Dangerous to Touch (19 page)

And Sidney. With him, in the truck. On the beach. At the mission.

Some of the photos were landscapes. Guajome Lake Park. Agua Hedionda Lagoon. The most puzzling of these appeared to be a stone fountain, several feet deep. He stared at the image for a moment before he recognized the scene.

The photo had been taken in front of the San Luis Rey Mission.

He left at a dead run, calling for Blue to follow.

In the trunk of Kurtis Stalb’s Taurus, Sidney woke up. The uneven gravel road had made the first few moments of the ride bone-jarringly painful. After one of the roughest jolts, she’d slumped into unconsciousness.

Now the road was smooth, and she had no idea where they were.

She could smell her own blood, feel it clotted in her left ear, matted in her hair, working like an adhesive to plaster the tarp to the side of her face. Her head throbbed, but her mind was clear and she felt more alert than before. If he came at her now, she’d be able to fight. Except that her hands and feet were bound together, the ropes so tight her swollen fingers tingled when she wiggled them experimentally.

Being hog-tied, trapped in a trunk, wrapped in heavy, constrictive plastic, was a claustrophobic nightmare. She forced herself to breath evenly, knowing she had very little oxygen left. If he didn’t dump her off somewhere soon, she could very well suffocate before she got the chance to drown.

So much for her gallant rescue attempt.

Sidney knew that if she’d waited for Marc, Samantha would be in this truck instead of her, but that fact was cold comfort now that they both would die.

Her arms were tied at the wrist over her stomach. She inched her hands up toward her mouth, little by little, until she felt coarse rope bite into her lips. Like a starved animal, she gripped it with her teeth and tugged. She tore at the individual pieces of twine. She chewed until her mouth bled.

By the time the Taurus came to an abrupt stop, she’d succeeded in tightening the rope around her wrists to an agonizing degree.

When she felt herself being lifted out of the trunk, she was actually relieved. Until she landed with a harsh slap on the surface of water. Remembering how Kurtis had enjoyed the sight of the others struggling, she told herself to remain motionless as she slowly sank.

Let him think she was unconscious. Let him think she was already dead.

Cold water began to seep into the tarp, reviving her senses, renewing her chances of survival. With wet hands, she might be able to slip free of the binding. Tears of hope stung her eyes, and she heard a sound, peaceful and pleasant, like the melody of a bubbling brook, barely audible through the layers of tarp and water.

She turned her head slightly, trying to get her sticky ear away from the plastic, and a wet flood rushed in, soaking her clothing, her hair, her swollen hands. It tasted clean and smelled fresh. She was in a fountain!

Sidney forced herself to stay still even though water was pouring in at an alarming rate. Her body drifted lower then touched ground. Her heart leaped! Why had he not bothered to weigh her down?

The answer came with a solid block of concrete, hitting the middle of her stomach, robbing her of breath. Anchoring her deep.

Terror assailed her, and her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, trying to suck in oxygen. White lights fluttered before her eyes, and a low rumble, like an underground vibration, sounded in her ears.

He was driving away! The roar of the car’s engine faded into the distance.

Surging with adrenaline, she shoved at the concrete block on her stomach with bound hands. When it gave, she felt a frightening weightlessness. Desperate to get her head above water, she kicked her legs furiously, trying to put her feet under her so she could push off the bottom of the fountain.

It wasn’t as easy as she thought. She was so disoriented she couldn’t tell up from down. Panicking, she flailed this way and that, going nowhere. She struggled against the ropes, but she had no room to maneuver. She had no fight left. No air. No energy. No hope.

Sidney felt her body go slack as life left her.

By the time Marc pulled up to the San Luis Rey Mission, he was soaked in sweat, sick with fury, paralyzed by fear.

He jerked his car to a stop in front of the main fountain and jumped out, praying to God it was the right one. Blue was out in a flash, barking excitedly at the fountain’s edge, but the surface of the water was still as glass and dark as death.

Swallowing back his emotion and denying the obvious, Marc leaped over the edge, telling himself this was a rescue, not a recovery.

