“For that alone, I could kill him,” he said, smiling, and his smile was that of the stalking tiger.
“Let’s hope you don’t get the chance. I’d really, really rather not ever see him again.” Shivers skipped down her back again. “He scares me, Royal. He’s ⦠changed. He used to look at me the way you’d look at ⦠an ant on the floor.” She slid the sandwich onto the chipped plastic plate he held out. “How long do you think it will take Beau to get back to Palmaflora?” Picking up the spatula, she tapped it restlessly against the counter.
“Ordinarily, much less time than it took us to get here. But he’s not going to speed. He doesn’t want anybody else to know he was in this area. A fellow officer wouldn’t give him a ticket, but anonymity and invisibility are the order of the day.” He took the spatula from her, bent his knees and nudged her nose with his. “Come and eat, Elly. There are only two or three ways we can pass the time until we hear from Beau. Eating, sleeping, and foolin’ around, sugar. Personally, I’m hoping you give in to your temptation and jump my bones. Foolin’ around’s a great way to pass the time. Just about my favorite game in the whole wide world.”
Heat prickled through her at the expression in his eyes. Looking away from him, she picked at her sandwich. “Trust me, you’d be disappointed.”
“Would I, sugar?” His eyes sparkled and deepened.
She nodded. “Definitely.” They were only joking, doing a verbal form of what he called “foolin’ around,” in order to keep their minds off what was happening; she understood that, but the more he teased, the more her skin flushed and tightened.
He stepped away and put both their plates on the rickety wooden table. The table rocked as he pulled up a chair and motioned her into it. “Because of that lack of experience you mentioned?”
“It wouldn’t be worth your while.” She felt the beginnings of a smile pull at her lips as he stretched out his legs and tapped her foot with the tip of his shoe. Primly, she drew her legs together under the table.
“Shame, though.” He shook his head regretfully as he said, hopefully, his drawl so broad she could have crossed the ocean on it, “Of course, sugar, you understand I’d be willing to sacrifice myself?”
“I couldn’t ask you to do that.” She shifted in her seat, and his eyes followed the movement of her legs and arms, making her so conscious of her body that she forgot what she was going to say next.
“Sugar, you wouldn’t have to ask.” He bit into the sandwich, and rivulets of cheese dangled from the bread.
Scooping them around his thumb, he popped the strings into his mouth. Propping his elbows on the table, he shot her a narrow-eyed glance that made her wonder exactly how much teasing they’d both been doing. “Experience isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you know, Elly,” he said gently. “Sex is pretty basic. You know, even birds and bees do it, sugar. It’s mostly buttons and body parts. Turn this, push that. That’s what most folks mean when they talk about experience. But it’s kinda mechanical when you get right down to it.” He laughed as she blushed and her gaze flickered away. “Pun not really intended.”
“Hah. I doubt that. With you, nothing is accidental.” She tugged the edge of Maggie’s yellow shorts.
“My control’s not that good.” He just sat watching her. “Not all the time. Not in every situation, Elly.”
That edgy, prickling heat flared and raced through her, scorching her nerve endings. “Um, well⦔ She plucked at the loose neck of Alicia’s blouse.
“Sex is easy. But everybody’s a beginner when it comes to lovemaking, sweetheart. Because that comes from here.” He touched his heart, and his eyes were such a deep, brilliant green that she felt she was drowning in their sea depths. “Elly, the best lovemaking combines heart and mind. And that has nothing to do with how many people you’ve done the deed with, or how often, or anything except what’s going on between you and the person you’re with, the person you care about.”
Clearing her throat, she picked off a piece of cheese, rolled it between her fingers, mashed it flat. “You were engaged to Maggie. You cared about her. You loved her.” She wanted to clamp her hand over her mouth, take back the words. Made incautious by their isolation and exhaustion, she’d strayed into private areas she wouldn’t have normally invaded. She dropped the mangled bit of cheese onto her plate. “I’m sorry. That was inexcusably rudeâ”
“I love Maggie,” he corrected. “I always will. I’d crawl across hot coals for her.”
