by Sharon Sala
“Have mercy,” he whispered, and picked her up. This time, she made no move to stop him.
Like a baby, he wrapped her in the blanket and started back toward the house with her limp body dangling from his arms. Though the price had been the trauma of seeing Rachel in such a state, he now had an explanation for the strange behavior he’d been witnessing.
Rachel wasn’t dreaming. She was sleepwalking. Up until the moment she passed out, her eyes had been wide open. It seemed as though she was reliving some incident out of her past.
Unaware of what she’d done, Rachel was inside the house and tucked in bed before she began coming around. When she did, two things brought her rudely awake. The lights were on, and the shock in Boone’s eyes was something she’d hoped never to see. It must have happened again...and he’d witnessed it! She covered her face with her hands.
Boone crawled into the bed beside her and pushed her hands aside.
“Don’t bide from me, sweetheart,” he said softly. “What happened to you?”
“I think you can answer that better than I can,” she said, and then winced at the sound of her own voice. Her head was throbbing.
Boone’s touch was gentle as he rubbed at the frown on her forehead. “Have you seen a doctor?”
“No.”
This didn’t make sense. She was trained in the medical field. Surely she wouldn’t have a reluctance to trust a fellow professional.
“Why not?” he persisted.
Oh, Boone. How can I make you understand? “Because pills can’t fix what’s wrong with me.”
Rachel’s face was filled with despair. He ached to make her better, and he had never felt so lost. This couldn’t be fixed with his fists or a gun, and he feared not even his love was strong enough to make this go away.
“Then what will?” he asked.
Rachel’s eyes widened, and her chin began to quiver. “I don’t know.”
“God,” he muttered, and lay down beside her, holding her close. “You scared me, Rachel.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I scare myself.”
Neither of them slept again. About an hour before dawn, Boone got out of bed and began putting on his clothes.
“I wish you didn’t have to go.”
In the act of tucking his shirt into his jeans, he turned. There was a calm, watchful look on his face that she’d never seen before. “Maybe one day I won’t,” he said.
She sat up.
“But today’s not the day.”
She flopped back down on the pillow with a mutinous look in her eyes. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
He grinned slightly. “Honey girl, it’s already tomorrow.”
“You know what I meant,” she muttered, as he started for the door.
He turned. “Don’t wait up,” he said. “I might be late.”
Rachel jumped out of bed. Unmindful of her nudity, she raced for the bureau. “Here,” she said, and tossed him a key.
He caught it in midair, then looked down. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to the red B she’d put on it.
“Fingernail polish. The B stands for Back, as in Back Door.”
He grinned and slipped it on his key ring. “Why, Rachel, I thought you were giving me the key to your heart.”
She threw her arms around his neck. “I already did,” she said softly. “Don’t you remember?”
Lesson number three: There is nothing quite as sensual as being completely naked and being made love to by a fully dressed man.
Charlie Dutton and Ken Wade were coming down the mountain after an early-morning run to Latisha Belmon’s home. It wasn’t the first time they’d been called out to put her back in bed, and it very likely wouldn’t be the last.
Latisha was seventy-two and nearly four hundred pounds, and the strength in her legs was just about gone. And her husband, Clyde, at seventy-four and weighing in at 128, was no match for her weight or her girth. When Latisha went down, Ken and Charlie went up... the mountain, that is.
Sharing a sack of doughnuts and finishing the last of his cold coffee, Charlie came around a corner in the ambulance, taking his half of the road out of the middle.
“Son of a—!” He dropped the coffee in his lap and grabbed the wheel with both hands, narrowly missing the pickup that was in the act of pulling out of the trees and onto the road.
“Oh, man!” Charlie muttered, swiping at his lap and glaring in his rearview mirror at the same time. “Look what he made me do!”
Ken was still choking on the doughnut he’d been trying to swallow when the near accident occurred.
