by Sharon Sala
There was no way Rachel could deny the fact and ever face herself in a mirror again, but she was afraid. Afraid of being rejected. Afraid of losing her very best friend.
“What would you say if I said yes?”
Joanie jerked. When she looked up, what she saw in Rachel’s face frightened her. “I don’t know, sugar...maybe a prayer?”
Rachel’s eyes teared, and when Joanie saw her reaction, she groaned and set the polish aside.
“Honey...don’t cry,” she said softly. “Look, I don’t pretend to understand why people fall in and out of love, but you and him...I don’t get it. What on earth does he have that Griffin Ross didn’t have, or, for that matter, Charlie Dutton? You know Charlie’s got a big crush on you.”
It took a moment for Rachel to find the words to explain, and even then, it was almost impossible to express how she felt. “It’s not what he has, Joanie. It’s what he gives me.”
“Okay, so he’s good in bed. I could tell that from looking at him.” She rolled her eyes and then shivered. “Gawd...have you ever seen eyes like that on a man in your life? They just about look through you, don’t they?”
“You don’t understand. It isn’t about sex. It’s like... Oh, never mind.” Rachel laid her hand down on the manicure table again. She should have known this would be a mistake. “Here, either take the stuff off or make me match. I can’t go out of here with one hand done and the other bare.”
Joanie sighed. It was obvious Rachel was hurt by her inability to understand. She dabbed the brush back in the polish, then paused.
“Look, sugar. If you love him, then there must be more to the man than good looks and a bad reputation, okay? All I’m saying is... be careful.”
“Okay.”
Moments passed, and just when Rachel thought the worst was over, Joanie started up all over again.
“Rachel, make me understand.”
Rachel took a deep breath and then started naming reasons, as if she were reading from a list. “He makes me whole. He fills my heart. He makes me laugh.”
“He’ll make you cry.”
Rachel frowned, then glanced up at the clock. “Are we nearly through? If we get to the café after twelve, the best tables will all be full.”
Joanie wilted. “Sorry. I never did know when to keep my big mouth shut.”
“That’s okay,” Rachel said. “Actually, you reacted just about like I thought you would.”
“Then why did you tell me?” Joanie asked.
Rachel shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I just wanted one person to know what was going on in my life, in case...”
Joanie paled. “In case of what?”
There was a strange look on Rachel’s face as she spoke. “Just in case, that’s all.”
The subject was promptly dropped. A short time later, they entered the Adam’s Rib Cafe just ahead of the noon-hour rush, and took a table toward the back, so that Joanie had a bird’s-eye view of everything that went on.
“We’re having the special,” Joanie said, waving away the menus. “She’s having iced tea. I’m having a cola with no ice and a slice of lemon.”
Rachel grinned. Some things never changed.
Halfway into their meal, Rachel looked up in dismay. Griffin Ross was coming their way.
“Rats,” she muttered.
Joanie glanced up, then back at Rachel. “Gee, honey, I’m sorry. If we’d thought, we could have ordered this to go and eaten it back at the shop.”
“It’s too late now,” Rachel said. “The vulture’s descending.”
“Rachel! Darling! Long time no see!” Griff cried, and, without waiting to be asked, seated himself at their table. “You don’t mind, do you? It’s a little crowded in here, and I’ve got to eat and run.”
There was little they could do but acquiesce with as much grace as possible.
“This is a bit of good fortune,” Griff said, as the waitress hurried away with his order. He thrust his hand inside his suit coat. “I just picked these up at the drugstore. You and Joanie made quite a splash at the Labor Day picnic, remember?”
He handed over a packet of newly developed pictures, which Joanie began sifting through in delight. In no time at all they were grinning and laughing as they relived the memories of the day, the three-legged race, the marshmallow roll, and the sack race that had resulted in both Rachel and Joanie falling into the duck pond at the park. Even Rachel had to admit it had been a good day. Griff had been full of fun, and a very good sport.
