Nemesis (Southern Comfort) (27 page)

“Okay.” She swiped at her wet cheeks with fingers scraped raw from trying to fight her way free.  And her hands had just healed, damn it.  “But I shouldn’t have pushed him like that.  I just knew he would hurt you to hurt me, and still I went running off at the mouth.  I was just so angry, and –”

“I know, honey.”  He would have held up a hand to stop her tirade, but one was chained and the other broken.  “The man’s a sadistic bastard.  But look on the bright side – you got us water.”  He nodded toward the gallon jug of Zephyrhills that the assholes had left midway between them last night.  Just out of either of their reach.  Luckily Sadie had been able to get hold of one of the broken legs from the table and they’d used it to push the jug back and forth.  “You also probably bought us another day or two, if we’re lucky, by pointing out that Kathleen would be expecting us to check in with her.  Not to mention the fact that I needed to call Dad to arrange more ‘time off.’”

A small smile relieved some of the tension.  “I can only imagine what he must have thought, given that conversation.  That moan you let slip toward the end probably gave the impression that your head wasn’t fully in the conversation, so to speak.”

A laugh erupted, and he had to stifle another moan.  “What about your conversation with Kathleen?  Camping?”  His tone packed a whole lot of yeah, right.  “Like I’d be idiot enough to suggest that.  I can just see you walking around the muddy woods in three inch heels.”

Sadie’s answering smile held just a tinge of tired smugness. 

It was then that her genius hit him.  “And you knew that Kathleen would figure that out.  Not to mention the fact that you said we took my Jeep because of its suspension, when anyone who has ever ridden with me knows the suspension is about shot.  God, I love you.”  The words tumbled out just as easily as that.  Of course it helped that he wasn’t fighting them.  He hadn’t intended to get into this yet, but figured there was no time like the present.

The present might be all they had.

He saw Sadie’s flash of surprised disbelief, the glance that indicated she was worried about his head injury.

“Don’t look at me like I’m demented.  We’re crazy about each other, and you know it.”

Her mouth opened and closed, a lush little fish, and a smile worked its way up from his gut.  “God must have been feeling whimsical the day he put that hooker’s mouth on the face of an angel.”

IT
took Sadie a moment to realize what he’d said, as she was still reeling from that
I love you.
  “I do not have a mouth like a hooker.”  Debunking that assertion was much easier than dealing with his declaration.

“Oh honey, yes, you do.  I’m sure Eve lured Adam to the apple with a mouth just exactly like that.”

Obviously, he was suffering from some sort of trauma-induced delirium.  Either that or he really was dying, and this was the world’s most convoluted deathbed confession.

Her expression must have shown something along those lines, for he rolled his eyes heavenward. 

“Sadie.  I’m exhausted.  Cold.  Hungry.  Uncomfortable, to say the least.  I feel like I’ve been flattened by an un-neighborly elephant, and I’m so pissed off that I’m mostly blind.  But I’m okay, honey, so you can just tuck that guilt away.  Believe me when I tell you it won’t do either of us any good.”

“It’s not that easy,” she confessed “to regulate my emotions.”  Under the circumstances it was a miracle she had any degree of control left at all.

He studied her a moment quietly, then gingerly brought a knee up to rest under his cuffed hand.  “Kathleen told you about Rogan’s ankle, right?  About how he was injured when Max was kidnapped?”

Sadie nodded, recalling that he’d been pushed down the stairs at the city’s aquarium so that a pedophile could abduct his cousin’s child.

“It was a bad break, but it should have been mostly healed by now.  His doctors were at a loss as to what was slowing the process; the bones just didn’t seem to be knitting right, and they finally had to re-break it and set it again.  Max’s stepdad is a psychologist, and implied it was partly psychosomatic.  I figured that was a bunch of bullshit until I started seeing signs of it myself.  I caught him putting all his weight on his lame foot, forgetting to use his crutches, walking up the stairs at the bar when he could have sent me.  He felt so damn guilty over not being able to stop Max’s abduction that he was actually refusing, albeit subconsciously, to allow himself to heal.”