Elly picked up her sandwich. Put it down. No one had ever loved her that way. And she? Well, she’d only felt that kind of powerful emotion for Tommy. Not looking at Royal, Elly envied Maggie Webster with every cell of her being. “She’s lucky. You, Sullivan, both of you loving her.” She made herself pick her sandwich again and take a bite. She made herself smile while cold loneliness seeped through her, numbing her very bones. “But I’m sorry, Royal. It must be difficult for you, seeing them together all the time. Still loving her.”
Royal pushed her mug of soup toward her. “Drink it before it gets cold, Elly.” He tipped his chair back. “I love Maggie in a special way. When she was shot the first time and died on the table, it was the worst moment of my life. But something happened to her. She ⦠came back ⦠different. Not the same person. The woman who came back from the dead was meant for Sullivan, not me.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.” Elly wanted to weep for the sadness in his lean face, for the loneliness in his eyes that spoke to her own.
“It’s simple, really, but it took me a while to sort it out. The way I love her now is not the way Sullivan loves her. She’s a part of my life, my heart. She always will be. But she’s not the keystone of my life. I would be devastated if something happened to her. But I’d survive. And I know that. That’s the difference, Elly. Sullivan wouldn’t. Maggie wouldn’t if something happened to him.”
“But that’s sad. Like swans that mate for life.” She wanted to cry at the idea of Maggie and Sullivan, separated by disaster, death.
“Oh, I don’t mean they’d literally curl up and die, not that.” Musing, he frowned slightly. “Although, with them, I’m not too sure. I don’t think Sullivan would want to live without Maggie. But they complete each other. I’ve never had that with anyone, not even with Maggie when we were engaged. You?” He tipped his own mug up, but his gaze was steady on her as he waited for her answer.
“No. Never.” The wind rattled the window, and Elly jumped, sloshing tomato soup onto the table.
“Is that what love is to you, that kind of completion?”
“I don’t know what love is. I thought I did. But I made an enormous mistake. And I’m not that naive twenty-two-year-old anymore. Love’s an illusion, that’s all.” She sighed and glanced toward the darkness beyond the windowpanes. “I don’t ever want to trust anyone like that ever again. It’s too dangerous.”
“Life is dangerous, Elly. You can’t hide behind the walled gates forever.” He pushed his chair away from the table. “Tommy will grow up, leave you. You’ll have nothing left, not even memories to warm you in the cold nights. That’s no way to live. When this is over, you’re going to have to take a chance.”
“Oh? And you’re the expert? You’re giving me advice?” Jerking away from the table, she faced him. She couldn’t bear to think about the emptiness of her life as he described it. “You? My God, Royal, you’ve buried yourself because you can’t be a cop anymore. You’ve shoved away all your friends and become a walking dead man.”
“What do you know about it?” he growled, his face dark with anger.
“I know what Alicia and Beau told me, I know what you’ve said. No one made you quit the police force. You made that choice. Well, gambling man, maybe you should have taken the biggest risk of your life.” She jabbed his chest.
Capturing her hand, he said, his voice as cold as death, “I didn’t have a choice.”
“Of course you did. We always have some choice. Maybe you sho
uld have gambled that people would believe in you. Instead, you handed them a silver platter filled with reasons to believe every rumor they heard. That was your choice, Royal. Nobody made you quit being a policeman. You were the one who pushed people away. You didn’t give them a chance to believe in you because you were afraid.”
“I’ve never been afraid in my life.”
“Bull,” she said succinctly. “You were shaking in your battle-scarred boots, Gaines. Because if you took a risk on them and they let you down, well, where would you be? So you didn’t. You preempted them. Hey, it’s easier, safer, not to take that kind of risk. I understand, but don’t you talk to me about taking chances. Because when push came to shove, buster, you made your own walled castle. You didn’t take a chance. Why, Royal? Why didn’t you give people a reason to believe in you?”
He flung her hand away, spun on his heel. “Because.”
