by Anna Jeffrey
“I’ll check,” she said, feeling put in her place by the abrupt change of subject. Though she suspected he might like to grab her by the hair and drag her off to his cave, he obviously had no intention of discussing his family or its business with her. So be it.
Inside the kitchen, she removed the potatoes from the oven and wrapped them in foil, then made her way to the bathroom. Returning, she glanced at the large computer monitor on the dining table and saw it filled with small pictures. She walked over to look closer. All of the pictures were obviously from the Middle Eastern desert. She homed in on a vivid photograph of four smiling, brown-eyed, black-haired girls posing for his camera.
“Steaks are ready,” he said, coming up behind her and startling her. He placed his hand on the mouse and enlarged the picture with a click. “Good shot, huh? I captured just what I wanted to in that one. Look at the eyes. Those poor kids are happy.” He stared at the picture for a few seconds.
His tone told her something wasn’t quite right and made her study the photograph closer. The girls looked to be around ten years old. Gathered shoulder to shoulder and smiling broadly, they were wearing Western-style dresses with white lacy collars and had their hair in neat braids. “They do look happy. And pretty. Where are they, Iraq?”
“Baghdad,” he said grimly, his eyes still fixed on the picture. “Everybody involved was pretty happy in that picture, including the army. This was opening day at a school those GIs put together.”
Something was definitely wrong, but Joanna couldn’t spot it. He clicked off the enlargement and moved the pointer to another small print. “This one I shot about ten minutes later.”
He enlarged the photograph and she recognized some parts of the same tan background, but now the four girls in their pretty dresses lay among piles of rubble, other broken bodies and puddles of blood. Joanna’s fingers flew to cover her mouth as a breath caught in her throat. “Oh, dear God. Are—are they dead?” She sank to the chair in front of the monitor, unable to take her eyes off the powerful picture.
“I don’t know. I heard later one of them might have made it. The Americans tried to save them, of course. I think it was around thirty kids and teachers that bought it that day.”
She continued to stare at the picture, shaking her head, Words didn’t exist in her safe, American, small-town lexicon for such senseless barbarism. And she was unable to relate to his having been there, having had his wits about him well enough to take pictures of the carnage, and now being able to speak of it so clinically. It dawned on her that he had seen a depth of pain that most ordinary people would never see or understand. No wonder he had such a hard edge.
He must have sensed her incomprehension. “Making a record is what I do, babe,” he said quietly, drilling her with another dark gaze. “I’m telling a story. Pictorial accounts of mankind eating its own. This crap goes on every day. And not just in that country. Don’t you watch the news?”
“Not much,” she admitted, still unable to take her eyes off the graphic picture. “I don’t have time.”
“It’s just as well. Most Americans don’t get it even when they see it. The American press doesn’t get it, either. They’ve got their own agendas and they do a lousy job of reporting.”
“Did you see it…it explode?”
He shook his head, moving on to another shot. “I was down the street, about a hundred feet away, loading up my equipment. The blast still knocked me off my feet. I knew what had happened, so I grabbed my camera and ran back.”
“Is this going in your book?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m inclined to focus on the more positive activities that are taking place over there.”
“You mean there are some?”
“Here’s one.” He clicked through several more photographs until he came to one of a young blond American soldier, doling out candy to a dozen black-haired, dark-eyed boys dressed in bright green and pristine white uniforms. The soldier had a whistle on a lanyard around his neck and a soccer ball tucked under his arm. The boys looked as if they could have been American children, all smiles and excitement over a ball game.
“It’s the kids who suffer the worst,” Dalton said. “Being helpless, they’re easy victims. In all of the backward societies I’ve seen, and sometimes I feel like I’ve seen damn near all of them, it’s always the kids who have it the toughest. I used to take kids for granted, but traveling in the Third World has changed my perspective on childhood.”