“Well, now, Charlie, you were a little bit too far to the left, and we weren’t running lights or siren, so he couldn’t have known we’d be coming. Besides, I’d a whole lot rather have to change uniforms than go back and explain to the boss why we just wrecked the last ambulance in Razor Bend.”
Charlie paled. “You’re right,” he muttered, then stared thoughtfully as they passed the cutoff that led to Rachel’s house. “Still, I wonder what he was doing up in there.”
Ken shrugged and dug in the sack for the last doughnut. “Oh, who knows. Probably hunting or something.”
“More likely something,” Charlie muttered, remembering where he’d seen that man before. It was the same man who’d hitched a ride into town with Rachel. His stomach turned as a thought skittered through his mind. He frowned. He didn’t like what he was thinking one bit. At that moment, he made up his mind—first chance he got, he was going to stop by and visit Rachel. Just to say hello.
Boone was still white-knuckled from the near miss with the ambulance when he pulled into the yard at his trailer. Seeing Tommy Joe sprawled out on the front steps didn’t do his disposition one bit of good. He got out with a scowl on his face.
“Hey, Boone,” Tommy Joe said, as he pushed his bulk up from the steps. “I didn’t think you was ever coming back. Where you been?”
“None of your damned business,” Boone muttered, and pushed his way past Tommy Joe and into the trailer, leaving him to follow behind at his will.
Tommy Joe grinned. “You got a girl? I bet anything you got yourself a girl. I told Snake the other day, I think old Boone’s got hisself a girl.”
Boone turned around. All expression was gone. His eyes glittered angrily as he pushed a finger in Tommy Joe’s chest.
“You and Snake stay out of my face, and I’ll stay out of yours,” he said softly.
Tommy Joe paled. “Hey, man, I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just making small talk, you know.”
“So you came for a chat?”
“No...no. I came to deliver a message. Denver wants all of us at his house tonight.”
“What’s up?”
“I don’t know. I just follow orders, I don’t give ’em.”
Damn it, Boone thought. After what he’d witnessed last night, he didn’t want to leave Rachel alone in a bed ever again. Now, here he was, faced with a choice between the job he’d been sent to do and being with the woman he’d come to love.
“I’ll be there,” Boone said, and looked at the door. “Don’t let it hit you on the way out.”
Tommy Joe scuttled out, leaving Boone alone with an ever-increasing sense of doom.
Chapter 12
Daylight had come and gone when Boone pulled into Denver Cherry’s front yard.
“What took you so long?” Denver muttered as Boone walked in the door.
“You need to get your money back. The printer left the time off the engraved invitation,” Boone drawled.
Denver grinned, revealing broken teeth through his brush of gray beard.
“You’re a real wiseass, aren’t you?” he asked, then chuckled. “Reminds me of myself in my younger days,” he muttered, then scratched beneath his armpit as he pointed toward the kitchen. “Ribs and beer on the table, if you’re hungry.”
Boone frowned. “Not hungry. What’s up?”
“No need to get in a huff,” Denver said. “We’re waiting o
n the boss to show.”
Boone’s heart went into overdrive, but, to his credit, he never blinked an eye.
“Maybe I’ll get that beer after all,” he muttered, and sauntered into the kitchen as if he didn’t have a care in the world, when he really wanted to kick up his heels. It’s about time.
Another football game was blasting from Denver’s living room, and from the sounds of it, Boone decided, Denver must be raising the volume on every down. The noise was so loud that when he opened the can of beer he never heard it pop, although it fizzed over the top and down the side of his hand. A double order of barbecued ribs lay uncovered on the take-out tray, while a couple of flies ate their fill. Boone looked around the kitchen in disgust. He tossed the can of beer in the sink, wiped his hands on his jeans and stalked out of the kitchen just as Snake Martin walked into the house. He was muddy and winded and looked as if he’d been running.
“What’s wrong with you?” Denver asked.
Snake ran a shaky hand through his hair, then scratched at his face where his beard began.
