On Pins and Needles (15 page)

But whether it was enough for the stallion to hear, or that the slight movement had drawn his attention, the mustang's ears perked up and his head tilted in their direction. He froze like that for just a split second, then he lunged sideways away from that spot and his lady-love.

Apparently it was a signal to them all because the mare followed fast on his heels and so did the rest of the horses. Suddenly the whole herd was in motion, a symphony of long, graceful legs carrying dark streaks through the night, back the way they'd come, back into the shadows, into the hills, the sound of their hooves receding until nothing was left but the quiet and still ness again.

“Looks like I blew it,” Josh said then, his voice a normal timbre now that it didn't matter anymore.

“Maybe they'll come back,” Megan said even though
she knew they wouldn't. It was just that she was loathe to break the close ness she was sharing with Josh, loathe to lose the warm cocoon of his body.

“Nah, once they're spooked they'll stay away,” he said.

But he must not have been any more eager to move from the relative seclusion of that spot than Megan was because he didn't budge. Instead he stayed there, holding her against him from behind.

“Are you cold?” he asked then, as if that might be the deciding factor.

The three-trunk tree seemed to provide some insulation and that, coupled with Josh's body, was enough to keep the chill of the night air away. Still though, Megan knew she should say she was freezing so they could go back to his car, back to town, and to their separate homes without anything more happening between them.

But what she knew and what she wanted were two different things….

“No, I'm not cold at all. What about you?” she asked, thinking that maybe he'd have the will power she lacked and that she'd offer him the opportunity to use it.

But rather than exhibiting any signs of it, he said, “Nope. Feelin' fine. Just fine,” and not only was his tone full of innuendo, his arms tightened around her to pull her even closer against him.

The last of her tension seemed to have fled with the mustangs and all that remained was a sense of utter contentment. Of course she recognized that that was the last thing she should be feeling with Josh Brimley,
but her contentment was so complete that she couldn't make herself care any more than she could make herself push away from him.

And in response to that contentment, Megan let her head rest against his shoulder.

“This is nice,” she said quietly.

“I come out here when I need to get away. To forget about things for a while.”

“It works.”

“I know.”

And maybe what they were both for get ting was that they shouldn't be doing this.

But there was a deep richness to Josh's voice that told her that holding her like that was having as much effect on him as it was on her. Which was no small thing as the faint scent of his after shave tantalized her, as her body seemed to melt into his, as her thoughts turned to more than merely standing there….

His thoughts must have been going in the same direction because he kissed the side of her neck then.

His mouth was like velvet as he lingered there, his breath warm and soft. It was nothing really. And yet it was enough to set off a rain of glitter that went all through her as he kissed a path upward, each soft touch of his mouth another infusion of that glitter until, by the time he brought his hand to cup her cheek and turn her head to him, Megan felt as if she were spark ling on the inside.

His mouth came over hers, his lips already parted in a kiss that wasn't teasing or playful or tentative tonight. A kiss that was serious from the start.

Which was exactly how Megan answered it, parting her own lips in welcome, moving in his arms so she was more accessible, raising a hand to the side of his face.

His tongue began an exploration of the tender inner edges of her lips. Of the very tips of her teeth. Of her tongue. Searching. Seeking a partner.

And Megan was only too willing to oblige. To meet him halfway, to do the dance they did so well together even if they were new to it.

She was only too willing for anything and everything. For being pressed into the cradle of one eminently able arm. For the feathery strokes of the hand that had eased her face around for his kiss and now worked its way along the column of her neck, easing downward so slowly it was nearly imperceptible.

Too slowly, actually. Because there was nothing Megan wanted more at that moment than to be touched by him. Than to have his hands on her. On her bare flesh. On her breasts.

Breasts that were straining for attention. Crying for it. For him.

Megan trailed her own hand from his face to the strong cords of his neck, to his collarbone, to the hard bulge of his pectorals.

She didn't mean it as a hint but only in response to her own thoughts of where she wanted his hand to be. And even if she had intended it as a hint it didn't matter because Josh kept his own pace in the soothing stroke of fingertips that glided along her neck, that dipped into the hollow of her throat, that traced her breast bone only to the V of her sweater and back again as his mouth opened
wide over hers and their kisses grew more feverish, more fervent, more frenzied.