Though she had no basis from which to imagine what horrors his eyes had witnessed and the lens of his camera had captured, she began to process all she had heard about his childhood. She looked up at him and held his gaze. “Are you talking about your own childhood?”
“Maybe. When I was a kid, I thought I had it rough. After I left home, and eventually the States, I found out what rough was. There’s a lot of sadistic lunatics out there. Some of them are running countries. Compared to them, Earl Cherry was a creampuff.”
Without volunteering more, he clicked off the photographs and shut down the computer. “Let’s eat. Grab those potatoes and some butter and the wine.” He picked up the bowl of salad, bottles of salad dressing and two jelly glasses and started for the back door.
She did as he ordered and followed him, beset by the harsh realization that the chasm between his world experience and hers was as wide as the state of Texas.
To avoid being carried off by flying insects, they sat down with the supper in the lampshine falling through the window from inside the house. He poured a jelly glass half full of red wine and handed it to her. He didn’t apologize for the glassware, didn’t attempt to explain it away. Just a further reminder of what she had already concluded about him: He couldn’t care less what other people thought. Of anything.
“I’ve been trying to remember you from high school,” he said, “but I’m sorry to say I can’t.”
She almost mentioned her sister Lanita and the fact that she and Dalton had dated, but she stopped herself and remained content to concentrate on her perfectly grilled steak and to sip wine. She didn’t drink wine any more often than she drank anything else, but she didn’t dislike it. “I was only a sophomore when you were a senior. I wasn’t very memorable back then. I didn’t get out much. I was one of those boring good girls.”
“Past tense? Does that mean you’re not anymore?”
“Not what, boring?”
“A good girl.”
Only because she rarely met the opportunity not to be. She couldn’t keep from laughing. “What I am mostly is a tired girl. I got up at four this morning.”
He laughed, too, but she sensed his question hadn’t really been a joke. “Long day,” he said.
“Delivery days are always long. Lubbock and Amarillo both in one day. It’s a trip. It’s a considerable distance from Hatlow to anywhere there’s a market.”
“Tell me about it. What makes you stay here? From what I can see, there’s not much going on.”
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s a lot if you look for it.”
“What’s the population now? When I went to the courthouse today, I drove around a little. Looks like half the buildings are vacant. Some are even boarded up.”
“Yeah. Want some cheap real estate? Now we have about seven thousand people, roughly.”
“It was twice that when I lived here.”
She lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Hatlow’s had some problems. Oil died. A lot of cotton comes from foreign countries now. Kids aren’t staying around to take over their parents’ farms and ranches like they used to. Once, that was expected, but now…” She shrugged again. “Most of them can’t find a good enough reason to do it. They’d rather live in Austin or Fort Worth or even Houston, where they can make more money.”
“But you’re different. You stay here and fuss around with those chickens and eggs and make a quarter of the money you could make somewhere else. I can see you’re a talented businesswoman with a lot of imagination. You’ve got a lot to
offer if you weren’t stuck here.”
“I’m not stuck. I lived in Lubbock a couple of years. Went to college up at Tech for a year. Went to beauty school for another. I even worked up there for a few months. But I like it here. I’m a small-town girl. I like knowing everyone around me and having everyone know me.”
“Having people always looking over your shoulder, nosing into your business?”
“Sometimes that’s true, but it’s not malicious. I believe in the network. If you stumble and fall, someone will help you get up.”
He snorted. “And just how often have you stumbled? You don’t strike me as the stumbling type.”
Oh, if you only knew. “I might be in the middle of a headlong tumble downhill right this minute.”
He cocked his head and grinned. “Yeah?”
He knew she referred to this evening with him. She saw it in those wise eyes. The probing gaze made her uncomfortable. She didn’t want to talk about herself, anyway, didn’t want to put into words some of her baser musings about her dinner partner. She never talked about herself or her businesses to men. Most of the time they weren’t interested. “But whatever happens, I’ll survive. Every day’s a new day.”
