Midnight Cowboy

by Adrianne Lee

  A lustful glint danced in his eyes. “Black Jack Black is no gentleman, ma’am.”

  Andy arched an eyebrow at him and smiled. “Something tells me Jack Starett, Jr., is.”

  Confirming her belief, Jack insisted she get under the covers, then he climbed on top of them and pulled the quilt over himself. The bedsprings squeaked like rusty wagon wheels as they settled down, Andy propping herself against the headboard with a pillow, Jack stretching on his side facing her.

  His bare feet poked out the bottom of the quilt and Andy feared if either of them flipped over during the night the other would end up on the floor. However, there was something strangely comfortable about the moment, almost like times Gram and she had talked in bed late at night, and despite her battered, lonely heart, despite the lingering terror of old memories, there was something indefinable about Jack—maybe the mere size of him—that gave her a sense of security.

  Yet there was so much she didn’t know about him. “How did…the same man come to murder your father?”

  Sadness touched his face and she could see he’d loved his father devotedly.

  “Dad was a top-notch investigative reporter working out of the offices of the Butte Sun. He covered the story on the murder of your parents, writing a couple of heart-wrenching, human-interest pieces about the only witness to the brutal murder of her parents-the little girl who couldn’t remember anything of the tragedy, except the name Nightmare Man.”

  Andy closed her eyes, fighting off the nausea pro-voked by the vile name. She still didn’t remember anything about the tragedy. She believed Jack was telling her the truth; her reaction to the name Nightmare Man was proof enough. Any newspaper would certainly have an account on record, but the whole idea that someone had murdered her parents seemed unreal.

  The facts as Jack stated them wouldn’t slot comfortably into her mind. Instead they kept popping out, scattering through her head like the contents of an overturned drawer, demanding attention. Pain tweaked her temples and she scrubbed her face with her hands. The trouble was, she couldn’t visualize any of it. She didn’t even have a photograph of her parents, didn’t even recall what they had looked like.

  Jack shifted on the bed, setting off the springs as he drew the quilt higher on his bare shoulder. Were these memories also chilling him? He said, “Then you disappeared. Stolen out of town in the dead of night by your grandmother.”

  Andy twisted her hands together in her lap, and an ancient pain centered in her heart. How could something that had happened so long ago still hurt so much? “I can vaguely recall waking up in a strange bed—a motel room somewhere—with Gram by my side.”

  “Wallingford Lester, the editor of the Sun, was a cub reporter working under my dad at the time. He said Dad told him your grandmother was terrified for you. The police offered protection, but when the officer on duty let some thrill-seeking little ghoul past him, she knew the police would never keep you safe.”

  Andy’s logjammed emotions burst, wrenching a groan from her. She fought against the pain constricting her throat and the tears burning her eyes. “Why did…he kill your dad?”

  “A man who wouldn’t identify himself called Dad at the Sun demanding to know your whereabouts. Dad guessed the caller was Nightmare Man and he was certain he recognized the voice. Apparently, while Wally was out of the office, Dad checked it out. Somehow he must have tipped his hand, because he didn’t make it home that night. He was found three days later, his car parked on the side of the road. He’d been killed the same way as your mother.” Jack’s voice broke.

  Icy dread plunged through Andy. Jack hadn’t even seen his father murdered and just talking about it shook him to his core. She dug her nails into her palms. What would happen to her if she recalled the ugly memories buried deep in her subconscious? The mere idea set her temples throbbing and she knew she couldn’t put herself through that. “I’m so sorry about your dad, Jack.”

  “You’re lucky your grandmother acted as quickly as she did.”

  “Yeah.” Andy smiled wanly. How can I stay mad at you, Gram? You saved my life.

  There was hope in Jack’s expression. “If you could only recall his face.”

  The suggestion rekindled her panic and it was twenty seconds before Andy controlled the urge to leap out of bed and run. He might like her to remember, but he couldn’t force her to. No one could. “I don’t even remember what my parents looked like.”

  “Well, I can help you there. There are some old photographs at the news office. I’ll have Wally send them to you.”

