After Dark (25 page)

    Floating across the room, leaving
behind the lifeless body of the woman she didn't know, Mary Martha made
her way back into the bathroom. With a weak, shaky hand, she searched
through the row of medicine bottles on the shelf inside the linen closet
until she found the one containing her sleeping pills. She read the label
to make sure, then emptied the pills into the palm of her hand. After
dumping the sleeping tablets into her mouth, she ran water into a glass
and washed the medicine down her throat.

    All I have to do now is go to sleep,
and when I wake up, I'll be in heaven with Kent. He'll be so glad to see me.
I know he's been lonely without me. Lane will take care of my baby, the
way she always has. Will doesn't need me as much as Kent does.

    After hours of restless sleep,
Johnny Mack woke with a start. Sitting straight up in bed, he listened,
thinking a noise might have awakened him. But he heard only the breathing
of an old house in the wee hours of the morning. After lifting his wristwatch
from the nightstand, he noted it was fifteen till five.

    He crawled out of bed and padded
barefoot across the room. Glancing out the window, he saw no hint of the
approaching dawn. Still dark. Quietly, serenely dark. Mysteriously,
deadly dark.

    Yawning, he scratched his bare
chest. Maybe he should go down to the kitchen and fix himself some coffee.
In a couple of hours, he would have to face his son again. And face the
boy's possessive, protective mother. He had to find a way to convince
them both that before they could help Will, the boy would first have to remember
what had happened the day Kent was murdered.

    Suddenly Johnny Mack noticed movement
below in the garden. From the pale illumination of light coming from
inside the house, he saw the shadow of a woman moving across the patio
and through the garden. Lane? What was she doing awake this early? And where
was she going? Or where had she been"?

    Picking up his discarded jeans
from where he had tossed them on a nearby chair the night before, Johnny
Mack removed his pajama bottoms and replaced them with his pants, then
put on his wrinkled shirt. Quickly slipping into his learner house shoes,
he made an instant decision. He was going after her. Obviously she'd
had as bad a night as he had. If she needed him, he wanted to be mere for
her. Besides, maybe it was better if they spoke privately, before they
met with Will.

    Moving as quietly as he could,
Johnny Mack made his way down the back stairs, through the kitchen and out
onto the patio. Lane was nowhere in sight But he knew, instinctively,
where she had gone.

    The Nobles' garden remained as
well-manicured as it had been in the past, covering over two acres that
led from the back of the house, down three separate rows of concrete
steps within the verdant garden enclosure. A stepping-stone path led
from the garden to the river and the old boathouse.

    At one time the Noble mansion
had stood alone, the center of a huge plantation. But eventually the
town had built up around the estate, and over the years, one by one, the
other fine homes had been erected on what had once been Noble land.

    What did it cost Lane to maintain
the house and grounds in the same manner her family had been doing for
generations? The upkeep on this place must be bleeding her meager resources
dry. Her father had left her his forty-nine percent of the Herald, but I
what little money he'd had left was in a trust fund I for Will and any future
children Lane might have. Smart man that he was, Bill Noble had made sure
that Kent Graham couldn't get his hands on a dime.

    Johnny Mack knew for a fact that the
Herald's profits had been declining each year. He also knew that Lane
had secretly sold off some of her mother's jewelry. If she hadn't needed
the money so badly, she would never have parted with any of Celeste Noble's
jewels. After all, some of the items had been in the Noble family since
before the Civil War.

    When he had found out about the sale
of the jewels, he had asked Wyatt Foster to locate the items and buy them
back for Lane. When the time was right, he would return them to her.

    As he drew nearer the banks of the
Chickasaw, he wondered if he would find Lane on the riverbank or inside
the boathouse, sitting on the deck of her father's boat. When they used
to meet to talk-only to talk-they had often sought privacy inside, on
Bill Noble's boat, but on warm nights they had usually sat on the riverbank.

    And that was where he found her.
Sitting in the grass, her knees bent, her arms draped around her legs. The
moonlight washed her with fluid gold. Pale. Shimmery. Sheer. Her hair
hung loosely over her bare shoulders.

    What had driven Lane out of her house
before daylight? Why had she been unable to sleep? If he called her name,
would she rise and come to him? Or would she run?

    When he approached, she sat there
unaware of his presence as she stared up at the dark sky. She wore nothing
but her yellow cotton gown, the material thin and filmy, plainly revealing
the curves of her body. Everything male within him reacted to all that
was female within her. And he understood, as if God had written the message
in stone and handed the tablet to him, that he had been waiting for tins
moment all ms life. He had denied his feelings as a teenager. He had
told himself that he respected Bill Noble and Lane herself far too much
to violate Lane, to take her innocence. But she was no longer an innocent
And he had waited a lifetime to take what he knew in his gut had always
belonged to him. Did she understand as he did that the time for them to
become lovers was long overdue?

    Only two things could stop him from
taking what he wanted. An act of God. Or Lane saying no.

    Lane wrapped her arms around herself
and rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms. Even in August it was cool
late at night and early in the morning down by the river. Why hadn't she thought
to wear her robe? Better yet, what was she doing here? You're running scared.
Trying to escape from the dream. But that's all it was, just a dream. Not
reality, and only reality could truly harm her.

    But she could easily turn the dream
into reality. One word from her and Johnny Mack would become her lover.
She wasn't blind to the way he had been looking at her. He wanted her. Wanted
her as he had wanted countless other women over the years. If she went to
him, gave herself to him, could she accept the fact that she wasn't special,
that she wasn't the one woman on earth destined to tame the beast within
him? Those had been a young girl's foolish fantasies. She was older and
wiser now. She had once loved him with all her heart, and he had respected
her and appreciated her friendship. But that had been years ago. What
was there between them now? Distrust Suspicion. A child they both wanted
desperately to help. And a primitive lust that infected every other aspect
of their relationship.

