Deep in the Heart (18 page)

Samantha wondered as she entered why the deputy stared at her when he thought she wasn’t looking, and then looked away when she was. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but felt that there was something very sad about him.

“Wow!” She walked around the rooms, staring and poking at everything in sight. “No one would believe this.”

“I know it’s a little rough,” John Thomas said. “But remember, it’s only temporary.”

“No,” she said. “You don’t understand. This stuff would bring a fortune back in L.A. Vintage thirties and forties furnishings are in vogue, you know.”

Monty tried not to grin, but John Thomas’s chuckle was too infectious to ignore. “Are you kidding me?” John Thomas asked, staring at the aging furniture and accessories.

“No way! You know how people with money are. They want what they can’t or don’t have.”

“Well, that sounds sort of stupid,” Monty said before he thought. “I’m physically unable to have babies and have yet to have a heart attack, and honestly folks, I’m not losing any sleep over either loss.”

Samantha collapsed onto the wing-back sofa, buried her face in her hands, and laughed. Every time she looked back up at the young deputy and the sheepish grin on his face, she laughed even harder.

John Thomas rolled his eyes and went after the rest of their belongings. He didn’t care why or at whose expense it came, but he was damned glad to hear her happy.

Sometime later, when everything had been moved indoors, and Samantha was in possession of all the necessary keys and money for groceries, she found herself alone. And this time, for some strange reason, she wasn’t afraid.

Maybe it was because she knew she was only blocks away from the sheriff’s office. Or maybe it was because she’d lived so long in a city that being able to look out a window and see other people and into other homes gave her a false sense of security.

Regardless of the reason, Samantha knew that from now on, whatever happened, she would be ready.

10

I
N THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED
, it became evident that neither Samantha nor John Thomas was good at waiting. Sometimes she believed that they’d outmaneuvered the stalker by moving into town, but other times she felt as if she’d traded one jail for another. She was still hiding behind four walls.

And John Thomas watched with a nervous eye as Samantha’s nerves deteriorated. Day by day she became edgier and he saw her mask frustration behind smiles. When he tried to get her to talk, she turned and walked out of the room. The only part of their relationship that wasn’t suffering from the prolonged waiting was the long nights of making love.

On this day, as every day since this nightmare had started, he sat at his desk with a formidable stack of paperwork yet to be done and tried unsuccessfully to concentrate. His mind kept wandering to the inhabitants of the house where he and Sam were staying. Even though the four apartment units in the old Earl house were now all rented, they were rarely occupied at the same time.

Claudia the waitress worked from 3
P.M
. to 11
P.M
. and didn’t actually count in the scheme of things. She was a transient in the act of moving on as soon as she accumulated enough money for a bus ticket home.

And his deputy, he was the most surprising element of all. John Thomas knew for a fact that the man rarely, if ever, slept there. When he was off duty, his car was never in the parking lot and the lights in his apartment were never on.

When he heard Monty’s voice in the back of the office and then heard Carol Ann’s high-pitched giggle, he smiled. It shouldn’t surprise him that Montgomery Turner didn’t sleep alone. He was young and, he supposed, unattached.

But John Thomas wondered, if Monty was keeping such footloose hours with his free time, why he wasn’t also coming to work with a bleary-eyed but smiling face. Why the sad, haunted expression instead?

So he sleeps in another woman’s bed. That’s on big deal,
John Thomas told himself, and picked up another file on his desk. But curiosity about the inhabitants of the old house kept niggling at his lawman’s soul.

As for the young couple across the hall from his deputy, their life was pretty much an open book. They hadn’t been hitched long enough for the
Just Married
letters painted across their back windshield in white shoe polish to have washed away. And from the look of the young girl’s swollen belly, they’d barely made it to the altar before their first child was to enter into this world.

He tossed down his pen, kicked his heels up on the desk, and locked his hands behind his head as he stared absently at the ceiling.