Approaching him, she touched his shoulder. “Because you wanted them to believe in you in spite of everything.” Leaning her face against his hard back, she whispered, “Why was that so important, Royal?”
“Pride.” His voice was muffled. “They should have known I wouldn’t take bribes. They should have known me well enough to understand I’d never be a part of a cover-up.”
“You left the department because of your pride?” Pride was a stern taskmaster for a lonely child who’d rather be left out of a game than ask to play. “This is all about pride, then?”
“Sometimes, that’s all a man has.”
For a long moment, she held him in the silence broken by the whine of wind, the rattle of windows. She understood now. The lonely child he’d been, the boy who’d been shoved out of his own home, that child had yearned for acceptance, for a place of his own where he would be believed in, trusted, no matter what. Where he would be loved for himself alone.
And he hadn’t found it.
He didn’t turn around to face her. His back was rigid under her hands, and she wanted to find those cold, autocratic parents who’d sent him off to school and shut him out of their lives and explain to them what they’d done, what harm they’d done to that child.
His spine stiff under her cheek, he stepped away, his back still to her. “I think we should call it a night, Elly. We’ve said too much.”
“Have we?”
He nodded, an abrupt, artificial jerk of his head. “We have three days to get through. This isn’t the way.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” She let her hands fall, empty, to her sides in the face of his pride, that pride that refused to accept compassion and tenderness. He’d let her ease the pain of those bruises on his body, but not those on his heart. She wondered if anyone could, or if that emptiness in him went too deep for healing.
She wanted to comfort the man. And she wept for the child he’d been, that child touching a part of her heart the man hadn’t.
*
Chapter 14
« ^ »
Following Royal down the space that wasn’t really a hall but connected the bedroom to the kitchen, Elly realized the next two days were going to change her, change her life in more ways that she could foresee. When she came out the other end of this tunnel of days, if she did, everything in her life would be altered, transformed. Like a caterpillar emerging from its cocoon, she would be newborn, her whole life ahead of her. If she survived.
If Royal survived.
He’d stumbled into her life and made himself responsible for her, for Tommy, and now this man with the smile that hid his pain was sacrificing himself for her. Trying to make her believe he was there only for the fun of the game, for the rush of adrenaline, he dazzled her with smiles and touches that left her aching. And with every effort, he convinced her otherwise.
Royal Gaines was a beat-up knight in borrowed clothes. She knew one when she saw one.
He shoved aside the curtain that served as a door. The bedroom was sparsely furnished. Two single beds and a chest of drawers, a bed stand between the beds. A yellowed pull-down shade covered the window that faced the creek.
“This is it. You’d probably prefer it if I slept on the pullout in the living room, but I think we should stick together. I’m sorry you won’t have privacy, but that’s the way it has to be.” Arms folded across his chest, his face closed, he faced her. Shadows angled across his face. He was only doing the best he could with what he had to work with, a man who had put his life on the line for her.
“It’s okay, Royal. Privacy isn’t a priority right now. The arrangement is fine.” Elly walked to the window, lifted the shade and looked out at the rain, those silvery streaks slanting across the blackness between the two of them and the rest of the world. “Anyway, how’s it different from two people sitting next to each other on a trans-Atlantic flight and sleeping the whole way? Unless you snore?” she inquired politely, playing the game, trying to chase the shadows from his face.
“Haven’t had any complaints.” He sat down on the bed. Stood up. Sat down and leaned back against the iron headboard. Shucked off his shoes. Watching her too carefully, working too hard to maintain his role as the sinner of the century, he was showing the strain. “Nope, not one little ol’ complaint about my sleeping habits, sugar.” Placing his arms in back of his head, he crossed one ankle over the other and gave her one of his patented killer smiles, all casual nonchalance.
She smiled back. She had to. She couldn’t help her response to that combination of rakish grin and golden hair. It was a nice effect. The man could have a future as an actor if he never went back to being a policeman. “Good. I’m happy for you.” Elly strolled to the stand and switched on the lamp. Looking over her shoulder, she paused and then added teasingly, “For your information, I don’t snore, either.”
