Deep in the Heart (3 page)

He felt silent satisfaction that she had yet to bawl. And when he remembered a grimy handkerchief in his pocket, he yanked it out and began swiping at the remaining blood on their hands and arms until there was nothing left to show what they’d been up to except a couple of empty Band-Aid wrappers on the ground at their feet.

“Samantha! It’s time to come home!”

The cry was faint, but it was sure. At the sound of her mother’s voice, Sam jerked, clasped her hand over her bandaged wrist, and looked around nervously.

Johnny sighed. It never failed. Her mother always called just when things were getting good.

“I guess you’d better go,” he said, and helped her to her feet, checking the place on her arm once again in the thick Texas darkness to assure himself that the blood had stopped flowing. He couldn’t be sending Sam back home now, only to bleed to death later in the night.

She sighed, oddly reluctant to break the tenuous bond she felt between them.

“Samantha Jean!” her mother called again.

When her mother used both names, she meant business.

“I’ve got to go,” she said, and started to run when Johnny’s voice stopped her.

“Sam! Wait!”

She turned and stared, peering anxiously into the darkness beneath the mimosa, unwilling to leave him, yet afraid to anger her mother.

“Remember, you can’t tell. If you tell, then the spell is broken,” he warned.

“I promise,” she whispered. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” And then she was gone.

Four years later he punched the boy across the street for teasing Samantha Carlyle and making her cry. And four years after that, on her sixteenth birthday, she gave Johnny more than her word of honor.

Johnny Knight stood beneath the thick stand of mimosa trees, hidden from prying eyes as he waited in the darkness for Samantha to come. And he knew that she would. She’d promised.

He shivered. Partly from nervous excitement, partly from need. He wanted Samantha in the worst way possible for an eighteen-year-old boy to want. But he loved her too much to push her. Tonight he had some news to give her that she wasn’t going to like.

Today he had joined the marines. The armed services had been his only hope. His grades wouldn’t get him a scholarship to any collage, and his job barely kept him alive. His father had been in prison now for nearly a year, so there was no one around to help him better his life. He had to do for himself…as well as for Samantha. He had so many dreams for his future. And she was in every one of them.

And then he heard footsteps, and when she burst through the thicket and flew into his arms, his heart swelled with such love that words were impossible. For the moment, all he could do was hold her.

“I didn’t think I would make it,” she cried, and fell into his arms, laughing and shaking at the same time from the excitement of slipping away. “What’s the big secret? You nearly scared me to death when you called.”

Johnny frowned. Ever since his father had gone to prison, Samantha had been forbidden to see him or talk to him. He knew he’d taken a big chance by calling her house, but it had been necessary. Johnny hated Samantha’s father for keeping them apart. It wasn’t fair. He hadn’t committed the crimes, but he was paying all the same, and in a way that was nearly killing him. Giving up Samantha had been impossible. Ever since her father’s ultimatum, they’d been sneaking out just to be together.

He took her in his arms, nuzzling the soft spot at the base of her ear that always made her shiver and giggle. She responded just as he’d expected.

“Oh God, Sam, I’m going to miss you.” He found it hard to talk and not cry, and yet there was no way he could let her know how much it hurt him to say this.

She grew still. “Miss me? Why? Where are you going?”

Johnny hugged her close. He couldn’t look at her. If she cried, he might find himself crying right along, and
men
of eighteen did not cry.

“The marines. I joined today.”

“No!”

Her cry pierced his heart. She clutched his shirt in a desperate reaction to the news.

“Johnny! Why?”

But as soon as she looked at his face, she knew the answer. The only way he could make a life for himself was to get away. Everyone looked at Johnny and thought of his father. The townspeople had all made their own silent calculations as to how long it would be before the son became a thief too.

She buried her face against his shirt. Just as he feared, she started to cry.

“When?”

He bit his lip and dug his fingers into her hair as she shifted within his embrace. Somehow the words finally came.

“Day after tomorrow, 8
A.M
.”

“You’ll forget me,” she whispered, and lifted her face for his kiss. “You’ll go away, and never come back.”