If Samantha’s family had never left Cotton, she would have been here when I came home on leave. Maybe then her father would have seen I could be trusted. Maybe he would have…

He closed his eyes and cursed softly to himself. Just thinking about Samantha and marriage and babies made him ache. He’d never dreamed of having a home because, after Samantha, he’d never found a woman he wanted to spend more than a night with. But that was before her letter. Before she came back into his life. Now he couldn’t imagine his world without her.

What-ifs weren’t in John Thomas’s vocabulary. He was partial to the facts and the facts were that he was head over heels in love with a woman who was being stalked, and that he couldn’t keep her safe. Here he was, an officer of the law, with all the latest crime-fighting tools at his disposal and he still couldn’t catch one sick son of a bitch who got off by scaring women.

As for the waitress across the hall, she was the least of their worries. She left for work before he came home. Rarely did he get more than a glimpse of her. She seemed friendly, but always in a hurry. And he had to admit that it was nice to have the entire top floor of the house to themselves when they went to bed. Having a witness within hearing distance of their lovemaking might have been intimidating.

And as he thought about making love to Samantha, his boots came off the desk with a thump. He was out of the office before Carol Ann knew he was gone.

The front door slammed. Carol Ann looked up in time to see an odd, resigned expression slide over Deputy Turner’s face.

“There he goes again,” Monty said. “I didn’t know he had a call.”

“The only call he hears these days is a call of the wild.” She laughed at her own wit.

Monty nodded. “I didn’t hear any bells ring, but I’ll lay money the boss did. Hell, maybe he’s hearing wedding bells and just doesn’t know it.”

Carol Ann started to laugh again, and then she saw the sad expression on Monty’s face.

“I think I’ll take a drive out toward the Watkins ranch and circle the section a time or two. Maybe our cattle rustlers will be stupid enough to try for a repeat. If they do, we’ll be ready,” he said.

He tipped his hat at her and winked, but the shadows were still in place. Carol Ann made a note of where he was going, and winced as the back door slammed behind him.

Now why would a young fellow like Monty Turner resent John Thomas? Carol Ann wondered. There was no earthly reason he should care what his boss did.

Samantha heard his footsteps on the stairs, closed her eyes, and counted the number of thumps that he made then smiled. He was running. She shivered in anticipation of what was coming.

Maybe she should get undressed. Then she changed her mind within the same breath. There was no reason to make his life any easier than it already was.

In spite of her determination to ignore the fact that he was forty-five minutes early, Samantha met him at the door. He took one look at the grin on her face and lifted her off of her feet.

“I suppose you think you’re psychic,” he growled, planting separate kisses beneath each earlobe before walking them into the room and kicking the door shut behind him.

“Why, Sheriff, whatever do you mean? And pray tell, sir, why exactly
are
you here? Am I under arrest? If so, I suppose you’ll be wanting to frisk me. Should I assume the position or do you want to…”

His hands splayed across her rear and pulled her close within the cradle of his hips, rocking her gently against a growing ache as he tried hard to glare. “You, my woman, can assume any position you choose, and you should know that I hate a smart-mouthed criminal. Why can’t I just find one who’ll take her punishment quietly?”

Samantha’s heart tugged.
His woman.
A long time ago she would have crawled at his feet to hear those words. Now, she wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to do, but she knew that it involved getting closer—much closer—to the man who held her fast within his arms.

“So, if I’m in trouble, exactly what did I do?” she asked, and began pulling his shirt from his pants and unbuckling his holster.

He shrugged and tried to smile when he wanted to cry. “You stole my heart, darlin’. You just walked in and took it without a word. What’s a man to do when something like that happens?”

“Make the punishment fit the crime, I always say,” she answered, and he beat her to the punch by taking off the rest of his clothes, boots and all, leaving them in a pile beside the front door.

The proof of his desire was there. All she had to do was look. And she did. Her breath caught as she shuddered uncontrollably, partly from anticipation, partly from need. And then his hands were on her body.