The café was doing such a brisk business that Rachel never noticed when Boone walked in, pausing near the door. She never saw the shock, then the disbelief, spreading over his face, and even if she had, she would have been hard-pressed to find a way to explain without making a scene.
Without saying a word, Boone spun and walked back out the door the same way he’d come in—hungry and alone. He was still discouraged by the cancellation of last night’s meeting with the boss, and this only added to the frustration he was feeling.
Just for a while he’d been convinced his time as Boone MacDonald was nearly over. Then Denver had come waddling into the house with Snake right behind him. All he’d gotten out of the night were his keys back and his jack intact.
He glanced at the café, then headed for his truck. This doesn’t have to mean a thing, Boone kept reminding himself. The room was full. They were just sharing a table. But even though be thought it, he couldn’t force himself to believe it. Betrayal was a hard image to lose.
Later that same day, Rachel was on her way home when, on impulse, she wheeled into the parking lot outside EMS headquarters. Ken Wade was in knee-high fireman’s boots, with a hose in one hand and a soapy cloth in the other as he washed down the ambulance. He grinned and waved as she started up the sidewalk.
“Hey there!” he called. “Coming back to get your name in the pot?”
“Not yet,” Rachel said. “But soon.”
He grimaced. “Not soon enough for Charlie. He thinks you can do no wrong.”
“And I suppose you can do no right?”
He laughed. “You said it.”
“Sorry,” Rachel said. “I didn’t take him to raise. He was like this when we met, remember?”
In playful retaliation, Ken waved the spray of water in her direction. Not too close, but close enough to send her scurrying inside.
Because she was looking over her shoulder as she went, she ran full tilt into Charlie. Her purse went flying, spilling its contents all over the floor and under a chair near the door.
“Whoa!” Charlie said, laughter filling his voice. “I always knew you couldn’t stay away from me, but you didn’t have to run. I would have come if you’d called.”
“Good grief,” Rachel muttered as she went down on all fours, grabbing at a lipstick, then a pen, then her wallet.
Charlie bent to help. “What was the big rush?” he asked, as he handed her a comb.
“I was about to get hosed down.”
Charlie grinned. “Yeah, Ken’s mean with that soap and water.”
“My keys...I can’t find my keys,” Rachel muttered as she looked around on the floor.
They both began to search. Seconds later, Charlie spied them beneath the front bumper of the spare ambulance, parked inside the station.
“There they are,” he said. Before he handed them back, he fingered through them in a nosy but friendly sort of way. When he looked up, he was grinning. “Hey, Rachel, let me see the bottoms of your shoes.”
She did as he asked without thinking why, assuming that she must have walked in grease or the like without noticing.
“No,” Charlie muttered. “I guess I was wrong.”
“About what?”
“Well, you mark your keys to tell which goes to the front door and which goes to the back. Thought you might have your shoes marked, as well. You know...one for the left and one for the right.”
The grin on his face was too broad to resist. She laughed. “You worm. Give me m
y keys.”
“It’s gonna cost you,” he teased, dangling them over her head.
“Like what?”
An odd expression spread over his face. “Like a kiss?”
Suddenly the fun had gone out of the game. Rachel froze, unable to find a way out of the embarrassment she was feeling. Charlie was her friend. He was her peer. But he would never be anything more.
“Oh, good grief,” Charlie said, and dropped the keys in her hand. “I was just kidding.”
“I knew that,” Rachel muttered, and put the keys into her purse, along with everything else they’d retrieved.
“So, if you didn’t come for a little loving, what’s up? Please tell me you’re coming back to work.”
She shook her head. “Not just yet, Charlie...but soon.”
He rolled his eyes in an overdramatic gesture of defeat. “I will not survive Ken Wade.”
“That’s funny. He says the same thing about you.”
To his credit, Charlie grinned, and Rachel began to relax. The worst was over.
“I see they got the ambulance fixed.”