“I couldn’t forget you if I tried,” he said, aching in so many places he couldn’t think. “And I
will
come back. I will come back for you. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

She laughed through her sobs. It was a repeat of their childhood pledge that she remembered all too well.

Johnny tilted her face to his. He only meant to kiss her. But their mutual consolation became a desperate coupling. A need to prove to each other where their true feelings lay.

“Ah God, Samantha. I love you, so much,” Johnny whispered. “I love you so much I hurt.”

Sam hid her face. She was embarrassed, and at the same time, thrilled. She knew where he hurt…and how bad. The proof of it was pressing hard against her belly. And she was scared. Scared of loving Johnny. And scared not to.

Just as she had on a night long ago when they’d made a blood oath to be friends for life, Samantha made a decision. And once again, she made the first move.

She stepped out of Johnny’s arms and started unbuttoning her blouse. One button after the other came undone, and all the while, Samantha was shaking, unable to look at him and face what he must be thinking.

Johnny was dumbfounded, and at the same time, on fire. He couldn’t believe what she was doing. And yet, he knew he wouldn’t have stopped her, even if he could.

“Sammy?”

She paused. Slowly, she looked up into his face. Night shadows hid all but the strongest portions of his features. But she could see those dark Texas eyes staring back at her through the shadows. She reached out and took his hand, then gently but firmly, placed it upon her breast.

“Oh God, Sammy, are you sure?”

She nodded. “Love me, Johnny. I can’t let you go, without giving you a reason to come back.”

A groan of submission was his only response.

And there beneath the mimosa tree, they fell into each other’s arms in a tangle of teenage arms and legs and love. And before the night was over, Samantha had given Johnny the only thing she had left to give. Herself.

Two days later she’d kissed him good-bye at the bus stop with his promises ringing in her ears.

Two weeks later, Samantha Carlyle and her parents unexpectedly moved to California. Samantha never realized that her father knew more than he should about their relationship. He’d hated the boy, and at the same time, feared their devotion to each other, knowing that it was rooted in too many years of friendship for him to fight.

He’d done what he thought was right by removing his only daughter from temptation. He’d moved them a half a country away, and unknown to Samantha, purposely did not leave a forwarding address.

And for months on end, when no letters followed their move and his daughter had cried herself to sleep, he’d told himself that it was all for the best. That someday she would understand.

The someday had never come.

Samantha shuddered now as John Thomas’s arms tightened around her. Obviously she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t forgotten their special bond.

He’d come through for her. He was here in L.A.

She sighed as his hands gently stroked the hair away from her face.

“Oh, Johnny,” Samantha sobbed. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

John Thomas couldn’t believe it either. But he
was
in L.A., holding Sam Carlyle in his arms and wondering what to do next. He’d known the girl as well as he’d known himself. It was the woman who was making him nervous.

He hugged her once more for good measure, and then handed her a handkerchief from his hip pocket.

“Wipe,” he said.

She did.

“Now, blow.”

She grinned, and once again followed his order.

“One thing’s for darn sure,” she said, as she handed the slightly used linen back to him. “You haven’t changed. You’re still as bossy as ever.”

He grinned slightly. She had that right. John Thomas liked things done his own way.

Samantha stared at his face and knew that she was in the presence of a real heartbreaker. She recognized the type. She just wasn’t sure if her Johnny—the streetwise boy she’d known with an attitude a yard wide—was still somewhere inside him, waiting to erupt within a moment’s notice. This big man looked full of charm and was too sexy for his own good.

“So, Sam…Why am I here?” John Thomas asked.

“What’s the deal with the letter?”

The smile slid off her face as she stepped back and out of his arms. “The deal,” she said, “is that some nut wishes me into the next level of cosmic consciousness.”

John Thomas frowned. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means someone hates me enough to want me dead.”

The words were even uglier said aloud than written on paper.

“I don’t get it. Can’t the police catch him? How long has this been going on?”

Samantha sighed and led him toward the table. “It’s a long story, Johnny. How long do you have?”

