Roan (35 page)

“And until then?”

“You do the best you can.”

She looked away from him, back out over the water. “I don't know what I'm going to do. There's so much that will have to be taken care of, so many business decisions to be made about Paul's holdings and investments. I suspect there may be other irregularities he's been involved in that will come to light. Longtime business rivals, and even friends, may try to take advantage of this crisis within his company.”

Roan didn't even hesitate. “You can handle it.”

“I'm not sure I want to do that.”

“There's no one else. Besides, it was all built, appar
ently, from your mother's estate. That makes it yours. No one else has the right to say what happens to it.”

That was undoubtedly true, but it wasn't what she had expected. What had she wanted from him? An offer to help her with the problems, to see her through the morass of legal and financial details that lay ahead of her? But to what end? He had no use for the pretentious life-style her stepfather had lived.

Roan belonged in Turn-Coupe where life was placid and good, and evil, when it existed, was of a plain and outright kind. He had a job to do there, duties to perform, people who depended on him. That came first. Of course it did.

She turned her head, staring at him in the moonlit dimness. His features were so firm and sure, his shoulders so straight even as he sat behind the wheel. More than any man she'd ever known, he was certain of who and what he was and made no excuses for it, no allowances for straying from it. He was what had once been known as a good man, upright, honest, scorning to be anything other than the way he was born and shaped by the family who had brought him up and the land where he lived.

He was everything she loved, and always would, even if he never heard her say it. She'd known it before, when she'd thought she was going to die. It was even stronger now, when she was sure she was going to live.

She spoke without thinking, without plan or any real purpose beyond the deep, instinctive need. “Stay with me tonight.”

“If that's what you want.” The words were even, with no hint of anything behind them other than the courteous agreement to a lady's request.

“I mean…”

“You need to know that somebody is around besides the housekeeper,” he said in interruption. “Don't worry, I
won't misunderstand. I won't take advantage of the situation.”

It wasn't what she'd needed at all. To say so was impossible, however; his remote attitude made it clear that he had no desire to take advantage, even if the chance were offered.

“What about tomorrow?” she asked. “Do I need to go with you to Louisiana to take care of the paperwork on whatever might be pending there?”

“There's no reason for you to be inconvenienced any further. I'll take care of it.”

“Thank you,” she said, the words toneless. So much for that excuse.

She had the sudden feeling that she was going to cry. She didn't want him to see it; the last thing she needed was his pity. Reaching for the car door, she stepped out. He climbed out as well, and walked around to shut the door and take her arm. The housekeeper must have seen them drive up and been waiting for them to come inside, for she opened the door and held it while they walked into the foyer.

“Thank you, Maria, that will be all. No, wait,” she said, turning to Roan. “Would you like something to eat, or maybe a drink? It's been a long evening.”

He shook his head. “I'm fine. If you'll just point me to the spare bed.”

That was certainly putting it plainly. “Yes. Fine. Maria will show you the way. I'll just…say good night, then.”

“Good night,” he answered, his voice quiet and deep.

She turned from him, moving blindly toward her bedroom. When she had taken three or four steps, he called behind her.

“Tory?”

She turned back, her gaze not quite focused. “Yes?”

He said no more while long seconds ticked past and Maria waited to escort him to the opposite wing of the house. Finally, he answered, “Nothing.”

She forced a smile. “Sleep as late as you like in the morning. Maria will have breakfast for you whenever you're ready.”

“Thank you,” he replied, his voice gravely polite and nothing more.

She didn't answer, but walked away with her head held high.

It was a long time before she fell asleep. She only managed it, at last, because she made a decision. She did not intend to allow a stubborn backcountry sheriff to dictate what she would and would not do. With daylight, she intended to come to an understanding with Roan Benedict.

But when she'd dressed next morning and run lightly down the stairs, the breakfast room was empty. The guest room bed had not been slept in, and there was no Tunica Parish police unit sitting on the drive.

Roan was gone.

T
he evening was velvet soft. Roan stood with his shoulder against one of the thick white columns that supported the back gallery of Kane's place, The Haven. Cigar smoke wafted around him from the Cuban Cohiba Panatelas Kane had finally passed out in honor of his daughter's birth. This after-dinner visit was the first time they'd had a chance to get together in more than a month. Kane had been sticking close to his wife and baby, with little time to spare for male company. Not that Roan blamed him. Little Courtney Morgan Benedict was a beautiful mite, with the most amazing cap of fiery red curls anyone in Turn-Coupe had ever seen.

Behind him, the voices of Luke, Kane, Clay and Pop blended in a deep bass rumbling punctuated now and then by Jake's unreliable falsetto. They'd been talking about how the plan to have a gaming boat on Horseshoe Lake had fallen through and now had about as much chance of being revived as the old drive-in theater. When they segued into fishing tales, Roan stopped listening. He had other things on his mind.

“Hey, Roan, you heard anything from Tory?”

It was Clay who asked. Roan glanced over his shoulder
at his cousin with a frown between his brows before he answered, “Not since I got back.”

“Well, hell, Roan. Have you called her?”

He looked back at the lake glinting through the trees. “I've been busy, catching up. And so has she.”