“Yep.”
Rachel eyed Charlie, trying to figure out what was so different about him. Suddenly, she knew.
“Your hair!”
Charlie flushed beet red and swiped his hand across the back of his neck.
“What’s wrong with my hair?” he muttered.
“Odie Waters didn’t cut your hair. It’s been styled.”
He thrust his chin out in a righteous show of defense. “So? Lots of guys do that.”
“I know.... I didn’t mean it didn’t look good. What I meant was...it looks good. You know Odie. He’s a dear, but he’s been cutting hair the same way since the forties.”
Charlie didn’t answer, and his reticence made Rachel remember other changes in Charlie that had recently taken place.
“I wonder what will be next,” she said, and poked him in the arm, trying to tease him out of his mood. “New car... fancy ring. New hairstyle. The next thing we know, Razor Bend will be too small for you.”
“Well, a man’s got to look to his future,” Charlie said. “I might actually want to settle down one day. Can’t do it on this salary alone, that’s for sure.”
It was the word alone that worried her. What else was Charlie doing to allow him such a major change in life-style? But as soon as she thought it, she let the thought go. Who was she to tell anyone what to do with his life? Hers was in chaos.
“Whatever you’re doing, it must be right,” Rachel said.
Charlie grinned, although a bit of guilt had started to rise within him. It was right, he thought. And it was no one else’s business what he did with his money... no matter how he’d come by it.
“Well, I just came to say hi,” Rachel said. “I’d better get out of here before the boss snags me and makes me feel guilty all over again.”
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Charlie said.
“How about walking me past the madman of the car wash, instead?”
“Deal.”
Together they walked to her car. As she was getting inside, Charlie leaned down.
“Hey, Rachel, if you ever want to talk about anything—anything at all—I’m your man. I don’t gossip. I don’t judge. And I don’t lie.”
A wave of fear washed over Rachel, leaving her face shocked and pale. She didn’t know how or why, but for some reason, she suspected he knew about Boone.
“Why... thank you, Charlie.” It was all she could think of to say.
She looked up in her rearview mirror as she drove away. Charlie was standing right where she’d left him, watching her go.
Chapter 13
“He’ll come tonight.”
Rachel figured if she said it often enough, it would happen. But it was nearing sundown, and the time for hoping would soon be past. One thing had become clear to her after talking to Joanie. If she didn’t trust her feelings for Boone, no one else would, and she’d come too far in accepting this relationship to quit on him at the first hint of trouble.
She walked out on the porch and sat down on the steps to begin her wait. But to her dismay, she realized that a thunderstorm was brewing. Heavy clouds were building in the southwest. And although the storm was too far away for hear to hear thunder, the intermittent lightning strikes could be seen silhouetted against the navy blue sky above the Kiamichi peaks.
Shivering, she pulled her knees up to her chin. The wind began to quicken as she looked toward the forest beyond her back yard.
“Oh, Boone, hurry, please hurry!”
And as she waited, darkness swept over the land, lending an ominous quality to the oncoming storm.
Driven inside sometime later by blowing rain, Rachel finally gave up hope that Boone would come tonight. She sat in her living room with the television on, watching weather bulletins as they crawled across the bottom of the screen.
Half dozing in her chair, she was suddenly awakened by a loud clap of thunder that rocked the house on its foundation, followed by a bolt of lightning so close and so bright that she heard the crack as it hit. She hit the mute button on the TV and ran for the door.
All she had time to see was the gust of blowing rain as it hit her in the face. She ducked her head in reflex, and when she turned around, Boone was standing at the edge of the porch.
Startled more by his sudden appearance than by the man himself, she screamed. He ran toward her just as the second gust came, grabbing her close and propelling her backward into the house, out of the storm.
The door slammed shut behind them, and the silence of the room was overwhelming as Rachel looked up.
“You came!” she said, and threw her arms around his neck in a joyful welcome.