Feverish and fervent and frenzied enough so that what had begun as a yearning for him to reach her breasts became a need so deep it turned her nipples into hardened knots that ached for his attention.

This time it was by design that she let her own hand slip inside the open collar of Josh's shirt, toying with the buttons until they opened. One by one. Until she could reach inside to his bare chest.

But what had started as his cue changed almost instantly to her own pleasure as she made contact with his satin-over-steel skin, with the slight smattering of coarse hair, with his own male nibs kerneling beneath her fingers.

Not only was he spectacular but it was as if there was a sensuality simmering just beneath the surface. A sensuality that, once un leashed, made every inch of him feel charged with it. Charging her with it in return. And Megan
was
charged with it. That glitter he'd sent through her with his first kiss seemed to burst like fire works on the Fourth of July, awakening every sense, every nerve ending Megan possessed.

As if Josh knew just how ready she was, that was when his hand made a more purposeful descent, finding its way inside the V neck of her sweater, inside the lacy cup of her bra.

Maybe this was why women gave up wearing bras altogether, she thought. Because she wanted so much for it to disappear, for Josh to be able to touch her without any restraint.

Not that that restraint mattered much, though, when he finally cupped her breast in the warm kid-leather of his palm. When he began to knead that oh-so-alive globe and tease her yearning nipple with adept fingers that gently rolled it, pinched it, followed the ultra-sensitive aureole with just the bare tips.

It felt so good. So, so incredibly good that Megan had to tear her mouth away from his just to take in more air as all he was arousing in her robbed her of breath.

But as if he wasn't already driving her wild enough, his mouth began the same downward trip his hand had taken as he raised her breast up and out of her bra, nuzzling her sweater below it at the same time so he could enclose her in the dark cavern of that mouth she'd abandoned.

She couldn't help the moan that escaped her throat in response. Couldn't help digging her fingers slightly into his chest and arching her spine to allow him a freer course.

She was nearly out of her mind with wanting him. With wanting all of him in a way she'd never felt so in tensely before. Not even with Noel.

Noel…

Oh, what an awful time for him to invade her thoughts!

But once he had there came with him the memory of how different the two of them had been. The reminder that they'd been as different as she and Josh were.

And how much she'd been hurt by those differences in the past. How much she could be hurt by the differences between her and Josh now. Especially if she let
this go where her entire body, her entire being, was crying out for it to go.

But how could she deny herself the wonders he was evoking with his hands, with his mouth, with his body pressed against hers?

Not easily, that was for sure.

But as much as she wanted him, as much as she wanted more of him, that's how afraid she was of being hurt by him the way she'd been hurt by Noel.

So she drew in a deep breath and breathed it out in a shaky exhalation before saying, “I think we better stop.”

Josh did just that, although not abruptly enough to make it easy for Megan to stick to her resolve. He pressed a heated kiss to the crest of her breast bone, then to the hollow of her throat again, then to the side of her neck just below her jaw, then to her chin and finally one last kiss to her lips as he pulled her so close that her bared breast pressed to his chest where it was exposed by his shirt front.

“Should I not have done that? Should I apologize?” he asked in a raspy whisper, dropping his brow to the top of her head.

“No. I wanted…” She almost said
I wanted you
but caught herself and amended it to, “There's nothing to apologize for. I just didn't want it to go too far.”

Josh nodded and she wasn't sure whether the nod meant that he agreed that they shouldn't go too far or just to let her know he under stood now why she'd called a halt to what had been happening between them.

“Guess the mustangs weren't the only wild things out here tonight,” he joked.

Megan managed a weak smile but it required effort as her blood went on racing through her veins as if the message that it should slow down hadn't yet reached it. “Maybe it's some thing in the air.”

Josh didn't say anything for a moment and Megan had the feeling that, like her, he was still working to control himself and whatever it was he was dealing with in the after math of her abrupt ending.

Then, sounding reluctant but resigned, he said, “Probably be better if we got out of the air before it does any more damage.”

The same damage that was being done by remaining in his arms, by the continuing warmth of his breath in her hair, by having the rock-solid magnificence of his body all around her. The damage that could be done by giving in to the temptation to tell him she hadn't meant it when she'd told him to stop, to say
never mind, just go back to what you were doing….

