Sooner or Later (23 page)

Letty knew that Murphy
was worried about her. She’d killed a man. She hadn’t wanted to do it, and she would live with the agony of regret the rest of her life.

The guerrilla had given her no choice. It had come down to a simple equation: him or her. The shock came for Letty when she realized how desperately she wanted to live.

She hadn’t so much as hesitated, and it was that quick thinking, that pure instinctual desire to live, that had saved her.

Father Alfaro had hurriedly ushered them to another house of a friend he could trust. This night they were in a space under the floor of a barn. The room was only slightly larger than the space afforded them in the priest’s secret room in the rectory library.

Murphy sat across from her, eating the dinner that
had been provided them. He used the tortilla to scrape up the beans, downing the food hungrily. He’d almost completely finished before he noticed she hadn’t touched her meal.

“Letty, eat.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. I’m not hungry.”

He set aside the tin plate and moved so that he was sitting next to her on the mattress. “Honey, listen, it was self-defense.”

She closed her eyes, willing him to stop talking. The strange sick sensation that had been with her since morning returned.

“…probably saved my sorry ass as well,” Murphy continued. “He wouldn’t have stopped after killing you.”

“Murphy.” Blindly she reached out and gripped his arm.

“Are you going to be sick again?”

“No. Oh, Murphy…no, please, no.”

“Honey, what is it? Don’t go soft on me now, kid.”

“He’s dead.”

“Sweetheart, you didn’t have any choice.”

“Not that soldier,” she said sobbing. “Luke.” She bent forward and pressed her forehead to her knee. That was what was wrong. All day she’d felt it. All day she’d struggled with this horrible sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“But Father Alfaro assured us that as of two days ago he was alive.”

The grief she felt overwhelmed her. It felt as if she’d been weighed down with bricks and then thrown over the side of a boat. She was going down,
deeper and deeper and powerless to stop, powerless to help herself.

Not until Murphy wrapped his arms around her did Letty realize that she was clinging to him. The sobs went so deep they produced a physical pain. She rocked back and forth, sobbing, gasping for breath, mourning for the twin brother she’d lost.

“Letty, honey, don’t cry like this. We don’t know what’s happened to Luke.”

“I know. My heart knows.”

“But Father Alfaro said—”

“He’s dead. My brother is dead. We’re too late. We can’t save him.”

Murphy held her until she had no more tears to shed. She clung to him, her fingers pinching his flesh in her grief, in her desperation. Still he held her, still he comforted her.

When Letty’s tears were spent, he gently laid her down on the mattress and sat with her. He whispered reassurances, but Letty couldn’t hear them. Couldn’t. Her heart felt as if it would melt inside her chest with the overwhelming weight of her sorrow.

At some point she must have fallen asleep because the next thing she knew it was dark. The room hidden below the barn was pitch black.

She knew Murphy was beside her because she heard the even rhythm of his breathing. Then she remembered her brother, and the anguish and pain returned.

“Letty…”

She rolled over and buried her face in his neck. “Make love to me,” she whispered. “I feel so alone, so
empty. I need you. Please, Murphy, please, make love to me.”

Murphy closed his eyes and prayed for strength. Letty in his arms was temptation enough, but for her to plead with him to make love to her was more than any man should have to refuse.

“Honey,” he whispered gently, brushing back the hair from her face, “you don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I want you. I need you, Murphy, please.” She moved against him, rubbing the tips of her nipples against his chest, their hot tips searing him until he felt as though he’d been branded. He gritted his teeth and willed her to be still.

He needed her, too. His body had been telling him so in punishing ways for weeks. But not now. Not like this, with her heart heavy and out of her mind with grief, certain she’d lost her brother.

Murphy didn’t know what to make of this mental link she shared with her twin. He was far more comfortable dealing with hard, cold facts. The two-day-old information given them that morning claimed Luke Madden was alive. He preferred to put stock in that and not some intuitive notion Letty had come up with that her brother was dead.

Earlier, Murphy had promised her he’d find Luke, and he wasn’t giving up until he had the evidence he required. Dead or alive, he was determined to locate Letty’s brother.

She continued kissing his neck, her moist lips sliding across his skin in instinctively sensual ways. Murphy closed his eyes and battled down the desire that had begun to throb through his body.

“Letty, please…”

“I feel so alone.”

“You aren’t alone. We don’t know Luke’s fate. Not yet.”

“I know what’s happened,” she whispered, and sobbed softly. “He’s dead. I feel it in my head and in my heart.” Her hands roamed his chest, spreading moist kisses down his abdomen. He gripped hold of the blanket, clenching it with both hands as he struggled to resist her.