Boone told himself she wouldn’t play games with him, but he couldn’t forget how she she’d laughed and talked to Griffin Ross as if there had never been a break in their relationship.
Rachel caressed the side of his cheek, feeling the rough growth of a two-day beard and remembering how it felt on her skin.
“You didn’t come last night. I didn’t think you would come tonight, either.”
Boone lifted his head, as if bracing himself for a blow.
Was that why you went back to Griffin Ross? Did a couple of nights in the sack with an outlaw satisfy your sense of adventure?
Rachel began to worry. He looked so lost and so hurt, and she didn’t understand why. His hand was at the back of her head, as if cushioning it from an unseen blow, but he seemed locked in some silent war with himself that she didn’t understand.
“Boone, if there’s something you want to talk about, all you—”
He interrupted before she could finish. He seemed angry, and at the same time despairing. “I love you so damned much it scares me to death.”
“Oh, Boone...”
He unsnapped his jacket and dropped it on the floor by the door. It fell with a sodden squish.
“My truck is parked on the far side of your house. If you don’t want anyone to know I’m here, say so now and I’m gone.”
Rachel didn’t know why there was so much anger in the love he’d just professed, but she wasn’t about to let him leave until he’d told her what was wrong. She pushed past him to the door, turned the lock and turned out the light. Except for the mute and flickering television, the house was now in darkness. She turned and faced him.
“Something is wrong, so don’t insult my intelligence by lying. Besides, if I had my way, you’d never leave me again.”
Boone came toward her, then quietly enfolded her within his embrace.
“God help us both, Rachel Brant, because I don’t have the good sense to let you go.”
Dakota’s hands dug into Mercy’s shoulders with painful intensity.
“Come away with me, Mercy. Come with me now, before it’s too late.”
Rachel shuddered, clutching at Boone’s shirt in sudden desperation. Why did this keep happening to her? Was it some kind of warning? Was the
past about to repeat itself in more ways than one? Fear gripped her as she tried to imagine her life without this man in it. She couldn’t. Not anymore. She fisted her hands in the front of his shirt, feeling the cold, damp fabric give way to her demand.
“You can make the world go away. Make love to me, Boone. Do it now.”
Passion shattered the last of his control. Right now he didn’t care if she’d cheated and he wouldn’t accept that she’d lied. She belonged to him in a way she would never understand. He couldn’t give her assurances or promises of a happy-ever-after kind of life. All he could give her was love.
He lowered his head. She met him. His mouth was cold, the demand in his kiss almost frightening until she heard a soft, muffled groan.
With desperation in every movement, he shoved their clothing aside and himself inside her. With no promise of heaven other than the look in his eyes, he pinned her between the door and his heart and drove them both crazy with love.
Light flickered on the opposite wall as the television continued to play with no sound. Every now and then lightning shattered the darkness outside, just as Boone was shattering the last of Rachel’s control.
The force with which he took her was gentled by each touch of his hand on her body, his lips on her face and his sharp, ragged breaths on her cheek. Rachel had long ago lost contact with reality. Boone was her anchor, her center of gravity. As long as his arms were holding her in place, she couldn’t fall off the world.
In the midst of too much pleasure, it all came undone. One minute Rachel was living for the next thrust of his body, and then heat spilled within her, leaving her weak and limp and hanging on to his shoulders to keep from falling. But each breath Boone was taking was longer and deeper than the last. She could tell the end was near for him, as well.
“God, Rachel...Oh, God...” His voice was less than a whisper, more like a prayer.
Rachel buried her face against the curve of his neck and felt him tremble. There was little she could do to help the inevitable, other than bring him closer. With her last ounce of strength, she wrapped her legs around his waist and held on for dear life.
A short while later, when Boone could remember to think and breathe at the same time, he sank to the floor on his knees, with Rachel still in his arms. At a loss for anything to say that wouldn’t give himself away, Boone held her close, showing her in the only way he could that she was loved.