He lifted his glass to her. “Now, that’s what I’m talking about. Positive thinking.” He downed the wine remaining in the glass and poured it half full again.
“What about you?” she said. “Haven’t you ever stumbled?”
“More often than I’ll ever admit aloud. I’ve eaten my share of beans. Beans I cooked myself.”
Thinking of her own lack of cooking skills, she chuckled. She was having a very good time. “Then you’re better off than I am. I’ve never cooked a pot of beans that was fit to eat.”
They laughed together then, as if what was going on between them was casual, ordinary fellowship. But it wasn’t. And they both knew it. She had developed a few mind-reading skills herself. Even after so much alcohol had muddled her brain, she still sensed that the intense man who had shown her the pictures on his computer screen, the man who had a hidden compassion for children, was the real Dalton Parker.
“So tell me about what you do,” she said. “You’ve been everywhere, and I’ve never even been to Dallas.”
He began to talk, mesmerizing her with stories of his travels and spellbinding adventures in foreign exotic lands. Many of his stories sounded as exciting and dramatic as fiction. He was the Pied Piper and she was a country mouse.
All at once she noticed that she could almost see two of him. She gave him a narrow-lidded look, trying to erase the ghostlike aura surrounding him. Damn. Now she had to figure out how to get home. She didn’t dare drive. “Dalton. I, uh, think I should—”
He stopped her with a derisive noise. “You’re not gonna drive. The fact is, neither one of us is in great shape.”
She braced her hand on the table, prepared to push herself to her feet. “Damn. I never drink this much. I mean, never. Ever.”
He raised his palms defensively. “I didn’t plan it.”
Her eyes squeezed into another squint. “Did I say you did?”
“You almost said it earlier. In the kitchen.”
“Oh. I must’ve forgot that.” She got to her feet but had to brace her fingertips on the tabletop to steady herself. “We should get these dishes cleaned up.”
He, too, stood up. “Nah. They’re not going anywhere.”
She pushed her chair out of the way and started for the back door. “I think I should nap on the sofa for a while. Until my head clears a little.”
He caught up with her and reached around her for the doorknob, surrounding her with his scent. “You don’t have to nap on the sofa. This house is full of beds. Just pick one.”
Was that an invitation of some kind? What did he expect her to say? What did she want to say? She tried to count in her head the number of beds in the ranch house and came up with five. “Where do you sleep?”
“Where I’ve always slept. In my old room in the back of the house.”
“Then I guess I shouldn’t pick that one.”
He didn’t answer. He just kept looking down at her with those chocolate eyes. “Why not?” he finally said, his voice so soft, she wasn’t sure she had heard him.
Chapter 18
Time stopped. The radio grew silent. Even Joanna’s spinning head took a respite. But her heart stuttered. She looked up into his eyes and saw through the alcohol fog what he wanted from her. Did she want any less from him? Before she could reason through the question, his mouth settled on hers, and nothing could have made her object.
He kissed her sweetly, his palm caressing her jaw, his thumb brushing her cheek as he sipped at her lips. The taste of his mouth, the scent of his breath, the scent of him penetrated her psyche like nothing she had known. The very air swirled around her, and it was different from the wooziness in her head.
He gingerly pulled her lower lip between his teeth, paused and looked down at her, the question in his hooded eyes. All she had to do was consent. Or not.
She searched those dark eyes while his ragged breath touched her lips. “Honest,” she said, her voice wobbling. “Compared to what I’m sure you’re used to, I’m really naive and plain dumb.”
“You don’t know what I’m used to. No one with lips as sweet as yours could be naive. And you’re a long way from dumb.” His head bent, his hand cupped her nape and he placed his forehead against hers. “Remember the day I got here? When we were talking out front?”
“I—I think so.”
“One of the very first things I thought about that first time I saw you was how kissable your lips looked.”
Now, that had to be a line. She might be naive and inexperienced with men, but she wasn’t stupid. A little tipsy maybe, but not stupid. “Was that before or after you found out I owned all those hens?”