“It probably would be better if we got out of the night air,” she agreed in a voice without much conviction.

Yet neither of them moved even then. Instead they stayed the way they were, entwined, their clothes askew and bare flesh still pressed to bare flesh in a way that felt so right…

And if ever there had been anything in her life more difficult than pushing away from him, Megan didn't know what it was.

But she knew she had to do it now or she never would, so she tilted her chin to kiss his Adam's apple and then
drew back, doing her best to rearrange her bra and sweater as she did.

This time it was Josh who took a long, deep pull of air and sighed it out before he refastened the buttons on his own shirt.

Neither of them said anything then. Or as they walked back to his car. Or on the drive to her house.

And when Josh pulled to a stop in front of it Megan opened the passenger door before he could even think about turning off the engine and got out rather than risk a good-night kiss that she might not have the where-with alto end tonight.

But he wouldn't let her go that easily.

He rolled down his window and called to her just as she reached the porch steps, and Megan had to turn to face him again.

“It's a good thing you didn't want an apology because I'm not sorry,” he said.

“I only wish I was,” Megan answered in a voice that was barely above a whisper before she turned back around and ran for the house.

And it was true, she
did
wish she were sorry about what they'd shared just moments earlier.

If she had been maybe it wouldn't have been so difficult to leave him behind.

And maybe she wouldn't have had to take with her such a fierce craving for more of it that she couldn't get comfortable in her own bed.

M
EGAN SPENT
F
RIDAY AT
her office. Annissa had gone to Denver to see an old friend and wouldn't be back until late Sunday so Megan needed to man the fort. Which wasn't bad because besides answering the phone to schedule appointments for them both, she also had two acupuncture clients drop in for treatments.

It didn't make for a rushed and harried day but she was busy most of it. Busy enough so that she could have—
should
have—not spent it thinking about Josh almost every minute. Wondering where he was. What he was doing. If he might call or come by at any moment. Wishing he would.

Of course she told herself she was worried about what he might be doing in regards to the investigation and in pursuit of her parents. But deep down she knew that wasn't the real reason he was on her mind.

The real reason was that somehow, in the short time she'd known him, some thing had happened and now it was as if he were a part of her every thought, her every breath, her every heart beat.

She didn't want that to be the case and she tried to
deny it, but that day was evidence of just how true it was because even though he wasn't with her in body, he was still with her in spirit. Each detail of his jaw-droppingly handsome face was an intriguing picture in her mind's eye. His dark bourbon voice was an imaginary whisper in her ear. His lips seemed to have left a permanent imprint on hers. And having his arms around her, his hands on her body the way they'd been the night before? That was a nearly over whelming craving that kept sneaking up on her when she least expected it.

Like as dusk was falling and she was ready to close the office. That craving hit her again, pushing her to go home by way of the court house, to drop in on him.

She had the perfect excuse. She could say she just wanted to know what he'd been up to all day and if he'd found out anything more that took suspicions off her parents.

But that's all it would be—an excuse—because what she was really after was seeing Josh himself.

She knew it would do her good to go a full day and night without that. That it might even help get him out of her system if she didn't have yet another evening with him inflaming her already intense attraction to him. But it didn't help curb that craving once it began.

She was still sitting behind her desk, arguing with herself about what to do when the phone rang. Yes, her first thought and her greatest—if unbidden—hope was that it would be Josh on the other end of the line.

But that wasn't who it was.

It was her mother's voice, sounding only slightly less
distant and diffused than her father's had when they'd spoken days before.

“Is that you, Megan?”

“Yes, it's me,” she confirmed. “I'm so glad you called! Is the weather better there?”

“It's still raining but not the way it was when your dad talked to you. He said he promised that we'd get back to you, though, so I thought I'd try again now that the storm isn't completely raging.”

“Did he tell you what's going on?” Megan asked, needing to raise her voice to make sure it was heard over the static that was still in the back ground of this call the way it had been in the other one.

“He told me what you told him.”

Megan was grateful that she didn't have to fill her mother in and use their time rehashing what she'd already gone over with her father.

“I don't know how long I'll be able to talk,” her mother said then. “I'm on a ship-to-shore and you're conferenced in from there, and the weather is still interfering.”

