Shameless (The Contemporary Collection)

by Blake, Jennifer

  “Maybe,” he answered with dry humor. He paused a moment, considering her suggestion. Finally, he asked, “Ty still home on leave?”

  “Got another week before he belongs to the Air Force again,” she said, scooping up green onions and dumping them into a sauce pan where butter sizzled. Glancing over her shoulder, she added, “Want me to call him?”

  “Tell him to meet me out at the lake,” he answered, and let his smile convey his gratitude for her understanding.

  He and Ty had a lot in common. They were the same age, and had played together from time to time when Lizbeth brought him to work with her during the summer. Together, they had roamed the game reserve, two boys pretending to be mighty hunters, cavemen, or soldiers. They had gone to the same school during the first flush of local integration, and both had tried out for one of Greenley's first integrated football teams. Ty had played halfback, making it his special project to protect Reid as the quarterback in tight play situations. Reid not only appreciated the coverage, but gave his halfback full credit for most of the important plays.

  Ty had joined the Air Force out of school, becoming a helicopter pilot. He had worked his way up to a colonel's rank and was still climbing. Over the years, he and Reid had met in various out of the way places around the world to share a drink and catch up on the home news. The last time had been in California nearly two years ago. Reid had been intending to get together with Ty while they were both in town, but his time had been taken up with other things.

  The day was perfect for fishing, the temperature hovering around seventy, wind calm, sun coming and going behind ragged and dingy white sheets of clouds. Reid and Ty launched the fiberglass bass boat, then took off down the lake channel. After a few minutes they eased into a long, tree-crowded arm of the lake well out of the traffic.

  Using top-water bait, they cast with the easy competence of long habit, reeling in without wasted motion, but also without hurry. Neither of them really cared if they caught anything. It was enough to drift lazily over the tree-sap brown water with its surface tinted blue with sky reflection, using the trolling motor now and then to reach where rod and line could not take them.

  They found the bass, great Florida-type monsters weighing from four to eight pounds, caught their limit and put them on ice. They were careful how they hooked what they caught afterward, since they needed to release them back into the lake.

  Reid felt the tension leaving him by slow degrees. It had been with him so long that its departure left behind tingling discomfort.

  He and Ty popped a beer or two as the day grew hotter. While they drank, they talked in a desultory way, damning politics and politicians, taking the past seasons of the Saints and the Cowboys apart, raking over the latest dust-up at the Pentagon. It was the kind of wide-ranging and impersonal talk resorted to by most men when they got together. When the two of them had nothing to say, they were silent.

  Out of a long period of floating with the sun on his face and watching a blue and green dragonfly perched on his rod tip, Reid asked, “You ever think of getting married, Ty?”

  The other man flashed a grin as he tipped his dark head. “Now and then. Right time, wrong woman. Right woman, wrong time. You thinking about it again?”

  “Crossed my mind,” he allowed.

  “Hear you seeing a lot of Cammie Greenley.” It was a statement that could be answered or left alone.

  “Hutton,” Reid said without expression. “Cammie Hutton.”

  “Right. You always did have a thing for her, didn't you? I remember after a football game, bunch of guys started asking some joker who dated her about how he scored. One idiot got down and dirty with his questions, and you took him apart.”

  Reid shrugged without looking at Ty. “Seemed the thing to do at the time.”

  “Ahuh. And as I recall, we used to circle back through the game reserve past the Greenley place so often we wore a trail like a super highway.”

  Reid gave him a quick look. “You remember too much.”

  “Like that time the field mouse got in the building, had all the girls screaming and jumping on the desks. You caught the thing, all macho with your bare hands, and it bit the hell out of you? But when Cammie Greenley said don't kill it, you took it out and let it loose behind the baseball field. Then you walked around for days with the stupidest look on your face, all because she said you were kind. Yeah, man, I remember that, too.”

  Ty was kidding him, but Reid didn't care. He let the memory the other man had raised, bright-burnished and sweet, seep into his mind. And suddenly he felt an icy chill begin around his heart.

  Cammie could not possibly have killed anyone. In spite of her courage, regardless of her bravado, she didn't have the hard inner core that would permit it.

  Her threat against Keith's brother last night had been empty, if it had been a threat at all. He, of all people, should understand Cammie's ability to drive away those who could hurt her with a salvo of knife-edged words.

  The only possible way she could have caused the death of a human being was if she'd been allowed no other choice.

  He had known that simple truth before. How had he forgotten?

  The answer was, he hadn't forgotten at all. What he'd done was ignore it.

  He had ignored it because he'd been an idiot. He'd heard and seen her rout Gordon Hutton, and had been miffed because it seemed she didn't require his protection any longer.

  He wanted her to need him because that was all he could use to hold her. And he'd wanted that hold on her desperately.

  I did need you.

  The words she'd spoken had remained with him because hidden in them was a tiny hint that she might require something more than a strong arm and a warm body. He'd almost missed it in his concentration on his own needs.

  Almost.

  What if he was wrong? What if there was nothing in what she'd said except what he was reading into it, nothing except his own hope?

  He loved her; he had for years. It seemed there had never been a time when he did not love her.