“That’s terrible,” she cried.  “Why didn’t anyone set him straight?”

“Everyone tried, believe me.  We got Max back, everything turned out okay, but guilt’s a stubborn thing.  Your brain might realize you’re not to blame, but your heart… like you said, it’s tough to shut off your emotions.  Kim’s been great for him, though.  She finally talked him into some therapy a couple months ago.  And she’s patient, understanding with him, but only up to a point.  After that she just sort of takes over and tells him to stop being stupid.”

Sadie tried to figure out why he’d told her all this, then realized he’d cast her in the role of Rogan, the guilt-sufferer, which obviously made him Kim. Not that he’d appreciate the analogy.  “So you’re telling me I’m being stupid.”

“If the ruby slipper fits.”

She looked pointedly at her bare feet.  Tried to muster some flippancy.  “Fine.  Good.  Whatever.  I feel no responsibility for your current condition.”  But her acting skills weren’t up to the task, and a straggling tear escaped from between her lashes.

He tracked it but withheld comment.  “You know,” he finally said, “I used to think that Rogan and I were polar opposites.  Mirror images, and all that twin bullshit.  He was the good one, I was bad.  Well I’ve realized, over the past few days, that though there’s some truth to that analogy, we’re more alike than I thought.  Our emotions run pretty deep, they just manifest themselves in different ways.  He punished his body to deal with his guilt.  I punished everyone else.”

When he saw the confusion that marred her expression, he told her about his mother.

Sadie absorbed his confession, realizing what a blow his mother’s death must have been to him.  They’d always been close, and for him to feel responsible for her accident…

It had to have eaten him alive.

The curious dynamic she’d noticed between him and his family suddenly made a lot more sense.

Then her brows drew together as she followed the logic through.  “So let me get this straight: you’ve used the guilt you felt over your accidental role in your mother’s death as an excuse to act like a jerk for the past fourteen years.”

“Pretty much,” he admitted, tone wry with self-deprecation.

“Oh Declan.”   She looked him over, battered and bruised, perhaps more so in soul than he was in body.  Softened as she glimpsed the hurt little boy peeking out from the eyes of the wounded man.  It was obvious that he’d sabotaged his own happiness for years, because he simply felt he didn’t deserve it.  “Why now?” she asked, wondering at the change of heart he seemed to be having.

“Because you need to understand where I’m coming from.  I’m through with pushing people away from me, and right now you’re topping the list.  I meant it when I said I loved you.”

“Declan.” Her whole posture went
boneless. But given the dire circumstances, how could she possibly trust his words?  “You know that I love you, too.  You can’t spend your entire formative years with someone, the way we did, and not come out the other side with some pretty strong emotions.  But if this is because you think we’re not going to make it out of here, or because of the other night, you don’t need to –”

“NO.”
  He stopped her before she could cruise down Denial Street any farther.  Hadn’t she been paying attention?  He was through with acting out of guilt.  “I’m not telling you I love you because I think we’re going to die, or because we made love the other night.  We made love the other night because I love you.  Never would have happened otherwise.  You think I’m stupid enough to make a move on a friend?  On a woman who lives next door to me?”

Her expression suggested she thought it entirely possible that he might actually be that stupid.  That it had been hormones and not emotion behind their coupling.  Indignation reared its ugly head, outrage not far behind it.  He was making himself vulnerable, soft, like a freaking she-crab going through a molting. And she was about to fry him up and serve him on a bun.

“I know it’s been quite a while since you left, but I’d hoped you knew me better than to think I would use you.” 

“No, Declan.  That’s not it.”  Her sigh bore the weight of frustration.  “Obviously there’s an attraction between us, and I’m not blaming you for the fact that we had sex.  Or for the broken condom.  Or even for the way you reacted.  I know it threw you, but there was no harm done, and you can’t hold yourself responsible for an accident.  I believe that was the point of the discussion we were just having.”

