Silver Bracelets: A Loveswept Contemporary Classic Romance (8 page)

“I was thinking more about the mayor.” They wandered over to the lake and followed a well-worn path around the moonlit water.

“Jake Dalton is a friend, too.”

“I don’t think that’s his choice.”

“How old are you, Asa?”

“I’m thirty-five, old enough to know better than to let you make yourself a part of my life under false pretenses.”

“Good. I like a man who knows what he’s doing, especially when what he’s doing feels so good.”

“Oh, lady,” he said under his breath, “I think the deputy sheriff is in big trouble.”

Asa didn’t know how to respond to Sarah’s honesty. She thought he needed her and she came. He knew that he could invite her inside
the cabin and she wouldn’t hesitate, but that would take them one step further in a direction that he wasn’t sure he was ready to go.

Asa removed her arm from his waist and held her hand, his long fingers loosely threaded through her shorter ones.

“Sarah, Jeanie called tonight, before you came. I gave her and Mike my blessings.”

“I’m glad.”

Asa stopped and turned to study Sarah in the moonlight.

“Why did you really come here tonight?” he asked.

“Because I didn’t want you to be alone.”

He gave a dry laugh. “You didn’t have to bother. I’m an expert at being alone. I ought to be, I’ve had a lot of experience with it.”

“I don’t understand, Asa.” She caught his arm. “Tell me why you’re alone.”

“All right,” he finally said. “I was brought up in an orphanage, a real orphanage, Sarah. I don’t even know who my parents were. I was the kid everybody took home and returned. As soon as I graduated from high school I joined the Marines. From then on, it was me who was leaving.”

“You’ve never had anybody?”

“I guess Jeanie is the only family I’ve ever had.”

“Oh, Asa, I’m so sorry they didn’t love you. You must have been very strong to survive.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me. I wasn’t a nice child. But one thing I finally learned is that a man is responsible for making himself happy. He
can’t depend on anyone else. People are temporary. They can be replaced.”

Asa was talking to Sarah, but he was also talking to himself, working through the problem, just as he always did until he had an answer that he could deal with.

People are temporary?
Sarah couldn’t even begin to argue with his calm acceptance of loss.

“Believe me, Sarah, for a time, Jeanie thought that she wanted the security I offered. She needed to feel wanted, to have someone care about her. Now, she has Mike. And that’s good.”

“You truly aren’t grieving?”

“I’m not grieving.”

With her free hand Sarah reached up and touched Asa’s face. “If you don’t want me here, I’d better go. I don’t know how to be temporary.”

Asa looked down at her stricken expression. He was rejecting what she was offering, and she didn’t know how to deal with it.

“Yes, you’d better, Sarah. For if you stay I’ll only mess up your life.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You should. I’m not kind and giving. And I don’t know how to accept your compassion.”

“That’s not true, Asa. You care about people. That makes you special in my book.”

“Not people. Just Jeanie and she was a responsibility, like my job. Being with you isn’t the same.”

“It isn’t? I’m glad.”

He drew Sarah’s hand to his mouth, where he planted a quick kiss on her palm, then let go.

“Ah hell, Sarah, go home while I can still let you go. This can’t work. I’d make you miserable.”

“Why don’t you let me decide?”

“I’m compulsively neat,” he went on, as if he was trying to convince himself as well as Sarah. “My bathroom doesn’t have any extra toothbrushes in the cabinet because I don’t like people in my house. My truck sits too high off the ground for a lady to climb in and out of because I don’t welcome a woman’s company. In other words, I’m a man who has a plan for every part of his life, and you’re a lady—”

“Without one,” she finished. “Maybe you’re right. But I think you may be wrong about what a man has to do to be happy. Maybe there are times when it’s better to forget all your plans and fly blind into the sun.”

She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes in the darkness. But she could feel the tension in his touch. He should have loosened his grip and stepped back if he wanted her to believe that he was pulling away. But he didn’t. Instead there was an almost imperceptible movement that brought him even closer.

Sarah’s heart was thudding in her chest. Her knees felt shaky.

