Dust Devil (42 page)

“
I
thought...I thought you were gone, that you had left me.”

“
No,
I’m never going to leave you again,
cara.
Not
so long as I live.
Never!”
he
insisted fiercely as he determinedly tugged the sheet from her grasp,
then drew her inexorably into his arms, his mouth silencing her own
passionately, his hands pressing her down, weaving their diabolic
magic.

It
is a wise father that knows his own child.

The
Merchant of Venice

—
William
Shakespeare

“
Hoag?”
Deputy Dwayne Truett spoke into the microphone of his patrol car’s
radio. “I think you better get on out here to the ole town
road. We got us a problem.”

“
What
kind of problem we talking about here, Dwayne?” The sheriff’s
voice came back through the radio, static crackling.

“
Lamar
Rollins. He’s out here with his ole car, at the railroad
tracks.”

“
So
what’s the problem? Is he drunk? Doped up? What?”

“
He’s
dead, Hoag.”

“
Come
again, Dwayne. I don’t think I heard you right. Did you say
Lamar’s dead?”

“
Yep.
That’s a roger. Dead as a doornail—and it ain’t a
purty sight, neither. I done puked up my breakfast all over the
place.”

“
Well,
how’d he die? Alcohol poisoning? Drug overdose? What?”

“
Try
murdered. He’s got two bullet holes pumped in his chest. Now, I
ain’t no expert, so I can’t be sure, and I expect we
ought to wait for the county coroner and an autopsy. But if I had to
make a guess, I’d say he was shot from long range, that the
wounds are from a hunting rifle, most likely a thirty-aught-six. I’ve
brought down enough deer myself with one that I reckon I oughta know.
Still, like I said, I can’t be certain. From the looks of him,
I’d guess poor ole Lamar’s been here half the night and
all morning.”

“
Jesus!”
The sheriff continued to curse and mutter for some minutes. Truth to
tell, he wasn’t really certain what all he needed to do in such
a situation. Compared to the big city, death from unnatural causes
was relatively rare in his small, rural town. Murder was virtually
unheard of, except for the occasional Saturday-night brawl that wound
up resulting in a shooting or stabbing—usually with several
witnesses present. “Well, Dwayne,” Hoag said finally,
“call the coroner, for Christ’s sake, and then seal off
the crime scene. Don’t let anybody touch anything—and
don’t you mess with nothing, neither, you hear? I’ll be
there just as soon as I can.”

Toward
morning, drowsy with sleep, only half awake, really, Renzo made love
to Sarah yet again, this time slowly and lazily exploring anew all he
had charted last night so
urgently,
in hot, blind passion. Afterward, she slipped from the bed they
shared and, gathering her clothes quietly so as not to disturb him,
crept into the bathroom to dress.

She
was shocked to see herself in the mirror—the wild tangle of her
dark hair, the smoky crescents under her eyes from lack of sleep, her
still-swollen mouth, the faint but unmistakable bruises of passion
that marked her body. It was as though in a single night she had
sought to make up for her self-imposed celibacy of more than a
decade. Sudden shame swept through her. Through hard work and sheer
determination, she had carefully built a life for herself. Now she
felt as though she had permitted it to be rocked on its very
foundations, as she herself had been. Renzo had used and abandoned
her once before. Why should this time prove any different?

Tears
stinging her eyes at that thought, Sarah dressed hurriedly. Finding
that Renzo had shut off the stereo last night and gathered up her
torn garments that had been strewn all over the floor, folding them
neatly alongside his own on the old church pew that sat in the foyer,
she made coffee. Then she left the house, stealing away into the
breaking dawn. Perhaps when she returned, Renzo would be gone. Yet,
despite herself, her heart tore at the notion—because she did
not think she could bear losing him a second time.

When
Renzo awoke, Sarah was gone, and for a long moment as he lay there
alone in bed, he thought he had only dreamed last night. Then,
slowly, he became aware of his surroundings and realized he was in
her bedroom. It was beautifully decorated in the Victorian style and,
like Sarah herself, a mixture of sensibleness, softness, sweetness
and sensuality. Yet despite this evidence of his whereabouts, Renzo
still hardly believed he was here, in her bed. Last night had been so
incredible that he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even now,
he wanted her again.

But
at last, when he recognized that she wasn’t going to come back
to bed, he rose, pulling on his jeans and calling her name. She was
nowhere to be found. Downstairs, the aroma of fresh, hot coffee led
him along the hall stretching back from the foyer to a swinging door
that gave way to a big, old-fashioned country kitchen.

Still,
there was no sign of Sarah.

She
had fled from him, Renzo realized. Sharp pain lanced through him. He
knew in his heart that the reason she had run away was because she
had feared he wouldn’t stay, that she would be left behind
again. Spying her stoneware dishes through the glass-paned doors of
the white cabinets, he removed a cup and filled it with coffee from
the coffee maker on the tile counter. Renzo sipped the rich black
liquid unhurriedly, savoring its taste. Doubtless, Sarah believed he
would leave before she returned. Well, she wasn’t going to be
rid of him so easily— especially after last night. He wandered
through the spacious rooms of the lovely old house to what he would
have called the living room but that Sarah probably referred to as
the “parlor.” He glanced through the front windows. To
his consternation, her Jeep wasn’t parked on the circular
gravel drive. Then he remembered it was sitting alongside the road,
with a flat tire, and relief swept through him. She couldn’t
have gone very far.

