Where Angels Tread (22 page)

Locking Shane’s arms behind his back, Heidi circled her tongue around his neck, then trailed her mouth down his collarbone, his chest, then lingered at the curve of his waist. She felt his intake of breath, heard the moan of pleasure escape from his lips. He guided her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her waist, twisting his fingers through her hair and seeking her mouth with his.

Heidi lay back on the bed and pulled him toward her. He kneeled on top of her on all fours. He bent down and slowly ran the stubble on his face up and down the length of her torso, kissing every part of her that his mouth could reach, lingering once more over the soft skin of her breasts.

When she could take it no longer, they joined together, staring deeply into each other’s eyes as though nothing else in the world existed except right here, right now. They rocked back and forth slowly, while Heidi pressed the tips of her fingers into Shane’s back and lifted her hips toward him, moving against him in tune with his body.

As he moved above her, she closed her eyes and gave herself over to him completely, feeling the sweat from his body rolling onto her chest and down her stomach. He called her name over and over again, then collapsed into her arms and buried his face in her neck. They lay together for a long time, their limbs entwined around each other, their chests rising and falling rapidly as they struggled to catch their breath.

Heidi raised her hand to Shane’s face and stroked his cheek. Propping himself up on his elbow, he stared down at her. Heidi smiled at him and kissed him once more, but when she drew her face away she was surprised to see what she thought was a dark shadow cross his face. “Are you okay?” she asked anxiously, wondering if he was regretting his decision to make love to her.

He pressed his lips against the palm of her hand and held them there. When he finally glanced up, he fixed his light blue eyes on hers and stared at her for several long moments. Then, his face softened and he reached for her once more, rolling her on top of him and kissing her hard on the mouth. “I love you, Heidi,” he whispered into her lips. “I love you so much.”

Heidi sat back on her heels and ran her hands in a circular motion along his chest, then gently fingered the light brown hairs that trailed down his torso. “Oh, Shane,” she said, cupping her hands around his face and drawing her mouth down to his. “I love you, too.”

Shane watched Heidi as she slept, fascinated by the way the early morning sunlight streaming through the open window lit up her face to make it, if possible, even more beautiful. Careful not to wake her, he pressed his lips lightly against the curve of her back. She groaned softly in her sleep and rolled toward him. Her eyes fluttered awake and she wrapped her arms around his waist. “Morning,” she said sleepily.

“Good morning,” he whispered in her ear. Heidi didn’t know it, but Shane had lay awake all night, his heart breaking with the weight of the decision he knew he had to make. Staring at the ceiling while Heidi slept, Shane had struggled through a fierce internal debate with himself, running through his options again and again. He could go to the station, open the file containing the accident report, and find out whether John Griffin was the man he had killed. Whether Shane had been the one to change the course of Heidi’s life forever.

Or he could stay with Heidi the rest of the day, making love to her and convincing himself that his memory of the accident was false, tainted by his own fears and insecurities. But Shane knew that if he stayed with her today, he would never seek the truth. He and Heidi would continue on with their lives, eventually get married and grow old together. The prospect, Shane thought with agony, was more than tempting. Perhaps it was fate, what was meant to be.

But in the end, Shane knew in his heart that he would never be able to live with himself with the burden of the unknown pressing down on his chest at every moment. How could he look Heidi in the eye, day in and day out, and wonder whether he was the person who had caused her and her child unimaginable suffering? No, he decided. He would rather lose Heidi than lie to her, even if the lie was based on uncertainty.

His resolve almost broke now when she reached for him, her eyes hooded with sleep, a tired smile playing across her lips. “Last night was incredible,” she said, running her fingers along his forehead. “Can I make you some breakfast?”

Shane caught her hand and squeezed it. “Thank you, but I have to get back to the station.”

She rolled over and glanced at the clock, then groaned loudly and pressed her face into the pillow. “And I have to pick up Zachary in an hour, then go straight to work for a ten hour shift.” She batted her eyes at Shane playfully. “Do you have to go right this minute?” She patted the sheets next to her in a come-hither way that made Shane laugh in spite of himself.

He reached for her one last time and wrapped his arms around her body, stroking her back lightly and pressing his lips against the top of her head. “Yes,” he whispered, glad that she couldn’t see the tears that sprung to his eyes. “I do. But you’ll never know how much I regret it.”

*

“Shane, are you in here?” Buddy called as he strolled into the back office of the station. “Palen said we need to get down to the town borders and set up roadblocks. No one gets in or out of the area until we make sure that Shephard’s not with them. Hey, what are you doing?” Buddy asked suspiciously.

Shane jumped and tried to hide the folder he was holding from Buddy’s sight, but his friend was too fast. Buddy plucked the file from Shane’s fingers and frowned down at it. “What’s this?” he asked. “This file’s like three years old.” Shane averted his eyes, and Buddy let out a gasp of understanding. “No,” he said fiercely, and stuffed the folder back into the drawer of the file cabinet, which was hanging open. “I’m not going to let you do this.”

“Why not?” Shane asked, trying to wrestle Buddy’s hands away from the drawer.

Buddy grabbed Shane’s wrists and held them together, then looked Shane in the eyes with a grave expression on his face. “Why now, after all these years? You were finally making progress in your life, and I thought you were putting it all behind you. You’ve been happy, Shane, more so than I’ve ever seen you before. What about Heidi?”

Shane slumped against the cabinet, then slid to the floor and dropped his head in his hands in despair. Buddy kneeled next to him. “What’s going on, man? Come on, you know you can tell me anything.”

Shane closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “I think it was Heidi,” he whispered.

“Who was Heidi?” Buddy’s voice was filled with confusion.

