Strangers in the Night (14 page)

Watching her closely, Jackson saw the secret smile lurking in her green eyes and he knew, as sure as he knew his own name, that she doubted she would ever be reduced to hiding. “What about the other stuff?” he asked, keeping his tone casual.

She gave him a slow smile, and he got the feeling she was pleased with his astuteness. “Oh, just a few little things that give me advance warning. There's nothing lethal out there, unless you step on a water moccasin or fall in the water and drown.”

He stared at her mouth, and felt a little jolt, like another kick of adrenaline. Despite the coolness of the house he broke out in a light sweat. God almighty, he hoped she didn't smile again. Her smile was sleepy and sexy, womanly, the kind of smile a woman gave a man after they had made love, lying drowsy on tangled sheets while the rain beat down outside and there were only the two of them, cocooned in their private world.

The sexual awareness wasn't welcome. He had to be careful in situations like this. He was a man in a position of authority, alone with a woman to whose house he had gone in an official capacity. This wasn't the time or the place to come on to her.

Silence had fallen again, silence in which they faced each other across the table. She took a deep breath, and the inhalation lifted her breasts against the thin cotton of her blouse. Her nipples
were plainly outlined, hard and erect, the darkness of the aureolas faintly visible where they pressed against the fabric. Was she cold, or aroused?

The skin on her arms was smooth; no chill bumps.

“I'd better go,” he said, fighting the sudden thickness in his throat, and in his pants. “Thank you for the sandwiches. I was starving.”

She looked both relieved and reluctant. “You're welcome. You had that hungry look, so I—” She stopped, and waved a dismissive hand. “Never mind. I was glad to have the company. And you're right about going; if I'm not mistaken, I heard thunder just a minute ago.” She got up and gathered their glasses, taking them to the sink.

He got up, too. There was something about her unfinished sentence that pulled at him. He should have let it go, should have said good-bye and got into the boat and left. He hadn't heard any thunder, though his hearing was pretty good, but that was as good an excuse as any to get the hell out of there. He knew it, and still he said, “So you—what?”

Her gaze slid away from him, as if she were embarrassed.
“So I… thought you must have missed lunch.”

How would she know that? Why would she even think it? He didn't normally miss a meal, and how in hell would she know if he looked hungry or not, when she had never seen him before today? For all she knew, ill-tempered was his normal expression.

Witch
. The word whispered in his mind, even though he knew it was nonsense. Even if he believed in witchcraft, which he didn't, from what he'd read it had nothing to do with telling whether or not a man had missed lunch. She had noticed he was grouchy, and attributed it to an empty stomach. He didn't quite follow the reasoning, but he'd often seen his mother ply his father with food to gentle him out of a bad mood. It was a woman thing, not a witch thing.

“Meow.”

He almost jumped a foot in the air. Now was
not
the time to find out she had a cat.

“There you are,” she crooned, looking down at his feet. He looked down too, and saw a huge, fluffy white cat with black ears and a black tail, rubbing against his right boot.

“Poor kitty,” she said, still crooning, and leaned down to pick up the creature, holding it in her arms as if it were a baby. It lay perfectly relaxed, belly up, eyes half-closed in a beatific expression as she rubbed its chest. “Did the noise scare you? The bad man's gone, and he won't bother us again, I promise.” She looked up at Jackson. “Eleanor's pregnant. The kittens are due any time now, I think. She showed up about a week ago, but she's obviously tame and has had good care, so I guess someone just drove into the country and put her out, rather than take care of a litter.”

The cat looked like a feline Buddha, fat and content. Familiars were supposed to be black, weren't they, or would any cat do, even fat white pregnant ones?

He couldn't resist reaching out and stroking that fat, round belly. The cat's eyes completely closed and she began purring so loudly, she sounded like a motor idling.

Delilah smiled. “Careful, or you'll have a slave for life. Maybe you'd like to take her with you?”

“No, thanks,” he said dryly. “My mother might like a kitten, though. Her old tom died last year and she doesn't have a pet now.”

“Check back in six or seven weeks, then.”

That wasn't exactly an invitation to come calling anytime soon, he thought. He picked up the shotgun and vest. “I'll be on my way, Miss Jones. Thanks again for the sandwiches.”

“Lilah.”

“What?”

“Please call me Lilah. All my friends do.” She gave him a distinctly warning look. “Not Delilah, please.”

He chuckled. “Message received. I guess you got teased about it in school?”

“You have no idea,” she said feelingly.

“My name's Jackson.”

“I know.” She smiled. “I voted for you. Jackson's a nice Texas-sounding name.”

“I'm a nice Texas guy.”

She made a noncommittal sound, as if she didn't agree with him but didn't want to come right out and say so. He grinned as he turned to the door. Meeting Delilah Jones had been interesting. He didn't know if it was good, but it was definitely interesting. The blue-moon mojo was at full strength today. When things settled down and he had time to think things over, when he could be
entirely rational about the weirdness and come up with a logical explanation, maybe he'd come back to visit—and not in any official capacity.

“Use the front door,” she said. “It's closer.”

He followed her through the small house. From what he could tell there were only four rooms: the kitchen and living room on one side, and each of those had another room opening off it. He figured the other two rooms were bedrooms. The living room was simply furnished with a couch and a rocking chair, arranged around a rag rug spread in front of the stone fireplace. Oil lamps sat on the mantel and on the pair of small tables set beside the couch and chair. In one corner was a treadle sewing machine. A handmade quilt hung on one of the walls, a brightly colored scene of trees and water that must have taken forever to do. On another wall a bookcase—also handmade, from the looks of it—stretched from floor to ceiling, and was packed with books, both hardback and paper.