“You don’t know what you’re asking.” His voice rumbled with the effort it took to reject her. If there was a God in heaven, Murphy sincerely hoped his sacrifice would be richly rewarded. This was far and above the most noble deed he’d ever done.

Only Letty was capable of raising him to this level of do-goodness. He’d known she was trouble the minute he’d met her, but he didn’t know she would affect his heart.

Unable to restrain from touching her any longer, he rubbed his hand down the length of her spine, stopping short of her buttocks, savoring the warm, smooth feel of her.

He needed her. His mind and his body had been telling him the same thing from the beginning. But the strength of his desire was more profound than the evidence straining against his fatigues. She was like sunshine in a closed-up room, revealing the dust and neglect. Without warning she’d stormed into his life and with her prim and proper ways exposed him to what he really was. Exposing his heart to what he’d become.

Her gentleness was an absolution to the cruel, often severe world of soldiering. He hadn’t understood why Cain wanted Linette in his life. Why he’d given up so much of himself for the chance to marry the widow. It all made an ironic kind of sense now.

Cain needed Linette for the same reasons Murphy needed Letty.

Letty’s love helped cancel out the things he’d done, the horrors he’d seen. The cruel hate of man’s inhumanity to man. It helped absolve the things he’d been forced to do. What he would do again come morning if necessary.

“Don’t you want me?” Letty asked.

“Want you? Honey, you have no idea.”

“Then why won’t you make love to me?” She snuggled closer to his side, torturing him more than if he were trapped in the hands of a sadist. She was so damned sexy and was too naive to know it. So damned innocent she took his breath away.

“Don’t make me say it,” she whispered, burying her face in his shoulder.

“Say what?” He was completely perplexed.

“Damn you, Murphy.” She slammed her fist against his chest.

“What is it you don’t want to tell me?” He flipped her onto her backside and gazed down at her, not understanding. Her eyes, bright with tears, stared up at him with more than a hint of defiance. Her rebellion was short-lived, and she looped her arms around his neck and raised herself enough to kiss him.

He’d taught her well, he realized as her mouth set
tled over his. Her tongue stroked his, renewing the battle of wills in which he was willingly conquered.

“Letty, say it,” he breathed, forcefully breaking off the kiss.

“I love you,” she whispered.

His heart went berserk. “Oh, honey.” He rolled away from her and onto his back.

“That’s exactly why I didn’t want to tell you. You don’t want my love, don’t need it. Having me say it only embarrasses you. I didn’t want you to know, didn’t want to tell you.”

He swore once and hauled her back into his arms, hugging her tight against him. But when they kissed this time, he was the one in control, he was the one directing her mouth to his.

“Oh, Letty,” he muttered against her lips. “Don’t you know how much I love you?” His tongue met hers, and he pressed her body intimately to his, flattening her breasts against the hard wall of his chest. She felt so damn good. Too good. What strength he possessed to resist her was fast dwindling.

With a reluctance that drained him, he pushed himself away from her. He threaded his fingers through her hair. Just looking into her beautiful eyes made him realize how much he cared. Enough to hold off making love to her because the time wasn’t right.

Hers were filled with surprise, with question. “You love me?”

“More than my own life.”

“When did you know?”

Leave it to a woman to ask a question like that. “This afternoon.”

“With the guerrillas?” she asked.

“Yeah. Probably sooner, but I didn’t want to own up to it.”

He kissed her then for the sheer pleasure of it. Because denying himself what he wanted most was the purest form of hell he’d ever known.

“You love me.” She repeated it with an incredulousness that he found amusing.

“Is that so difficult to believe?”

“Yes…. I thought, I assumed you saw me as a damned nuisance.”

“I do. But I love you more. When this is over, I want us to marry.” He couldn’t believe he’d suggested marriage, hadn’t known it was coming until the proposal slipped out.

“You want to marry me?” This too came in a manner that suggested she wasn’t sure she should believe him.

“I love you so damn much.” He kissed her again, greedy for her mouth, showing her in the physical what he felt in his heart. “So much that I’m going to wait until we’re married to make love.”

“You want to wait?”

“All right, all right, that was a rash statement. We’ll wait until we get back to Boothill.” He sat up and removed the silver chain from around his neck. “Here, this is your engagement ring.” The tiny gold angel made a clanking sound against his dog tags as he slipped it over her head.

Letty fingered it.

“The angel belonged to my grandmother. It’s the only thing of hers I own. I’ve thought of it as my good-luck charm—now it’s yours.”