  Andy flinched. A part of her rejoiced at the idea, but a bigger part feared the photographs would trigger the very memories she’d rather not recall. She was quiet for a moment, aware of the gentle rise and fall of Jack’s chest, of his utter nearness, of how comfortable the silence was. “Why didn’t Gram tell me the truth when I grew up?”

  Jack shrugged. “Maybe your doctor warned her not to.”

  Andy thought of Dr. Santini and decided Jack was probably right in that assumption. The elderly psychiatrist had been almost as overly protective of her as Gram.

  Jack snuggled down into his pillow. Tiredness etched lines in the corners of his eyes and around his mouth, that warm, sweet-tasting, nerve-tingling mouth. She wanted him to kiss her again, to see if she’d imagined the sensations, and she guessed he was thinking along the same lines. But he said, “Tomorrow we’ll figure out some way of getting you back to Seattle in one piece.”

  “Yes.” Disappointed, Andy scooted down and bumped against Jack in the narrow bed. She murmured a hasty apology. Tomorrow she’d call Tim.

  “Night.” Jack blew a sigh, turned away from her and doused the light.

  “Night.” Andy rolled to her side, her back to Jack, her nose buried in the pillow that smelled wonderfully of his after-shave, her body silently begging him to roll over and make love to her. But he didn’t, and she supposed she ought to be grateful that Jack Starett, Jr., was truly a gentleman. You would have liked him, Gram.

  Sleep teased her, but fearing she would dream of the scorpion, Andy concentrated on the scene she was working on in her story and soon she was romping with her heroine through the gold-mining days of yesteryear.

  MOONLIGHT FELL across Andy’s face. She opened her sleep-clogged eyes, blinking against the sudden brightness, wondering where she was. She sat up and realized she was in bed. The light spilling through the room told her it was a bedroom from her childhood. Toys lay scattered on the floor. Inexplicably, she shivchiatrist and hugged her arms around her middle, somehow expecting disaster.

  It came with a shriek like a hoot owl’s screech rending the peaceful night and filling Andy with such terror it stole her voice. A smothering silence followed. Then a loud crash jolted through the quiet and Andy jumped from the bed.

  Odd that she’d told Jack she couldn’t recall what either of her parents looked like. She could see them quite clearly now, see exactly what had happened to them.

  From behind her, a man said, “Lee Lee.”

  Andy’s heart jolted. Nightmare Man. Without looking at his face, she ran from his grasp. But he kept chasing her, calling, “Lee Lee.”

  Without knowing how she’d gotten there, she huddled in some dark, familiar corner, crying, softly whimpering, “Mommy.”

  Her wrist stung with pain. But there was a deeper pain inside her, and a fear like none she’d felt before. She sniffled and caught an alien scent.

  What was that odd, smoky smell, that funny whooshing crackling like…fire? Through teary eyes she realized the door of her hiding place was ajar. She could see the dining room table. Smoke, like thunderclouds inside the house, billowed toward the ceiling and she guessed it was the source of the smarting in her nostrils. Why was there so much smoke? Puzzled, she watched as flames leapt across the lace runner and climbed Grammy’s crocheted centerpiece.

  Suddenly Andy understood what she was looking at. Her eyes flew wide open. With a squeal of terror she shoved the large sack of
dog food aside. She had to get out, out of the pantry, out of the house. But something or someone was holding her down. Nightmare Man! She lashed out, trying to hit his face. To hurt him as he’d hurt her.

  Jack’s voice cut through the terror. Andy opened her eyes. She was sobbing—dry, bone-jarring sobs. She quit fighting, let Jack pull her close, and eventually choked out, “I remember…the house was on fire. I had to get out…to the safe place.”

  “You’re safe now,” Jack said, reaching for and switching on the bedside lamp, recalling how light in the dark of night could take the edge off a nightmare, could offer a sobering sense of time and place. Some perspective.

  But she was trembling like a fever victim, and he knew it would take more than a dose of tangibility to help Andy right now.

  Shaking uncontrollably, she shoved herself away from him. She stared at the scar on her wrist. Oddly, it stung as if the wound were freshly inflicted. She could almost see the blood dripping from the gashes.

