Cowboy at Midnight (12 page)

When he woke up the next morning, he wanted her again. This time he wanted her to take him in her mouth. But when he reached for her, she was gone.

If it hadn't been for the scent of violets lingering in her honey-colored bedroom, he might have thought last night was a dream.

Then he smelled coffee and heard the clang of pots in her kitchen and realized she hadn't gone after all. He sprang out of bed and began to sing “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”

He'd had a lot of false starts when it came to love. He didn't want this to be another one. Remembering her wild driving through the hills of Austin last night, he wondered who had hurt her.

He had to find out. She could have killed them both.

They had a lot to talk about. He had to help her find
a way to forgive herself, because he hoped with all his heart that he could build something wonderful with this very special woman.

A
my was sipping hot coffee and watering her ivy by the kitchen sink when her bedsprings creaked in the next room. She nearly dropped her watering pot when he started singing “The Yellow Rose of Texas” at the top of his lungs.

When the bedroom door opened, she gulped hot coffee so fast she burned the roof of her mouth. Instinct told her to run.

Very deliberately she set her coffee cup down on the counter and her watering pot in the sink. She took a couple of deep breaths. After she lit a gas burner, she went to the fridge and pulled out a carton of eggs along with some Canadian bacon. She started to make him scrambled eggs.

By the time he strolled down her hall, she told her
self she could do this. Then he was in her kitchen, with his dark hair sleep tousled and his white shirt unbuttoned and hanging open. How could she have forgotten how gorgeous he was?

The awesome power of his tall, muscled form sent unwanted quivers through her. She caught her breath, remembering the thrill of being crushed beneath him last night. For a numbed moment she could only stare at his arched brows and his seductive dark eyes. For no reason at all her gaze lingered on the curve of his sensual, kissable mouth. It was all she could do not to fling herself into his arms and kiss the bruises on his brow and underneath his right eye.

So this was how it would be to wake up with him every morning.

Then he moved closer, and she jumped back, scraping at the eggs so violently, bits of scrambled egg flew from the frying pan onto the countertop.

“Oops,” he said in that deep, sexy baritone of his. His smile carved deep lines beside his mouth as he leaned forward to kiss her left eyebrow.

She backed out of his reach and tried to calm down. “I'm sorry about your black eye.”

“It was worth it,” he muttered, his voice grim as if he sensed she was wary of him again.

She felt the heat and energy of his big, bronze body and remembered too well the wanton pleasure she'd found in his arms last night. As he watched her with that keen, male interest, her knees began to feel wobbly.

“I…I fixed you something to eat,” she whispered.

“Looks good. Smells good, too.” He poured himself
a cup of coffee and sat down at her little table with a view of the pool and limestone mansion.

When she set a plate before him and then backed quickly away, he put his fork down and leaned back in his chair. “Aren't you going to join me?”

“I ate a cup of oatmeal earlier.”

“All right, then.” A muscle jerked beneath his jaw as he lowered his head and stabbed a hunk of scrambled egg with his fork. “You ready to talk about last night?”

She swallowed.

“You gonna tell me how come you drove like a bat out of hell?”

Making her voice falsely light, she said, “Why does it matter, if I'm not going to do it again?”

He stared at her, and she forced herself to look down at his hard, handsome face and his bare chest. The bruises on the right side of his face really got to her. It was a struggle not to throw herself into his arms and confess everything.

“It matters,” he said, his voice low, raspy.

She ran her hands rapidly through her hair. “Sometimes my mother just makes me feel like I'm trapped in a cage and I have to break free. I do wild and crazy things.”

“Just don't get in a car when you feel that way.”

She tried to smile, but her face felt too stiff.

“You're not a kid anymore,” he said.

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Sometimes the hardest things are the easiest things.”

Again she fought to smile and act as if she felt normal. When she didn't say anything more, he picked up
yesterday's paper and snapped it open. His thick brows pulled together. When his whole body went rigid, he leaned over the paper, reading with such frightening intensity she was filled with dread.

Something was wrong. Her heart began to knock. Too late she remembered her mother mentioning something about an article in the paper.

Quietly she slipped behind him and began to read over his broad shoulder. As soon as she saw Lake Mondo mentioned in several bold headlines, her heart began to race.