“You’re giving me your good-luck charm?”

“I’m giving you my heart. You’re going to be my wife, Letty.”

“What about Deliverance Company?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “We’ll figure all that out later.” He hadn’t stopped to consider that she might not want him. When it came to husband material he wasn’t much, but he loved her.

“Good idea.”

“Can you go to sleep now?” he asked brusquely.

She didn’t say anything for a long moment, then nodded. “Can I call you Shaun after we’re married?”

He grinned. “I suppose you’ll have to. It wouldn’t be seemly for a wife to call her husband by his surname.”

She nestled into his arms as if they’d spent half a lifetime sleeping together. He’d just started to drift off to sleep, happier than he could remember being at any other point in his life, when Letty spoke again.

“I want children.”

“Children,” he repeated. That was another aspect of this marriage business that he hadn’t stopped to consider. “Can we discuss that later?”

“No. I won’t sleep unless I know you want the same things as me.”

“Children,” he repeated, thinking of his married friends. Both had become fathers and revealed no regrets. “Why not? Before I know it you’re going to have me completely domesticated.”

“I hope so.” He heard the smile in her voice.

Murphy closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. He kept Letty close to his side all night. She woke him
once and whispered something about being thirsty. He found her some water, which she drank greedily, and then they both returned to sleep.

In the morning Murphy knew something was terribly wrong with Letty. Her eyelids fluttered open and she stared up at him sightlessly.

“Letty?” He pressed the back of his hand against her forehead. She was burning up with fever.

He roused Father Alfaro, who contacted a doctor friend of his he could trust. By the time the physician arrived, Letty was delirious. She recognized Murphy but no one else, and she clung to him.

“What’s wrong with her?” he demanded when the doctor had completed his examination.

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t look good. Her fever is very high. I have seen such a fever and rash one time.”

“Yes?”

He didn’t respond right away. “We must get her to a hospital.”

A hospital. The man was asking for the moon.

The doctor’s eyes were grave. “Otherwise she will not live more than two days.”

“
Marcie, did you order
the Apple-Smith perm?”

Marcie stopped counting the money in the till to think. The beauty supplier had stopped in earlier that afternoon, and she’d ordered an extensive list of items. “I can’t remember.”

“I specifically asked for the Apple-Smith perm, don’t you remember? You know Gladys Williams insists on it, with her thin hair.” Samantha sounded justifiably upset.

Marcie vented a deep sigh. “I’m sorry, I can’t recall what I asked Vickie to send us. I’ll give her a jingle in the morning and check to be sure I ordered the perm.”

“I’ve got to take care of my LOLs.”

“I know.” Samantha was a whiz with the little old ladies, and a large section of her clientele consisted of the over seventy crowd.

Her friend hesitated. “You sure you’re all right, Marcie? You’ve been in never-never land all day. What’s bugging you?”

“I’m fine.” She managed to scrounge up a smile.

“It isn’t just today, either. You’ve been preoccupied for days now.”

Marcie set aside the stack of one-dollar bills. She’d tried counting them three times and each time had come up with a different number. “I have, haven’t I?”

“Are you sure this isn’t something you want to talk about?” Samantha set aside her purse and leaned against the glass counter, crossing her arms. “I got the time. It used to be that we’d talk for hours on end, remember?”

That was true enough, but those had been during Marcie’s bar-hopping days. The two had often gone out together after work and then traded war stories in the morning. But times had changed. Marcie had abandoned that lifestyle, and Samantha was a single mother with a kid to support.

“Clifford proposed,” Marcie confessed.

“Clifford! All I can say is that it’s about time. I was ready to hog-tie that man and ask him when he was going to pop the question.”

Marcie laughed, but it was forced.

“Gee, honey, aren’t you happy?”

“Sure,” Marcie said, and meant it. She was ecstatic. She’d waited the better part of her life for a man to ask her to be his wife. This was a dream come true.

“Oh.” The happiness drained from Samantha’s face. “You’re in love with Johnny, though, aren’t you?”

“Yes…no. Oh, Sam, I don’t know anymore.”

“Have the two of you been…you know?” Her voice lifted slightly with insinuation.

“You want to know if I’m sleeping with him, right?”

“Listen, honey, if you don’t want to say, that’s fine, because it isn’t any of my business.”

Marcie stuck the money back inside the till and slammed the drawer shut. “No, not that I haven’t been tempted. Johnny always did have a way about him that made my knees go weak.”

“You mean to say you
haven’t
slept with him lately?” Samantha sounded incredulous.

“How could I, and look Clifford in the eye?”

