Deep in the Heart (14 page)

His lips grazed the top of her hair, pressing against the damp texture, wishing he could take all of her fears and toss them out into the night with the storm.

“No, Johnny, you misunderstood.”

He felt her hands slide up his belly and come to rest on the region over his heart.

“I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid I won’t measure up. I told you, it’s been a long time since I’ve—”

She didn’t have time to finish as his soft chuckle broke her concentration.

“Honey, I arrest the experts. Besides, you don’t have to know all the tricks, because I do.” His voice was thick with joy as he bent down.

“Oh my God,” she gasped, half laughing, half crying, as he lifted her off her feet and kicked open the door to his bedroom.

“Now, Samantha Jean, if you’re going to start praying, I’m just going to have to carry you back across the hall and leave you to sleep alone. I can’t compete with the Good Lord. Not at a time like this.”

“Just shut up, Johnny, and teach me.” Her hands brushed across his belt buckle as he deposited her at the foot of his bed. “Teach me how to love you right. Teach me everything.”
And maybe this time you won’t leave me.
But she never voiced the last thought.

When her hands brushed across the hard bulge behind his zipper, he groaned and slid the shirt from her body. She tilted toward him, pressing the flat of her hands against his chest to brace herself as his arms encircled her body. Slowly, he unfastened the hooks on her bra. She sighed as she spilled loose from the silken confinement.

“Now, pay close attention, darlin’,” John Thomas said, as he began removing the rest of her clothing.

“I am,” she whispered, as she returned the favor and began unbuckling his belt buckle and unzipping his jeans. “But if I miss something, maybe we can do it again until I get the hang of it.”

“It would be my pleasure,” he said. “But first…it’s going to be yours.”

8

S
AMANTHA WAS MESMERIZED
by the man standing at the foot of her bed, and by his slow, methodical striptease. She didn’t even stop to wonder why only moments ago her body had been chilled and shaking, and now the air around her was thick and too close to breathe.

Her hands moved in a shaky path across her skin, lifting hair from her face and neck where it clung, hot and damp; a complete opposite to the cool sheet beneath her.

Lightning cracked so close that, for a moment, the flash blinded her to what Johnny was doing. She blinked rapidly, unwilling to lose sight of the man who had become her entire universe. As her vision cleared, she saw that he had crossed the narrow space between the wall and the bed, and was in the act of opening a window.

And when a swift draft of cool, fresh, rainwashed air followed him to her bed, she inhaled and stretched; a sensual appreciation of the brisk air that blew across her heated skin.

John Thomas slid onto the bed and then stretched full length beside her, laying his hand across the flat of her stomach in a possessive yet undemanding gesture. She shivered and turned toward him, letting her fingers stray downward until she’d encircled him, relishing the power he’d given her by putting himself in her hands.

“I wish that my stalker were here, right now,” Samantha whispered, as she moved even closer.

“Why?” John Thomas asked, shocked by her words.

“So that I could thank him in person for bringing me back to you. When I lost you before, my life and my world were so empty.”

You lie.

The thought came so quickly that he almost didn’t remember pushing her hands from his body, or rolling up and away. He sat up on the edge of the bed, bringing their lovemaking to a sudden halt.

“Johnny?”

The room was so dark that she had to imagine his facial expression, and then another flash of lightning sent a short burst of light into the room. It only lasted a second, but it was long enough for Samantha to see the pain on his face.

“You didn’t lose me, Samantha Jean. You threw me away.”

He got up from the bed, grabbing his jeans as he passed, and walked out of the room, unable to stay and listen to more lies. He was also unable to admit to himself that regardless of what she’d done, he didn’t want her any less.

Samantha threw back the covers, grabbed her shirt, and followed him into the kitchen.

“
I
threw
you
away? I don’t think so!” she shouted.

Her indignation surprised him. Speechless, he could only stand and listen to her continue.

“I’m the one who believed you when you said you loved me. I’m the one who waited and waited and waited—” Her voice broke, but she refused to give in to the tears hovering behind her eyes. “You’re the one who didn’t write. After we moved, I had no way of contacting you other than to wait for your letter with the address of your boot camp. The letter I was so certain would come.”

