Sterling's Reasons (20 page)
He was the first to speak, keeping his hold on her arm. “Give me the answers I’ve been asking for.”
“Let go of me,” she demanded. She had already decided to tell him the truth, but not while he was like this. Not until she could calm the murderous inclination creeping around in her brain. He was so ready to condemn. So ready to accuse, so ready to forget everything that passed between them. He wanted it 156
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to be that way. Then he would be justified and his depression would be rationalized. It would be so easy to make all this her fault.
Sterling watched him, standing close, battling himself for his next move. He loosened his grip and she rubbed the circulation back into her wrist.
“It better be good,” he shot at her and stepped back.
“No. Not now.” She walked past him and headed for her deck.
Not now,
she thought.
Not when my heart is sinking, not when disbelief and confusion is all there is
in me.
During the wee hours of the morning, he’d deserved the truth. Now he didn’t. Not when he could throw the accusation in her face after they had helped each other through the night.
“Don’t walk away from me, Sterling.” His words were a taut warning.
She hesitated and stopped. In his voice, hidden in arrogance and accusations, was a hope that he was dead wrong. And he was wrong. Almost wrong. Mostly wrong. Even if she had deceived him for a good reason, with good intentions, it was still deception. She thought about the road to hell.
Squaring her shoulders, she changed direction and headed for his cottage.
“The babies are hungry.” She felt him close the gap between them and follow her up the steps. An old saying played in her head. One step forward, two steps back. He was practically growling as he followed her to the deck.
They both stopped short at the same time. Joe almost bumped into her.
There, taped to the glass sliding door, was a picture. It was of Joe and his partner, Red. They were standing on an old porch, arms slung over each other’s shoulders, big mischievous grins on their faces.
Seconds ticked by. Sterling looked from the photo to Joe. His face was ashen, his mouth was open, and his stare bored holes in the door.
He reached up and pulled the picture from the glass, suspiciously, as if expecting it to disintegrate in his hand. “Did you do this, too?”
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“Why you sorry son of a—Me? Why would I do a cruel thing like that? Why would you suspect me of being deranged when it’s you who’s crazy?”
He didn’t hear her. He slid the door open and went into the house, directly to his closet. She followed him. Sterling watched as he dumped the contents of the box from his closet on the bed. Papers floated out and onto the floor. His police badge flopped solidly on the sheet. The little green crystal castle she’d longed for in the window of the shop rolled out to lay beside it.
It pinched her heart. He had gone back for it, but when? While she was in the jewelry shop, after the robbery, when she was with the old couple? Oh, God, what a sweet gesture. How could he be such a monster one minute and so caring another?
He was pushing things around and pulling things out and shoving them on the floor. Drawers. A suitcase. From under his bed, things were thrown around.
Sterling sat on the edge of the mattress and picked up the castle. He barely glanced at her as he searched the rest of the room and then headed for the living area to do the same. She held the castle toward the sunshine and watched the light fracture and dance.
Tears blurred her vision. Everything. All this blustering and accusing and anger was a cover. He had hung out his soul for her last night, but he still protected a certain amount of it. He had ventured outside the walls he had built for protection, he had swung on the gate a while…and now he was back behind the bricks holding the gate to be sure it was locked.
She heard him curse loudly and slam a cupboard door. Then nothing.
Wiping her face and still holding the castle, she went into the kitchen.
He was there, hands on his hips, shaking his head from side to side.
“What is it, Joe?” she asked, the toll the night and this morning had taken on her evident in the tiredness of her voice.
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“My gun. It’s gone.” He let his breath out slowly.
“Your gun? And the picture. It was in the box, too?”
He turned to her. “There’s something very wrong here.”
“Besides you, you mean. Kids. Kids could have come in here. Nothing is locked up.”
“No one has been around. No one. Not since I’ve been here.”
“No one but me,” she finished for him and maybe whoever was driving the car she had seen a couple of times.
He sat down on the couch and lit a cigarette, oblivious to her verbal digs.
She slipped the castle into her pocket and ran hot water for coffee. Dipping the spoon in the dark granules and ladling it into the cups, she fixed them a bracing brew. She heard the kittens stirring behind her in the box. They would have to wait.
She handed him a cup and he accepted it absently. She continued to stand in front of him and waited.
“I don’t think you took the gun, Sterling.” His voice was filled with defeat. “I don’t think you did any of this. I don’t think you stuck the picture on the door, nor did you call me and hang up or stash a copy of the newspaper with the coverage in it behind the couch.”
His anger, his fear of what was getting started again, had controlled him. He hated himself, as usual. Mistakes, mistakes were all he could do…except for her.
No matter what, this lady was the only good thing that had happened to him in years. She made him realize how lonely he had been. She made him realize all sorts of uncomfortable things about himself…and she loved him.
Walking to the door, she looked out, hoping the tranquil scene would ease her. “Your little gun is still by the bed. Why didn’t they take that, too, if it was purely robbery. You didn’t tell me about the phone call and the paper.”
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“I assumed they were just coincidences. The picture on the door was deliberate. The gun was stolen. Something is going on here that has nothing to do with you.”
Determination gave her courage. “Since it concerns you, it has to do with me.”
He looked up at her standing by the door. She was holding herself rigid, controlling her confusion and hurt. He loved her. There was no longer a sliver of a doubt. When he’d thought she’d betrayed him, only the fact that he loved her could explain the devastation he’d felt. And he’d barged out there and made a fool of himself. Again.
“Come sit beside me.” It was time he took charge of his life again. She was right. Self-pity was ugly. Now that he could see it so clearly, himself…
“No,” she spoke after a few seconds. “I have deceived you, Joe, but not like you think.” She sipped her coffee and leaned on the doorjamb. Then she turned to look at him.
