Survive the Night

by Marilyn Pappano

  Taking the sheets and tools with her, she moved to the next window and repeated the process. "After a while I got used to not having curtains. I thought maybe someday I would buy some gingham, or maybe I would make enough yards of lace to cover them all, but it wasn't any big deal."

  "But now it is."

  "Well, it occurred to me tonight—" Just a random thought, she hoped he believed; there was no sense in worrying him about the light she'd seen. It had been way off in the distance and probably didn't mean a thing, but he would surely believe it was a posse of angry, gun-toting men out looking for him. He might even begin to believe her lie this morning about instructing Steven Vickers and the others to come back tonight with Seth. "With the lights on in here and all theseuncurtained windows, to anybody outside looking in, we may as well be in a spotlight. And since there very wellmight be people outside, why take a chance?"

  By the time she'd finished, she had covered all the windows in the main room and used her last sheet. Without giving it much thought, she took one of the quilts from the back of the sofa and headed for the bathroom.

  "Hey, what are you doing?" There was a thump as Dillon dropped his book to the floor, then the shuffle of footsteps behind her. She was holding a nail to the upper right corner of thequilt, the hammer poised in her other hand, when he yanked it away. "Stop that. You can't put holes in this."

  "I don't have any more sheets."

  "So keep this door closed."

  Still holding the corner of the coverlet above her head, she scowled at him in the dim light. "Maybe you haven't spent enough time in this room to notice, but icicles form in here when the door is closed. When porcelain that cold comes in contact with human flesh, it can do some painful damage."

  "You can't put nails in this. It'll ruin it."

  "It'll put a few holes in it," she said with exaggerated patience. "Look,I made it. If I want to hang it as a curtain, I can. Besides, I think it'll look kind of nice—brighten the room. Give it a homey effect." Pulling the hammer from his hand, she stretched onto her toes and hit the first nail squarely on the head, sinking it with three strikes. Smoothing the fabric as she went, she added more nails, one every six inches or so, until she reached the corner. There, she climbed into the bathtub and affixed the other half in the same manner over the front window.

  Climbing out again, she turned on the light to study her handiwork,then smiled. Itdid look nice. The bright shades of the fabric added color that the plain wood walls badly needed, and the straight, rectangular lines of the Log Cabin pattern nicely echoed the lines of the wall boards.

  Then she glanced at Dillon again. He was staring at the quilt, a dismayed look darkening his face. "Hey," she said softly. "It's just a quilt. I've made dozens of them. I'll make dozens more."

  He shook his head. "You've ruined it."

  "Of course I haven't. Don't you know quilts aren't supposed to be perfect? All of the good ones have some rips, tears, lumpy batting or whatever. It gives them character. I bet your grandmother's quilts weren't in pristine condition."The look he gave her at that last part made her wince. He didn't have any idea what kind of shape his grandmother's quilts were in now. Someone else had them now, probably someone to whom they meant nothing, someone with no emotional connection. Heavens, for all he knew, they could have been thrown in the garbage with the rest of his stuff when he failed to pay his rent the month following his disappearance.

  Moving past him, she smoothed the fabric in the corner. "This quilt will become a family heirloom now," she said lightly. "When I'm old and gray, I'll still have it, and I'll tell my grandchildren and great-grandchildren how those holes came to be there. They'll be intrigued thattheir granny once helped an escaped bank robber hide from the police. It'll probably make me a minor legend in their eyes." She turned to grin at him, but her expression soon turned sober. He was staring at her, his gaze as intense as any she'd ever seen, as hard and troubled as any she might ever see. "Dillon—" She reached out, but he turned and walked away.

  She stood there a moment, then, taking a deep breath, joined him in the outer room. He had turned off all the lights and was now adding fuel to the fire. She returned the hammer and nails to their proper place, reclaimed the brush she'd forgotten earlier and went to sit on the pallet in front of the fireplace.