The look he gave her sent her old panic reeling, replacing it with a new, undefined fear. It was dark and solemn, and the touch of his hand as it cupped her cheek said more than any words could have done.

“Once upon a time, I would have said the rest of my life. But that was before you left Cotton.” John Thomas couldn’t and wouldn’t say more about the old ache he still nursed. Time hadn’t healed the devastation of her betrayal. “Right now, I want you to talk to me.”

A pent-up sigh escaped her lips. His answer was more than she’d hoped for. And yet, she couldn’t help resenting the fact that he’d been so blasé about their parting. Obviously it hadn’t hurt him as badly as it had her. She still remembered the sleepless nights and the tears. Even after all these years, his lack of compassion for her broken heart made her wary. But she had more pressing problems to worry about than an old boyfriend who’d dumped her. At least he’d come to help. It was more than anyone else had done.

She pointed toward the table piled high with letters and packets that held more than one lifetime’s worth of hate.

“Take a seat,” she said. “Enjoy. I’ve got enough there to give you something to sleep on.”

The bitter twist of her lips hurt his heart. He sat and stared at the mound of paper before him, wondering where to begin.

“Don’t worry,” she said, unwittingly answering his unspoken question. “It doesn’t matter where you start. Ultimately they all say the same thing. Someone hates me. Someone wants me dead.”

Then she turned away, suddenly embarrassed for this tall, handsome stranger to see so deeply into her life.

John Thomas took one look at the hurt on her face and made a decision. He stood up and pushed the stacks of papers away.

“Time enough for this stuff later,” he said. “I’ve been on a plane for too long, and in this god-awful traffic even longer. I’m hungry. You pick the place. It’s my treat.”

“No!” Samantha paled and clutched at his arm.

“You don’t understand, Johnny. I can’t go out. What if he sees me? What if he finds me again?” She looked back at the papers on the table. “What if the next time he says it in person? What if—”

“What if you let me worry about the son of a bitch for a while? Isn’t that why you sent for me? After all, it’s not like I’ve never seen a bad guy, Sam. If he does show his face, I’ll know what to do.”

The deadly anger in his voice seeped through her terror. She felt herself relaxing. Samantha stared long and hard into the face of the man standing before her.

“Johnny, exactly what do you
do
for a living?”

He grinned. “You don’t know? You really don’t know?”

She shook her head.

He stuck his hand in his pocket and what he pulled out made Samantha’s eyes widen in shock. Then a slow, uncertain smile fell into place on her mouth.

“The bad boy of Cotton, Texas, is a cop?”

“A sheriff,” he corrected, “of Cherokee County to be exact.” He shook his head. “I thought you knew. I thought that’s why you sent for me.”

Samantha stared. “No, not at all,” she whispered, absently rubbing the tiny scar on her wrist. “I was just grasping for straws—and hope—and thought of you.”

All these years had passed and still, when the chips were down, she’d called and he’d come. That, in itself, said a lot for promises made and for secrets kept.

The jolt in his belly had nothing to do with hunger, but he had to change the subject.

“Remember, I don’t eat green stuff,” he warned. “At least, not much. I like meat, red meat. I don’t eat anything that isn’t cooked and I—”

Samantha laughed. “Oh my Lord,” she said, and poked her finger playfully in his midsection. “I get the picture. You’re one tough dude. You take your meat well done and—”

“My women over easy,” he drawled.

Her face flushed and for the first time in months Samantha looked at a man with something other than fear. Thinking about Johnny Knight and love didn’t come easy. She was still locked into the image she’d had of him at eighteen. This big man with a go-to-hell jaw and come-hither eyes took some getting used to.

“Are you coming?” he asked softly, well aware of what his sexy teasing had evoked.

“I think so,” she finally answered, not completely certain of what he’d just asked her to attend. Was it dinner…or something else? Subtlety and Johnny Knight took a stretch of the imagination.

“Don’t think, Sam. Know. Either we do, or we don’t. It’s all up to you.”

This time, she knew for certain that he was slipping double entendres into the conversation. It did everything for her low spirits and self-esteem.