  “I am Lee Lee Woodworth,” she said, admitting to herself that she hadn’t fully believed it until now. She shuddered and pressed her palms to her temples, trying to squeeze out the shattering images from her dream. Instead of leaving, the visions heightened, defined themselves, became more vivid with every revealed detail. She moaned. “No, no, no.”

  “What can I do?” Jack’s voice rang with worry. “Andy, let me help you.”

  But there was nothing he could do. Jack couldn’t make the heinous visions disappear—because they weren’t visions at all, they were memories, they were what she’d seen when she was five, what Nightmare Man had done to her parents.

  With acceptance came a raging fury—and terror more intimidating than any nightmare she’d ever had, that grabbed her chest and sucked away the very foundations of her existence, of every truth she had ever known.

  Nothing could keep her safe. Nothing and no one. Panic stole her breath. She batted at Jack’s outstretched arms, scrambled off the bed and ran into the bathroom.

  Jack chased after her, but she slammed the door. Swearing at the pain he knew she was suffering, he slumped against the wall, feeling powerless, useless. The sound of running water in the sink was followed by the toilet being flushed. Jack thought he heard Andy retching.

  Fifteen minutes later she came out, her face a mask of white. “I have to get out of here. I have to get away.”

  “All right.” Jack nodded, then gestured to her T-shirt. “But where do you think you’re going like that?”

  “You can lend me something.”

  “Anything, anytime. But my shirts won’t offer you any more coverage than the one you’re wearing, and I haven’t anything else that will fit you. Do you want me to get you something from your cabin?”

  The thought of Jack running into the scorpion was more than she could deal with. The scorpion and how and why it had been in her bed robbed the fight from Andy. She shook her head. Hot tears filled her eyes and streamed down her cheeks and into her mouth, tasting salty, coppery. She turned her pleading gaze to Jack, willing him to understand. But one look into those sage green eyes and she realized he did understand, had already traveled the ground she was traveling now.

  He opened his arms. Andy collapsed against him, sobbing. Jack lifted her like a child and carried her back to the bed. He murmured sweetly, softly, but Andy didn’t hear the words, just the tone of his voice, which her fragile spirit latched on to, a reassuring monotone that offered hope and encouragement, comfort and strength. The awful sense of impending peril dwindled.

  For the next two hours, in fits and starts, she told Jack what she had remembered—which was everything except Nightmare Man’s identity.

  When she’d gotten it all out, she felt drained, yet oddly relieved. And exhausted. She closed her eyes, curling against Jack’s big, protective body.

  She had no idea how long she’d slept, but now sunlight caressed the windows as lightly as Jack was tracing the contours of her back with strong yet gentle strokes that warmed everywhere he touched. Andy realized she wanted to pull his strength, his gentleness, his warmth inside her until it revived the part of her soul the memories of Nightmare Man had killed.

  She nuzzled Jack’s hands just as Minna’s white-pawed cat—so like her beloved Boots—had nuzzled her leg the day she’d checked in. Except she doubted the cat had ever been half as needy as she felt at this moment.

  Every stroke, every grazing touch of Jack’s was like balm soothed into her parched soul. She sighed softly, appreciatively, and then her gaze met his. The empathy she saw there reaffirmed her belief that he’d been here. He knew. He’d felt everything she was feeling now. She reached out to him with her heart, with her mind, knowing full well she could trust him as she’d never trusted another, knowing full well her yearning was reflected in her eyes.

  Jack groaned as if he were in pain and cupped her face with his big hands. “Are you sure?”

  Andy answered by lifting her lips to his, surprising herself with her eagerness, her hunger, abandoning herself to the fiery sensations sweeping through her, and soon the chunk of ice around her heart began melting like heated butter.

  His work-roughened hands stroked the tender flesh of her thighs, moved under her T-shirt, over her silk panties, across her midriff to her breasts, his grainy fingertips rousing her nipples to aching peaks, every stroke a wicked, shimmery friction of coarse skin against tender skin making her feel more alive than she’d ever felt.

  Her heart beat with a speed born of pleasure and need, washing her most secret places with longinglonging for a fulfillment she’d never experienced, didn’t totally believe was possible. She arched into his hand. “Oh, Jack.”