“Right.” The word was dry. “For a whole month. Or is it six weeks?”

“It's too damn long,” Roan's dad complained. “Lord, I miss that girl.”

Roan felt a squeezing around his heart, a sensation that had become so common since he got back from Florida that he was almost used to it. He missed her, too. Memories of Tory were everywhere he looked at Dog Trot. The house seemed darker, dustier and emptier since she'd gone. Beau sometimes howled at the time in the evening when Tory used to walk with him, putting his head back and letting his long wail of misery and longing echo from the woods around the house. Roan wished he could do the same.

“Saw her a couple of days ago,” Pop said, his voice contemplative.

Roan swung around. “You what? Where?”

“Saw her on CNN. They did a report about Vandergraff and Melanka and how they were mixed up in a money-laundering operation involving three states and a half-dozen islands and countries—allegedly, of course. They showed Tory leaving the courthouse after the arraignment of the creeps, and ran back over all the stuff about her kidnapping in connection with the case. The news folks tried to get a statement from her, but our Tory just walked through the whole kit and caboodle like they weren't there, head up and proud and every inch a princess.”

“I didn't see anything about it.” Roan's voice was sharper than he'd intended.

“You ought to be retired, like me,” his dad replied with
an expansive smile. “You'd get to watch all the soap operas and round-the-clock news. Anyway, it was a one-hour sensation, shoved off the air by some earthquake overseas.”

It crossed Roan's mind to wonder if his dad was making the whole thing up just to see how he'd react. If so, he must be mighty pleased with himself.

A lot of people around town had made veiled remarks about Tory, as if they thought there must have been something lasting between the two them. They didn't understand the huge gulf between someone like her and a man like him. He hadn't understood entirely himself, until he'd seen Sanibel and the standard set by the houses there. For all the size of the Vandergraff place, it had been no more than a vacation cottage to Tory's stepfather. No telling what the places looked like where she spent the rest of her time.

He'd rather not think about it. It hurt less that way.

“I guess that means the hassle's still not over for Tory, huh?” Jake asked.

Roan shook his head. “The trial could go on for years, counting the appeals. But I expect she's cleared away a lot of the paperwork by now.”

“Maybe she'll come see us.”

“Don't get your hopes up,” he told his son. “Her memories of this place probably aren't the happiest in her life.”

“I bet she'd come if you asked her.”

Roan made no reply.

“The boy's got a point,” Pop said.

“So he does,” Luke agreed.

Kane, watching him with a certain sympathy in his eyes, added, “Never know until you try.”

“Forget it,” Roan said. “It's not happening.”

“Well, why the tarnation not?”

That was Pop, but he was talking to Roan's back. The
sheriff of Tunica Parish stepped off the gallery and walked toward where his patrol unit was parked.

For some things, there were just no answers.

The back porch light was off at Dog Trot when he pulled up in the drive. Jake must not have remembered to turn it on before he and Pop left. Beau didn't come to greet him, either. The dog had been moping around a lot lately. Roan had thought he was just missing the extra attention he'd gotten from Tory, but maybe he was coming down with distemper or heartworm or something. He'd better have Clay take a look at him.

The house was quiet and had a dank, closed-in smell, as if it needed a good airing after the long summer of being shut up tighter than a drum against the heat, or else the air-conditioning filter needed cleaning. He'd have to see to that, too, the first time he had the chance.

It was quite a while since Roan had been alone in the house; usually Pop and Jake were around when he found time to stay home. Of course, he'd been tied down with work these last few weeks. It was amazing how many people had things backed up that they'd wanted him to do while he was occupied with Tory. Sometimes he wondered if they weren't manufacturing errands and requests to keep him busy, as if the whole town were trying to help him forget.

He didn't want to forget. He wanted to remember every detail of how she looked, the way she smiled and the taste and feel of her in his arms. He sometimes thought he could still see her sitting at the kitchen table or on the upper gallery, or else playing with Beau out on the patio with the sunlight on her hair and the warmth of the summer in her eyes. Flashing images of her pain that he'd caused, of their arguments and strained silences, made him ache with re
gret. How he wished that things had been different. Better use could have been made of their time together.

Strange, but he hadn't realized, while she was there, just how much Tory had taken over the house with her presence, or what a huge hole she would leave in his life when she left. Caught between duty and the high voltage of the sexual attraction between them, he hadn't noticed the natural and sweet way she had settled into his life.

He hadn't known how much he loved her.

Not that it would have done him any good if he had realized. They were miles and worlds apart. She wasn't for him. If he told himself that often enough, one day his stupid heart would get the message and stop hurting.

Upstairs, light from the lamp on his bedside table cast a soft glow into the hall. He stopped in the doorway for a second while he went over his movements before he'd left early that morning, the last time he was in the room. He hadn't turned off the lamp that he remembered, but then he didn't remember turning it on, either. He was losing it, or else he needed to have a serious talk with Jake and Pop about the electric bill.

One other possibility existed. Someone else had been there. Or was hiding in the room.

