Amber by Night

by Sharon Sala

  “Darlin’, please don’t be afraid of me. I would never do anything to harm you. I’d fight snakes to keep you happy.”

  Amelia relaxed and then smiled, remembering that he’d already fought for her. He just didn’t know that she knew.

  “I know that. But this is so strange. We’ve lived in the same town forever, yet until now, you’ve never seemed to notice me.” She blushed, but continued. “I knew you. I just didn’t think you knew I existed.”

  Tyler pulled her across the seat until they were so close she could see her own reflection in his eyes.

  “Try not to judge me by my past stupidity. Unfortunately, it often takes a man a good while longer to grow up than it does a woman. Fortunately for us men, you women often have the patience and wisdom to wait.” He traced the edge of her chin with his forefinger. “I can’t thank you enough for waiting.”

  Amelia shivered in his arms. “You’re welcome.”

  The scent of his cologne was heady, as was the sight of that mouth only inches away from her face. She could remember what it’d felt like earlier when he’d kissed her in her front yard. Dear Lord, but she wanted more from him than kisses. The man was making her crazy.

  Tyler took her by the hand. “Come on, Amelia, if we don’t get out of here, we’re going to get into trouble.”

  Amelia followed his command. That kind of trouble would come later…but it would come. Of that she was certain.

  And so the afternoon passed as they walked, and looked, and listened to each other. Tyler’s nonstop monologue about his farm, his family and his love for the land had been an eye-opener for Amelia. The man was more than just a pretty face and a sexy body. Oh, she’d known he was industrious. And it was obvious that he was successful. But today had opened another facet of Tyler to her. When it came to things that belonged to him, he was downright possessive. It was an intriguing thought.

  Amelia wondered how important a woman would be to a man with so many responsibilities. She also wondered how a man like Tyler would feel saddled with three more responsibilities. It was a point she had to consider. In her case, two elderly women would always have to be a consideration. She would never be able to abandon them and their welfare for the love of a man, not even if it was Tyler Savage. He’d have to love and accept them, too, or their relationship would never work.

  Amelia sighed, letting her head rest against the porch swing as she waited for Tyler to come out of the house. He’d gone in a few moments earlier to get them something cold to drink, leaving her rocking in the shade of his back porch.

  Tyler’s hound lifted his head to sniff the air, then dropped it back onto his front paws and closed his eyes. Amelia smiled at the red dog’s lassitude. It was an enticing picture. Before she knew it, her shoes had slipped off her feet. The cool afternoon breeze tickled her toes just enough to make her curl her feet beneath her in the seat. The dog yawned then rolled over on his back. Amelia grinned at the way his head lolled one way and his body another. She stretched her arms above her head, slid her glasses off her nose, and slipped down in the seat of the swing.

  Tyler stood at the kitchen door, a frosty glass of lemonade in each hand as he stared through the screen, watching Amelia sleeping. Moisture condensed on the outside of the glasses and ran between his fingers. He shuddered and swallowed once as he watched her breasts rise and fall with each breath she took.

  Abandoning the lemonade to the kitchen table, he walked quietly outside onto the porch, lifted her glasses from her limp fingers and laid them on the porch rail then slipped into the swing beside her. And then her head was in his lap and his fingers were in her hair.

  She sighed once, her eyelids fluttering against her cheeks as Tyler’s heart twisted with an emotion that nearly staggered him. With quiet skill, he ran his fingers through her hair for the pins holding it in place, and each time he found one, released it from its mooring. One by one, Amelia’s curls began to fall out of place.

  When he had finished, he stared down at her, a handful of her hairpins clutched tightly in his fist. She moved unexpectedly and he dropped the pins just in time to catch her before she fell out of the swing and onto the porch.

  She looked up at him in confusion and made him want her beneath him, so hot and desperate that she didn’t know whether to breathe or scream. Instead, he pulled her across his lap. Her hair tumbled across his arm as he cradled her against his chest. When he buried his nose in the curls sun-heated warmth, he inhaled the faint scent of Amelia’s shampoo.

  “Don’t fight me,” he whispered, and then sighed with relief as he felt the tension receding from her body.