The lead article was about the body bearing the Fortune birthmark that had washed ashore on Lake Mondo. When she read that the police suspected foul play, she caught her lower lip with her teeth and began to speed-read with a vengeance.

Her mother had tried to warn her at the restaurant. No doubt that was why she'd called. The police made it sound as if Ryan Fortune was refusing to cooperate. They thought he was hiding something, and they were leaning on him.

But the headline that really sickened her was a sidebar story: Oilman's Daughter's Body Stayed Missing Three Weeks. She clenched the back of Steve's chair for support. The story was a rehash of everything that had happened eight years ago. It dealt with Lexie and the subsequent lawsuits against Amy's parents and the charges the Vales had brought against Amy.

When Steve refolded the paper and slammed it on the table, shivers of dread made her feel so weak and shaky her hands became claws on the back of his chair.

When he turned to her, his dark eyes were glacial. “Is this what your mother was talking about?”

“Yes. Now you know. Now you'll hate me.”

“Your mother and father were sued?”

Amy crossed her arms and rubbed them vigorously in a vain attempt to warm herself as she managed to back away from him. “Yes.”

The legs of his chair scraped the floor as he stood up. “Because of what you did?”

“Yes.”

“Because your friend died on that boat? Whose boat was it?” He moved toward her. “Who was driving that boat, Amy?”

There had always been big gaps in her memory about that night. “I…I can't do this.” When she backed into the counter, she grabbed the edges for support. “You read the paper. Why do we—”

“Just talk to me.”

“What's the point? It's never going away. Never! The Vales thought I should have gone to prison for it.”

“But the grand jury disagreed.”

She nodded. “You don't want to be involved with someone like me. I'm damaged. I hurt people. I don't mean to. I didn't mean to…kill Lexie.” Desperate to escape him, she pushed away from the counter and ran to the window. Her back to him now, she stared down at the tranquil, turquoise pool, wishing she could plunge into deep water and never come up.

“You can't run and hide forever,” he said softly. When she heard him set his plate in the sink without rinsing it, she didn't turn around.

She tried to focus on the sunlight sparkling off the pool's glassy surface. “I hid until you showed up.”

He crossed the room and joined her at the window. His mouth thinned into a grim line. “Why is that, I wonder?”

“Look, I'm a mess.”

“Amy—”

“I'll drive you to your car,” she whispered. “I'm glad this happened. I'm glad you know. Now we can end this crazy thing between us that never should have started.”

“Damn it to hell! We're not ending anything. Not yet. Not till we talk.”

He touched her arm, and she jumped away from him as if he were a snake about to bite her. Her head throbbed painfully.

“No! I can't talk to you! I can't do
us,
either!” she said. “Last night I made a huge mistake by sleeping with you. I thought maybe I could talk to you, but I really can't. This thing is just too big.”

“You can go to bed with me but you can't talk to me. Why?”

She chewed her lip and looked out at the glimmering pool again.

“Why?” he repeated. “What the hell's wrong?”

“You read the newspaper. Didn't seeing it all there in black-and-white make you know that I'm this horrible person?”

“You're not. Amy, only newsprint is black-and-white. Real life is all about shades of gray.”

“I don't deserve you or anybody else.”

“Nobody's perfect. I don't expect—”

“Look, I'm a coward, too. Someday you'll hate me. Maybe not today, but in time. I can't face that.”

“So, you'll throw me away along with what we might have had together?”

She felt her lips begin to quiver. “Before we get in too deep.”

“Darlin', don't you know I'm already in too deep?” His low drawl softened. “Why don't you give me a chance? What the hell happened eight years ago? Just tell me, damn it. Whatever you have to say can't be worse than what I just read.”

When he moved even closer, she wanted to go into his arms so badly. Instead she skittered away from the window.

He stalked her until she reached the door that opened onto the stairs.

“I can't talk about it,” she whispered brokenly.

“Don't you know I want to help you get over this?” he murmured.

“You can't. Nobody can. My mother's tried. She sent me to therapy.”

“I'm not your mother.”

When his fingers closed around her arm, she shrank against the door. Shaking her head, she scrunched her eyes shut.

“I've tried everything. I really have.”