    She had never known passion, never
experienced a desire so great that it tormented her day and night In
the beginning of her marriage, she had tried to love Kent, had tried to
enjoy the physical part of their marriage, but his selfishness and jealous
need to erase Johnny Mack from her heart had created a barrier between
them. And later on, Kent's cruelty had destroyed what litde affection
she'd ever had for him.

    What would it be like to be with a
man she truly wanted? Even knowing that she could expect nothing more
than a brief affair with him, wouldn't it be worth the risk of losing her
heart all over again just to- finally-have the one man she had always wanted?

    The eastern sky quivered with a
predawn softness, the labor pains that would soon bring forth the birth
of a new day. The half-moon paled in the darkness as if preparing to take
a final bow before exiting. While the river hummed with a repetitive,
seductive motion, a morning breeze rippled over the dark surface.

    Lane rose to her feet, bare and
damp on the cool, dew-laden grass. And that was when she saw him. The outline
of a tall man. She gasped, then relaxed when she realized it was Johnny
Mack. But that relief was short-lived. Even in the semidarkness she could
see the look of longing and determination in his black eyes, and she
knew that he had followed her. Not to talk about Kent's murder. Not to discuss
Will. Not to remind her that he had returned to Noble's Crossing to help
her.

    The closer he came, the more of
his large, wide shouldered body the fading moonlight revealed. He appeared
to have gotten out of bed hastily. His hair was mussed and his shirt unbuttoned.
An air of raw, masculine energy permeated every inch of his big body.

    She stood frozen, like a deer
trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car, knowing what lay ahead and
yet unable to flee from danger. Fear combined with desire, creating conflict
within her. The rational part of her mind warned her to run, but her body
begged her to remain, to open herself up and accept the inevitable.

    "Lane." He spoke her name
as if it were an endearment.

    "No, we can't." She took
a tentative, backward step.

    "Yes, we can." He moved
toward her, but stopped abruptly when she continued backing away from
him, her silhouette quickly disappearing behind the curtain of drooping
willow limbs.

    "You don't understand."
When her behind encountered the trunk of the willow tree, which blocked
her escape route, Lane waited, her breathing ragged and quick. She was
trapped. Trapped by the tree at her back. Trapped by Johnny Mack towering
over her as he closed the gap between them. And trapped by her own desperate
desire.

    "Make me understand."
He laid one hand on the tree trunk, his fingers spread out above her head.

    He was close. Too close. She shut
her eyes to avoid looking directly at him. How could she face him with the
truth about her marriage to Kent? Coward, she chided herself. Sooner or
later you'll have to tell him what a stupid, naive fool you were. And how
pitifully weak and helpless you allowed yourself to become before
you broke free.

    "I was a virgin when I married
Kent" She opened her eyes and watched the expression on Johnny
Mack's face. He grimaced as if he were in pain, and then he swallowed
hard. "I had dreamed that my first sexual experience would be with
you."

    "It should have been."
He lifted his other hand and touched her face. Tenderly. Hesitantly. As
if he were afraid she would bolt and run. "You can't imagine how
much I wanted to be the one to initiate you."

    ''It was never right between Kent
and me. Not from: the very beginning. And later on…" Lane breathed
deeply, garnering strength from an inner reserve that was almost depleted.
"By the time Will was a toddler, I had stopped sharing a bed with
Kent. The only time we were ever… ever intimate was when he forced the issue."

    "Are you saying that he raped
you? "Johnny Mack's caressing hand knotted into a tight fist as he jerked
it away from Lane's face.

    "Yes, he forced me. More than
once. And each time, he told me to just pretend it was you, that he knew I'd
been doing that all along. I've never told anyone about Kent's brutal attacks.
No one knew except Lillie Mae, and I didn't tell her. She guessed the
truth. And she swore she'd stop him permanently if he ever touched me again."
Lane slid away from the tree, away from Johnny Mack, and ran to the edge of
the water.

    "Lane!" Johnny Mack followed
her, but when she stopped and turned to face him, he made no move to touch
her.

    A multicolored pastel dawn
light spread across the eastern horizon, hinting that morning was approaching.
The nighttime's soft warmth had yet to be replaced by the onset of
August sizzle, the smoldering, humid heat only a matter of hours away.
The cool breeze coming off the water kept the temperatures several
degrees lower here by the river, day and night

    Lane stared at Johnny Mack, but she
felt as if she were looking straight through him, looking back in time to
when she had been Kent Graham's wife. Back to when she had been at his
mercy and too ashamed to even tell her parents about the nightmare her
marriage had become.

    "After the third time he forced
me, I told him that if he ever came near me again, I'd kill him." Lane
heaved a deep sigh. "I bought a gun. And you know that I've always hated
guns. Then I threatened him with a divorce. I honestly intended to go
through with it. But then Daddy was killed in the car crash, and I had to deal
with taking care of Mother for nearly two years. And Will still loved
Kent. So we simply lived separate lives most of the time. It seemed easier
that way for both of us."

    "How could you have stayed
married to him, after what he'd done to you?"

    Had that been censure in Johnny
Mack's voice? Was he condemning her for not divorcing Kent sooner? In retrospect
she realized that she should have ended the marriage long before she
did. But at the time, she had thought she was doing the right tiling.

    "I remained Kent's wife until
Will was nearly ten and I finally understood that staying with Kent was
hurting Will far more than getting a divorce would. By that time Kent's
drinking had gotten so bad that even Miss Edith agreed that Will was better
off with me. And it was Miss Edith who paid Kent's child support payments
for him."