  There had also never been a time to tell her so.

  Maybe that time was now.

  He'd tried once, and failed. And failing made it impossible for him to see her for years.

  What if he made it impossible to go back to the physical relationship they had established? There was such near-intolerable pleasure in being able to touch her bare skin, to watch her face as she took the release he offered. There was such mind-stunning glory in finding his own surcease in the depths of her body. Could he endure being denied it?

  What if he made it impossible to ever see her again?

  It was a chance he would have to take. He had risked more before, and won.

  He had also lost. At least one of those times, it was love he'd lost, though of a different, more gentle kind. And it was not he who had paid the price. Could he chance that? Could he bear it, and live?

  What else was there? After all this time?

  It was late afternoon by the time Reid took his leave of Ty, cleaned his share of the fish, cleaned himself up, then gathered together everything he would need. Hoping Lizbeth wouldn't fuss too much about the way he'd torn up her kitchen with his rummaging, he left for Evergreen.

  Cammie wasn't at home, but that was no great problem. He let himself into the house with his handy lock-picking kit and headed straight for the kitchen.

  He couldn't wait to see her face when she found him there, he thought as he set the deep fat fryer he had brought on the cabinet. He plugged it in, then reached for the gallon of peanut oil to fill it. If it came to that, he couldn't wait to hear what she might have to say. It was entirely possible she would do her best to annihilate him. It wouldn't make any difference; he could take anything she dished out.

  That hadn't been true at one time. He hadn't known her as well then, or himself.

  It would be a relief to finally come out of hiding, to — what was that phrase used by writers of spy novels? Come in out of the cold? He'
d never heard anybody use it himself, not in all his years in the Company. It was descriptive, though. Being alone in your own mind was a cold and lonely thing.

  There had always been warmth in thinking of Cammie, even when he'd known she was married to someone else. He had to admit that.

  Holding her in the quiet aftermath of sex, or just for the sake of feeling her against him — with passion of a mental kind, yes, but without lust — had warmed someplace hidden inside that had been iced over for years. He loved being quiet with her, too, reading, watching television.

  He loved watching her enjoy things, the way she had in New York. Maybe they could travel other places together. It would be a great way to spend a winter evening, choosing and planning trips, arguing over which sights they should see for the pleasure of coming to terms. He knew exactly how much it would take — or how little — to make him agree to go anywhere she wanted.

  The peanut oil was heating just fine. He unwrapped the bass fillets, rinsing them under cold, running water before he laid them out on paper towels to drain. Dumping several cups of white cornmeal into a bowl, he began to rummage through the cabinet shelves for salt and pepper. He hoped his taste in seasoning suited Cammie, because he only knew one way to do it.

  He saw that Persephone had been there during the day. She'd left supper for Cammie, pork chops and fresh mustard greens. Maybe he could heat the greens to go with the fish; that would be good. There was also a coconut pie for later. Persephone was one of a dying breed, like Lizbeth. They would both be retiring soon, and it would be impossible to replace them.

  He and Cammie could take care of things together when that time came, he thought. He didn't mind cleaning, and he liked cooking. Well, he liked cooking some things; he was no expert.

  Where would the two of them live? He didn't care. Either house would make a great museum, if the town wanted the donation. Or they could save the spare place for their kids.

  A grin tugged a corner of his mouth. He might be getting just a little ahead of himself, but it was fun, anyway.

  The oil was hot as blue blazes, just right. There might have been a bit too much water left in the fish under their coating of meal. The oil crackled and spat with the sound of a miniature artillery barrage as he dropped the fillets into the fryer.

  What next? Peel the potatoes. Persephone was a smart cook; she knew a sharp knife was safer than a dull one. She didn't mess with dinky little paring knives, either, or poor quality blades.

  Was he expecting too much of Cammie, he wondered, coming here like this? It wasn't fair to make a single person responsible for your whole happiness. Of course, she couldn't know how much it meant to him, had no idea the power she held over him.

  She might begin to understand it the minute he told her how he felt. Hell, knowing Cammie, there was no doubt about that part.

  Could he stand it if she took what he said and used it against him? Maybe. What he couldn't stand would be if she heard him out, then gave him what he wanted of her out of nothing more than unselfish compassion. He suspected that was a real possibility.

  He didn't hear the door.

  The first thing he knew was a wafting of cool air on the back of his neck and the brush of a touch on his back. So little, and yet it was enough.

  Instincts, laid aside for the first time in long, careful years while he concentrated on his task and his plans, sprang to life in the space of a single heartbeat. They had only one hard-drilled purpose.

  The knife turned in his hand as he came around. Sharp edge uppermost, point forward, he drove it with every ounce of his strength toward the soft vitals of whoever posed this incipient threat. Perfectly timed, lightning in execution, there was no possible defense.

  A drift of gardenia scent combined with fish and hot peanut oil. A familiar, incomparably necessary presence, felt rather than seen.

  The warning screamed through his brain in a red-hot vapor trail of pain. Mind and instinct clashed. Muscles cramped, tendons creaked. Bones wrenched, bending under opposing pressures. The cry that tore from his own throat mingled with a soft, feminine sound of terror and regret.

