Sunny Chandler's Return (5 page)

“Damn him.”

She had repeated the curse a thousand times. For at the moment when she was the most malleable, willing to participate in enacting the fantasies he whispered about, he had eased her back, smiled, and said, “I’ve stayed too long. I’ve got to go.”

As she watched, trembling with remnant desire and rage, he had hopped down into his boat. As he unwound the rope from the pile he said, “I’d be careful sitting out here like that if I were you. There’s all kinds of wackos prowling these woods, and your nearest neighbor lives over a mile away.”

She had followed the direction of his gaze down and, to her further mortification, discovered that their embrace had worked down the top of her bikini. The creamy tops of her breasts were swelling out of it. She viciously tugged it back into place.

He winked audaciously a second before he replaced his sunglasses. “I’ll be seeing you later, Sunny.”

Then, with a jaunty wave, he had left.

Sunny pulled the sheet over her nakedness, rolled to her side, and squeezed her eyes shut. She’d feel better after a nap. Maybe she was in the middle of a nap already and would soon wake up to discover that her visit from Ty Beaumont had been only a bad dream.

His taste lingered on her lips and tongue. She could still feel him, full and firm, pressing against the cradle of her femininity. His denim shorts had felt so good against her bare thighs. The ragged fringe had tickled. Her breasts flushed with heat and tingled with sensations every time his evocative words echoed in the chambers of her mind.

She hated him.

She woke up hours later, disoriented and uncomfortable. She stretched her cramped muscles. Her skin felt tight and was stinging from overexposure to the sun.

She got out of bed and pulled the nightgown back on. Her growling stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten anything since the grapefruit this morning. She padded into the kitchen and cooked herself an omelet. Maybe tomorrow evening she’d eat dinner out. But she didn’t feel like facing people tonight. Not if everything Ty Beaumont had said was true.

Had people who had known her all her life really thought those terrible things about her? No wonder they had stared at her last night at the party as though she were a freak.

And by going into town, she ran the risk of seeing Don and Gretchen. She couldn’t bear that.

She cleaned up her few dishes and switched out the kitchen light. There was nothing to do until she grew sleepy again but read or watch television. She was trying to decide which when she heard the noise outside.

Three

Old houses settled and made creaking noises, right?

Right.

Branches knocked against the eaves when the wind blew, right?

Right.

So there was no need to panic, right?

Wrong. Because the noise was coming from the shed behind the house where her father used to clean fish. It couldn’t have been made by settling timber or by the wind.

Sunny’s heart was pounding so loudly that she thought she might have imagined the whole thing. But when she heard the noise again, like something or someone stamping through the underbrush behind the shed, she broke out in a cold sweat of fear.

Thankfully she realized she had already turned off the light in the kitchen. She crept toward the window over the sink, which afforded a view of the back of the property all the way down to the dock and the lake beyond. Her hand was shaking when she moved the curtain aside, creating a crack no wider than an inch, but wide enough for her to peek through.

Nothing. It was a dark night. There was only a partial moon, and it was obscured by clouds. The wind had picked up. The lake was choppier than it had been earlier in the day. It looked as though the clouds on the horizon might produce a summer storm after all.

Sunny stood motionless at the window for several minutes. Nothing beyond it stirred, except for the trees that bent gracefully in the wind. What she had heard must have been just blowing branches. She let the curtain fall back into place.

Shaking her head, amused and irritated with herself for behaving so foolishly, she turned and started to go out of the kitchen for the second time. Again, she got no farther than the doorway when she heard another noise. This time metal clanking against metal. Her father had stored buckets, gardening tools, and hardware out in the shed.

“Oh, dear God.” Whimpering in fright, she mashed her fingers against her lips.

Steve and Fran had expressed concern about her staying alone out here at the lake.

“Nothing really criminal has happened out there,” Steve had told her, “but kids have beer busts, get drunk, raise a little hell.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay in town with me?” Fran had asked.

“Don’t be silly. Your house will be in a state of chaos all week. I’ll be safer alone at the lake.”

Sunny regretted her decision now. If she hadn’t been so stubborn, she could have been safely ensconced in the guest bedroom of Fran’s house instead of shivering in fear in an isolated cabin.

She didn’t waste another second but hastened to the wall telephone, which her parents had never had disconnected. In the darkness, she overturned a kitchen chair. She stubbed her toe against the table as she lunged for the telephone receiver. She dialed O and waited breathlessly for the operator to answer.