He waded around desperately, submerged to the middle of his chest, searching for any sign of her. When his shoe glanced off the edge of a cinder block, the same kind that had been in Agua Hedionda Lagoon with Candace Hegel, his stomach dropped. He dove underwater to find another limp, tarp-shrouded body.

He was too late.

Grabbing her around the waist, he brought her up in a wet heap, holding her to him very tightly, as if he could squeeze the life back into her. “No,” he said fiercely, refusing to accept the truth. Hauling them both over the edge, he laid her out on the soft dark grass, unaware that he was praying until he felt his cold lips moving.

Padre nuestro
…

With trembling hands, he found the tiny knife on his key chain and flipped it up, carefully cutting the tarp away from her face. It was Sidney. Her lips were dark and her eyes closed. She was beautiful, even in death.

“Te ruego,”
he yelled, coming to his knees. As Blue threw back his head and howled, Marc held his open palms up to the night sky.

“Te ruego,”
he repeated. I pray to you, or I beg you. In Spanish, the words were the same.

On the ground, Sidney coughed and sputtered.

He stared down at her, astounded.

Water dribbled from the corner of her mouth.

He turned her on her side quickly, letting her purge the liquid from her stomach while he patted her back. When she was finished, he drew her into his arms and held her there, afraid to ever let her go again. He rocked her back and forth, not sure if he was comforting her or himself. Hot moisture coursed down his cheeks, and he realized he was crying, something he hadn’t done even when his father died. Or since.

“Samantha,” she whispered, her voice ravaged by the near-drowning.

He took her face in his hands. “Where?”

“With him. Kurtis.”

Marc searched the area with his eyes. A beige Ford Taurus was the only car in the parking lot. At the entrance to the graveyard, a heavy metal gate stood open.

“Don’t go,” she pleaded, even though she’d just asked him to.

“I have to.”

“Untie my hands.”

He did, using the small knife from his key chain, and kissed each swollen palm. “I love you,” he said with reverence.

“Please,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes.

He strode to the car, grabbing his Glock off the passenger seat.

“Lacy will be here any minute,” he said. “Stay,” he added, meaning both her and Blue.

She put her arm around the dog’s neck and closed her eyes, too weak to argue.

Marc moved swiftly through the mission’s historical graveyard, thinking it was a poor place to rape, torture, or kill women. The grounds weren’t patrolled, but they were well-lit, and Marc didn’t doubt there were security cameras recording Kurtis Stalb’s every move.

The man was no longer concerned with getting caught. His intention, in coming here, was probably to go out in a big, symbolic hurrah, and Marc was more than eager to send him straight to hell where he belonged.

Toward the rear of the graveyard there was a stone wall with an altar upon which parishioners placed religious offerings. A dozen or more tall, glass-encased candles lit the scene. Samantha lay beneath them like a nonvirgin sacrifice. Her hands and ankles were bound, a handkerchief gag bit into her mouth and her clothes hung in tatters on her mostly nude body. She was the antithesis of purity.

Stalb loomed over her, taking a wicked-looking knife from a sheath at his waist.

Marc trained his Glock on the back of the man’s head, but Samantha didn’t give him the chance to pull the trigger. As Stalb cut the ropes securing her ankles, she lifted her arms and groped for one of the heavy candles resting on the ledge above her. When he positioned himself between her legs, she brought it down hard on top of his dark head.

Marc ran forward, vaulting over headstones, gun poised to shoot.

Stalb collapsed against Samantha, his body slack. She pushed him off her, but she wasn’t done with him yet. Wielding the glass-encased candle like a bludgeon, she bashed it into the back of his skull, again and again and again.

By the time Marc reached them, Kurtis Stalb was good and dead.

Samantha looked up at him, tears streaming down her pretty face, shards of glass and colored wax in her bloody hands.

Kneeling beside her, he cut the gag away from her trembling mouth.

“He killed my sister,” she said, her blue eyes opaque with shock. Without another word, she fainted in his arms.