“I'll get right to it, then. You guys need to get hold of the sheriff here so he can inter view you. Let me give you his name and number right off the bat in case we get cut off.”

Megan did just that, surprised that merely saying Josh's name was enough to set off a flutter in the pit of her stomach.

But she tried to ignore it and when she'd given her mother Josh's information, she said, “I have to warn you, he's very interested in why you didn't sell out when you
left Elk Creek and where you got the money to travel since you didn't.”

“We didn't have all that much money. We'd been saving since we decided to go and we just figured that when that ran out we'd work along the way.”

“That's what I thought. I told him you probably didn't sell the farm because you wanted it to stay in the family.”

“That's why, yes. But even if we'd wanted to sell we couldn't have. Real estate of any kind wasn't selling then and even people who tried to find buyers weren't having any luck.”

“Was there anyone in particular financial trouble that you know of?”

“Well…” her mother said, clearly thinking about that. “There were the Brown wells down the road. Their cattle contracted some kind of virus and most of the animals had to be destroyed, which nearly wiped them out, as I recall. And there were the Shaunesseys. They'd been struggling for a long time and when they finally decided to give up and sell, they couldn't. Their place was still on the market when we left and they were picking up work around town, doing whatever anyone would pay them to do to get by. I know that their problems finding a buyer caused the Murphys next door to come to us when they wanted to sell out and ask if we might be interested in expanding our place. But I don't think they were having money trouble so much as that they'd just gotten too old to work that hard anymore.”

“I haven't heard of any Brown wells or Shaunesseys but Mabel Murphy is still here.”

“No? She's alive? She must be ancient by now.” The static seemed to be getting worse but the call wasn't breaking up the way so much of the one from her father had.

“Mabel is pretty old,” Megan told her mother. “She's spry, though. Her husband died a few years ago and she lives there alone, but she seems to do pretty well by herself. The house needs paint and some repairs but she's cooking and cleaning and baking and getting around under her own steam.”

“Good for her!”

“Maybe they just quit working their place and decided to stay after all.”

“Maybe. And maybe you and Nissa should see if you could paint or do some repairs if she needs it now. She was always good to you girls.”

“I thought about that. Oh, and I forgot to tell Dad that Mabel still has that hall tree he made for her. She hides her love letters in it.”

A burst of static cut off her mother's laughter and assaulted Megan's ear, preventing her from hearing anything for a moment.

When it had died down some, Megan said, “Did either you or Dad remember anything else about Pete Chaney that might get you off the hook here?”

“We've talked about it and talked about it since your dad called you, but there just isn't anything else to say. Pete worked for us for a while and, as far as I know, left when we did.”

More static sounded, lasting longer this time than the last.

“Sounds like we're going to lose this connection, honey,” her mother said, having to nearly shout. “Before we do, tell me how you and Nissa are doing.”

“We're fine,” Megan yelled in return. “Nissa's getting in a few more clients than I am right now but I think it will even out once word gets around.” Which reminded her that she had yet another reason to talk to Josh—to see if his acupuncture had worked. “How about you and Dad? Is everything okay?”

“Last night we flashed flood lights on a midnight dumping of solvents from another ship. Stopped them cold. It was wonderful!” The excitement in her mother's voice was audible even over the static. But then she said, “I'm going to have to hang up, Megan. Tell your sheriff we'll get to him when we can and—”

The line went dead just then and after calling for her mother several times to make sure she really was gone, Megan hung up.

She sat for a moment with the thought that she now had a genuine reason to stop by Josh's office—she needed to report her mother's phone call to him.

Not that she couldn't do that over the phone, which would avoid the risks that were inherent in being with him.

But she knew she wasn't just going to call him. That she wasn't going to do anything that kept her from seeing him in the flesh. So to speak.

So she stood and pushed her chair in, resigned to her own weakness when it came to the man and wondering if it was the same kind of weakness her parents had for
each other or the same kind of weakness that kept Mabel Murphy hiding old love letters in the hall tree.

For some reason once the image of the hall tree was in her mind she couldn't shake it. It seemed to niggle at her.

Strange, she thought, not understanding it.

