Walking After Midnight (28 page)

His breathing suspended as desire grabbed him by the balls. His eyes were riveted on her backside as she walked, naked, through the forest, her lush ass swaying, her spine straight, her hair flowing around her shoulders.

God, what an ass!

Shades of Lady Godiva!

„Where are you going?“ he asked, feeling as if he might strangle on the very act of speaking.

„I’d rather wear shorts. It’s getting hot, or haven’t you noticed?“

He had definitely noticed. He had to reach inside his own shorts for a quick adjustment before he was bent double with pain.

Gathering up her shoes, socks, clothes, and dog, he followed. By the time he reached her side, she had extracted her bra and panties from the gym bag he had dropped, and donned them. The garments were plain white, sturdy and sensible rather than seductive. The bra had a knot in one strap.

So why did they turn him on?

Hell, everything about her turned him on. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to catch himself getting excited over her damned sissified dog.

The animal licked his wrist. Alarmed, he put her down.

„Now that we’ve got
that
out of our systems, maybe we can put our heads together and figure some way out of this.“ Her gaze, meeting his as he straightened, was a cool challenge. She stepped into the nylon shorts as if he weren’t even there, pulled them up her legs, adjusted them around her waist, and then, to Steve’s mingled relief and regret, pulled the black T-shirt over her head.

She filled out that T-shirt so well that even the bull terrier adorning it seemed to be panting with lust.

She might have
that
out of her system, but he didn’t. In fact, he had the distinct feeling that the poison was spreading.

„Yeah. Right.“ His reply was lame. He recognized that himself, but he couldn’t help it. He could hardly think, much less talk. With a curl of her lip, she reached over and took her shoes and socks from his hand and dropped them to the ground. Then, picking up the gym bag, she heaved it at his midsection.

„Catch!“

„Whoa!“ Steve caught the bag with a grunt. She had thrown it hard. Eyeing her narrowly as she sank to the ground to pull on her shoes and socks, he supposed he should consider himself fortunate that she had not thrown the tire iron at him instead.

Milady was clearly p.o.’d.

„You
have
thought beyond what happens once we get to your fishing camp, haven’t you?“ she asked scathingly, wrapping long shoelaces around her ankles and tying them. „Going up there to think isn’t much of a plan. If you don’t mind my saying so.“

Wait a minute. Unless she could come up with something better, he did mind her saying so.

Steve was just about to tell her that when she stood up, scooped up her ridiculous beribboned mutt, and strode off.

Leaving him to gather up the gear, snatch up his cap and settle it on his head, and follow. He didn’t much like following, he discovered. It wasn’t his style.

Especially when the leader he was following had a mouthwatering tush that gave him a pang with its every come-hither swing.

28

„What did you mean, wham, bam, whatever?“ Frankenstein asked out of the blue. He sat on the ground, his back propped against a tree, one leg stretched out before him, the other raised and bent at the knee. The damned symbolic Bulls cap was pulled low over his eyes. They had stopped to eat – peanut butter crackers and water, and a raw hot dog for Muffy – beside the clear green water of a rippling creek. It must have been late afternoon – Summer had lost all track of time, so she couldn’t be sure, but it felt like late afternoon. Sun slanted down through the trees, dappling the ground and the rock on which she sat. The day had been hot, maybe ninety degrees, but the forest had protected them from the worst of the heat. They got humidity and gnats instead. The combination, in her opinion, was worse.

Sweat beaded Summer’s forehead. Her hair, unwashed now for almost three whole days, felt rank. She didn’t even like to think about whether or not she smelled. Her leg itched, and she scratched the large red insect bite on her calf absentmindedly.

„I don’t know what you’re talking about.“ Still furious at herself for almost tumbling headlong into another disastrous relationship with another disastrous man, Summer replied coldly. It wasn’t only herself she was furious at, either. Every time she thought about how uninhibited she had been with him, the things she had said and done and felt, she wanted to cringe. Even more humiliatingly, when she remembered the things he had done to her with his hands and mouth and body, she couldn’t help it: She felt a little thrill. That thrill made her mad all over again.

Then, while she had still been basking in the glow of the most fantastic lovemaking session she had ever experienced, he had made it clear that it had meant absolutely nothing to him.
She
meant absolutely nothing to him.

He’d been horny, and he’d wanted sex. That was the simple truth. Once he’d gotten what he wanted, he had lost all interest in her. He hadn’t even had the good manners – or good sense – to pretend otherwise.

She didn’t know why she had been surprised.

„What you said – back there. You said I was another one of those wham, bam, something-thank-you-ma’am types.“ His voice was carefully neutral. Good thing. It wouldn’t have taken much to make her fly at him like an enraged blue jay.

Summer stopped chewing and swallowed. „Oh, God, you’re not one of those men who has to rehash things every time you have sex, are you? What do you want, applause?“

She was pardonably pleased when his eyes narrowed. „I just want to know what you meant.“

„Not a thing.“ She drank water from her well-rinsed beer can. Under the circumstances, the taste of beer would have been the last straw. She would have been violently ill. „Forget it.“

„I don’t want to forget it.“

„What are you, part bulldog? Can’t you just let it drop?“

Apparently not put off by the edge in her voice, Frankenstein shook his head. „Nope.“

Summer scowled at him. „All right. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you. My ex-husband was like that. He wanted sex when he wanted it, and he would sulk for days if I didn’t instantly oblige. I learned that it was easier just to do it, you know, rather than put up with his pouting. So we’d have sex – it usually took about five minutes – and as soon as it was over he’d jump out of bed, run for the shower, and get on with his life. Wham, bam, I-won’t-bother-to-thank-you-ma’am, see? And that would be the last I’d get of any kind of love or romance or even simple human kindness out of him until he got horny again. At which time the whole process would be repeated. Know how I could tell when he was getting horny? He’d drink a beer. The only time he ever did.“ Summer looked down at the can in her hand, and grimaced. „I hate the taste of beer.“

„I’m not your ex-husband.“

„No, you’re not, are you?“ Summer smiled at him, but it wasn’t a nice smile. She wasn’t feeling particularly nice at that precise moment. „So I don’t have to put up with that kind of crap from you, do I? And I won’t.“ She took another sip of water, and said what she had been thinking for the last few miles. „I’ve decided to call Sammy.“

„What?“ Frankenstein almost choked on his own water.