  Finished with the logs, he went to the bed, removed the sling, stripped and slid under the covers. She didn't exactly watch him … but she didn't turn away, either. Sitting cross-legged on the thick pad of covers, she began drawing the brush through her hair. "Do you ever missPris ?" she asked conversationally.

  "How do you know about her?"

  She smiled into the fire. "You forget,my ex-husband and best friend is the sheriff. By the time his investigation into the bank robbery was completed, he probably knew everything about you, and he told me the interesting stuff. So … do you?"

  He was quiet a long time,then the bedsprings squeaked. "In a way. She was a nice woman. You would probably like her if you knew her."

  "No, I wouldn't."

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "We can't possibly have anything in common."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because you slept with her. You won't even let me touch you." She thought back to that moment in the bathroom, how close her fingers had come to his shoulder, how quickly he'd avoided her touch, how hurriedly he'd put distance between them.

  He fell silent. What kind of response could a man make to a comment like that? She didn't blame him for not even trying.

  "What would I like about her?"

  An impatient sigh. He didn't want to continue this conversation. She didn't blame him for that, either. "She's nice. Funny. Generous. She's a lot like you."

  "How is she different from me?" She had to be, since he'd found her perfectlysuitable for an intimate relationship.

  "Come on, Ash…"

  All right, soall nicknames weren't bad, she acknowledged. She could warm right up to "Ash," especially when it was Dillon saying it. His name didn't lend itself to shortening—"Dill" was definitely out of the question—but she could easily see herself calling him darlin'. Sweetheart. Baby.

  "Satisfy my curiosity."Since you aren't willing to satisfy anything else. "How is she different?" When he didn't answer, she supplied her own answer. "I know she has red hair and that she lived upstairs from you. I assume she's prettier than me."

  "Why?" He sounded as if he were scowling again.

  "Because men like pretty women. Pretty faces, big boobs, long legs…"She laughed, but it wasn't with good humor. "At least I've got the legs."

  "Yes,Pris is pretty, but you…" He sighed wearily. "Jeez, Ash, do we have to do this?"

  "No," she whispered. That was enough of an answer.Prisis pretty, but you have character, Ashley. You have inner beauty. You have so many talents. So it wasn't the answer she wanted. It was exactly what she deserved for asking.

  She was an enlightened, independent woman of the nineties, andshe thought she was pretty. She liked her face. She realized there was more strength than daintiness, more character than conventional beauty, but she liked her looks anyway. What did it matter if he found his old girlfriend more attractive?She didn't findhim as handsome as her ex-husband … at least, she hadn't in the beginning. Funny—the more time she spent with him, the better she came to know him, the more handsome he was.

  So maybe, if the reverse was also true, in another … oh, fifty or sixty years, he would find her prettier thanPris . She could wait. She didn't have any plans for the rest of her life … buthe did. He had his own plans, and Seth and the D.A. had their plans for him. Bill Armstrong had lots of plans for him.

  Gazing into the fire, she continued to draw the brush slowly through her hair. When she was little, she had spent countless nights sitting right there, brushing her hair while, beside her, her grandmother did the same. For as long as Ashley could remember, the old lady's hair had been snow white, fine and long, reaching almost to her waist. Durin
g the day she'd worn it up, wound around her head into a bun and secured with long rippled pins. She had covered it with a scarf when she went outside, a simple square of calico folded into a triangle, the ends tied under her chin, or with an old straw hat adorned with one floppy, yellow cloth daisy. But at night, every night, whatever the season, she had sat on the braided rug in front of the fireplace—not this rug, but very nearly the same—and let her hair down, and she had brushed it, long gentle strokes gliding all the way to the ends, over and over, slow and easy.

  While she had brushed—and Ashley followed suit—she had talked. She had told stories about her parents, had repeated tales her mother had told her. She had talked about herbs and flowers and the phases of the moon, about moonshine stills and soap making and the seasons of her youth. Ashley had learned much in those regular talks about living and dying, about love and joy, heartache and great sorrow.

