Never Alone (43 Light Street) Read online

  He stepped into the room and handed her the tube, being careful not to brush his fingers against hers, for all the good that did either one of them. Then he turned his back.

  As she stared at the lacerated flesh, she sucked in a little breath.

  “That bad?”

  “It’s worse up close.” Quickly she uncapped the tube, spread the ointment on her fingers and lightly touched him, staring at his damaged flesh and thinking that his skin was hot under her touch. Thinking that she had never touched a man this intimately in her life.

  She felt his muscles ripple as she worked in the salve as gently as possible, but otherwise he didn’t move, even though she knew she must be hurting him.

  That made her ashamed at her own reaction, because there was no way she could stop the sensual feelings that traveled from her fingertips to the rest of her body.

  “Thank you,” he said in a thick voice when she had finished, and at least she had the satisfaction of knowing that he was reacting on the same level as she.

  It was several moments before he turned to face her.

  When he did, she picked up the tube of ointment from where she’d set it on the dresser and turned it in her fingers.

  “Beth, look at me.”

  She kept her eyes fixed on the orange letters of the label as she said, “You can put your shirt on now.”

  He did as she asked, but he didn’t move from where he was standing. “We need to talk.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we don’t know who took the cover off the well. It could have been the killer. Someone was out there. I think he stirred up the sheep to get me curious. Get me walking in the right direction to stumble into the well.”

  The words sent a shiver traveling over her skin. And the helpless feeling coupled with everything else she couldn’t handle made her lash out defensively. “If it’s the killer, he’s here because of you! Why don’t you just go away and leave me alone?”

  “If I’ve brought you trouble, I’m sorry. But it’s all the more reason I have to do my job.”

  “Your job,” she repeated.

  A look she wanted to read came into his eyes. “It’s not just a job. I care about what happens to you.”

  She couldn’t let herself bank on that. And she couldn’t believe she was having this conversation with a man who happened to be standing in her bedroom. But as long as he was insisting, she might as well make a complete fool of herself.

  “Why should you care?” Before he could answer that question, she piled on another one. “Why did you kiss me?” she asked, amazed that the words had tumbled from her lips as she stood there facing this police detective who had breached her defenses before she had time to realize what was happening.

  She saw him swallow. “Kissing you was pretty unprofessional of me.”

  The flat way he said it made her eyes suddenly sting.

  Then he added in his soft southern drawl, “It happened because I’m attracted to you, and when I had you in my arms, I forgot the rules.”

  Though the admission stunned her, it was difficult to take it at face value. “How can you be attracted to a woman you think is a few bricks short of a load?” she pressed.

  She had the satisfaction of seeing conflicting emotions war on his face.

  “I don’t think you’re crazy.”

  “Everybody else does.”

  “You’re taking this conversation in the wrong direction,” he said sharply.

  Maybe he was right. It didn’t matter what he thought about her. The main point was the murder investigation. She’d let him persuade her to cooperate—a mistake she never should have made.

  “About this reunion committee thing,” she said. “I’m not going to fool anybody into thinking we’re married. So I’m not going to help you catch the killer. The only thing I’m going to do is let him know you’re after him.”

  When she took a step back, he followed her. As his hands went to her shoulders, she stiffened. “You can help me. You will. But only if you can let yourself feel comfortable with me. Please, Beth, give it a try. I won’t hurt you.”

  As if to prove it, his hands dropped away from her body.

  “You will hurt me,” she whispered, backing toward the closet, knowing that if she didn’t keep the barriers in place, he was going to stab a knife into her heart.

  Her pulse was hammering in her throat. Partly from fear, partly from needs that were impossible to deny. She was sure he didn’t understand how vulnerable she was to him. She raised her face to tell him, but the words remained locked in her throat as she saw his eyes. They were dark and intense, like black fire.

  “Give this a chance,” he whispered.

  When he reached for her, she went still, allowing him to draw her into his arms. Earlier he had kissed her. Now he simply held her, but not so tightly that she couldn’t get away if she wanted to. It was a sweet, tender embrace. An embrace that told her he meant her no harm. That was probably what he thought. He just didn’t understand the risks. She knew them, but she was helpless to keep her head from drifting to his shoulder. Helpless to deny the heady response that surged through her. And helpless to ask for what she wanted. So the two of them simply stood there, quietly, peacefully, deceptively. At least she knew she wasn’t being honest. And if she couldn’t deal with her own motivation, she certainly couldn’t deal with his.

  THE NEXT MORNING, after a restless night, Cal tramped across the farm property looking for evidence. He found the field that had burned. And he inspected the well in the light of day. He also went into the barn and found a couple of places where there were chinks in the siding. Places that would be excellent observation spots if someone wanted to watch the house.

  Then he drove to the Columbia Mall to get a robe. And after that, he went back to his house and booted up his computer, where he got into the DMV and ran the license plate of the suspicious car he’d seen the day before.

  It belonged to a Harold Mason. It took only a little more checking to find out that Mason was a developer with a thirty-lot project not too far from Beth’s property.