W
hen Samantha celebrated her thirtieth day of sobriety, Sidney threw her a party at the beach.

For Samantha, recovery didn’t happen right away, and it didn’t come easily. Between the divorce, the media attention and the police investigation of Kurtis Stalb’s death, she had several relapses. In the end, the case was quietly closed, even though the medical examiner’s findings regarding overkill didn’t exactly match up with the witnesses’ accounts of self-defense.

Marc wasn’t fired because of his relationship with Sidney, but he was demoted from lieutenant to detective and ordered to take six weeks unpaid leave. After returning to work, he began six months of desk duty, a fate worse than death, to hear him tell it. When this penance was paid, he would be repartnered with Detective Lacy-as her subordinate officer.

Deputy Chief Stokes had really outdone herself creating an apropos punishment.

Looking at Marc now, laughing with Samantha and the girls, Sidney couldn’t see any signs of discontent. His shoulders were relaxed, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his white shirt and dark skin contrasting brilliantly against the blue October sky. He’d accepted his fate with equanimity, claiming he’d have done a lifetime of desk duty, or even traffic detail, in exchange for Sidney’s safety.

Greg and his secretary broke up after the divorce papers were filed, much to Samantha’s amusement. Although he wanted Samantha back, she was abstaining from relationships as well as drugs and alcohol.

Sidney couldn’t have been happier for her sister, or more proud.

“Isn’t it time for the cake, dear?” her mother asked, snapping her out of her reverie.

“Hmm,” she said, making no move to get up. The sun was warm, the breeze was cool and the scenery was excellent. She’d never seen such a collection of fabulous-looking people. It was hard to believe that she and some of them were related.

“Why don’t I take care of it?” her mother offered with a secretive little smile. “I think your young man wants to talk to you.”

Over the past few months, Marc had charmed Aurelia Morrow with simple flattery and impeccable manners. Sidney found his gallantry disingenuous, but Aurelia ate it up with a spoon, proving herself no more immune to him than any other female. Sidney had also noticed him talking to her father this afternoon, some deep, manly conversation made up of stern eyebrows, gruff tones and firm handshakes.

Sidney placed a hand over her lower abdomen. Did he know?

At that very moment, his eyes met hers, with that same spark of electricity she’d felt the first time she saw him. As his gaze traveled down her body, to the hand resting on her belly, the smile fell off his face.

He did know.

“Maybe you’re right,” she said with apprehension, rising from her chair to stand on rubbery legs. She tugged on the hem of her knee-length yellow sundress, wondering what had possessed her to buy it. It was a whimsical, feminine creation she’d worn to please her sister. Now she felt awkward, barefoot and silly, like a little girl playing dress-up.

Marc approached her leisurely, his hands still buried in his pockets, his expression guarded. “Want to go for a walk?”

Behind his back, her sister winked and made an okay sign, as if she thought they were wandering off for a quickie and she approved of the idea.

“Sure,” Sidney said, smoothing her skirt again.

A few yards down the beach, he took her hand in his, a gesture that never failed to tug at her heartstrings. Blinking back the hot sting of tears, she looked out at the setting sun over the Pacific, its last rays casting brilliant golden light across that infinite expanse.

“I was going to tell you,” she said in a nervous rush, “but everything’s been going so well and I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“Tell me what?” he asked, pulling her toward him.

She stared at him without speaking, too anxious to be articulate.

“Why don’t you tell me later,” he murmured, brushing his lips across hers.

She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck, gripping fistfuls of his shirt, wishing she could hold onto him forever.

“Hey,” he said softly. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered.

He jerked his head back to look at her. “You’re what?” Any notion that he’d already guessed was dispelled by his wide-eyed, slack-jawed expression. “You’re what?”

She couldn’t make herself repeat it.

“You said you weren’t.”

“I wasn’t. Now I am.”

“We haven’t even…”

“Yes we have.”

His gaze dropped to her mouth, then her breasts, then her belly. She knew without asking that he was remembering the only time they’d failed to use protection since that first tempestuous week together.

