Web of Smoke (4 page)

“You’re mine, little Christie,” he whispered. “There’s no place I won’t find you.”

He smiled to himself.

DC Porter was back in town.

Chapter Four

“Christie?”

Sitting on the front porch, Christie hadn’t realized how numb she felt until Sam’s deep voice penetrated the haze and caressed her. She turned toward him, wanting to throw herself in his arms and cry away the fear and grief. The police lights spinning in the dark cast an eerie glow on his features as he studied her.

A light stubble shadowed his cheeks. Concern darkened his eyes. His shirt, buttoned wrong, hung loose and cockeyed over his worn blue jeans.

He knelt next to her, placing a warm hand on her knee.

“Christie, are you all right?”

“Barney’s dead,” she said, choking back a sob. Tears made a painless trail down her cheeks. Pain made a gaping wound in her heart.

“Aw, honey, I’m sorry.”

He pulled her close, his fingers hard and callused against the softness of her nape. She felt stiff and awkward in his arms, but she needed his comfort more than she needed air. She willed herself to relax as tears trembled over her lashes.

He absorbed her. Arms holding tight, hands rubbing the sore spots in her shoulders, he shifted his weight and tucked her close to his side. Murmuring, he rocked her.

Inhaling Sam’s fragrance, hot and salty, with a trace of yesterday’s cologne, she shut out the stench of Barney’s death that seeped through the very walls inside. She closed her mind to all the reasons why Sam’s arms were the last place she should find comfort. She slammed the door on the attack. On the attacker.

At her feet, Bear and Snort lay in exhausted heaps. Whimpers and starts sent shivers through their bodies as they dozed. Swaying in the questionable security of Sam’s embrace, she gave in to the sickening storm of fear and pain. Her face pressed to the arm hollow of his shoulder, she wept.

When her tears diminished to quiet sniffles, Sam touched her face, tilting her chin up. “Chris, what happened?’’

“He came back,” she whispered in a voice clogged by terror.

She looked into his eyes, seeing twin reflections of her own confused self. Nervously, she lowered her gaze, concentrating on his mismatched button job. She sensed his withdrawal a second before he pulled away. A wintry chill took the place of his warm solace.

“Will you be okay for a minute?” he asked softly.

Okay? Would she ever be okay again? Had she ever been okay before?

She nodded.

He hesitated before going inside, but finally he turned, leaving Christie on the porch in the darkest hours of the morning. Without his heat to hold it at bay, the night’s cold invaded her bones, making her tremble and shiver. But still she stayed outside, on the step, alone with her dogs. She couldn’t face the motionless form on the kitchen floor that had once been Barney.

A few seconds later, the policeman who’d arrived first on the scene stepped outside. “We’ll be patrolling the area, ma’am, but that’s about all we can do now.”

He hitched a thumb at the house. “Your husband says he’ll see you’re safe for the night.”

But what about tomorrow?

The question dangled between them. Unasked. Unanswered.

Watching the reflected police lights in the shine of his shoes, she returned his good-bye. He told her to contact them if she needed anything. He sounded like a clerk at a store promising prompt service. Satisfaction guaranteed. Thank you much, come again. His brake lights flashed once as he drove away.

“Chris?”

Sam’s voice brushed against her nerves like the softest of suede. She looked over her shoulder to where he stood framed by the doorway, and fought the desire to throw herself into his strong arms and let them shelter her from her misery.

“Honey, do you have a box?”

“A box?” she repeated in a soft voice, knowing, but not wanting to know, why he wanted it.

He nodded grimly. “And a shovel. I’m going to bury Barney.”

“No.”

“Honey, the longer you wait, the harder it will be.”

She felt as if she were swallowing sand, sun-baked hot and incredibly dry, as she forced the next word through her lips. “Where?”

“In the backyard?”

“No,” she whispered, looking around her. “Not here. Not anywhere near this house.”

“Where then?”

“The beach. Barney loved the beach.”

She started to cry again when he brought Barney’s box from the house and set it in the back of the Jeep. He rolled down all the windows before turning to her.

“Go get your things, Christie. You’re going to stay with me for a while.”

She sniffed back her tears and gave him a sad shake of her head. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Sam. But thank you.”