“I suppose you’re right.” Samantha plunked herself down on one of the padded chairs by the washbowl and crossed her long, slender legs. “Johnny’s the one you’re crazy about, but it’s Clifford who proposed.”

“Actually, Johnny mentioned something about the two of us setting up housekeeping.”

Samantha’s head snapped up, her eyes wide. “He did?”

Marcie was sorry she’d told her friend this part because she knew exactly what Samantha would say, and she was right.

“Then what’s the problem? There’s no contest, is there? I mean, Clifford’s sweet and everything, but, honey, Johnny’s the kind of man who’ll make your blood run hot just looking at him.”

“I know, but…” Marcie let the rest fade. Clifford was the Rock of Gibraltar, while Jack Keller was like shifting sands. Intellectually she knew this, but emotionally she struggled. She panted after Jack, but she cared about Clifford.

“Uh-oh,” Samantha whispered. “Speaking of the devil. Look who just pulled up.”

Marcie didn’t want to look. It could only be Jack, and she didn’t want to see him. When she was with him she couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t trust herself to do what she knew was right. He knew that too and used it against her. Little by little, bit by bit, he was chipping away at her defenses.

She’d told him she needed to think about moving in with him, the same way she’d told Clifford she needed time to consider his marriage proposal. It’d been several days now, and Jack had obviously grown impatient.

“I’m out of here,” Samantha whispered, winked at Marcie, grabbed her purse, and was out the door.

“Howdy, Sam,” Marcie heard Jack greet her friend, his voice husky and deep.

Marcie didn’t turn around. She closed her eyes and summoned her defenses.

Jack stood behind her. She could feel his presence as keenly as if he were touching her.

“Marcie.”

“Hello, Jack.” Her fingers dug into the glass counter.

“How’s my girl?” he asked next, and cupped her shoulders. His hot breath warmed her as he bent forward and kissed the side of her neck. He sucked gently and ran his tongue brazenly over her smooth skin.

Marcie curled her toes at the fiery sensation that shot through her.

“I’ve been thinking about you day and night,” Jack confessed, “wondering if I was going to ever hear from you again.”

“I…I said I’d call.”

His lips continued to nibble away at her. “I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to know.”

Marcie’s eyes drifted shut, and she drooped her head to one side, exposing her neck to him. The desire to turn around and bury herself in his arms made her weak when she desperately needed to be strong.

“I haven’t come to a decision yet,” she told him, struggling to keep her voice even. “I have to think of every aspect. This is important, very important.”

“It’s what I told you, isn’t it?”

“No,” she denied, and the breathless quality was back in her voice. “It’s everything.”

“Let me help you make up your mind,” he whispered.

“That’s not a good idea.” Although her lips said one thing, her body said another. Her head was lolling back, and she rocked it gently from side to side to give him greater access to her skin.

“Baby, I’m going crazy wanting you.” He slipped his arm around her waist and fitted her backside to his hard, masculine front.

“Jack—”

“I know I shouldn’t be here.” His hands were busy with the front of her uniform. Before she could find the strength to stop him, he’d unfastened her blouse and eased his hand inside, cupping her breast. Her nipples turned traitor and beaded instantly. She couldn’t keep herself from trembling and rotating her buttocks against his throbbing erection.

“Easy now, baby, easy.” A wealth of satisfaction
echoed in his dark whisper. His free hand cupped her crotch, rubbing the junction between her legs.

Marcie couldn’t believe she had allowed him to do this to her. She’d lowered the venetian blinds at closing time, but the slats remained open. Anyone passing on the sidewalk could look in and see what they were doing.

It was hard to believe that any man was capable of reducing her to this level, and she sobbed softly, willing herself to find the strength to resist him.

Jack misunderstood her cry of distress as one of need. “The couch is still in the back room?” he asked urgently. His hot breath branded her ear.

“Yes, but I don’t think—”

“That’s been our problem,” he countered huskily, “we both been thinking too damn much. It’s time to recapture the fire we once shared.”

“Oh God.”

Marcie never intended for them to end up on the couch in her back room. She wasn’t entirely sure how he got her there. One moment she was in front of her shop, battling back her own treacherous body. The next thing she knew, she was in her back room, lying across the sofa. Within seconds Jack had her blouse peeled open and her breasts exposed. He knelt on the floor and buried his face in her bounty, cupping her fullness in his palms. His mouth locked on to a nipple and he sucked greedily.

The instant his mouth closed over her nipple, the pulse throbbing between her legs intensified and she lifted her hips from the sofa.