About a month ago, they’d spent a steamy afternoon in bed. He kissed every inch of her body, worshipping her with his tongue, rousing her to a fever pitch. Instead of bringing her to climax, he begged her to do it herself while he watched, and she complied shyly, enthralled by his interest. After having lost the last of her inhibitions, she’d wanted him all over her, between her legs, between her breasts, in her mouth.

He’d obliged her thoroughly, dipping his engorged shaft inside her, pushing her breasts together and pleasuring himself there, plumbing the depths of her mouth. At last, he’d brought her to another orgasm with a series of slow, deep thrusts, before he withdrew, spilling himself on her quivering stomach.

The memory of that interlude was enough to make her body flush with embarrassment and arousal, even now.

“I pulled out,” he said unnecessarily.

She smiled. “This may come as a surprise to you, but medical professionals don’t consider that method particularly reliable.”

Her humor was lost on him, perhaps because he was staring at her breasts intently, as if trying to find some visual evidence of her condition. Against the apex of her thighs, another physical change was developing, pressing hard into her.

“Marc,” she protested, squirming in his arms. He was getting her all hot and bothered, but at sunset, the beach was far from deserted.

“I have to see you,” he said roughly, doing a quick survey of their surroundings. Taking her hand, he pulled her toward an empty lifeguard tower about a hundred feet from them. It wasn’t exactly private, but it would conceal them from all but the most prying eyes.

Blushing, she ascended the ladder ahead of him. The instant they reached the top, he fell to his knees in front of her and pushed her dress up to the waist, exposing her flat tummy.

“I can’t tell,” he said, moistening his lips.

“I’m only a few weeks along.”

He traced her navel with his fingertip then brushed his knuckles back and forth over her lower abdomen.

She sucked in a sharp breath.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“Have you been sick?”

“Not yet.”

“Knowing you, you will be.”

She couldn’t laugh or cry or even breathe comfortably, so she leaned her head back against the tower wall and closed her eyes.

He reached up to slip the straps of her dress off her shoulders, lowering the stretchy cotton bodice. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

Cupping one breast gently, he said, “Your nipples are darker.”

“Yes,” she agreed, thinking she might die if he stopped touching her.

“It’s barely noticeable, but now that I know…” He circled her swollen areola slowly. “Are you sensitive?”

“Yes.” The tips of her breasts were tight and aching, pouting for his attention. When he laved each one with his tongue, she gasped, thrusting her fingers into his hair.

Murmuring something unintelligible, he slid his hand up her inner thigh until he reached her panties. Stroking her through the fabric, he asked, “What about here?”

“Yes,” she moaned.

“I mean, are you sensitive here, too?”

“No more than usual.”

“So as long as I’m gentle, I can still touch you like this?” He slid his fingers into her panties, parting the damp petals of her sex and caressing her gingerly. “And like this?”

“If you don’t stop being gentle,” she panted, “I’m going to kill you.”

He stripped her panties away and released the buttons on his fly, freeing his erection. Straddling his thighs, she impaled herself on him, digging her fingernails into the fabric of his shirt and biting down on her lower lip to hold back her cry.

His breath was heavy on her neck, his hands hot on her bare bottom. Beneath her fingertips, his shoulders trembled. “You feel so-”

“Yes.” She arched up, pushing against the floor with her bare feet and sliding back down along the length of his shaft.

Groaning, he braced one hand behind her and lifted his hips, pressing her back against the wall, thrusting hard, driving deep.

“More,” she urged, tightening her legs around him. “More.”

Giving her what she wanted, what she needed, he drove into her harder, faster, deeper. He loved her fiercely and filled her completely, giving everything, holding nothing back. When he stiffened, she exploded in pleasure, throwing her head back and crying out his name as he buried himself in her one last time.

When she caught her breath a moment later, he was sprawled underneath her, their bodies entwined in a tangled heap on the whitewashed floor. Now that the blood was returning to his brain, he probably didn’t find her pregnancy half as sexy as before. In her limited experience, a man with a hard-on had a lot of stupid ideas.