“Yeah? Should be a quiet night, then.” One foot beat a tattoo against the other. He sat straighter. “Anything to read in that bedside stand?”
“Let me see.” As Elly pulled on the drawer, it stuck.
Freeing it with a sharp yank, she fell back on her fanny. The shallow drawer flew upward, and silver packets rained down on her, landed in her lap, her hair, bounced across the floor and formed a shining stream of foil between her and Royal. Openmouthed, she stared at the regulation handcuffs that clattered to the floor beside the river of condoms. “My goodness.” Feebly, she shuffled the packets in her lap. “I’ve heard of being prepared, butâ” She glanced at the handcuffs and felt her face burn. “Good grief.”
“Michael.” Royal sat up abruptly. His face was stern, but his shoulders were shaking. “Michael and Rhea,” he said in a strangled voice.
“What?” Elly scooped up a handful of packets and stared around the room, not quite sure what to do. The drawer had been stuffed with the little squares.
“They’reâ” his face crumpled, straightened “âthey’re busy people. It’s Michael’s fishing cabin. But Rhea comes here sometimes with Michael. They don’t fish.” Guffaws ripped through him as he gasped, “Oh, Lord, Elly, if you could see your face.” He slid to the floor beside her. “Michael’s going to hear about this.” Picking up the handcuffs, Royal dangled them in front of her face. “Cute touch, don’t you think?” Catching the gleams of light, the metal handcuffs swung back and forth in front of her.
She couldn’t answer. Wild visions popped into her head.
Handcuffs in one fist, Royal scrabbled through the packets, searched under the beds. “So where’s the key?”
“Here.” Elly fumbled in her lap and handed him the key. Stuffing the packets in her other hand back into the drawer as Royal righted it and dropped the cuffs inside, she scooped up another handful from the floor, flinging it into the drawer. She slid the drawer onto its wooden runners. “No books,” she said, bending forward and letting her hair hide her flaming face as images continued to flash in her mind. “No magazines.”
“Guess Michael and Rhea didn’t have time to read,” Royal drawled, looking at her and dropping a fistful of packets into the drawer. “Just a cou
ple of crazy kids, huh?”
“Sure. Whatever.” Elly scrambled to her feet. “Do you want some water? I’m thirsty. I’ll bring you a glass. A pitcher.” Her whole body burned and tingled with embarrassment.
Darting out of the room, she heard Royal’s chuckles, heard the decided clunk as he shoved the drawer closed. No, she thought, rummaging in the cabinets for glasses and a container, not embarrassment. Something much, much worse. Because in all those pictures flashing and blazing behind her eyes, not one contained Michael or Rhea, those two busy people she’d never met.
But Royal was in the pictures.
She was, too.
Heat sparked through the tips of her fingers, her toes, her eyelashes, flared to the ends of her hair.
When she returned with a glass pitcher of cold water and glasses, he was already under the sheets, the bedspread pulled to his waist, the overhead light and bedside lamp turned off. Only the gleam of his hair and his skin shone in the dim light from the kitchen.
“You want to leave that light on, Elly?” Bedsprings creaked as he faced her.
“Yes. No.” She sped into the kitchen and pulled the chain. Damn that drawer full of condoms and cuffs.
Back in the bedroom, she slid under the covers of her bed and skimmed out of her bra and Maggie’s shorts, dropping them on the floor. She kept on the T-shirt and her underpants.
Pulling the sheet to her chin, she scooted as far down under the covers as she could.
“Good night, Elly.” Perfectly calm, only that glimmer of amusement rippling in it, Royal’s voice bridged the silence.
“Good night.” She turned onto her side, away from that silent shape an arm’s length away. Fluffing the lumpy pillow, she burrowed her face into its sunshine smell and tried to go to sleep.
Royal had checked the bars on the windows, bars similar to the arrangement she’d set up for air in the Palmaflora house. He’d locked the doors. Through the partially opened windows in the bedroom came the sound of a steady rain. Pinging on the tin roof, slashing against the wooden sides of the house in sudden bursts, the sound of rain filled the room.
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