“I’m not asking. I’m telling,” he said in a tight voice. “I shouldn’t have left you here alone today. I’ll be damned if I’ll leave you alone tonight.”

She could tell he expected an argument, and really, she should give one.

“Chris, for once, just listen to me,” he continued, without giving her the chance to answer. “Go get your stuff. You can remind me how much you hate me tomorrow. Tonight, you need me, whether you want to admit it or not.”

Too exhausted to do anything else, she nodded and went inside. The overpowering smell of the bleach he’d used on the kitchen didn’t hide the darker, heavier scent of fear and death. She hurried upstairs and jerked a bag from her closet. In less than ten minutes, she was back on the porch.

He held out a hand for her house keys and locked the front door. As the click of the bolt sliding home echoed against the black of night, their eyes met. They both knew that a locked door had no meaning anymore.

In one fluid movement, Sam scooped up Bear and flung the strap of Christie’s bag over his shoulder. Christie and Snort followed him to the Jeep.

Christie sank back against the soft interior, remembering other trips she’d taken with Sam at the wheel. The Jeep rumbled through the night, lulling her into a painless trance of asphalt and moonlight.

“Tell me what happened, Christie,” he asked once they’d reached the freeway.

She related the events of the night in a cool, emotionless voice.

“So are you going to tell me who this guy is?” Sam asked when she’d finished.

“What makes you think I know?”

“Do you?”

Christie stared, unseeing, out the window. “No.”

“Why do you do that?” he demanded. “Why do you lie to me?”

“I’m not lying,” she snapped back, still avoiding his searching gaze. “And why should I trust you, anyway? I mean, thank you for being here tonight, Sam. I needed you.” She paused, collecting her thoughts and tamping down the feelings that cracked her voice and left a lump in her throat. “But don’t expect me to just forget all the other times that I needed you and you weren’t around.”

“Why not? I can’t count all the things I’ve forced myself to forget. If I tried, I might be tempted just to say the hell with it.”

“You did say to hell with it, Sam. Or don’t you remember?”

He cursed softly under his breath.

“Could we drop this conversation?” she asked. “I’d rather not talk about it now.”

“When then? When can we talk? I’ve been trying to talk to you since . . . Christie, we haven’t even spoken since…” he paused, rubbing the point between his eyes wearily. “I feel like all I do is bang my head against that wall you’ve erected around yourself and you just keep fixing the cracks.”

Christie refused to be swayed by the emotion in his voice. “I wasn’t the one sleeping with my clients, Sam.”

“Client. One
client.
One
time.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Why should I believe you anyway?”

“You think I’m lying? Well, back at you, babe. I’m not buying this little story you’ve concocted about your robber, either.”

“Believe what you want, Sam.”

“That’s
your
specialty, isn’t it?”

Her angry silence competed with the soft hum of the engine and the murmur of the road.

Sam made an exasperated sound. “Now you’re going to clam up, is that it? Give me the silent treatment, like you usually do? Fine. But I tell you this, I was a fool to stand by and let you ruin our relationship, Christie. I’m not going to roll over and play dead again.”

“Me? I ruined it?” she exclaimed. “That’s a laugh.”

“Is it? Strange, I can’t find a damned thing funny about it. I’ll drop it for now, but not forever. Things aren’t over between us.”

Palm trees stood dark and attentive on the sides of the freeway, their fronds brushing the stars and black velvet tapestry of night. Streetlights, softened by the fog, glowed like tapered candles along the side of the road, illuminating the cab of the Jeep.

Christie blinked back tears that his bitter words had summoned. She shouldn’t have shown him any weakness. She should have known he’d pounce on it.

She armed herself with stony silence, her stare drifting in and out of focus as the shadowed landscape zipped by. She hadn’t realized just how angry she still was until that moment. Her fingernails dug half-moons into her palms.

Sam’s sigh managed to sound both hostile and sympathetic at once. “Why didn’t you call me when your mom died, Chris?” he asked softly.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, why didn’t you call? I’m the only family you have left.”

“I don’t think of you as family, Sam.”

He winced in the concealing shadows. “How do you think of me?”