Again she was in a boat speeding across dark water, screaming Lexie's name. “Do you know how many nights I've awakened screaming for Lexie? How can I think about you, or having a future with you, when the past refuses to go away?”

“You have to try to make it go away. Not your mother—you! I'll bet it wasn't your idea to seek therapy.”

Tightening his grip, he leaned closer, forcing in her an awareness of his large body. She sighed when his nearness consoled her on some deep, primitive level.

“I want to help you,” he said, “but I don't know how.”

She wanted to yield to him, to sob against his broad chest until all the pain in her heart was washed away. She wanted to be cleansed and new. She really did. For the first time in eight years. But it was as if there were walls inside her, walls she had built day by day, nightmare by nightmare, for eight long years.

“Tell me,” he growled. An iron hand crushed her to his chest while his other hand moved up to cup her chin, lifting it, forcing her to meet the midnight darkness of his glittering eyes.

She swallowed a deep breath, hardly believing what she was about to do. “All right. I'll try…because…you've touched me…in ways no one else has been able to since…” She swallowed another breath.

“Just take it slowly,” he whispered.

Maybe she would have confessed all her sins, maybe she really would have, if only Cheryl hadn't chosen that exact moment to knock at her door.

“Amy?”

At the sound of Cheryl calling her name, Amy jumped away from him as if she'd been shot. Then her frightened gaze flew to Steve.

“Don't answer it, and she'll go away,” he muttered savagely. “This is more important.”

Another knock, more impatient than the first, banged against her door.

“But she knows I'm home.” Amy stared pleadingly
into his dark eyes. For a long moment the atmosphere felt electrified. Then feeling almost relieved for another excuse not to talk, Amy whirled away from him.

“Cheryl,” she squeaked as she opened the door.

“Is this a bad time, sweetie?” Cheryl said.

Amy glanced at Steve, whose face was remote and hard-edged now. “Great time,” she whispered.

Low, harsh laughter erupted from Steve's throat.

“Kate says a man threw her boom box in the pool.” Cheryl glanced at Steve suspiciously. “Did you see him?”

His frustration obviously acute, Steve flung the door wider. Cheryl's big green eyes got bigger when she saw his bare chest and guessed what it meant.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“The villain of your little tale,” he said in a flat, cold tone. “I threw it in. Your daughter was playing the thing loud enough to wake the dead and she refused to turn it down.”

Cheryl's eyes flew from his hard face to Amy's. “Did I interrupt something?”

“You heard Amy. Nothing important.” His voice was so harsh and raw it made Amy ache. “I was just trying to save your friend's soul.”

“Oh, I see.” Cheryl hesitated.

“I'll pay for the damn thing,” Steve muttered impatiently.

“Are you crazy?” Cheryl smile was warm. “I came here to thank you.” She took his hand. “Kate pushes everybody's buttons and boundaries. I'm sure it was a good lesson for her. By the way, she told me a completely different story.”

Steve smiled. “Someday I'd like to hear it.”

“A couple of neighbors left messages threatening to call the police. Kate actually called them back and apologized. That was a big step. I owe you big-time.” Cheryl shook his hand and then let it go.

She was smiling as Steve closed the door.

“You sure charmed her,” Amy said.

“Well, that beats you getting evicted, doesn't it?”

Alone with him again, Amy began to shake.

“I wish you were as easy as she was,” he said. “Now, where were we?”

“It's getting late.” Dashing from the door to her kitchen, she picked up her cell phone and turned it on. “Oh, gosh.” She laughed nervously. “I've got eight messages from Tom alone.” She glanced at her watch. “Look, maybe this really isn't a good time to talk.”

“Right. Fine,” Steve said in a low, brittle tone. “I'll just call a cab and get the hell out of your life.”

There was something so final in his voice, she suddenly felt more terrified of losing him than of her demons. “No. I'll drive you to your car.”

“Fine.”

Without talking to her or looking at her, he buttoned his shirt, stuffed it in his slacks and walked out to her car. She raced after him without even bothering to turn out her lights or lock her door.

When he slid behind the wheel, she handed him her car keys. He drove silently to Lamar Boulevard and headed south. Pease Park off to their right was a flash of emerald green. The morning sky was blue and lovely,
and bikers and joggers with their dogs could be seen on the limestone trail that ran through the trees.