The whole house made him feel as if he had stepped back a century, or at least half of one. The only modern appliance he saw was a battery-operated weather radio, sitting beside one of the oil lamps on the mantel. He was glad she had it; both
tornadoes and hurricanes were possible in this area.

He stepped out on the porch, Lilah right behind him, still holding the cat. He stopped dead still, staring at the dock. “The son of a bitch,” he said softly.

“What?” She pushed at his shoulder, and he realized he was blocking her view.

“The boats are gone,” he said, stepping aside so she could see.

She stared at the empty dock, too, her green eyes wide with dismay. Her flat-bottom was gone, as well as Jerry Watkins's bass boat.

“He must have doubled back and cut the boats loose while we were eating. They can't have drifted far. If I walk along the bank, I'll probably find them.”

“My boat had oars in it,” she said. “I always have them in case I have motor trouble. He didn't have to cut them loose, he could have rowed mine out, and towed yours. That would save him the trouble of hiking back to his boat, and once he got to his boat he'd probably let the current take them. I figure they're at least a mile downstream by now, maybe more. That's if he doesn't decide to sink them.”

“I'll call in—” he began, the notion so automatic that the words were out before he realized he didn't have his radio. He didn't have his cell phone. They were both in the Cherokee, which Charlotte Watkins had driven home. And Lilah Jones didn't have a phone.

He looked down at her. “I don't suppose you have a shortwave radio?”

“Afraid not.” She was staring grimly at the river down which her boat had vanished, as if she could will it back. “You're stuck here. We both are.”

“Not for long. The dispatcher—”

“Jo?”

“Jo.” He wondered how well she knew Jo. Jo hadn't talked as if they were anything more than distant acquaintances, but Lilah not only knew who his dispatcher was, she had called her Jo instead of Jolene, which was her given name. “She knows where I am, and she was supposed to send backup as soon as some was available. A deputy should be along anytime.”

“Not unless he's already on his way,” she said. “Look.” She pointed to the southwest.

Jackson looked, and swore under his breath. A huge purplish black thunderhead had filled the
late-afternoon sky. He could feel its breath now in the freshening wind that fanned him, hear its voice in the sullen bass rumble of thunder as it marched toward them.

“A thunderstorm probably won't last long.” At least he hoped it wouldn't. The way things were going today, the storm's forward progress would stop just as it was on top of them.

She was staring worriedly at the cloud. “I think I'd better turn on the weather radio,” she said, and went back inside, Eleanor cradled in her arms.

Jackson gave the empty river another frustrated glance. The air felt charged with electricity, raising the hair on his arms. The blade of lightning slashed down, flickering and flashing, and thunder rumbled again.

He was stuck here for at least a few hours, and maybe all night. If he had to be stuck anywhere, why couldn't it be in his own home? There was always a rash of accidents on a stormy night, and the deputies would need him.

Instead he would be here, in a house in the back of nowhere, keeping company with a witch and her pregnant cat.

L
ilah put Eleanor on the floor and turned on the weather radio, then went into her bedroom, which opened off the living room, and pulled down the side window. The front window was protected by the wide porch, so rain wasn't likely to come in there. With an ear cocked toward the radio, she then did the same in the back bedroom. She knew that Sheriff Brody had come in from the porch, but she deliberately ignored him, doing what needed to be done. He was entirely too big for her small house, too stern, too authoritative, too … too
male
.

He disrupted her peaceful life far more than
Thaniel Vargas had ever dreamed of doing. What on earth had Jo been thinking, sending him out here? But of course Jo didn't know, and she had, rightly, been worried about Thaniel.

Well, poor Thaniel wouldn't be bothering her again, and there was nothing she could do about it. If he hadn't run she might have—well, whether or not she could have helped him was a moot point, because it was too late now. Still, regret filled her. Whatever Thaniel's faults—and they were many—she didn't wish him any harm. And though she would have tried to help if … if he hadn't run away, years of painful experience had taught her there was very little she could do to alter fate.

That was why the sheriff filled her with such panic. She had known, the moment she saw him, that he was fated to destroy her safe, comfortable, familiar life. She wanted to get as far away from him as she could, she wanted to push him out of her house and lock the door, she wanted … she wanted to walk into his arms and rest her head on a broad shoulder, let him hold her and kiss her and do anything else he wanted to her.

In all her life she'd never met a male, boy or
man, who elicited even the slightest sexual response on her part. She had always felt isolated from the rest of the world, forever alone because of what she was. The thought of spending her life alone hadn't bothered her; quite the opposite. She enjoyed her solitude, her life, her sense of completion within herself. So many people never achieved wholeness, and spent their entire lives searching for someone or something to make them whole, never realizing that the answer was within themselves. She liked her own company, she trusted her own decisions, and she enjoyed the work she did. There was nothing—
nothing
—in her life that she wanted changed.

But Jackson Brody changed everything, whether she wanted him to or not.

It wasn't just his aura that attracted her, though it was so rich she was almost spellbound by it. All his colors were clear: the dark red of sensuality, the blue of calm, the turquoise of a dynamic personality, the orange of power, with fluctuating spikes of spiritual purple and yellow, healing green. Nothing about him was murky. He was a straightforward, confident, healthy man.

What had so stunned her, however, was the
sudden flash of precognition. She didn't have them often; her particular talent was her ability to see auras. But sometimes she had lightning bursts of insight and knowledge, and she had never been wrong. Not once. Just as she had looked at Thaniel and known he would soon die, when she first focused on Jackson Brody the wave of precognition had been so strong she had almost slumped to her knees. This man would be her lover. This man would be her love, the only one of her life.