“I’m sorry, Asa. I don’t seem to be very smart about this. I feel wicked for even thinking it. I guess I’m not a truly noble person. I’m not
even being honest about why I’m here. The real reason I came”—her voice dropped into a throaty whisper—“is because I think that I want
you
.”

“That’s crazy,” he said.

“I know, but it’s true.”

In the darkness, Sarah felt the erratic rhythm of her heartbeat. She could hear Asa’s breathing as his chest expanded and compressed. He wasn’t any more controlled than she.

A long moment passed before he spoke. “Are you sure you want to take a chance on getting involved with a man like me?”

Sarah closed her eyes for a moment and tried to think logically about her reply. But she couldn’t. She kept remembering her father’s belief that a person had only one shot at the brass ring and he had to go for it, or forever regret the loss. Her father never considered not playing ball, even though his playing hastened his death. The only thing he ever talked about was the great joy his life had brought to him.

There was no logic to her feelings for Asa Canyon, or to her actions. All she was certain of was that Asa refused to let himself hold her when his need to do so was as great as hers.

“Do I want to get involved with you? I already am,” she said, and was rewarded with a groan of desperation as his arms locked around her. Their lips met and fused. His kiss was wild and hard as he nibbled his way across her face, pulling on her lips, her
cheeks, her ears, as if she were an oasis offering water to a man dying of thirst. There was nothing gentle about him, or about his touch.

There was nothing tentative about her offering herself to him. She tilted her head to reach his mouth and curved her body to give him the freedom to reach her.

The night went quiet. Even the frog across the lake had fallen silent—until a response came from another web-footed creature. Their baroque mating call startled Asa, drawing him back to the present. He slowly brought his kisses to a stop.

Dazed, Sarah pulled back and stared at Asa.

“My, my,” she whispered. “When you do something, you go all out, don’t you?”

“I tried to tell you, Sarah. In another minute I’d have had you on the ground and you know what I would have wanted.”

“I think I do,” she said softly. “But I’m not sure that I’m ready for that—not yet.”

“I’m damn sure you’re not,” he said, his voice sharp with barely controlled fury. “That’s why you’re going to get into Henry and go home now!”

“All right, if that’s what you want.”

“You know damn well that’s not what I want. But what I’ve already taken is all I’m going to get.”

Asa put his hand on her shoulder and directed her back toward the cabin. He put Sarah in the van and slammed the door.

“Go home, Sarah. Call me when you get there.”

“I don’t have your number,” she managed to say, forcing the words past the lump that had almost closed off her throat.

“I’ll get it.”

From the wallet he found under the seat in his truck, he extracted a business card, and with a pen, jotted his private number on the back. When he handed it to Sarah he made certain that their hands didn’t touch.

“Call me,” he directed, “as soon as you get there, so I won’t worry.”

“Thank you, Asa. I like thinking that you would worry about me.”

She called twenty minutes later. When he heard her voice he didn’t trust himself to say more than “Fine.”

Sarah didn’t try to force the conversation. For now, that was enough.

Asa Canyon raised his arm, took aim, and pulled the trigger four times. The result was one shot in the heart of the cardboard bank robber, two in his arm, and one—who knew where. He’d been firing his gun for the better part of an hour, a task that he normally found soothing. The weapons range usually put things in proper perspective for him. Today he found his mind wandering. Today he was drawing a crowd of onlookers, not from his sharpshooting, but from his misses.

With a groan he tore the goggles and ear
protectors from his face and left the sound-proof room. He might as well quit. He was only wasting bullets.

He’d spent Sunday morning running around the lake and reading the newspaper, and the afternoon catching up on his paperwork. The firing range had killed another hour. A quick supper at Speedy’s Grill had carried him to nine o’clock. So far he’d managed to put Sarah Wilson and the ball tournament out of his mind.

As he left the building he came to a stop, made a circle, and went back inside to the lockup room where Clarence was grumbling louder than usual as he filled out a form.

“Clarence?”

“Yeah, man, what you need? If it’s a report, or a file, forget it. I won’t be caught up here before Christmas and it ain’t even Halloween.”

“Relax, buddy, all I want is some information.”

“Yeah, what?”

“You know anything about the locksmiths in this county? I mean I busted my cuffs and I want to find somebody to take a look at them.”

