them, gravel flew from the deeply treaded tires and clouds of dust billowed behind the wheels like a smoky white parachute. Bruce waved his arms over his head, then jumped off the road and braced himself for the rush of air as the truck rumbled past.
Emma coughed and squinted against the dust. “He doesn’t look as if he’s going to stop.”
“Give him a minute. Fully loaded like that it’s going to take him a while to slow down.” Red lights flashed on as the brakes hissed. Bruce grabbed their gear and loped along the edge of the road. “Come on.”
The truck didn’t manage to stop until it was halfway to the next bend. They caught up to it just as the door on the passenger side squeaked open.
“Where the hell did you two come from?” A powerful aroma of oil, sawdust and spearmint rolled outward as the driver leaned toward them. Straight black hair fell over his forehead. From beneath bushy eyebrows his dark brown eyes focused carefully on each of them in turn.
Bruce put on an awkward, harmless, unthreatening smile that Emma recognized immediately. “Man, am I glad to see you. Our van died a few miles up that trail. I’d appreciate it if you could give us a lift to a phone.”
The truck driver shifted a wad of gum the size of a golf ball to his cheek, causing one corner of his drooping moustache to twitch. “Sure. Climb on up.” The engine growled as he leaned back into his seat and shoved the gear lever. The truck shuddered and began to move forward. “Let’s go. I'm working on bonus.”
Emma quickly grasped the handle beside the door and swung herself onto the narrow step. The wheels hit a pothole, throwing her into the cab. Bruce leapt to the step behind her, tossed their belongings to the floor and steadied her with his hands on her waist. “There’s only the one seat,” he said, raising his voice over the increasing noise of the engine. “I'll slide in and you sit on my lap.”
It was all she could do to remain upright as the truck started to pick up speed. The trees beside the road marched past. Bracing her arm against the dashboard, she waited until Bruce slammed the door shut and maneuvered himself into the seat. The wheels hit another pothole and she fell backward against his chest.
“Hang on,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist. He angled his knees to one side and positioned her securely on his lap. “Are you okay?”
She had to loop her arm around his shoulders for balance before she twisted her head to look at him. “Sure. Are you?”
His face was so close to hers she couldn’t miss the trace of strain around his eyes. With each bump in the road, some part of her rubbed or brushed or bounced against some part of him. “I'll be fine,” he answered tightly.
She looked away. She couldn’t ignore the forced contact of their bodies, but she had to try. They both had to try.
“What were you folks doing out here?” the driver asked, his voice a near shout.
“We're on vacation.” Bruce pressed her to his chest in order to angle his right hand toward the other man. “My name’s Prendergast. This is the missus.”
He lifted his hand from the shift knob for an instant to clasp Bruce’s. “I'm Smitty.”
“Thanks for picking us up.”
“No problem.” His mustache twitched rhythmically as he concentrated on chewing his gum. With the air rushing through the open windows, the crunching of the gravel beneath the huge tires and the roar of the engine, there was no more chance for conversation. Smitty kept his attention on the road, for which Emma was grateful. By now they were traveling fast enough for the trees to blur. Shadows lengthened and fingered across the windshield while one bumpy, dusty mile blended into the next.
They were dropped off much the same way as they were picked up. The wheels barely stopped moving long enough for Bruce to grab their gear and jump out. He held up his arms to catch Emma and swung her to the ground beside him as the truck jerked into motion once more. She shook her head in an attempt to clear the ringing in her ears, then looked around to study their surroundings. A white church spire poked above the rooftops in the distance. On the other side of the road there was a gas station with old round-topped pumps, a restaurant with a weathered soft drink sign over the door and a handful of stores. On this side she saw a bank and a post office. She had missed the sign at the edge of the small town, but this could have been Castlerock for all she cared.
“We made it,” she said. “We actually made it.”
“I never had any doubts.”
A pickup truck rattled past. A mournful beagle sat in the back, turning its head to stare at them. Emma brushed the dust from her jeans and straightened her shirt.
“You look fine, Emma.”
She glanced up at him quickly. “I'm surprised that dog didn’t bark.”