  Interesting. He’d like to have a talk with the guy. Maybe he could do it as Cal Roberts, investments salesman. But he’d have to be careful. Because if he blew his cover, he’d blow the murder investigation.

  When he pulled back into the farmyard, a large brown delivery truck was pulled up near the house. The driver and Beth were on the porch, apparently engrossed in conversation. But as soon as they spotted him, the man stepped away and trotted back to his truck.

  Once again, Cal felt a surge of emotion he didn’t want to name. What was that driver doing talking to Beth? Usually those guys dropped packages on the front porch and hightailed it back to the truck as quickly as possible.

  She had disappeared back into her workroom by the time he stepped into the house. He wanted to stride down the hall and ask how well she knew the guy and just what kind of relationship they had.

  Then he brought himself up short, realizing that he was thinking like a jealous husband. A controlling, possessive jealous husband.

  With a grimace, he forced his steps into a light, even pace as he climbed the stairs to put his packages in his room. But he was too keyed up to stay in there, so he went out into the fields again, not sure if he was looking for clues or walking off nervous energy.

  Two hours later when he walked into the kitchen, he and Beth eyed each other uneasily. Pulling open the drawer, he began slapping cutlery on the table.

  They were both still wary as they sat down to eat. But as it had the night before, the first taste of her cooking brought a compliment to his lips.

  “I love what you’ve done to these pork chops,” he said and saw her flush with pleasure.

  “It’s one of my mom’s old recipes.”

  “And the sweet potatoes. You put pineapple and walnuts in them?”

  “Pecans.”

  “Yeah, right. Pecan
s,” he said after another appreciative bite.

  He relaxed a fraction, thinking the question sounded almost natural as he asked, “I saw the U.P.S. truck a while ago. Do you get many delivery trucks up here?”

  “Uh-huh. I order supplies from all over the world.”

  “So you and that driver are pretty friendly.”

  She shrugged. “We say hello.”

  “He’s never done anything out of line?”

  “Certainly not! What are you implying?”

  “You’re alone up here. Men who come to the house could…take advantage of you.”

  “Anyone who tried to take advantage of me would have to deal with Granger.”

  At the sound of his name, the big dog trotted over.

  Beth patted his head, then slipped him a piece of meat.

  Cal took a breath and cast around for a change of subject. “Well, I guess if we’re going to convince your classmates we’re married, I’d better tell you something about my background.”

  Her grimace made him wish he’d introduced the subject with a little more finesse. “I’m from North Carolina.”

  “So that’s where you get that drawl.”

  “Do I have a drawl?” he asked innocently.

  “You know you do. Where in North Carolina?”

  “Greensboro. My dad worked for the city, but we had a place fifteen miles out of town. Not as big as this. We had five acres, part of them wooded.”

  She nodded.

  “You’ve lived here all your life?” he prompted.

  “Yes.”

  He kept the conversation going, enjoying himself more than he should, then disappearing right after dinner to give her some breathing space.

  He followed that pattern the next day, too, doing his job, meeting her for breakfast, lunch and dinner, carefully orchestrating a casual exchange of information, then starting to coach her on what they would do and say at the meeting.

  Afterward he always gave her some time alone. Or perhaps it was giving himself time to decompress, he silently admitted.

  Because despite the easy demeanor and the slow drawl he was able to manufacture, he was more uncomfortable than he had ever been in his life—both physically and mentally. And he didn’t know which was worse. Physically, he wanted her with a gut-burning desire that edged into pain.

  Mentally, he felt as if the universe was shifting under him and he was hanging on by his fingernails. He’d had his share of women, but there had been a kind of intimacy between him and Beth that he’d never asked for and never expected. He’d seen what happened to his father when he’d let down his guard. And he’d vowed never to open himself up for that kind of grief.

  In the past, he’d never had any reason to question his own judgment—or any problem keeping relationships within the bounds he’d set. Then he’d met Beth Wagner—a woman who made him want to throw the rules out the window. Only he couldn’t. Because if he did, everything he’d ever thought was true would be false.

  TWO AFTERNOONS LATER when Cal spotted Tim Fillmore outside mending a broken fence, he ambled into the fields for a friendly chat.

  “How are you doing?” Cal asked.

  The man turned, straightened. “Fine.”

  “You know who I am?”

  Tim gave him a measured look. “You’re the guy who moved in with Beth,” he said, a note of disapproval in his voice.

  Cal hesitated, thinking he should have planned what to say. If he said he was married to Beth, this man would know it was a lie in a few weeks. What would embarrass her more? he wondered—his claiming to be her husband now, or something closer to the truth. He settled for, “It’s temporary.”

  “Is that supposed to reassure me or something?”

  “You have a personal interest in Beth?”

  “I watch out for her—that’s all. I’ve been watching out for her since her father died.”

  “You watch out for fires? Sheep getting sick from pesticides? Covers disappearing from old wells?”

  Fillmore looked uncomfortable. “She told you about that?”

  “I had occasion to discover the well on my own.”

  “She didn’t say I had anything to do with it!” the man said with a vehemence that made Cal suspect the questions were making him very uncomfortable.