  His fingers traced the softness of her arms, up and down, from elbow and to the curve of her shoulder. She moved once, tentatively sliding an arm around his neck and when she did, his hand slipped across her breasts.

  Her swiftly indrawn breath did nothing but expand the swell beneath his fingers, pushing her against him until he thought he would die from the want. She shifted nervously in his lap, uncertain whether to move closer or farther away.

  He was too damned close to the breaking point to ignore her hips digging against the ache in his lap. “My God, Amelia, don’t move.”

  She froze. His warning had come in the same instant she’d realized where she was sitting. She might be inexperienced, but she wasn’t dead. And there was no denying the fact that what she was sitting on was not soft. In fact, it felt downright uncomfortable.

  Tyler relaxed as her wiggles ceased.

  Right about then, Amelia realized her appearance had taken a drastic change from when she’d sat down in the swing. Her hair was heavy against her neck and back, and the slightly fuzzy edge to Tyler’s face told her she was no longer wearing her glasses.

  In a panic, she bounded from the swing, spied her glasses on the porch rail and swiftly shoved them in place. Grabbing at the flyaway locks, she gave him an accusing look. “My hair! What happened to my hair?”

  Tyler tried not to grin. “A couple of pins fell out, and I helped the others.”

  Amelia was afraid to look at him. What if he recognizes me? What if this day wasn’t the beginning of our relationship, but the end?

  Tyler sighed. He knew what had prompted her panic. It was guilt. Tell me, girl. Tell me now. But she didn’t speak, and time passed, and finally he leaned over, picked up her hairpins and quietly handed them to her.

  “Here, honey. There’s a bathroom down the hall, first door on your left. Help yourself to my brush and comb.”

  She grabbed the pins and made a dash for the door. It slammed abruptly behind her as Tyler watched her flight.

  “Oh, Amelia, all you have to do is tell me.”

  He buried his face in his hands and tried not to think about the pain in his lap. It was nothing to the one in his heart.

  The drive home was uneventful. Amelia was back in place, and, so was Tyler. He’d retreated, leaving her space in which to breathe. She sat closer to him, but purposefully refrained from talking about anything personal.

  When they pulled into the driveway, Tyler jumped out and quickly ran around to the passenger side of the truck. The aunts were sitting on the veranda in matching wicker chairs with a pitcher of lemonade on a small table between them.

  Tyler helped her down from the truck without speaking.

  Amelia knew that her behavior had been irrational, but at this point, explaining herself seemed impossible. Instead, she brushed her hand across his arm and smiled. “I loved going with you today. I loved the tour of your farm and…”

  “I personally loved your nap the best.”

  She blushed and then smiled. “I was getting to that,” she said, surprising him by her candidness.

  “Yoo-hoo!”

  They turned toward the house.

  “We’re being paged,” Tyler said, as Rosemary waved to them from her chair. “I’d better make my apologies and get back home. There’s evening chores to be done.”

  He walked her to the porch, smiled at the tw
inkle in Rosemary’s eyes and ignored the frosty look of censure in Wilhemina’s.

  “You were gone all afternoon,” she accused.

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s a very big farm.”

  She was slightly mollified by his remark. After all, there was nothing to be said about the truth.

  “Look!” Rosemary muttered. “There’s that Effie Dettenberg staring at us from her window.”

  Tyler turned to look. He could see the curtains pulled back and a dark, shadowy figure standing to one side. His eyes narrowed. He knew good and well that she was the initial cause of the gossip flying around Tulip about Amelia, and it made him mad as hell. He shoved his hands in his pockets and glared, wishing she wasn’t a woman.

  And then his eyes narrowed as he considered the thought that just popped into his mind. Before Amelia saw it coming, Tyler turned and grasped her by the shoulders. There in the front yard, in front of the aunts and Effie Dettenberg, he calmly kissed Amelia goodbye.

  She was so staggered by his daring she did nothing but smile as he turned her loose.

  “Goodbye Amelia,” he said. “Miss Wilhemina, thank you again for the wonderful meal. Miss Rosemary, it’s been a pleasure.”