Cold fear drilled down his back. What was she saying? He couldn’t have understood her.
When he started to come to her she held up her hand. “I was hired by someone to do a job.” Her heart swelled when he wiped his hands over his eyes and leaned forward, his arms resting on his knees.
“His name is John Ramsburg. You wouldn’t know him. Not many do. He’s old, kind-hearted, and he’s rich. Incredibly rich. When he hears about a tragedy, he tries to ease it. He sends me out into the field to secretly get to know the people involved. Victims of loss of all their property, children who are dying, old folks that are homeless or about to be. One of my clients was a little boy whose horse was struck by lightning as he watched. Mr. Ramsburg put a yearling colt in his barn Christmas Eve. Elderly people on the verge of illness with monetary 160
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problems suddenly find this strange balance of money in their accounts. A dairy farmer was forced out of business by the government. So when his house went up for auction, I was there. I bid on it, purchased it, and returned the deed to his name. To this day he doesn’t know how that happened. At least he can spend his remaining years in the only home he ever knew.” Sterling paused and drew a deep breath. She couldn’t read his reaction to her words.
“A hard-working truck driver was on the verge of losing his truck just six months from paying it off. He had one child and another on the way. He received clear title. Mr. Ramsburg sends me ahead to validate the circumstances and inform him of the happiest solution. I make the decision. What do you think would work here, Joe?”
Joe’s eyes narrowed. “You work for Santa Claus?” What was she telling him?
What was this crazy story?
She ignored him. “He can’t help everyone who needs it, but he does what he can. I’ve worked for him for five years, Joe. I’ve traveled all over the United States. He watches the newspapers and TV. He saw me on the TV news, at the funeral for my husband and son.”
Joe put his head in his hands and ran his fingers through his hair. She heard his heartfelt sigh.
She continued while she still could. “A couple of years ago he had me watch a copy of that tape to explain to me why he chose me to do his field work. He said I was brave, strong, and proud in the way I handled myself with reporters and family all offering their hands to steady me, the sympathies to comfort me. I shook them all off. I made my way alone to a seat by the graveside services. If he only knew. I was dead inside. If I’d taken one hand or let myself hear one sympathetic phrase, I would have folded and never stood up again.” She sipped the coffee that was growing cold.
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Joe was leaning back against the couch now, watching her with misty eyes.
She had to look away in order to continue. “Ramsburg came to my house two months after the funeral. At first I thought he was a nut. But then he showed me articles on some of the cases and life stirred in me. I was needed. I wanted to be happy again. I wanted some place to dump all the love I had in me to give, somewhere else besides two shallow graves.”
She took a long, steadying breath. “The will to live overrides the wish to be dead. I guess we should be grateful for it or the population would soon diminish as people mourned themselves to death. And you, Joe. He saw the news, read the articles, and he wanted to help you. So here I am.”
She turned back and looked directly at him. “He didn’t know I would fall in love with you.”
He stayed on the couch and opened his arms to her. She had just given him all he would ever need. The words, the way she looked at him. This lady was all he would ever need again.
She moved slowly, set her cup on the end table, and then, kneeling in front of him, she went into his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Sterling leaned her forehead against his. Reaching into her pocket, she wrapped her fingers around her castle and pulled it out. Opening her hand, she looked at the little piece of glass she held between them. “You knew how badly I wanted this. You went back and got it. What were you thinking about? Why did you do it, Joe?” She wanted him to think about why he dropped eighty dollars on a trinket for her. She wanted him to start exploring feelings that she hoped he had.
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“I hadn’t planned on giving it to you like this. I didn’t know how or when, but I figured I’d know the right time.” He put his fingers beneath her chin and brought her gaze back to him. “Can you forgive me? I’ve been crazy. Still am.”
“Yes, if you can forgive my deception, good intentions and all.”
“You said you love me?”
“I do.” She smiled. “I was hoping you could tell.”
Do you love me, Joe?
She asked the question silently.
Tell me you love me, too,
she pleaded.
Joe said nothing. He couldn’t. Sometimes words came hard to him. He gathered her to him, his mouth raining soft, feathery kisses over her face.
Her mouth found his and she kissed him, gently at first and then wildly, passionately. He didn’t need to think now, just feel. There was nothing left to hold back, no secrets, no reservations. He loved her. She couldn’t feel this way about him, not to this extent, if he didn’t. She knew it. But she had to hear him say the words.
His hands were all over her flesh, stroking, taking, demanding. Together they rolled to the floor.
Again, he was filled with patience, infuriating tenacity. He savored her, he reveled in her. More and more of him was lost to her every time their bodies touched. It was a good thing. A healing thing. A timeless renewal of emotion with every contact.
She was not patient, wanting him inside her, one with her, completing her.
Her kisses became urgent, seeking. She pulled the snap on his jeans.
His hands ran slowly over the smooth skin of her breasts, her stomach, her back. She heard a moan of pleasure. Was it him or her? He was taking her far away, to a place only few lovers ever find. Across the ocean with the lightness of a sail, under the water with the heaviness of stone, through the sky with the skill
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of a pilot, he brought her senses to full alert. She thought she would burst into flames at any moment.
Still, he didn’t stop, only slowed the languorous journey of his mouth over her body. Clothes scattered beside them, kittens softly mewing for attention, and the sun coming up strong, they took each other to new places—untried, unexplored, remote places.
When she thought she was drained, he showed her she wasn’t. When she thought she would stop breathing, he gave her reason to draw air.
When he thought he had felt everything he could, she showed him he hadn’t.
When he heard nothing but the sound of his own heartbeat and his blood coursing through his veins, she whispered his name and he thought a man could die from loving a woman like this.