Samantha hated herself for wanting to cry. And at that moment, she hated Johnny for making her feel this old misery all over again.

“Damn you, Johnny, for giving up on me and what we had!” She picked up the nearest thing she could get her hands on.

The coffee cup sailed past his head and shattered on the wall behind him as she stomped from the room.

John Thomas stared in shock at her violent reaction. It was the first time that it had ever occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, someone else was to blame. Her reaction was too full of hurt to be faked. Maybe Samantha never did see his letters. Maybe it was her parents who’d been responsible for sending them back.

He stepped over the broken cup and went to get a broom. An odd smile was sitting just off-center on his face as he carefully swept up what she’d done. When he had finished, he turned out the light and started back to his room, only this time alone.

Just outside her door he paused and listened. From the repetitive squeak of bedsprings, it sounded as if she was doing some serious tossing and turning.

“Sam.”

The squeaks ceased instantly. But she didn’t answer. It didn’t matter. He had her attention, and that was all he’d wanted.

“I did write.”

He walked into his room and closed the door.
Let her sleep on that for a while,
he thought. He damned sure had.

The smell of fresh-brewed coffee tickled her nose. Samantha opened her eyes and stared up into John Thomas’s face as he stood beside her bed.

“Mornin’,” he said.

She grunted a reply that needed no translation, and then hated herself for wanting him now as badly as she had last night, before he’d torn a hole in her heart and set a whole series of thoughts in motion.

He looked magnificent. Still damp from his shower, his hair glistened seal-black. Wearing nothing but boots, jeans, and a guarded expression, he handed her a cup of coffee and then stepped away.

Samantha set the coffee on the table beside her and stared at the half-dressed man standing at the foot of the bed, trying to read his solemn eyes. There was no hint as to how he felt about what had happened between them last night.

Those damnable three words he’d said before disappearing into his room had left her wide awake and aching for more than half the night. When she finally did fall asleep, she’d dreamt of a young man with tears on his face who kept shouting the same thing at her over and over.
I did write. I did write.

She felt even more miserable now. What if he’d told her the truth? And if he had, why didn’t she get the letters that he’d written?

The same answer kept coming back, and it was one she didn’t want to face. If he was telling her the truth, then that could only mean that one or both of her parents had been responsible for keeping them apart. The fact that they were dead now and couldn’t answer for themselves was even worse. Samantha didn’t know how to be mad at ghosts.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To work. I just wanted to tell you to get dressed or we’re going to be late.”

She stared at him.

And then he lost his composure. “What the hell do you want from me?” he asked.

Only the truth.

But she didn’t say it. It would have done nothing but revive the same vicious cycle of accusations that had nowhere to go but back to the start.

“That’s what I thought,” he muttered. “Hurry up, Sam. I’ve got a meeting at eight.”

Two days had come and gone since their fight. During that time, the feelings between them grew deeper and deeper, while the time they spent together became increasingly strained. Samantha was beginning to object to being dragged to work each day like a puppy who wouldn’t stay tied. And she was running out of things to do in Rusk to occupy her time. John Thomas had his work. All she did was wait for five o’clock to roll around. It was the slow, tedious days of heat and boredom that made her balk on the third day after the storm.

“But I’ll be fine,” she argued, as they stood in the early morning shade beside his truck. “I’m not depressed or suicidal, for God’s sake. But I swear, Johnny, if I have to watch that woman change the window display one more time at Monique’s I’m going to scream. There’s only so much fun a woman can stand and still remain sane.”

He sighed. He knew their current routine had to be trying her patience. And not once since they left L.A. had anything resembling a threat occurred. Maybe Detective Pulaski was a little off base. Granted the stalker knew Samantha Carlyle was gone, but that didn’t mean he knew where to.

“I don’t know,” he said, watching the desperate expression on her face growing more intense with each passing minute. Something nudged his leg. He glanced down, then instantly started trying to sidestep the wet muddy dog who’d just ambled in from the field across the road.