  In spite of the failure of her marriage, Ashley knew she'd been unusually blessed. She had her family and their unswerving love. She had a strong sense of who she was and a sure knowledge of what she wanted. She was living a life that she loved, a life that she wouldn't change one thing about … except for the fact that she was living it alone. She had never gone hungry, had never been broke,had never been afraid. She didn't know what hard living was. Her only sorrow had been losing her grandparents, and she had never experienced heartache, not even with Seth. She had, indeed, been fortunate.

  But her luck, she suspected, had changed Tuesday evening when Dillon Boone walked into her cabin. Unless he left now—walked out of her liferight now, right this very instant—she feared that she was going to find herself on a first-name basis with heartache. She was going to drown in sorrow, and she didn't have a clue how to save herself.

  She wasn't even sure she wanted to save herself.

  * * *

  Dillon lay in bed, his eyes gritty and sore, his hands clenched tightly at his side. The cabin was quiet except for the crackle of the fire. Except for the softer crackle—real or imagined?—of Ashley's hair as she slowly pulled the brush through it. Except for the urgent pleas he'd been making for several miserably long moments.

  Put the brush down.

  Move away from the fire.

  Find some clothing more substantial.

  Go to bed and, please, God, don't ask me to join you.

  Did she know that that flimsy little gown of hers, when backed by the flames, was nearly transparent? Did she know that, every time she raised her arms, he could see the curve of her breast almost as clearly as if she were naked? Did she know that he could think of few things more erotic than watching a woman brush her hair in the firelight?

  Did she have any idea that she was killing him?

  He wished he could believe the answer was yes. Yes, she knew her gown revealed as much as it concealed. Yes, she knew what a tantalizing sight she presented. Yes, she knew that she was arousing him, tormenting him, teasing and taunting him. If he could believe that, if he could believe that everything she was doing was calculated to seduce, then maybe he could find the strength to resist.

  But there was nothing calculating, nothing manipulative about her. Hell, she was a grown woman, married and divorced, and she didn't even realize how pretty she was. She had no idea why he hadn't wanted her to touch him earlier. She didn't even begin to understand why he couldn't have an affair with her.

  In all honesty, he was having a few doubts himself. Theywere both adults, as she'd pointed out, both capable of weighing the consequences and making the right decision. Wouldn't that make it all right? If she came to him, fully understanding that it wouldn't be a relationship but an affair, that there wouldn't be anything between them but sex, that it might last a day, three or four at most, and then he would be gone… If she knew all that, wouldn't it save him from burning in hell?

  No. She didn't have affairs, and he couldn't have a relationship. There was a lot more between them than just sex, and three or four days would be plenty of time to figure out what it was. It would be more than enough time to damn him.

  But he was damned anyway, wasn't he? Since he was going to pay for these few days here with Ashley with every bit of longing he'd ever known, with his peace of mind and just a little of his sanity, would it be so wrong if he made love to her before he left? If he had to suffer the torment anyway, couldn't he experience the pleasure first?

  She laid the brush on the hearth—thank God—folded back the top quilt, fluffed the pillow, then glanced around. "Where are the handcuffs?"

  "I put them away." While she'd been in the bathroom changing for bed, he had unhooked them from the leg of the sofa and tucked them, along with the key, underneath the cushion. He wasn't going to need them anymore … unless he had to chain himself in the corner to keep himself away from her.

  "Does mean that you've decided I'm worthy of your trust?"

  "I don't trust anyone," he answered automatically as he watched her settle on the pallet. She didn't have a pretty face or big boobs, she'd said earlier, but at least she had the long legs. Damned right, he thought as he caught a glimpse of herlegs, long, strong, the thin gown sliding up to reveal more, now at the knee, now the thigh, the hip… Catching his tongue between his teeth, he squeezed his eyes shut and swore.