“It was Heidi, in the car that night. It was her husband. I killed her husband.” A moan of sorrow escaped from Shane’s lips when the full weight of his words, spoken out loud for the first time, hit him. “What am I going to do?”

Buddy glanced at the file cabinet. “Are you sure?”

“No, that’s why I’m here. I have to find out. I need to know the truth.” Shane explained the flashback of the accident, and the horror he felt when he remembered hearing Heidi call her son’s familiar name amidst the smoking wreckage.

As he listened, Buddy twisted up his face in concern. “Look, Shane,” he said uncertainly, “I was there, too, remember? I don’t recall hearing anyone saying anything about a kid being in the backseat. Are you one hundred percent on this?”

“No, that’s why I need to find out,” Shane said again as he struggled to his feet and reached for the file.

Buddy stretched out a hand to stop him once more. “Why? What does it matter anymore? Knowing the truth isn’t going to change what happened. Heidi is happy with you. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

Shane’s temper flared up. “How can you say that?” he said through gritted teeth. “You think I’d be able to look at her ever again, knowing what I might have done?” He pushed Buddy’s hands away roughly and seized the file, then pressed it protectively against his chest.

“You’re going to lose her, Shane,” Buddy said, shaking his head sadly. “If what you think happened really did, your relationship is going to be over.”

“Don’t you think I’m aware of that?” Shane whispered as Buddy’s words, which he already knew in his soul to be true, came crashing down on top of him.

Buddy shook his head once more, then began walking toward the door. “I’m not going to be here to witness this,” he said. “You’re ruining your own life. On a side note, you better get your act together because Palen’s furious that you left the meeting last night. I’ve been instructed to tell you that if you do that again he’s going to take disciplinary action.”

Turning his face to avoid Buddy’s accusatory stare, Shane listened as the sound of his friend’s footsteps died down, then pressed his eyes together tightly for a moment. If only this all turned out to be a nightmare, he thought as he opened them again and stared down at the file, which seemed to be taunting him. He would give anything to wake up and find himself in Heidi’s arms. Shane had never experienced the kind of happiness that he felt last night, and even if it proved to be fleeting, it was a memory that he would carry with him for the rest of his life.

Taking a deep breath, he flipped open the file and ran his finger along the length of the report, which spanned several pages. The events of the night, laid out before him in painstaking detail, sounded cold and official, a far cry from the terror that seized his heart when his eyes snapped open and he first saw the white glare of headlights speeding toward him.

At the bottom of the second page, Shane’s name was listed, along with Buddy’s, as injured parties. With hands trembling so violently that he could barely grasp the folder, Shane turned the page and forced himself to look, for the very first time, at the name of the man whose death altered Shane’s past, present, and future.

John David Griffin. Husband to Heidi, father to Zachary.

Shane quietly closed the file and returned it to the drawer where he found it, then sank to his knees, where he stayed for a long time, once again building up the protective wall, brick by brick, that he had come so close to tearing down forever.

All things considered, Heidi thought as she waved goodbye to the occupants of the car pulling out of the hospital parking lot, it had been a pretty good day. While underneath the surface her mind was buzzing with worry over Shane’s safety in the wake of the recent shootings, she had been able to push those thoughts away for a few precious minutes as she helped Megan prepare to leave the hospital, three months after her car accident. It wasn’t normally within her realm of duty to leave the emergency room, but Heidi had taken it upon herself to check up on the girl every so often to see how she was doing. Today, when Heidi learned that Megan was finally going home, she had asked Dr. Conway for special permission to see the teen and her family off.

After one last wave, Heidi turned and made her way back into the emergency room. Josie glanced up from a stack of paperwork she was filling out, shot Heidi a wry smile, and hurried over to her side. “Why do you look so happy?” she taunted. “And don’t even bother trying to get out of telling me. You’re a terrible liar.”

“I know,” Heidi admitted. “But a girl doesn’t kiss and tell.” She placed a hand over her mouth to cover her broad grin. Heidi couldn’t help it; since Shane left that morning, she had been wandering around in a love-struck daze. She was surprised she hadn’t yet broken out into a victory dance in front of the entire emergency waiting room.

Josie squealed and pulled Heidi’s hand away from her mouth. “You had sex, didn’t you? It’s written all over your face.” Correctly interpreting the blush that crept over Heidi’s cheeks, Josie pinched her playfully on the arm. “I’m so jealous! That’s quite a man you have for yourself. I hope you realize that.”

“Oh, I do,” Heidi replied. “Trust me, I’m not going to let him get away.” As she said those last words, her heart soared. She knew now with absolute certainty that she wanted Shane to be in her and Zachary’s lives forever. In fact, she planned to sit down with Zachary that very evening and propose the idea of Shane moving in with them; despite her son’s earlier reservations, Heidi had a feeling that he would now be more than okay with the idea. Finally, she thought, suppressing another grin, they were going to have a proper family again.

“So,” Josie continued, walking down the emergency room hallway with Heidi, “how are you holding up with all of this Sam Shephard stuff going on?” She stopped and fixed Heidi with a piercing stare. “How do you sleep at night knowing Shane’s out there with him?”

Heidi winced at Josie’s characteristic bluntness. “Shane’s tough, and he’s smart. He has years of experience, and I trust that he’ll be able to get himself out of a dangerous situation.” She paused and pursed her lips with worry. “At least that’s what I tell myself, because I have to. Otherwise, I’d drive myself crazy by panicking all the time. If I’m going to be involved with a police officer, I’m just going to have to get used to the idea, I guess.”

“That’s why I don’t bother with relationships,” Josie said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Too much trouble, if you ask me. You get attached, and then what if something happens?” She stopped in her tracks and covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes wide with horror. “Oh Heidi, I’m so sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to imply anything about John. I’m such an idiot.”