„You heard me. I’ve decided to call Sammy. I don’t know how you think
you’re
going to get out of this mess alive, and to tell you the truth I don’t particularly care. But I am going to call my ex-father-in-law, of whom I am still very fond, who also happens to be the Murfreesboro Chief of Police, to come and get me. You may not trust him, but
I
do.“

Frankenstein stared at her. Summer ate her last cracker with elaborate unconcern. Over the past few hours her thinking had grown crystal clear. Further involvement with Steve Calhoun and his problems was a recipe for disaster on all fronts. He could break her heart. He could get her killed. It had taken her a while to develop wisdom, but, by golly, she had at last developed it. One thing she had learned over the course of her life was that she had to take care of herself; nobody else would.

Certainly not Frankenstein.

„You can’t do that.“

„Oh yes I can. Try to stop me.“

„It could very well be suicide.“

„So could staying with you. I prefer to take my chances with Sammy.“

Frankenstein gulped some more water. „Too bad. It’s not in the cards.“

„What do you mean, it’s not in the cards? It’s in the cards if I want it to be in the cards. You don’t tell me what to do.“

„Somebody needs to. You’re about as good at taking care of yourself as that ridiculous dog.“

„Oh, yeah? I hate to point this out to you, but both Muffy and I seem to be better at taking care of ourselves than you are at taking care of yourself. We didn’t get ourselves into this mess: you did. The whole world’s chasing us because of you. You’re the problem here, and I’ve decided that in order to fix the problem, Muffy and I need to get away from you.“

„Wait a minute. This is all because you’re mad at me about what happened this morning, isn’t it?“

„I don’t know what you’re talking about.“

„Oh yes you do. You’re mad because we had sex.“

„I am not!“

„You are too.“

Summer took a deep breath. „I am not mad at you because we had sex.“

„No, you’re mad because we had sex and you enjoyed it.“

Summer felt her cheeks heat. „Pretty full of yourself, aren’t you, Frankenstein? What makes you so sure I enjoyed it?“

„I know when a woman has a good time during sex.“

„Oh, yeah? Well, you had a good time too.“

„Yes, I did.“ He met her fuming gaze full on. „I had a fantastic time. You were great. Is that what you want to hear? Is everything all better now?“

„I don’t want to hear anything at all from you.“ Summer poured the rest of her water onto the ground and stood up.

„I don’t know what you’re so bent out of shape about.
You
came on to me, if you recall. You wanted it, you got it. So why don’t you quit acting like an outraged virgin?“

„I did not come on to you!“

„Oh, yeah?
Kiss me, Steve.
What was that?
Touch me here.
Sounds like coming on to me to me.“

„Maybe I was just trying to distract you from the little ghost you’re so afraid of. Did you ever think of that? Was that the problem at the end, by the way? Did you think you were seeing Deedee again?“ Summer said that last in a mocking falsetto – and she struck home. She could tell it by the clenching of his jaw, and the sense that, if humans could give off steam, he would be.

They glared at each other. Muffy, watching, burrowed her nose beneath her paws. Neither of the human combatants payed her the least bit of attention.

„Fine,“ Frankenstein said suddenly, his jaw jutting. „If that’s what you want to do, it’s fine with me. Call your father-in-law. Maybe the time he and his buddies take to try to make you talk will give me just the extra hour or so I need to get away. Maybe I’ll get really lucky, and they’ll make sushi out of the mutt, too.“

„You leave Muffy out of this!“

„With pleasure.“ He got to his feet, cramming the remains of their lunch into the gym bag. „Come on, Rosen-crans. You want to take your chances with the law, I’ll help you find a phone.“

Good. That was just what she wanted. A phone.

„There’s a campground about five miles south of here,“ Frankenstein continued, shouldering the gym bag and tucking the tire iron under his arm. „Or at least there used to be. Come on, baby, let’s take you to Papa. It’ll be a relief to get you off my hands.“

Frankenstein stomped off. Summer was left to pick up Muffy and follow.

If she hadn’t been so darned mad, by the time they reached the outskirts of the campground she would have had second thoughts about the advisability of what she meant to do. His crack about making sushi out of her and Muffy had hit home. She kept remembering Linda Miller and Betty Kern.

But she couldn’t back down now. She was too darn mad at him. Anyway, despite anything Frankenstein said to the contrary, she was making the only sane decision. She was (almost) sure of it. Sammy loved her like the daughter he had never had. He would never hurt her. She was as certain of that as it was possible to be certain of anything.

The sound of children laughing was Summer’s first clue that they had reached their destination. Hearing it, Frankenstein stopped walking and propped a shoulder against a tree, waiting for her to catch up.

„This is it,“ he said laconically as she came up to him. „Hiawatha Village. We used to camp here sometimes when I was a kid. Go to the manager’s office – it’s in the middle of the campground. I’m sure you can talk somebody there into letting you use the phone. I’d loan you a quarter, but I’m fresh out.“

He seemed to be in a hurry for her to leave him. Looking ahead at what seemed to be a play area still some distance away through the trees, Summer hesitated. Should she do this?