“In case you don’t already know, this procedure is called a strip search.” Laughter was rich in his voice as his hands teased the clothes from her body.

“All I ask is that you don’t hurt me,” she said, still lost in the game that they’d begun, and then gasped when his hands lingered too long in a tantalizing spot.

“Darlin’, what I have in mind doesn’t hurt at all. In fact, it’s guaranteed to make the worst sinner beg for mercy and plead for more.”

“Then I’m all yours, Sheriff.”

“I knew that, love, or I wouldn’t be here,” he whispered.

At that moment the game was over. When he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed, she clung to him in sudden desperation.

He felt the mood changing between them as she began to tremble. He cuddled her gently, stroking a finger across each dark, winged brow, marveling at the way each of her features fit together to form the woman called Samantha that he knew and loved.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“I just had a premonition. What if he wins? Oh, Johnny, what if he wins?” She buried her face in her hands.

The fact that she had some of his same fears made him angry, but not at her, only at himself for being unable to make her world perfect. He pulled her hands away from her face and kissed each feature with slow deliberation.

“No, Sam, he won’t! Now don’t think. Don’t talk. Just feel. Remember when I asked you if you’d ever made love blindfolded?”

She swallowed and then shuddered as his hands cupped her firm breasts and then traced a path down to her rib cage.

She nodded. “I remember. And you don’t need to blindfold me, Johnny, I’ll just close my eyes, and I promise I won’t peek. Cross my heart and—”

He silenced the last of her vow as his fingers moved across her face and gently closed her eyelids.

“Remember, love. Don’t move. Don’t think. Just feel.”

And so she did.

Claudia stood in the hallway between the two apartments with tears streaming down her face. It was an accident that she’d heard any of their conversation. Actually she’d only heard sounds, not words, but it was enough to know that on the other side of that door a man and woman were sharing something she’d lost. Love.

Once her life had been that simple. Once her life had been that happy. Then she remembered how she’d gotten here, and remembered her job and what it was going to take to get her home. She swiped angrily at her tears, and then ran down the stairs as quickly as the sheriff had run up.

It was 6
A.M
. when Montgomery Turner drove into the yard of the Earl house and parked. Headlights of a vehicle pulling in behind momentarily blinded him. When his vision had cleared, he had a swift impression of long legs and blond hair. Claudia, the waitress, was getting home. It was long past her quitting time and he wondered if she’d found herself a new man. He frowned. Everyone had someone but him.

He waited until she was inside before he got out of his car and entered his own apartment. It looked and smelled the same, and yet tonight something was very different. He was no longer the same man he’d been when he left. After what had occurred tonight, he would never be the same.

He dropped into the chair closest to the window and watched the arrival of dawn through the sheer, white curtains. The sun rose above the horizon with the promise of a new day ahead. And with that thought came a rush of gut-wrenching, heart-stopping tears.

With a loud groan of defeat, he buried his face in his hands and gave way to the pain eating away inside him. Later, when he could think, and when he could feel, he would know that everything that had happened this night was ultimately for the best. But for now, he was too lost in the pain of remembering, of thinking of how things used to be, before the nightmare began, before his world came crashing to an end.

“Hey there, Sheriff,” Pete Meuller yelled, and started across the street at a jog.

About to get into his squad car and go out on a call, John Thomas looked up in surprise to see the mechanic from Cotton coming across the street toward him at a fast pace.

“What’s up, Pete? I haven’t seen you move like that since someone stole your best set of wrenches.”

Pete puffed and grinned, holding on to his chest in an effort to stop his racing heart. “I’m gonna have to quit smoking one of these days,” he muttered, and then turned away and coughed.

John Thomas waited. Knowing Pete, eventually he’d get around to telling him why he’d come calling.

“You remember asking us to all be on the lookout for strangers coming to Cotton?” Pete said.

John Thomas’s pulse suddenly kicked into high gear. Just the thought of a break in the case made him anxious.

Pete waited for the sheriff to nod. When he did, then he felt ready to continue.