Suddenly,
at that realization, he knew where she was. Returning to the kitchen,
setting his half-empty cup down on the counter, Renzo opened the back
and screen doors to step outside. He inhaled deeply. The early
morning air was fresh and sweet from last night’s rain, the
rich, dark earth ripe and lush with the storm’s fragrant scent.
The trees and grass still shimmered with raindrops and dew, which
would be burned away by the sun before too much longer. But for now,
it looked as though thousands of rainbow prisms dripped from the
boughs and covered the ground. He could see why Sarah loved this old
farm. It was beautiful—quiet and peaceful—a place to put
down roots, to grow old with someone you loved. It occurred to Renzo
that he could be happy here, with her.

But
first, he had to find her, to convince her he had come home—to
her—for good.

The
meadow was hushed, the silence broken only by the soft cooing of
mourning doves from the old barn in the distance, the crowing of a
rooster somewhere, the drone of insects, the soughing of the rustling
trees and rippling grass stirred by the breeze. The tree house itself
was still. Even so, Renzo knew instinctively that Sarah was there. He
walked slowly toward the huge old sycamore, laying his hand against
the trunk and glancing up into its spreading green branches. He stood
there for a moment, lost in the past and wondering if she sensed his
presence, as he did hers.

Then,
a smile of fond remembrance, tenderness and caring curving his mouth,
he spoke, his voice low but strong, echoing in the morning quiet.
“Sarah, sweet Sarah, let down your oak-brown hair!”

*
* *

She
should have run farther, faster, Sarah thought in some obscure corner
of her mind, her heart hammering painfully. She should have known
Renzo would remember the tree house and would come here in search of
her. Perhaps that was why she had come here herself, because she had
wanted him to find her. Maybe if she sat very still and didn’t
answer, he would go away, she told herself. The trouble was that deep
in her heart of hearts, she knew she didn’t want him to leave.
She wanted him to join her in the tree house, to stay with her for
always. At last, of its own volition, her hand reached out
tremulously, grasped the thick, sturdy rope that lay coiled in one
comer, tossed it over the edge, down to him. Whether or not he
could—or would—still make the long ascent was up to him.

“
Damn
it, Sarah!” Renzo swore softly. “You don’t intend
to make it easy for me, do you?” Shaking his head when she
didn’t reply, he took hold of the rope, knowing, even if she
didn’t, that thanks to the fact that he lifted free weights and
had taken up karate to stay in shape, he still possessed the
upper-body strength of his youth. Determinedly, he began to climb.

A
few minutes later, Sarah heard him pulling himself up, hoisting
himself into the tree house. Her heart was now thudding so violently
that she felt as though it wouldn’t be able to sustain the
pace, would simply jerk abruptly to a halt. Still, she didn’t
look at him, didn’t want him to see the tears that seeped from
her eyes—for so many reasons that, in her emotional upset and
confusion, she didn’t even begin to understand them all
herself. She wept, perhaps, for lost youth, regrets and what might
have been; for last
night,
that she loved Renzo still, that she had wronged him, had hurt him in
a way he had yet to discover; for the uncertain future, fear that
whatever they shared wasn’t enough to overcome the past, to
hold them together—that perhaps he didn’t even want that,
had never intended it, despite what he had said last night.

Even
though Sarah was turned away, staring out a window of the tree house,
her long hair falling forward and her hand against her cheek to
conceal her face from him, Renzo knew she was crying. She was huddled
against the wall, curled up in a fetal position. She wore jeans and a
green shell, and her feet were bare, so she hardly looked any older,
he thought, than the seventeen-year-old girl she had been when he had
first taken her—fragile and ethereal, vulnerable and easily
bruised. At once, he saw that the hard, cold edge he had that night
at the Grain Elevator accused her of possessing was only a protective
shell she had built around herself, and that last night, he had
succeeded in smashing it, so that now she was like a wounded animal,
hurt and afraid. He knelt beside her, gathered her trembling,
unresisting figure in his embrace, pulling her close against him,
tightening his arms around her, rocking her and stroking her mass of
silky hair.

“
Sarah,
oh, Sarah,” he whispered fiercely against her ear. “Don’t
you know you’re the only woman in the world for me? That it’s
always been you? Only you. I love you. I love you....”

One
by one, he kissed the tears from her cheeks. Then at last his mouth
took hers, and the taste of her was sweet, wild honey melting on his
tongue as, whimpering a little, she opened her lips to him and wound
her arms tightly around his neck. And Renzo knew then that he had
won, that she was his for as long as he wanted her—and he
wanted her for as long as she would have him.