Crawling off him, she righted her clothing in silence.

“My mother will be delighted,” he said finally.

“What about you? How do you feel?”

“I don’t know,” he groaned, refastening his pants and straightening. “I never had any brothers or sisters. I’ve never been around a-” he swallowed “-baby.”

Her mood plummeted. “This sounds remarkably like your argument for disliking dogs.”

“I’m getting along with Blue now, aren’t I?”

He had adopted the dog, with an exaggerated display of reluctance. Sidney knew the pair had forged some kind of bond, even though Marc didn’t coddle him or really even pet him from what she could see. In return, Blue tolerated Marc with stoic apathy. It was a strange, if peaceful, coexistence.

God forbid she and Marc circle around each other the same way. “I don’t want you to ‘get along’ with it. I want you to want it.”

“I want you,” he said, giving her honesty instead of promises. He reached out to clasp her hand. “Marry me.”

She jerked away. “No.”

“No?”

“You heard me.”

He gaped at her incredulously. “Why?”

Instead of answering, she scrambled down the ladder, desperate to put some space between them before she fell apart. She jogged down the beach, her bare feet finding uneasy purchase on the shifting sand, tears blurring her vision.

“Why?” he repeated when he caught up with her. Wrapping his fingers around her upper arms, he asked again, his voice low with desperation. “Why?”

“I don’t want to be your burden,” she said, trying to stifle a sob.

“Your obligation.”

“You could never be that. I love you.”

“You only want to marry me so our child won’t be a b-” She stuttered over the ugly word, then blurted it out, “a bastard.”

He released her immediately, a cold glint in his eyes. “Then why do I have this?” From his pocket, he pulled out a black velvet box and shoved it at her. With that, he left her standing on the sand, her mouth hanging open in shock.

She opened the box with shaking hands. A square-cut diamond sparkled from an elegant setting on a simple platinum band.

“Oh,” she gasped, clapping it shut. “Oh, no.”

She ran after him, her heart threatening to burst from her chest.

“I’m sorry,” she said, biting her lip to keep from giggling. Nowadays especially, humor struck her at odd times. “But you said you wouldn’t stay, and I believed you.”

He stopped to look at her. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No,” he protested. “Even then, I knew I could never leave you, but I was afraid to let myself…need you.”

She put her arms around him, tears looming close behind her eyes once again. “I need you,” she whispered, stroking her fingers through his hair. “I love you,” she added, kissing his tense mouth. “And I would be honored to marry you.”

He took her hand in his. “Are you sure?”

She met his eyes, whiskey-brown in the light of the setting sun. “Are you?”

He placed her palm over the center of his chest. “You tell me.”

His heartbeat thumped beneath her hand, fast and strong and true. Any misgivings he had weren’t about her, or the baby, but himself.

“I can’t promise I’ll be good at this,” he warned. “I work all the time. I never had a family. I never really had a father.”

Love welled up inside her, washing away her hesitation. “Don’t promise anything,” she whispered. “Just stay.”

Falling to his knees before her, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his face into her stomach. When he inhaled a shuddering breath, the tears she’d been fighting spilled over onto her cheeks, and she slid her hands into his hair, holding him to her.

He didn’t say he would love her forever, but she knew it by the way he brushed a reverent kiss against her belly, saw it in his trembling shoulders and felt it in the strength of his embrace.

In the end, the promise he made remained unspoken, but she heard it all the same.

***

Dear Reader,

Dangerous to Touch
is my first published book, and I’m thrilled to be sharing this experience with you, my first readers! I hope you enjoy getting to know my characters as much as I enjoyed creating them.

With Sidney Morrow, I really connected to the idea of her being an outcast. I think we’ve all had trouble fitting in at some point or another, and as a rebellious, bookish adolescent, I felt especially out of place. Immersing myself in the world of romance, where I was always welcome, made for a great escape.

Here’s hoping that
Dangerous to Touch
provides a warm welcome and great escape for those who need it as much as I did.