  Rosemary grinned. She stared back across the street and waved at Effie’s house, knowing full well that Effie could see everything going on.

  Wilhemina was shocked. She nodded her acceptance of his praise, but she was embarrassed by his behavior. The man had a nerve, yet a small satisfaction had come at his daring. At least he’d announced his intentions like a gentleman, and he had kissed Amelia here in plain view. It wasn’t as if he was trying to hide his feelings for her. She sniffed. She didn’t particularly like men, but if one had to be hanging around Amelia, she supposed that Tyler Savage was as good as the next. Satisfied that she’d come to a sensible conclusion, she sent a withering glance across the street and felt a swift surge of delight as the curtains suddenly fell back in place.

  Amelia’s face was glowing and her heartbeat was completely out of rhythm. Somewhere between Tyler’s farm and her home she’d finished falling in love. There was no power on earth that would keep her from this man. Not now! Not when he’d just shoved his opinion of Effie Dettenberg in Effie’s face. Not when he’d had the nerve to kiss her in front of her aunts, knowing full well the censure he might receive.

  Tyler had just given her a message. What she did with it now was up to her. He’d made his intentions as plain as possible.

  Amelia watched him walk away and then knew she couldn’t let him go…not without a word.

  “Tyler!”

  He stopped, surprised by the fact that she was even willing to speak to him after the public way he’d bid her goodbye. He knew that a lot of her aunts’ stiff-necked propriety was deeply imbedded in her, regardless of the yearning she had to stretch her horizons. He turned and waited.

  “I had a wonderful time today.”

  His smile was slow in coming, but when it did, it curled Amelia’s toes inside her shoes.

  “It was my pleasure, Amelia. Absolutely, my pleasure.”

  Oh no, Amelia thought as he drove away, I had my share of the pleasure, too, Tyler. Remembering the way his hands had moved across her body and the pressure of his mouth against hers, she shivered. Maybe more than my share.

  As Amelia drove into the grocery store parking lot, she saw Raelene Stringer struggling with two bulky sacks of groceries and losing ground with the hold she had on a sack of potatoes dangling from a two-finger grip. And Raelene’s old car was nowhere in sight. She frowned. Something told her that it had finally given up the ghost.

  She jumped from her car, grabbing at a sack just before it fell on top of the potatoes Raelene had already dropped.

  “Looks like you’ve more than got your hands full.”

  Raelene grinned. “I’m surprised you’ve got the guts to be talking to me. I’ve been hearing things about your reputation that put mine to shame.”

  Amelia pretended to glare. “If you’ll shut up and get in, I’ll take you home. What happened to your car?”

  Raelene sighed with relief as Amelia helped her load her packages inside the shiny red car. As she slid into the passenger seat, she wiped a hand across her forehead.

  “Oooh, honey, I do appreciate the ride. That car is a mess. Although I’m on foot for the day, it’s in the garage and should be ready by this evening.”

  “No more than I appreciated the rides you gave me,” Amelia said. “And the friendship…and the loyalty…and…”

  Suddenly embarrassed that Amelia was still willing to claim a friendship even after all that had happened from their previous association, Raelene muttered. “Well, hush your mouth. I didn’t do anything.”

  “No, not much,” Amelia said. “You just kept your mouth shut and stayed a friend. It’s more than these self-righteous, upstanding members of Tulip’s finest managed to do.”

  Her bitterness was obvious. Raelene glanced sideways as Amelia turned down the side street leading to her duplex. “Has it been rough?”

  Amelia rolled her eyes. “Did Sherman march through Georgia?”

  Raelene grinned. “At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor, girl, and, from what I hear, you haven’t lost that Tyler, either.” She giggled as Amelia turned into her drive and parked. “How did he take the news?”

  Amelia gripped the steering wheel as a look of guilt spread across her face. “I haven’t told him.” Raelene’s shriek of disbelief echoed as she quickly continued. “But I’m going to. The first time I can work it into the conversation, I’m going to tell him…I swear.”

  Raelene stared at her friend. It was her personal opinion that Amelia Beauchamp was as naive as they came. How could she possibly believe that Tyler didn’t know she was the same woman? He’d obviously held them both. If Raelene knew her men—and she did—he’d surely kissed Amber and Amelia.