“As little as possible, starting the day I interrupted your party with—”

“Jesus, back to that again.”

She turned in her seat and gave him an incredulous look. “You say that like it’s some trivial issue I’ve dredged up from nowhere.”

“I say it like it’s an issue that’s best forgotten. Can’t we just keep the past where it belongs for a while?”

“I’m sure
you
think it’s best that way, but what about the next time it happens?”

“How many times do I have to tell you? It’s not going to happen again.” He took a deep breath. “Christie, I want to help you—”

“You want,”
she snapped. “It’s always what you want. What
I
want, Sam, is for you to leave me alone. I don’t need your help.”

“Why? What makes you think that you don’t need some help? I think you’d better wake up and look around, honey, because to my eyes, you need some serious help. And the news is, I’m the only guy in town.”

He turned the Jeep and hit the brakes. Bright lights gleamed from tall posts, illuminating the swirling fog with a reflecting glow. Ahead she could see the ocean rolling toward them like a great black abyss. Whitecaps broke on the beach, their spray dancing high in the thick, misty air.

Christie jumped from the car. “If you’re my only hope, Sam, I’d rather take my chances alone.” She slammed the door.

Sam banged his fist against the steering wheel, staring at her retreating back as she walked away from him. Damn! Why did every conversation with her have to go this way? Snort and Bear sat shivering on her vacant seat, looking at him with big, wide eyes.

“What’s she hiding?” he asked them.

The Pekingese made a disgusted sound and put his paws on the door to look at Christie. The reflection of the moon on the dark moving waters silhouetted her.

Holding the door for the dogs, Sam got out, then reached back for the box and shovel. He followed her, stepping over clumps of seaweed that lay scattered like corpses on the cold, damp sand.

“It’s not the prettiest beach,” he said softly as he caught up with her, “but I’d get arrested if I started digging up La JollaShores. This is illegal as hell, you know.”

She held herself stiffly, but gave him a small smile. “Thank you, Sam.”

They walked in silence to a secluded area far up from the water. Clumps of grass struggled to grow in the sandy dirt. Snort and Bear sniffed solemnly at Barney’s box.

“Is this okay?” Sam asked. “I don’t think we should get any closer to the water. The tide gets pretty high sometimes.”

Christie looked around the shadowed area he’d chosen, hidden from sight to anyone on the street. Only the ebony waters of the Pacific would witness the burial.

“It’s fine,” she said, her anger vanishing as overwhelming sorrow hunched her shoulders.

The earth made a soft, shifting noise as it sifted across the steel blade of Sam’s shovel. When the hole was deep enough, Sam carefully lifted Barney’s cardboard coffin and set it in.

Her eyes remained dry, but her heart cried tears of anguish and confusion. Tears for Barney. Tears for Christie.

Gently, Sam touched the back of her neck, pulling her closer. The ocean roared in her ears as it tossed the wind on shore to tease and tear at her clothes and hair. She turned into Sam’s warmth.

Blocking their argument from her mind, she concentrated on his scent, taking comfort from its familiarity. His shoulder and chest muscles flexed as he pulled her closer to him. His hands rubbed her back, his fingers wearing down her tension. She felt herself melt and mold to his frame.

He stilled. And then his touch changed. Became searching. Questioning. Seeking answers to questions she hadn’t even considered yet. His hands slid up her ribcage, possessively grazing the sides of her breasts on the way to the sensitive skin of her throat.

Her whispered “no” dissolved on her lips. She couldn’t resist, not when his touch felt like a lifeline, securing her from the buffeting waves of reality.

As if he had every right, his fingers traced the line of her shoulder, her delicate collarbone. Cupping her chin in his hand, he tilted her face toward his.

She stared at him, at the intensity in his gaze. His eyes looked black in the night, his lashes thick and dark, framing the yearning that glittered in their depths. They demanded a response from her.

Unbelievably, her own hands crept from around his waist and burned a trail to his neck. Her fingers tangled in the silky, brown hair at his nape and suddenly she was pulling him down as he lifted her up.

The stubble of his beard scratched her lips a second before his mouth, warm and firm, closed over hers. He tasted of toothpaste and salty night air and memories as seductive as the misted moon.