“Cut it out,” he murmured. “Don’t ruin this.”
He kissed her again, and this time, his tongue swept into her mouth in a way every bit as untamed and carnal as she had suspected him capable of. They played with each other’s lips and tongues all the way through the back door and into the dimly lit kitchen. Oh, he was a good kisser. Not even a sane and sober woman would deny him. And at the moment, she was neither.
He walked her backward a few steps, until she felt the sharp counter edge against her backside and his rigid fly against her belly. Caged by his arms braced on the counter, she made no attempt to escape, and they kept kissing and kissing, their breathing growing rougher with every second.
She felt her shirttail being tugged from her waistband. The sensible Goody Two-shoes Hatlow citizen that she was warned her to take control of the situation before it got out of hand, but the woman who hadn’t felt a man’s touch in too damn long wanted him too much to stop him. Finally, his hand on the bare skin of her back jolted her. She pulled her mouth away from his.
“What is it?” he said.
“This is bad. We don’t like each other.”
His warm lips brushed beneath her ear, then traveled in a trail down her neck. “We like each other enough.”
Now she knew just how far out of it she was because that remark sounded logical. “But you’re talking about bed.” She tilted her head back and relished his mouth on her throat. “And I’d hate myself in the morning.”
“You really think so?” His fingers deftly unhooked her bra, leaving her breasts feeling oddly free.
“No. I don’t know.”
“I promise, I’ll make damn sure you don’t hate me.”
Oh, this wasn’t good. Good Hatlow girls did not do this. “You don’t understand…. I—I’m really unluckyat—at sex…. It’s ne—ver worked out that well for me and—”
“You talk too much.”
She reached behind herself and pulled his hands away from her bare back and from under her shirt. “Honestly,” she choked out, “teenage girls…are better at this…than I am. Really, don’t you think it would be better if I just—just cr-crash on
the sofa for a while?”
“If that’s what you really want to do,” he said, his mouth back at her lips, his hands at the hem of her shirt, easing the front up, “all you have to do is say so.”
Her nipples had grown so tight they ached. When the cool air touched them, a shiver passed over her. His warm hand cupped one bare breast. His head moved down and his mouth closed warm and wet around the taut nub of the other. Her breath caught.
His tongue stabbed at her nipple and sensation tore through her secret places. Only a supreme act of will kept her from openly moaning. “It is,” she breathed. “I mean, I do.”
“You sure?” he whispered against her other breast, his hands lifting her shirt higher.
“No. I mean yes.” Now her shirt was pushed up to her neck.
“Yes, what?”
“I’m sure.”
“If you’re gonna to stop me, do it now. ’Cause I’m losing track of this conversation.”
And she was losing her mind. “N-no. I’m—I’m not.”
“This is in the way,” he said, tugging her knit shirt over her head. Like a robot, she lifted her arms. He peeled it all the way off and dropped it on the floor. Without so much as a peep of protest, she let him remove her bra and drop it to the floor, too.
“Damn,” he said and pulled her close. Her bare breasts pressed against his crisp shirt.
“I know,” she mumbled and raised her mouth for more kisses. She wrapped her arms around his middle and they kept kissing like savages, all tongues and heat.
He broke away and grasped her hand. “Let’s go,” he said huskily and strode from the kitchen, dragging her with him. They passed the sofa in the living room as if it weren’t there and still, she raised not a protest.
He led her up the hallway to the back bedroom, one of the few rooms in this house she hadn’t been inside more than once or twice. The room was dark as a cave, but against the side of her knee, she recognized the edge of a mattress. She dropped to it like a sandbag just as the lamp beside the bed came on and flooded them with low amber light. Instinctively, her arms flew across her bare breasts, her hands gripping her shoulders. She looked up at him. “On second thought, you know, I really should, uh, sleep on the sofa. I’m a lousy sleeper. I snore. And I’m used to having the whole bed.”