The moment she answered, Sunny said, “I need help.” Her words were hushed as they tumbled, one over the next, out of her trembling lips. She was certain she sounded hysterical and out of her senses, but she couldn’t help it. “Call the police. Tell them to come right away. I’m alone and someone is outside my cabin at the lake. I think he might be trying to break in.”

Although that wasn’t quite true, it was better to be safe than sorry. Better to anticipate the criminal than to stand by and wait for him to make his move. Besides, it added an element of urgency to her message. It worked. Without hesitation the operator said, “I’m calling the sheriff ’s office right now. Someone will be there soon.”

Sunny provided her with the rural address and hung up. Who else could she call? Her neighbors? She didn’t know them. Not even by name. They had moved in since she had left town. Steve and Fran? Yes. If this was a false alarm, she’d feel really stupid, but...

The consequences of having false courage were too gruesome to think about. She bungled the series of memorized numbers twice before the call to Fran’s house went through. The phone rang and rang while Sunny muttered, “Come on, come on, answer.” When it became apparent that no one was there, she hung up, almost in tears now.

What if he was out there watching her through the window?

She almost collapsed when she recalled a previous conversation. “You should have become a window peeper.” “How do you know I’m not?”

Good Lord!
He
was the one who had warned her about wackos roaming around the lake.
He
was the one who had pointed out that her nearest neighbor was over a mile away.
He
was the one who had gone to the trouble to find out where she was staying.
He
was the one who had crossed the lake to see her. And hadn’t his final words—“I’ll be seeing you later, Sunny”—carried both a promise and a threat?

What did she know about him? Nothing except his name. He had been invited to the wedding party, but serial killers were often charming men who lured their victims—

Stop it! Get control of yourself. Think of something constructive to do. Don’t panic.

What was George Henderson’s number? She’d call and ask him about this Ty Beaumont. But what was George’s telephone number?

The drawer beneath the telephone was stuck. Sunny tried it several times, then tugged on it so hard that it came out of its moorings and crashed to the floor. The Latham Parish telephone directory, a few unsharpened pencils, a scrap of fabric her mother had used to match paint, a coupon for buy-one-catfish-dinner-get-one-free, and a rusty nail all scattered over the linoleum floor.

The racket she had made stunned her for a moment. Recovering, she dropped to her knees, gouging one on the head of the nail. She picked up the telephone book. As yet unaware that she couldn’t read it in the dark, she began frantically thumbing through the old, curled pages.

It was then that she heard the heavy footsteps on the porch outside. She clutched the directory to her thudding heart. Her eyes were round with terror. She made a helpless mewing sound when the front doorknob rattled as though someone was trying to open it.

She used the countertop to pull herself up. Her entire body was quaking with fear. Moving along the wall, she edged her way into the living room and stared in horror as the doorknob twisted first one way, then the other.

Sunny almost jumped out of her skin when the loud knock came. She hadn’t expected the intruder to knock. She waited, but there was another knock, then another, becoming impatient and as hard and dramatic as her beating heart.

How unlike a window peeper or serial killer to announce his arrival. But who else could it be?

The sheriff, of course! Why hadn’t she thought of that? She raced to the door, flipped up the lock, and breathlessly flung it open.

Ty Beaumont was standing on the threshold.

Sunny screamed.

Spinning around, she went racing back across the living room, intent on getting into her bedroom, which had a lock on the door.

She was brought up short when he grabbed a handful of her nightgown. “What the hell is wrong with you?” He whipped her around and brought her up hard against him. “Are you all right? What’s happened?”

“I’ve called the sheriff,” she said in loud defiance.

“You have?”

“Yes. He’s on his way. He’ll be here any minute.”

“He’s already here.” His lips twitched with the need to smile. Then he mimicked her gape-mouthed expression of incredulity.

“You’re—”

“Sheriff Ty Beaumont. Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am,” he drawled in a broad Southwestern accent. “How can I be of service?”

“By going straight to hell!”

Sunny shoved herself away from him, seething with anger over his amusement, which he didn’t have the good manners to hide. Actually Sunny was just as angry with herself as she was with him. She, who had lived alone in New Orleans for years, had let her imagination run away with her and had behaved like a complete fool. He would think she was an idiot.

With a broad sweep of her hand, she pushed her tangled hair back. “How do I know you’re the sheriff?”