“Well, there’s Jimmy J. over on Roswell Road.”

“No, I mean—I heard that there’s a woman who’s pretty good.”

He’d thought he was being casual, but from the quick jerk of Clarence’s head Asa knew that he hadn’t fooled him at all.

“Sarah, huh? That’d be Sarah Wilson. Everybody
knows Sarah. Her daddy, Big Jim Wilson, was one of the best catchers the Atlanta Crackers ever had.”

Asa didn’t recognize the name, but he’d heard some of the men over at the courthouse talk about Atlanta’s Triple A team and Jim Wilson, the man with the big heart. He’d played hurt for the last two years of his career. When he’d finally hung it up, he’d still been a young man, but with a body that was broken and maimed. But locksmith? Canyon was surprised.

“Where is her place?”

“In Oakdale, between South Cobb and Atlanta Road. You can’t miss it.”

Asa knew the area. He told himself that he wasn’t going over there. Sarah was too young for him. She was too fresh and innocent for him. She was too giving for her own good. He had to protect her from herself. But he didn’t listen.

Sarah’s building was dilapidated and in need of fresh paint. The Wilson’s Lock Service sign was almost unreadable. Leaving his truck running, Asa got out and stepped up to the shop. Resting against the window was a message printed on a piece of cardboard:

PLAYING IN A TOURNAMENT TODAY. OPEN MONDAY ABOUT 10:00, PROBABLY. SARAH.

He hadn’t expected her to be open on Sunday, but certainly on Monday.
Open about
10:00, probably?
What kind of business did she run? No regular hours. Midnight calls to a location she didn’t know, to unlock the handcuffs on a man chained to a brass bed. What kind of risks did she routinely take? He bet she didn’t even have an answering service that kept up with her calls.

A quick stop at a phone booth proved how right his guess was. An answering machine crackled on and Sarah’s cheerful voice chimed out, “Hi, this is Sarah. I’m at the ball park. Be back sooner or later. If this is Mother, the money for the electric company is under the mat. If it’s anybody else, don’t you dare touch it. Bye now. Oh, yes, if this happens to be Asa, the coffee pot’s on the stove if you want to come by later. I’ll be alone and in need of company.”

Asa swore.

The money’s under the mat.

I’ll be alone and in need of company.

Sarah Wilson was practically inviting anyone who called her number to rob her. Asa cringed.

At least she hadn’t given out her address. Anybody who took advantage of her open invitation would either have to know where Sarah lived or look up her address, which was—he flipped through the directory—listed right there under her name.

Being trusting was one thing, but being foolish was something that Asa Canyon couldn’t tolerate. He’d learned that the hard way. He told himself it was his sense of responsibility
that made him slam the phone book closed and burn rubber as he roared off down the highway.

Twenty minutes later he was knocking on Sarah’s barn door. The loading door to the hayloft creaked open and Sarah looked down.

“Come on up. The outside door’s open.”

“Of course it is,” he grumbled under his breath as he climbed the steps. “Why?” he asked as she opened the door to her living quarters. “Why would you leave such a message on your answering machine? Suppose somebody other than me called you?”

“Suppose they did? If their name isn’t Asa, they aren’t invited. The coffee’s hot.”

Open-mouthed, Asa just stood there. He was so stunned that he could neither move nor answer her. Sarah must have been in bed, reading—with the door open.

She had a pair of eyeglasses with red frames shoved back on her head, holding her boyish hair away from her face. She was wearing an oversize white T-shirt with a seashell and the name “Jekyll Island” spelled out across her breasts. The bottom of the shirt hit her thighs about halfway to her knees. Her feet were bare. She looked so desirable, and he wanted to smother her in his arms.

“Do you have an oilcan?” he said, cursing himself for not having a reasonable argument against what she thought was a reasonable statement.

“An oilcan? Why, are we playing Wizard of Oz?”

“We’re not playing anything.”

“Are you angry with me, Asa?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know what I am.”

Asa felt his frustration tighten into a knot somewhere between his belly button and his—damn! He couldn’t even let himself think about that part of his body. He knew that he was cutting her into pieces with his gaze. His rigid control was in shambles, all because he wanted to kiss her so badly that it frightened him.