“Durn near had myself a wreck. Ran off in a ditch tryin’ to miss a deer.”
Boone could almost sympathize. He’d come close to having the same thing happen to him only days earlier.
“Well, you’re here, and that’s what counts,” Denver said.
“I’m not here to stay,” Snake said. “I need a jack.” He shuffled his feet, unable to look Boone in the face.
“What happened to mine?” Boone asked.
“Someone stole it,” Snake muttered, then flushed as he realized he’d finally admitted to the theft after all.
Boone grinned. “Well, well, what goes around comes around.”
“My jack won’t work on your four-by-four,” Denver said. “Not big enough.”
Snake cast a quick glance at Boone, who was grinning more broadly by the minute.
“You’re going to have to ask,” Boone said.
“Can I borrow your jack?” Snake mumbled.
“I didn’t hear you say ‘please.’”
Snake was livid. “Damn it, Denver, make him—”
“Oh, shut up and do as he says,” Denver grumbled. “You got yourself into this mess. Now get yourself out.”
If Snake had had a gun, he would gladly have emptied it in Boone MacDonald’s belly, but since he didn’t, he saved the image of the act for another day.
“Please, Boone, can I borrow your jack?”
“How about ‘pretty please with sugar on it’?”
Snake’s face mottled in anger. “I’m gonna...”
Boone laughed, then took the keys from his pocket and tossed them to Snake, who caught them just before they hit the floor.
“Here. You know where it is, so help yourself. Bring back my keys when you bring back my jack, or I’ll take it out of your miserable hide.”
“Ain’t someone gonna take me back to my truck?”
Denver took one look at Boone and knew that ordering him to go wouldn’t work. Not this time.
“Wait for me outside,” Denver said. “I gotta get my shoes.”
Snake was still muttering as he walked out the door.
“You better not mess with him,” Denver warned as he pulled on some sneakers, minus their strings. “If he gets mad at someone, he can be real mean.”
Boone didn’t blink. “I’ve seen mean before.” Then he picked up Denver’s remote and hit the mute button. “That’s too damned loud,” he said softly, and walked into the kitchen and out the back door as Denver went out the front.
A mile and a half down the road, Denver saw Snake’s red-and-yellow four-by-four nose down in a shallow ditch. He pulled over, then let Snake out, aiming the lights so Snake could see to set the jack.
At that moment a car topped the hill, then began slowing down. Denver squinted against the oncoming glare, waving his arms to alert the driver not to run over them.
“Hey, look,” Snake said. “It’s the boss.”
The big car came to a stop, and Denver called back Snake as the door began to open, “I know who it is. Now get on with what you’re doing. The boss won’t like having to wait on us.”
Snake went to his knees. Setting the lug wrench in place, he began’loosening the bolts one at a time.
The man was nothing but a dark silhouette against the glare of his own headlights. “What’s going on?”
Denver held out his hands, as if to say it was out of his control. It seemed the boss was in no mood to talk.
“Just get it over with and get on up to the house. I haven’t got all night.”
“You bet, boss. Be right there,” Denver said. “I’ll move my car so you can get by.”
Snake suddenly remembered the borrowed keys in his pocket. While he wouldn’t have admitted he was afraid of a thing, in truth, Boone MacDonald made him nervous. He saw Denver get in the car and panicked. He didn’t want Boone coming after him alone in the dark.
“Uh... Hey, boss!” Snake yelled, and started running toward the long, shiny car. “Take these keys back to the house for me and tell him I’m not through with the jack.” He dropped them in the boss’s hand and hurried back to his truck.
The keys slid through the boss’s fingers into the dust. Cursing, he leaned over to pick them up, then saw something he didn’t want to believe. There, highlighted in the twin beams from his headlights and angling from the ring, was an oddly marked key. The letter B had been painted on it with red fingernail polish. He held it closer to the light, and as he did, shock began to seep throughout his system.