Rebel snuffed along the ground and then across John Thomas’s boot tops, leaving a wet muddy trail from his huge black nose. He looked up with dark, pleading eyes, as if to make certain that he wasn’t in trouble, and that the tone of their voices had nothing to do with him.

“Rebel can be my watchdog,” Samantha said, pointing to the flop-eared hound that was now sitting between his master’s legs.

“Rebel isn’t a watchdog, Sam. He’s a tracker. There’s a world of difference.”

“So…if I get lost he can find me. Please, let me stay home. Just for today. Please.”

It was the please that did it. That and the gentle way her smile nudged his achy, needy body.

“Oh damn, Samantha Jean. Women like you should be against the law.” His mouth swooped in a fierce, hard kiss that sucked the air from her lungs and the sense from her mind.

Samantha staggered slightly as he pushed her away and pointed toward the doorway.

“Take Killer here,” he pointed toward Rebel who was now snapping halfheartedly at a fly, “go inside, lock the door, and don’t come out this evening until you hear the sound of my voice. Okay?”

“Thank you, Johnny.”

She whistled once. Rebel came to instant attention and trotted into the house ahead of her as if he’d just graduated first in his class from obedience school.

John Thomas shook his head and frowned as she closed the door between them. Reluctantly, he got into his truck and drove away. The sooner he got to work, the sooner it would be done. Then he could go home and sort through the emotions he and Sam were trying to ignore.

“So you left the pretty lady at home all by herself today,” Monty said, as he sidled in the door and shifted the bulky gun belt on his hip to a less binding position.

John Thomas looked long and hard at the innocent expression on his new deputy’s face before he answered, and when he did, it sounded more like a grunt than a yes.

“Monty, sometimes I think you’re about as smart as a rock,” Carol Ann said, as she watched the sunny disposition the sheriff had come to work with turning slightly sour.

“What did I say?” he asked, and then grinned and winked as she tossed up her hands and sauntered past the still-absent secretary’s desk to her own little cubicle in the back.

“We’ve got trouble,” John Thomas said. “I was waiting for you to get here. Willis and Lawler have gone to check out a three-car wreck on the county line road. That leaves just you and me to investigate the cattle theft on the Watkins ranch.”

“I’m your man,” he said. “You want me to drive?”

Before John Thomas could answer, they both heard the phone ringing back in the dispatcher’s office. He paused. The way this morning had gone, it was bound to be more bad news.

“Wait!” Carol Ann shouted, as she ran into the front office with a slip of paper in her hand. “Glad I caught you. You’ll need to get right on this, Sheriff. Lizzy Marshall just called in hysterics. She said her ex just called and is on his way out to the house with a gun—again!”

“Oh hell,” John Thomas said, as he snatched the paper with the details of the call. “Monty, you’re on your own. Carol Ann, give him directions to the Watkins ranch. Deputy, take down all the necessary information before you leave. Take a camera with you, and take—”

“Sheriff, I passed all my tests. I know what I need for an on-site investigation. This won’t be my first, you know.”

John Thomas frowned, but he had no choice. He wasn’t sending a green deputy like Montgomery Turner out to Lizzy Marshall’s to face that crazy ex-husband of hers. Last time they’d gone out there on a call, it had taken two deputies and Lizzy’s brother in addition to himself to subdue Lem Marshall.

John Thomas looked long and hard at his new deputy’s eager face. Every man came to a place in his life when it was time to fish or cut bait. It looked like this was Monty’s day.

“Check in periodically with Carol Ann. If I need you, she’ll let you know,” John Thomas ordered.

“Yes sir,” Monty said, already out the door as he spoke.

John Thomas sighed. “Call home for me from time to time and check on Samantha, would you, Carol Ann?”

She nodded as the sheriff stepped out the door and yelled at Monty who was about to get inside his squad car.

“Hey, Deputy! Don’t you want to know where you’re supposed to go?” John Thomas asked.

Monty’s face turned three shades of red, but then of course he’d bolted from the office without chewing the information he needed to take with him.