“That’s good, baby, real good. Let me see how ready you are.” His voice was hoarse with need.

No sooner had the words parted his lips than he stuck his hand up her skirt and swept aside the crotch of her panties.

Marcie stiffened in his arms. It’d been so long since she’d made love, so long since a man had touched her this intimately. Her body reacted and she gave a strained cry at the unexpected burst of pleasure. She was stunned, dizzy, almost delirious as he began to work his fingers inside her, stretching her, readying her for him.

“No—”

He cut off her cry of protest by kissing her. His tongue echoed the stroking movements of his fingers, the rhythm fast and hard.

The sensation he created was like fire, spiraling into a tighter and tighter coil. It threatened to break through and take control any moment.

Marcie knew what he was doing, what he’d intended from the first. He was using her body against her, bringing her to climax, pleasuring her first. She also knew that afterward he would expect the same relief. This was more than heavy petting, it was an unspoken agreement to have sex with him.

“Jack, no.” Her voice was a weak wail of anguish as she broke off the kiss and struggled to a semisitting position. Breathing heavily, she leaned on one elbow.

Jack’s breathing was equally ragged. His head drooped forward as if her words hadn’t fully broken through the fog of his desire.

“You don’t mean it. Tell me you don’t mean it?” he pleaded.

It took her several moments to compose herself to where she could look him in the eye again, let alone
speak. “I’m sorry, truly I am. I never intended for matters to progress to that point.”

Jack leveled himself off the floor and sat at the end of the couch, his elbows on his knees. He glanced at her and exhaled sharply. “I’m the one who needs a cigarette this time. You got one?”

She shook her head. “Not with me.”

He rubbed his face.

“How about a shower?”

She wasn’t much help with that, either. “I could stick your head in the washbasin.”

He chuckled. “I’ll pass.”

She sat up and took a couple of minutes to catch her breath. Her fingers refused to cooperate as she fastened the small white buttons in the front of her blouse. “I can’t think straight when you touch me.”

Jack laughed. “I disagree. You seem to find a means to thwart me without much of a problem. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m frustrated as hell, but at the same time I’m a little in awe of this newfound control of yours. You’ve changed, Marcie.”

He couldn’t have paid her a better compliment. “I’m not the same Marcie anymore. I haven’t been in quite some time.”

“Live with me, Marcie,” he said, reaching for her hands. “Baby, we’re good together.”

“In bed, you mean.”

“Within six months we’ll know each other like only married people do,” he countered.

“But we might not even like each other.”

He captured her face between his hands. “I’ve always liked you. You’re sweet and gentle and good.”

Marcie bit into her lower lip.

“What is it?” he asked gently. “Tell me and I’ll do anything within my power to fix it.”

“I want children, a home, a family.” Her eyes held his. “I want a husband.”

“You’re looking for me to marry you, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, unwilling to take second best. She didn’t tell him Clifford had proposed. This was not a contest to see which one could buy her the biggest diamond.

“Marriage,” he repeated as if it were a dirty word.

The bell above the door chimed, and Jack looked to her. The
CLOSED
sign was in the window, but she hadn’t locked the door.

“Marcie?”

Clifford. She bolted off the couch so fast, she nearly tripped over her own two feet.

“Clifford, hello.” Her cheerful greeting sounded false even to her own ears. She was sure her cheeks were flame red and that he must know she had another man in her back room.

“I hope you don’t mind my stopping in unexpectedly like this.” He removed his baseball cap and held it in both hands. His gaze drifted toward the back room.

“No, of course not.” She leaned against the glass counter and avoided looking him in the eye.

“I realize I haven’t given you much time…”

“You want to know if I’ve reached a decision yet?”

“Yeah.” Again he looked past her toward the back of the shop and the drapes that separated the two main parts of the business. “I don’t mean to pressure you,” he added.

“I know that.”

His gaze focused on the front of her uniform, and he edged his way backward toward the front door. “I can see that I’ve come at a bad time….”

“I’ll call you,” she promised, “okay?”

“Sure.” His eyes filled with an incredible sadness. “Sure,” he repeated. “Whatever you say.” Having said that, he turned hurriedly and walked out the door.

Marcie had the incredible urge to cry. She’d seen the look in Clifford’s eyes and recognized it all too well. It was the same look of disappointment and hurt she’d felt a number of times in her dating career. It generally came when she learned the man she’d been seeing for three months was married. Or how she felt when a guy asked her for a small loan for his ailing mother and she knew damn well it was for booze.

She returned to the back room and slumped onto the couch.

Jack stood above her. “All right,” he said impatiently. “Let’s get married.”