  He kissed her neck, pressing his body closer, offering Andy the hard proof of his desire for her, hearing her rapid breathing through the pulse thundering in his ears, feeling her thrumming heart against his palm. He wanted her as he’d never wanted any woman.

  The thought stunned Jack, sobered him. It wasn’t love she wanted, and she sure as hell didn’t need any more complications in her life right now. Hell, she didn’t even want him. Not really. Any man would do. She wasn’t thinking, she was reacting.

  “No. We can’t do this.” Jack disentangled himself from her arms. His voice was a raspy violin chord of unspent ardor. “You’re engaged.”

  Blowing out a frustrated sigh, he collapsed on the pillow, his arms behind his head as he stared at the ceiling.

  Confused and breathless, Andy plopped on the pillow beside him, staring at the same ceiling. Her face felt flushed with unspent passion. For several minutes the only sound in the cabin was their uneven breathing.

  Sunlight had crept higher on the windowpane, casting golden beams on the wall and floor. Jack was right. She hadn’t been thinking clearly. Andy swallowed hard, her cheeks burning at how close she’d come to losing complete control. The one saving grace, she realized, was that her fear had lessened to a level she could manage.

  Jack said, “Did you get a good look at the scorpion? Could you describe it to me?”

  Andy blinked at the unexpected question, then glanced over and up at him. “I don’t know—it looked like that one at the Golden Broom bar.”

  Imagining the scorpion again raised goose bumps on her arms and legs. She forced her focus elsewhere, studying Jack’s face, which was in dire need of a shave. She’d bet he could grow a fair beard in a week. It gave him a fearsome look, but she’d glimpsed his heart and knew there was a tender side to Jack Starett, Jr., that one wouldn’t suspect at first glance.

  He lurched off the bed, its springs protesting until he’d reached the dresser. Within minutes he’d donned his boots and was snapping the pearl buttons of yet another Western-style black shirt. “Before we make any decisions about your future, I need a look at that scorpion.”

  “I want to help.”

  “All right. I’ll bring you some clothes.”

  While Jack was gone, Andy considered what he’d said about her future. Of course, if
Nightmare Man had already discovered she was Leandra Woodworth—she might not have a future. The realization astounded her. But she wouldn’t be the first woman who’d faced such a dilemma.

  As she recalled, a popular actress on a daytime soap opera had been forced to give up her career, her right to a normal existence, because of an obsessed fan’s persistent threats to kill her. Hearing the story, Andy’s heart had gone out to the woman, who, still in hiding, no longer even dared receive mail.

  In the bathroom Andy washed her face with cold water. She gazed at her reflection in the mirror, trying to imagine hiding out the rest of her life, never having a telephone, never getting mail.

  A sickening clamminess swept her.

  She gulped down cold water from the tap. That kind of existence meant giving up her goals, her dreams, giving up the books she still wanted to write, giving up all thoughts of marrying, raising a family. Living. Impotent rage shook her to her toes. If that was all her life would ever be, she might as well let Nightmare Man kill her.

  Jack rapped on the bathroom door. “Your clothes.”

  “Thanks.” She was glad to see he’d brought her contacts as well as fresh underwear, jeans, a long-sleeved blouse and high-topped sneakers. Certain he’d already done so, she nonetheless checked each item before donning it. She put in her contacts, used his comb on her hair, then joined him in the main room.

  Jack was sitting on the bed, waiting.

  She said, “I’ve made a decision. Even if Nightmare Man did put the scorpion in my bed—” she hesitated, bracing for his inevitable protest “—I’m not leaving here.”

  “What?” Jack’s long, vacant scowl surfaced. “Why?”

  “The last images of my mother and father will stay with me no matter where I go, hovering in the forefront of my mind, spurring me to remember and bring their murderer to justice. I expect you’ve suffered something similar since your father’s murder.” The chill inside her had returned, but now it held a steel shaft of resolve. She’d thought hard about this, considered every option, every consequence. There was only one way to lay the images to rest, to ever have the life she wanted. “I’ve got to remember who he is.”