Then her conversation with her mother popped into her thoughts, too, and it all felt like pieces of a puzzle that were important even though she wasn't sure how they fit together.

Until, out of the blue, she recalled some thing else. Some thing that made several things fall into place all of a sudden.

“Oh, no. Don't make this be how it was,” she lamented as if she weren't alone in the office.

But the longer she thought about it, the more convinced she was that she knew who had buried Pete Chaney in her backyard.

And as much as she wanted to see Josh, seeing him under
these
circumstances was not at all what she'd had in mind.

 

“Are you going to tell me yet why we're here?” Josh asked as they got out of their respective cars half an hour later.

Megan had gone by his office and re quested that he follow her but she hadn't told him why. She hadn't told him anything at all. She hadn't wanted to do much talking one way or another as she mulled what was on her mind.

“I'm hoping there are some reasonable explanations,”
was her only answer to Josh's question about why they were where they were as they climbed the porch steps of the paint-peeled farm house where lights shone through the living room window like welcoming beacons.

Welcoming beacons that made Megan feel worse.

She rang the doorbell, waiting without looking at Josh standing tall and straight beside her because she didn't want to be distracted by him and she knew just one glance would do that.

Mabel Murphy opened the door without asking who was there and smiled cheerily when she recognized them.

“What a nice surprise!” she said.

“Can we talk to you?” Megan asked by way of greeting, the serious tone of her voice giving away the fact that she wasn't on a social call.

Mabel's expression sobered. “Of course,” she said somewhat more formally as she stepped aside to allow them in.

The house was as warm and inviting as it had been when they'd been there before and for a moment Megan considered keeping the conclusion she'd come to to herself.

If it hadn't been her own parents who would be left in jeopardy if she did, that's exactly what she might have done. But as it was she let Mabel lead them into the living room, shoring up her courage along the way.

The elderly woman turned off the television that was blaring with a game show, and into the silence that followed, she said, “Can I get you both some thing to drink? Coffee? Tea? A glass of wine?”

Josh and Megan declined the offer and it occurred to Megan that Josh was unusually subdued, taking the role of observer until he knew exactly what was going on.

“What did you want to talk about?” Mabel asked then, settling into her over stuffed lounger as Megan and Josh sat on the couch—Megan on the very edge of the cushion as if she didn't have the right to be more comfortable than that.

“I spoke to my mother just a little while ago and some things she told me started me to thinking,” Megan began.

She told both Mabel and Josh about her conversation with her mother, about learning that some of Elk Creek's residents had been in financial trouble when her family had left town but had been unable to sell their property even when they needed to. That the Murphys in particular had wanted her family to buy them out.

“My folks just thought that you and Mr. Murphy had reached a time in your life when you didn't want to work as hard as you needed to to keep the place going. But after I got off the phone I started wondering if maybe that wasn't true. If maybe you'd been in financial trouble, too.”

Megan waited and watched Mabel. But the elderly woman's expression was perfectly calm.

Hoping she was wrong in what she was thinking, Megan continued.

“Then I remembered some thing else. Two things, actually. I remembered that the man who'd sold the gold doubloons in Cheyenne eighteen years ago had been an
older man with a limp, and I remembered you showing us the hall tree my dad had carved for you, that antique umbrellas weren't the only things you kept in it.”

Megan pointed to the seated hall tree that was visible through the archway to the living room. “I recalled also seeing walking sticks in it. And then it occurred to me that walking sticks and canes are basically the same thing. And that canes are used by people with limps.”

Megan felt rather than saw Josh's interest pique at that.

“You don't need any help getting around,” Megan observed. “So when I saw the walking sticks—the canes—earlier, I assumed you just collected them. But now I'm wondering if Mr. Murphy needed them.”

Mabel took a deep breath that raised her frail shoulders and lowered them again when she sighed it out. Then she smiled. Still perfectly calmly. As if she'd been waiting for this to happen for a long while and was well-prepared.

“Horace fell from the barn loft the year before that year you're so interested in. Broke his hip. We hadn't been doing well financially for a few years so we'd dropped our medical insurance coverage and without it we couldn't afford the hip replacement surgery he should have had. The hip just had to heal and it left him with a limp. He also ended up not bein' able to work the place the way he had. Which left us in very hard times.”