  Too late. Cringing, soul-sick, he felt the instant that steel slashed cloth, sank into tender, giving flesh, ripped free again.

  Cammie.

  She spun away from him, falling with an impetus half his doing, half her own reaction to danger. Her eyes were wide and dark with pain. The blood, spreading, was bright red against the soft green of her sweater.

  He moved like a whiplash, unfurling to catch her before she struck the floor. Slinging the knife across the room to clatter against the wall, he gathered her against him. There was a rough voice babbling. His, he thought, though he had little sense of the words.

  “Not — your fault,” she whispered against his chest. He felt the heat of her breath through his shirt, and he shivered. Then her lashes fluttered down, and he stopped living.

  He was there, but also not there, for what followed. Ripping the plug of the deep-fat fryer from the socket. Putting Cammie into the Jeep. Cursing the nurse in the emergency room for being so slow, for hurting Cammie while she undressed her, for waiting until the wound was exposed before she sent for the physician on call. Refusing to release Cammie while the doctor explored the wound and stitched up the slashed opening. Barely listening while he was told that nothing vital had been touched, that the wound was clean — hearing only that the knife blade had passed within minute fractions of an inch of the main blood supply of the body.

  He had known it could be no other way. It had been, God help him, his target.

  By then Cammie was awake and trying to excuse him while he explained. She hadn't wanted anything for pain, had tried to refuse to take it. He had snatched the syringe from the nurse and, shivering, pressed the needle into her soft flesh himself.

  He drove her home. On the way, he kept his mouth shut tight on all the things he longed to say. And he watched her, imprinting the memory of her white face and clear, absolving gaze somewhere in the recesses of mind and heart where it could never be erased. Against future need.

  She hadn't wanted anyone to stay with her. He was all the help she needed, she said. He called her aunt Sara anyway.

  She scowled and told him he was a bully. He didn't answer. It was true.

  The sedative took effect at last, though she winced in her sleep as she tried to move. He allowed himself to come close then, kneeling beside the bed, holding her hand to his lips, watching the rise and fall of her chest under the bandaging. Counting the pulse that throbbed under his fingers. Touching the soft, gold-brown silk of her hair. Brushing her cheek with his knuckles. Watching the shadows of her lashes merge with the shadows spreading under her eyes.

  Until her aunt came. He let the fussy, frightened old biddy hustle him out of the room then. He was even grateful to her for preventing him from doing anything stupid, such as kissing Cammie good-bye.

  His Jeep was in the driveway, but he forgot it. Walking out the back door of Evergreen, he turned automatically for the woods.

  The darkness of them closing around him was welcome. He didn't stop, however, but kept walking, winding through the trees, crossing creeks, scaring up deer that were bedded down in thickets, driving deeper and deeper into the cool, covering blackness.

  The effort caught up with him at last. His breathing had sunk deep into his lungs; he could hear it rasping, labored, in his ears. His heart pounded with sickening crashes in his chest. Sweat poured from him. His steps took on a jerky, locked-knee cadence.

  He tripped. Reaching out to catch himself, he grasped a saw brier vine. The stinging pain ripped through his hand, piercing into the blackness in his mind.

  He sat down as if he was the one who had been knifed. There was no point in going on; he couldn't outrun this new horror any more than he could leave behind the last one.

  His chest hurt as if his heart was dissolving in the corrosive acid of unshed tears. He would not let them fall. It was too late for that. He would lock
them away, just as he must lock away every plan, every endearing dream.

  It had been his fault, and he knew it all too well.

  He should never have tried to come so close, never thought of reaching for more than he had been given.

  Killing, maiming, was all he knew. Maybe it was all he was good for.

  The thing he had wanted most was to love and protect Cammie. The best way to do that, it seemed, was to stay away from her. Far away.

  He would manage it this time, if it killed him.

  And it might.

  20

  THE BEDROOM WAS DIM WHEN CAMMIE opened her eyes. She lay for long moments, letting her mind catch up with her body. It seemed she'd drifted for some time. She remembered waking off and on, and being handed medication to swallow with water. Her aunt Sara had been there. Strange.

  Memory returned abruptly. She turned her head, expecting to find Reid beside her. No one was in the room. He'd been there, she knew; it seemed she still felt the imprint of his hand on hers.

  But it couldn't be. She had slept through a night and most of another day. The last time she'd seen Reid, it had been completely dark.

  She slowly lifted her hand and settled it over the bandages that swathed her midsection. She was touchy and sore under them, but it was nothing to make such a fuss about. Her back was just as sore from lying so long in bed.

  She rolled to her side and levered herself up to a sitting position. Her stitches protested a little, but nothing dramatic happened. Pushing to her feet, she moved carefully toward the window. Her balance wasn't the best in the world, but that seemed to her the effect of the painkillers. She wasn't used to anything much stronger than an aspirin.

  Beyond the window curtains the evening was sultry and still. A gray-blue bank of clouds spread across the sky above the trees. There was a greenish tint to the fading light, as if the rich spring color of the grass and leaves was being refracted through the humidity-laden air as through a prism. It was going to rain; there might even be a storm building to the north.