He snorted.  “But you’re ignoring the fact that that kind of accident often requires a college fund.”

“No,” she shook her head. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.  I’m on birth control pills, and have been for some time.”

“Okay.”  Was that relief or disappointment twisting his gut?  “Good.  Excellent.  But the fact is, yes, I freaked out, as evidenced by my vomit and run, but the point I’m trying to make here is that I would have been… okay if you’d ended up pregnant.”

“Well.” She cleared her throat. “I’m not.
Pregnant, that is.”

“Super.”  And now he remembered why he’d always preferred sex with relative strangers.  This clearing the air with a lifelong friend was turning out to be damn awkward.  And don’t think it had escaped his notice that she’d pretty much ignored the fact that he’d said he loved her.

Always quick to jump on his train of thought, she cleared her throat again in uncharacteristic hesitation.  “At the risk of making this a whole lot more uncomfortable than it already is, I just want to say that I never would have made love with you either if there weren’t… feelings involved.  Really strong feelings.  But I have to admit that I can barely get over the fact that you and I even did the deed, let alone that it was so fantastic.  And then there’s the little matter of the skin on my finger still being raw from the engagement ring I just gave up. 

“And quite frankly, I’m so scared of us dying here that the state of our relationship isn’t the first thing on my mind.  But provided we make it out of here, I’d like to see where this might take us.”     

  “Fair enough.”  And if that stung a little bit he’d ignore it.  When they got out of there – and they were getting out of there – he’d just plow through any resistance she offered.  He hadn’t bared his soul like that just to be friends.  Although he had to admit her friendship was pretty damn important. 

But he wasn’t giving the sex up, either.

“It was pretty fantastic, wasn’t it?”

A wry smile twisted one corner of her sexy mouth
, then she suddenly looked toward the window.  “You hear that?”

Now that she mentioned it, there was a noise that seemed to be growing louder.  It sounded like some kind of motor.

“Boat, maybe?”

“Sounds like,” he agreed.  He could tell from the briny, fecund smell in the air that there was a waterway nearby.

“You think it’s somebody fishing?” she asked hopefully. “Or… maybe them returning.  Could be they decided to come by water instead of driving in.”

He saw her shudder with the nerves she’d been suppressing, felt the now-familiar rage set to boiling under his skin.  He was possibly concussed, certainly battered and broken in a number of places, but not so far gone he was willing to just sit here and do nothing if it was indeed the men.

The question was what the hell was he capable of doing?

“Maybe we should try yelling,” she suggested, eyes wide with both hope and dread.  “Just in case it’s someone who might help us.”

Declan listened carefully to gauge the boat’s distance from their location. Years of living near the water gave him accuracy wrought from experience.  The sound was more hum than roar, muted, and growing fainter.  The good news was it most likely wasn’t their captors.

The bad news: their very slim chance of rescue.

“Too far away,” he told Sadie, hating the disappointment which crumpled her spine.  “Even if we had a bull horn they wouldn’t be able to hear us over the noise of the engine.  And the wind’s blowing this direction, off the water.  You know that means they’re probably not even as close as it sounds.”

“Maybe we should try, anyway.  If there’s one vessel, there might be more. Maybe a rowboat or a kayaker or –” 

Her voice trailed off with a hiccupping sound, and she shoved a fist against her mouth.

“Ah, baby, please don’t cry.”  The sight of her struggling against a breakdown was almost more than he could bear.  She’d been so courageous through this whole damn thing that he’d almost forgotten she was five-foot nothing.  A little fluff in a frilly pink suit.  Brave though she was, physically she was tiny.  It had to be terrifying to know self-defense
in their current situation was next to impossible.

And that as a defender, her male companion had been pretty damn lame.

That thought so enraged him that he ignored his aches and pains and kicked his foot out at the broken table.  Pieces of rotted wood scattered like cockroaches across the floor.  He yanked against the pipe for what must have been the thousandth time since last evening.  It moved not one freaking inch.