  She snorted beneath her breath and tried not to laugh. Tyler knew. He had to. Amelia was the one who was still fooling herself. And then she shrugged. She’d survived by not butting into other people’s business and now was no time to change. She opened the door and got out.

  “I can’t thank you enough for the ride,” she said, as Amelia helped her carry her groceries to the front stoop.

  Amelia paused. “Just returning a favor to a friend.”

  Raelene stopped in midstep, then stared. It was true! For the first time in her life she had a friend, and it was a woman who didn’t judge her, but simply accepted.

  Tears filmed her heavily painted eyelashes and she blinked them away as she dug into her purse for her house key.

  “Well, now, I suppose that you’re right. Thanks for the ride, honey. You’re a peach.”

  “Anytime,” Amelia said quietly. “Anytime.”

  Raelene knew as she watched the little red car turn the corner that Amelia had meant it. It was a good feeling to know that in a pinch there was someone to whom she could turn. She also knew that she’d never use the opportunity, but it was satisfying to know it, and Amelia, were there.

  Nine

  Rain splattered against the windows in bulletlike projectiles, driven through the night by the intensity of the storm. Amelia awoke with a start and sat up in bed, surprised by the suddenness with which it had arrived. A tree limb knocked against the corner of the upstairs roof and she winced, knowing that tomorrow there’d probably be shingles lying in the yard. An unwelcome, but unavoidable, expense.

  Thunder rumbled, rattling the panes of glass as the storm passed swiftly overhead. A sharp tinkling sound came from downstairs.

  “Oh no, not a window!”

  She reached for her bedside lamp and then frowned. The power was off! As she jumped from her bed, she scooted her feet into slippers and headed downstairs to investigate, pausing only long enough to get a flashlight from the hall table.

  The thin beam of light from the flashlight illuminated little more than a five-inch circle of space—not much to go on in the dark.
Halfway down she heard a heavy thump followed by a low moan of pain.

  “Oh no! Aunt Witty! Aunt Rosie!”

  She pivoted in place and ran back up the stairs, her floor-length nightgown billowing out behind her. When she burst into Aunt Rosie’s room and saw her sitting in the middle of her bed with a frightened, befuddled expression on her face, she breathed a quick sigh of relief.

  “Aunt Rosie…are you all right?”

  Her chin trembled. “I think Willy fell,” she said, and started to crawl from her bed.

  “Don’t move,” Amelia ordered. “The lights are out and I don’t want you to fall, too. Stay where you are. Please! I’ll be right back.”

  She ran across the hall, using the flashlight to guide her way. The beam of light was weak, but it was enough to see Wilhemina stretched out upon the floor, her ankle tangled in the sheet dangling from the side of the bed while a thin trickle of blood ran down her forehead.

  Amelia knelt at the old woman’s side, searching the paper-thin skin on her wrist for a pulse. It was there! Thin…but steady. “Oh, Aunt Witty…please talk to me.”

  “Amelia?”

  The voice was weak, and shaky, unlike the Wilhemina she knew and loved.

  “I’m here, Aunt Witty. Don’t move. I’m going to get you some help.”

  And then Rosemary called out. “Is she hurt? Tell her I’m coming.”

  “No, don’t,” Amelia shouted. “Wait for me.” She ran back across the hall, fearing that Rosemary would try to navigate in the dark and suffer the same consequences, and caught her just as she started out the doorway.

  “Come with me,” she urged, using her flashlight to shine the way. “You’ve got to stay with Aunt Witty while I call for help. She’s fallen and hurt her head.”

  “Oh my!” Rosemary gasped, and then started to cry.

  “Aunt Rosie!” Amelia’s voice was so loud and sharp, so unlike any tone she’d ever used, that Rosemary forgot she’d been about to cry.

  “You can’t go to pieces on me now. We need you.”

  Rosemary sniffed several times in succession as she adjusted herself to the news, meekly allowing Amelia to lead her across the hall. Once inside the room, Amelia got a pillow from the bed, seated her aunt Rosie upon it and then handed her a washcloth.