He didn’t smile. The blond stubble on his cheeks shifted as his jaw clenched. “It would take more than two days in the bush to dull your looks.”
She could say the same about him. Even more. The sun had darkened the light tan on his face, making the startling blue of his eyes more intense. The wrinkled, ripped shirt only added to his aura of rugged masculinity. She hitched the string from the sleeping bag over her shoulder and looked away. “Thank you.”
“It was a statement of fact, not a compliment.”
“Thank you, anyway.”
“Would you like some dinner?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“There’s a restaurant across the road. After we eat something, we can check into the motel I noticed when we came through town.”
“How are we going to pay for it?”
“I've still got my wallet.”
“They might not serve us, considering what we look like.”
“I've still got my badge, too.”
Of course, he’d have his badge. Can’t forget that badge. She pressed her lips together and fell into step beside him as they crossed the road. The exhilaration of making their way out of the bush unscathed was short-lived. Reaching this town meant more than a good meal and a hot bath, and they both knew it.
* * *
The motel was a long, low, salmon-colored building set into the remains of the woods that encroached on the outskirts of the town. A large station wagon with a baggage carrier attached to the roof was parked in front of one room, a dusty truck cab minus its trailer was in front of another. Business was slow, so even with no vehicle and questionable luggage, Bruce hadn’t had any trouble obtaining a room.
Wisps of steam and the scent of the motel soap wafted around him as he paused in the bathroom doorway to rub his hair with a towel. The place had the impersonal, anonymous neatness of any number of motels in any number of small towns that he’d passed through. A television was bolted to the wall in the corner, the color scheme was a bland beige and rust, and the double bed was made up as tight as a cracker box. How many nights had he spent in his own bed this year? He couldn’t remember. He never objected when the job had taken him away from home for months at a stretch. The apartment wasn’t really a home, though. He had no home, not anymore.
The mattress creaked as Emma sat on the edge of the bed to comb her wet hair. Bruce tossed the towel over the shower rod and pulled on his shirt, uncomfortable with the silence. She had barely spoken during their dinner at the restaurant, but then, neither had he. Oh, they’d been hungry enough to ignore the curious stare of the waitress and polish off steaks that could have choked a lumberjack, but that wasn’t why the conversation had died. The tension between them was getting worse. He didn’t know why he was putting off this phone call.
They’d been in town for almost two hours now. Their time together was nearing an end. He had to forget how she’d shuddered in his arms, and how she’d cried against his back....
The sex two nights ago had been understandable, but what had happened last night had been a real mistake. Why the hell had he told her about Lizzie? He didn’t tell anyone. He’d closed off that memory as efficiently as he’d closed off his heart. Dredging it all up again should be reminding him of why he’d made the decisions he had, and why he wanted to be nothing other than what he was. Only it hadn’t worked that way. Now that he’d unearthed that memory for Emma, he’d been remembering other things, not just the pain. He’d been remembering what it had felt like to have a woman by his side, to see that warm glow of love in someone’s eyes, to know that he didn’t have to face life alone.
Yet whatever memories had been stirred up, it shouldn’t make any difference. It was only physical, the way Emma drew him. They’d both agreed that’s all it could be. They were almost finished with each other. Once he called Xavier, he would know where they stood. By tomorrow she’d be back in Bethel Corners and he’d be wherever he was needed. Dragging this thing out would only make it worse.
Taking a deep breath, he walked to the other side of the bed and picked up the telephone.
Emma must have been waiting for this. She tossed down the comb and braced her hands on her knees. “What are you going to tell him?”
“The truth.”
“Everything?”
“Everything that concerns the case.”
“What are you going to say about Simon?”
He put the phone back down, keeping his hand on the receiver. “Would you rather tell them?”
“No. I couldn’t. I’d feel as if I were betraying my brother.”
He’d known how she’d feel. After all, he understood her. “Your loyalty to your brother is misplaced.”
“No, it’s not misplaced. He’s the only family I have left, and I'll do everything I can to help him. I know I've probably made mistakes in the way I've tried to protect him, but my loyalty won’t change. We can’t help who we love.”
True Lies Page 18