Son of a ... It couldn’t be! But it was, and it was marked just like the one on Rachel Brant’s key ring. He’d seen her with it dozens of times in the past.
“Snake!”
The little man looked up from his work. “Yeah, boss?”
“Who do these keys belong to?”
“Boone MacDonald.”
Rage struck him hard and fast. Unable to trust himself to speak, he clutched the keys until they left an imprint in the palm of his hand. He’d even seen Rachel and Boone together, and still he’d ignored the implications, choosing to believe the worst was all in his mind. But to know it had come to this! A cold smile broke across his face.
Now I know why the interest between us was never there. You little bitch, who would have thought your tastes ran so rough?
The importance of tonight’s meeting had taken a back seat to revenge. Now be had another objective. One far more serious, far more deadly. Boone MacDonald was going to pay for messing with a woman out of his league. For that matter, Rachel needed to be taught a lesson, too. They wanted to be together? Fine. For all he cared, they could spend eternity in each other’s arms.
“Denver!”
Denver came on the run. “Yes, boss?”
“I’ve changed my mind about tonight,” he said.
“But I thought...”
“I said, I changed my mind.” He slapped the keys in Denver’s hand and drove off without another word of explanation.
“What set him off?” Snake muttered.
Denver shrugged, his mind locked on the football game playing on without him. “Who knows? Just hurry up, will you? I’m gonna miss the whole last half.”
Last night had been the longest night of Rachel’s life. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa waiting for Boone, waking up just before morning with cold feet and a crick in her neck. It was a far cry from lilac-scented bubble baths and a warm embrace.
In the back of her mind, she couldn’t help thinking that her actions had scared him off. And in a way, she could hardly blame him. What man wanted to be saddled with a woman who went off half-cocked in the middle of the night, ranting and raving about something she couldn’t explain?
Halfway through breakfast, Rachel made a decision. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life hiding in a house in the Kiamichis, waiting for dark. What she needed was a little reorganization. She picked up the phone and punched in the numbers, hoping that her friendship with Joani
e was still of good standing. She waited as the phone began to ring.
“Curlers.”
Rachel grinned. From the abrupt manner in which Joanie answered the phone, she must have been be up to her elbows in shampoos and sets.
“Hi, Joanie, it’s me. Got any free time today?”
“Rachel! I was going to call you when I had a minute. Are you wanting an appointment or a friend?”
Thank goodness Joanie didn’t hold a grudge. “How about both?” she asked, and heard papers shuffling as Joanie leafed through her appointment book.
“Hmmm...Shirley Jo just called and canceled a perm, so I’ve got anywhere from eleven this morning until three this afternoon free. You name it.”
“How about a manicure and then lunch?”
“Eleven okay?”
“Put me down,” Rachel said. “We need to talk.”
“It’s a date,” Joanie said. “See you later.”
Rachel hung up, satisfied that she was moving in the right direction. Just because she’d fallen in love with a social outcast, that didn’t mean she had to remove herself from society, as well.
“Red is a good color on you.”
Rachel frowned as she held her forefinger up to the light, squinting to judge the shade of nail polish Joanie was applying. “You think so?” she asked.
Joanie grabbed her hand and yanked it back down to the table. “I think you don’t care what color I put on, just as long as I listen.” She shifted the gum she was chewing to the opposite side of her cheek, cracking and popping it as she went. “Well? What’s the big scoop?” she asked, as she bent to her task.
“Joanie, have you ever been in love?”
Joanie’s jaw went slack. Red fingernail polish dripped unattended on Rachel’s thumb.
“Oh, shoot, look what you made me do!” she said, dabbing at the blob with polish remover.
Rachel sighed. She should have known this wasn’t a good idea.
Joanie couldn’t bring herself to look up, but she had to ask. “Rachel?”
“Hmm?”
“Is it that man who runs with Denver Cherry’s men... Are you in love with him?”