With that same drawl and the lowering of one eyelid, he said, “Wanna see my pistol?”

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was more subtle than his innuendo. Her eyes became slits of fury. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Did you ask?”

“What were you doing sneaking around my house in the middle of the night?”

“I was responding to your call for help. Arleta, the operator, said you sounded scared out of your wits.”

“I was!”

“Are you always such a ’fraidy cat?”

“Of course not. What were you doing out in the shed?”

“What shed?”

“You mean that wasn’t
you
?”

“You mean there really
was
a suspicious noise?”

“Why else would I call?” Sunny cried.

He hooked his thumbs beneath the waistband of his tight jeans and cocked his head to one side. “I figured that you invented this ‘intruder’ just to get me out here.”

“You arrogant sonofa—” Rage flickered like flames in her eyes. “I heard something out in the shed,” she said, pointing in the direction of the kitchen.

A deep crease of genuine worry formed between his brows. “Then I’d better take a look. You stay here.”

Disobeying, she followed him into the kitchen on tiptoes. She watched as he opened the back door, unlatched the screen, and stepped through it. The moon cast enough light to make him a tall silhouette as he crossed the yard. He had brought a flashlight with him and turned it on, shining it into the dense forest that surrounded the cabin. When her father bought the property, he had cleared only enough land to build the cabin. By design they had left the wooded lot as virgin as possible.

From behind the screen door, Sunny watched Beaumont disappear around the far side of the shed. She could see the flashlight’s beam arcing over the pier and through the trees. It seemed to take forever before he came back into view. He switched off the flashlight before reentering the kitchen.

She moved aside, holding the screen door open for him. “Well?”

“You had intruders, all right.”

“Intruders, plural?”

“Four,” he said grimly.

Her face paled. “Four.”

“Yep, a mama raccoon and three babies.”

Sunny opened her mouth to speak, decided that anything she said would only make her look more ridiculous, and shut her mouth quickly. Her teeth clicked together in the sudden silence.

“They were stashing leftovers behind a row of buckets,” he told her. She kept her head down and could all but feel his damned blue eyes boring a hole into the top of it. The thought of him laughing at her was untenable.

She raised her head suddenly. “It’s partially your fault,” she shouted accusingly. “All that talk about window peepers and wackos.”

“You brought up the window peepers, not me.” He casually laid his flashlight on the kitchen table. “Got a cup of coffee?”

“No.”

She could see his wide smile in the darkness. “Not even for the trooper who rescued you from a family of rampaging raccoons?”

She planted her fists on her hips. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

He righted the chair she had overturned and plopped down in it, sitting more on his spine than his bottom. He grinned up at her. “Well, you gotta admit that the scenery is breathtaking.”

When Sunny realized that she had nothing on but the scanty nightgown and that her stance was stretching the sheer cloth tightly across her breasts, her arms dropped to her sides. She spun around and went charging out of the kitchen.

The mess from the drawer lay directly in her path of retreat. She broke one of the pencils under her foot, while her other heel made contact with the head of the nail. Cursing in a most unladylike fashion, she hobbled out of the kitchen.

Minutes later she returned dressed in a tank T-shirt and a pair of shorts. The light in the kitchen was on and Ty already had a pot of coffee perking on the gas range.

“Make yourself at home.”

Ignoring her sarcasm, he replied, “Thanks, I already did.”

She went to the cabinet and began taking down cups and saucers. “Cream and sugar?”

“Black’s fine. Got any cookies?”

She rolled her eyes ceilingward and produced a package of cookies from the pantry, which she had stocked for her week’s stay.

“Just for the record,” he mumbled around a big bite of chocolate-frosted cookie, “I liked the other outfit better.”

“No doubt.”

“Although this one has distinct possibilities.”

On the word “distinct,” his eyes slid down to her breasts. It was evident that she wasn’t wearing a bra under the soft knit fabric that molded to her figure. The longer he looked at her, the more evident it became.

Sunny tried to cover her discomfiture with a snide question. “Do the taxpayers of Latham Green have any idea that their sheriff is a sex fiend?”

He chuckled. “I’m on duty.”

“Somehow I don’t find that very reassuring.”

“Well, you should. If I weren’t on duty, I’d have you in bed by now.”

“Not a chance, Mr. Beaumont.”

His grin reeked of self-confidence. “It’s ready.” He grinned wickedly at her start of surprise. “The coffee, Sunny. The
co fee
is ready.”