Still, how likely was that? There was precious little worth stealing at Dog Trot. Besides, any burglar with an ounce of sense would know better than to try to rip off the house of the one man in town who was not only armed at all times, but sure to put the whole weight of his office behind apprehending the guilty party. That didn't take his enemies into account, of course—and he'd had a few lowlifes vow revenge. But how likely was it that they'd leave the light on for him when they came to get him? Or that Beau, who was lying in front of the bathroom door, thump
ing his tail on the floor in sleepy welcome, would let them stick around?

Overactive imagination, that was his problem. Like the idea that he could still recall, still almost smell, the lingering scent of the perfume that had clung to the white silk jogging outfit Tory had been wearing the night he shot her.

Roan shook his head with a sigh as he moved on into the bedroom. He spoke a quiet greeting to Beau as removed his badge and stepped over to toss it onto the polished top of the dresser. His radio and the collection of equipment from his belt followed it, as did his wristwatch. He unbuttoned his short-sleeved shirt and pulled it from the waistband of his pants by rote, his thoughts light-years away from what he was doing. Leaving his shirt hanging open, he levered his boots off, one after the other, and set them neatly beside the dresser, next to a nearby chair. Then he shrugged the shirt from his shoulders and tossed it in the general direction of the chair back before turning toward the bathroom.

“Keep going. I like what I've seen so far, but it's just getting interesting.”

“Tory.” That single word sounded every bit as stunned as he felt, Roan was sure. He stared at her as she moved to lean in the bathroom doorway. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and her hair was pulled back in a long ponytail. In her hand was the pistol from his nightstand. He looked from its black bore to her clear, hazel gaze.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to bring your Super Bird home, all shiny and running like new, since it appeared you weren't coming after it.” she answered. “But as long as I was here, I decided you need to find out what it's like to be at someone else's mercy for a change. Come on, take off the rest. Strip for me.”

“Or what? You're going to shoot me?”

“I just may. You can find out what that's like, too.”

He gave a slow shake of his head. “What is this? What's it all about?”

“Call it vengeance. That's as good a reason as any.”

“Because I kept you here as a prisoner?”

“And for that damned, stupid monitor. I hated that thing, and you knew it.”

She was right, though he thought he'd explained his reasons perfectly well at the time. He shook his head again. “I just can't believe you're actually here.”

“You were maybe expecting somebody else?” she inquired, her voice as cool as the look in her eyes.

“God, no. I just never thought…”

“Obviously. I'm the last person you ever thought, or wanted, to see again.”

“I wouldn't say that.” His voice was husky, but he didn't care.

She tilted her head. “Wouldn't you? After the way you ran out on me down on Sanibel? But you aren't going to leave this time, not until we get a few things straight.”

“And that's why you want me naked.”

She gave him back stare for stare. “Why else?”

Why indeed? It was amazing, how disappointed he felt. In the meantime, the pistol was leveled directly at his belly button. He'd like to think that she wouldn't use it. He'd also like to believe that he could disarm her if he wanted, but this wasn't the movies where the hero could walk up to the girl holding a gun and calmly take it out of her hand. Any idiot who tried that in real life could wind up severely disabled, if not downright dead.

On the other hand, he had no intention of walking out on what had all the earmarks of a promising scenario. If Tory wanted to see more of him, he was willing to oblige
her. He put his hands on his belt buckle, manipulating it without taking his gaze from hers as he asked, “What needs straightening out? I thought we were even.”

“Did you now?” Her smile was no more than a slight upturn at one corner of her mouth. “You almost kill me, and to make it right you save my life? Is that what you mean by even? I don't think so. I was kept shut up here for weeks with all sorts of possibilities and promises dangled in front of me. Then you found out who I was and suddenly the future vanished. And so did you. Why was that?”

“Everything was different,” he said as he slid the belt from his pants, then reached for the waistband button. “You were different.”

Her gaze flickered down to what he was doing, then away again. “How? I had a real name and past, but I was the same. It was you. You're the one who changed.”

“Did I really? You lied to me and everyone else in Turn-Coupe. You hid behind that lie while you made fools of us. Then when the time came, you took off without a thought for what we might think or how we might feel.”

“That's not true!”

“I think it is.” He wrenched open the pants button, then jerked the zipper down but left his pants hanging, barely, on his hipbones. “You didn't want or need our help. You preferred the advice of your lawyers and accountants and all the other support people that make up your life. Fine. Understood. Just don't expect us to hang around waiting for you to notice we exist.”

She stared at him a long moment. Then she said, “You used the word
we
but you mean
you,
don't you? You think I don't need you.”

“I know you don't. I saw how you live.”

“Did you? Did you see how lonely I was, or how lost?
Did you notice that there's not a single person in my life that I can love or who will love me back without complications and, most likely, applications of money to keep the relationship running smoothly?”

“So you'll meet a man who has as much money as you do, as well as the same friends, background and ideas. If you're lucky, maybe he'll even have a title.”

“Do you think any of that matters to me?” she cried. “What I want is a family. I want people around who relate to me because of who I am inside, not who my grandfather was or what I own! I want someone to belong to and who belongs to me. I want…”

She stopped abruptly, and Roan hated that. The feeling that he was about to hear something important was so strong that he asked softly, “You want what? Or should I say who?”