  "Maybe you don't, maybe you do. How do you know I won't sneak away during the night?"

  Dragging in a breath, he forced his jaw to relax enough to answer. "Where would you go? It's cold out there, and it's not going to stop raining until we drown. Bessie won't run, and your nearest neighbor is five miles away. Getting there in the dark, in the cold and the rain wouldn't be the easiest hike you've ever taken, and, honey, I promise you, most of the people out there looking for me are much more dangerous than I am."

  "You trust me not to leave," she said simply.

  "I believe you have the good sense to weigh the consequences and make the right decision."

  "Which is the same as trusting me."

  "It's got nothing to do with trust," he insisted, exasperation shading his voice.

  She sat up, the quilt falling to her waist. "You're afraid to admit it, aren't you?"

  "The last person I made the mistake of trusting set me up for a major fall, then tried to have me killed. I'm not afraid of anything except him." And getting caught. Going to prison. Dying in prison. Wanting Ashley. Needing her. Making love to her. Not making love to her.

  Russell, it seemed, was theleast of his fears.

  She stared at him, her gaze compelling even though her face was mostly in shadow. "Itwas Bradley, wasn't it?" she asked softly, and Dillon cursed aloud."He was involved in the robbery.He took the money."

  He swore again.

  "What happened? How did he convince you to break into the bank? Did you take the money and take it to him?"

  Why couldn't he learn to keep his mouth shut? The less she knew about what had happened that night and who was involved, the safer she would be. And heneeded her to be safe. That was the thing he feared most of all: Ashley getting hurt because of him. Ashley being punished because of him. God help him, Ashley dying because of him.

  "Forget it, Ash," he said—pleaded—wearily.

  "In your dreams." She scrambled to her feet and came to sit on the bed. He drew aside so quickly that a sharp pain shot through his ribs. "Did he pay you? Bribe you? Blackmail you?"

  He tried to ignore how close she was—always too close, never close enough—and focus instead on her last question. "What could I possibly have done that Russ could use to blackmail me?"

  She shrugged. "You robbed a bank. Surely there must be other secrets in your past."

  "Not one."

  She allowed herself to be distracted for a moment. "You've never done anything you're ashamed of?"

  He also allowed a brief distraction as he reached out and drew his fingers over the curve of her knee, making her shiver before he lifted his hand and tugged the hem of her gown down to cover her legs. "There's a lot that I'm ashamed of," he
answered quietly. "Things Idid, things I didn't do. But most of it isn't a secret, and none of it's worthy of blackmail."

  "What sort of things?"

  There were so many to choose from that he couldn't, starting with the trouble he'd caused when he was a kid—the fights he'd picked, the mischief he'd created, the embarrassment and pain he'd caused his grandfather. There was the sorry state of his relationship with his mother; granted, Carole had never been prime parent material, but then he'd never given her any reason to try. He had been more trouble than he was worth since before he was born, she had often declared to whoever would listen, and he had been determined to prove her right. She had been a bad mother; he had deliberately been a bad son.

  There were all the failures in his life: the jobs he'd lost, the women he'd known, the disappointments he'd caused. As much as he'd loved his grandfather, and as much as Jacob had loved him, Dillon hadn't even been able to keep that relationship healthy. Weeks, months or—on a few occasions—entire years had gone by when he had refused to return the old man's calls, had tossed his letters in a drawer unanswered, had found it too much a bother to drive the few hours necessary for a visit. Only a few days before Jacob's death, Dillon had turned down a request that he drive out to the old farm for an afternoon. He hadn't wanted to go to Waterston, hadn't wanted to risk running into any of Alexander's family—at least, that had been his official reason, and partly true. The real reason was that he'd lost another job and another woman in the same day. He hadn't been able to face his grandfather, hadn't been able to bear seeing the disappointment in the old man's eyes every time he looked at him. Selfishness and pride had cost him one last meeting with the only person who had always loved him.