  “I’m not accusing you of anything. I just thought you might be able to give me some information,” he said reassuringly.

  “Like what?”

  “Like who wants Beth off this property.”

  Fillmore looked down at his right boot and kicked a tuft of grass.

  “Beth’s land would make a nice little parcel for some developer,” Cal prompted.

  “She doesn’t want to sell.”

  “She might if somebody made her afraid to stay here.”

  “Are you thinkin’ that might be me?”

  “I’m just considering possibilities.”

  Cal spent a few more minutes questioning the man, pretty sure Fillmore was hiding something but unable to find out what. Maybe if he’d flashed a badge in the farmer’s face he would have gotten a little further.

  But blowing his cover was out of the question.

  Frustrated, he turned and headed back to the house. Toward more frustration. Because it was almost time for dinner—and another session with Beth where he got to pretend that he didn’t ache to reach across the table and pull her into his arms.

  He tried to marshal his defenses as he approached the front door. But as soon as he stepped into the house, he knew he was in trouble—on an entirely different level. He smelled apple pie. And some spicy meat. Maybe barbecue.

  Hell, he was going to gain five pounds before he finished with this assignment. Only a six-mile morning run was keeping his gut from pouching out.

  Beth was standing at the sink washing tomatoes. She didn’t turn, but he knew from the way her shoulders stiffened that she’d heard him come into the room.

  He moved to the drawer in the hutch and took out cutlery.

  “I saw you talking to Tim,” she said as he set the table.

  “Yeah.”

  “About what?”

  “The stuff that’s happened around here. The well. The fire. I want to get his reaction.”

  “He’s not responsible for any of that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He…likes me.”

  “Oh yeah. You mean as in a man liking a woman, or some other way?”

  “First you quiz me about the deliveryman, now Tim.”

  “I didn’t quiz you about the deliveryman! I just asked a couple of questions. Like I’m doing now.”

  He wanted to cross the room, turn her to face him, show her how strongly he felt about her safety. Instead, he clenched his fingers around the handle of the fork he was holding.

  Dinner was as strained as any meal they’d shared. Then after he helped her clean up, he told her he had research to do. The quick stab of disappointment on her face made him duck his head as he left.

  But he was too restless, feeling too caged in. He’d never lived with a woman before, never been forced into such intimacy. And he couldn’t cope. So he went back to his own house for a few hours, back to his computer where he plugged in Tim Fillmore’s name and the names of her other neighbors, just for good measure.

  Then he looked up land records, scoping out which developers had bought tracts similar to Beth’s in the recent past.

  When he came back after midnight, he drove slowly up the lane, probing the silent landscape, wondering if he’d spook some watcher who thought he was safely out of the way.

  He could see the light was on in the parlor as he drove into the yard. Granger came to the door when he stepped inside, chuffing softly and giving his hand a lick with his warm tongue.

  “Good boy,” Cal said, thinking he could go right upstairs. Instead, he was drawn down the hall. Beth was sleeping in the easy chair by the window. Maybe she’d been waiting up for him.

  She looked so beautiful with h
er blond hair falling around her shoulders that he felt his heart squeeze. A heavy book was on her lap, a book on weaving he’d seen her reading. Now it was slipping toward the floor. If it went over her knees, it was going to hit her on the foot, he realized, moving forward quickly and bending to catch it in his hand.

  His fingers brushed her knee, and her eyes shot open, focusing on his face.

  “The book,” he said, hearing the thickness in his voice. He pushed the volume more firmly onto her lap, the touch of his fingers against her leg searing his flesh. Before the fire could consume him, he straightened and took a quick step back.

  They stared at each other across four feet of charged space. He couldn’t stop himself from picturing what he wanted. In his mind, he saw himself scooping her up in his arms and fusing his mouth to hers. But he knew where that would lead.

  As the fantasy took on substance in his mind, her tongue poked from between her teeth, moved across her bottom lip, and he followed the tiny movement with his eyes, even as he pressed his hands against his sides to keep from reaching for her.

  There was nobody here besides the two of them. Nobody to prevent him from taking her upstairs to her bedroom and making love to her until the tension building between them was spent.

  He stood there for another moment, the blood rushing hotly in his veins. Then he jerked away and left the room before he did something he knew he would regret.

  Chapter Seven

  The reality was a hundred—a thousand—times worse than the anticipation, Beth thought as Cal pulled up in the parking lot in front of the Fairways Restaurant where the reunion committee was having its first meeting.

  Show time.

  And she wasn’t ready. She’d never be ready to face these people. Not in a thousand lifetimes. Not alone and not with Cal Rollins.

  It was not quite six-thirty, and the last vestiges of daylight lingered in the parking lot. Given her choice, she would have elected to arrive under cover of darkness, but that would have brought its own perils, making her and Cal late so that all eyes would be on them when they entered the room.

  To her right, a car door slammed, and she jumped. Cal put a hand on her shoulder, and her body stiffened even more.

  “Relax,” he said in that deep, slow drawl that had become so familiar over the past few days.