Deep in the Heart (8 page)

Her mouth dropped open. She looked at Rebel, and then down at herself and laughed. It was a throw-your-head-back kind of laugh that made his stomach tilt. And there, in the middle of a hay meadow at high noon, John Thomas felt the earth shift.

To save face, instead of taking her in his arms and pulling her down into the grass beneath their feet, he bent over, brushed the dust from her knees, and swung his Stetson at Rebel, scooting them both toward his house and its shady front porch.

Later, they sat together on the steps, sharing sandwiches and lemonade with the dog who lay a few feet away, relishing the cool shady dirt beneath the tall pine near the porch.

It was with extreme reluctance that John Thomas made the decision to return to Rusk.

“I guess that it’s time I got back to work,” he said, and was slightly satisfied to see the disappointment in Sam’s eyes.

But her dejection was too much to ignore, and before he’d thought, he found himself cupping the back of her head with both hands.

Their lips met suddenly. Her mouth was slightly open in shock, his swift and determined. And when his hard kiss exploded her emotions and rocked her world, she groaned and submitted to his demand without protest.

Then he turned her loose as quickly as he’d claimed her.

“Be careful, damn it,” he growled, and stalked toward the squad car with single-minded intent. He had to get away before he did something they both might regret.

Samantha thought to remind herself later—when she could think—that it was only a kiss between friends.

Two days later, halfway across the country, another kind of explosion rocked the early morning silence in the pink stucco apartment complex in L.A. Walls shifted, the ground shook, and residents came screaming from the rooms in sleepy terror, thinking that an earthquake had just occurred.

It was several minutes later before someone noticed that there was little or no damage—except around the area of Apartment 214.

Within minutes of the fire department’s arrival, it was determined that the explosion had not been natural. By the time they realized that the bomb that had gone off had been detonated from a different location, fear and confusion reigned. The subsequent discovery that it was Samantha Carlyle’s residence changed the complexion of the incident altogether. That was when Detective Mike Pulaski of LAPD got the call.

“Pulaski here,” he answered, talking around a bite of bagel and cream cheese.

The color in his ruddy complexion faded to a pasty white, and he choked twice then coughed before taking a large swallow of hot coffee to wash down the news he’d been given.

“You’re certain?” he asked, writing as he listened.

Minutes later he hung up, stared down at the notes on the paper, and began to curse. It was the last thing he’d expected to hear. The call made him angry. He, Mike Pulaski, was hardly ever wrong. And he hated to be wrong, especially about something like this. The threat to Samantha Carlyle’s safety had suddenly become fact, and at the same time, he had to face guilt and a guilty conscience. So she’d been telling the truth all along!

It didn’t take Pulaski long to show up at the site of the explosion. And what he learned made him sick. Bits and pieces of what was left of Samantha Carlyle’s home were scattered all over the three-room apartment as well as out into the courtyard.

He had all the proof he needed that her life was really in danger, because only he knew first-hand that one Miss Samantha Carlyle, late of Los Angeles, California, was now in the safe hands of a Texas sheriff. She’d been thousands of miles away when what was left of her world had gone up in smoke.

He went back to his office, leaving the gathering of evidence to the experts from the crime lab. He had a call to make, and it was not going to be an easy one. It took him several minutes to locate the card that John Thomas Knight had tossed on his desk, and once he did he had to pause to ponder what he was going to say.

Daylight came two hours earlier in Texas than it did in L.A., so he knew that the sheriff would be in his office. He took a deep breath and dialed. And while he waited for Knight to come to the phone, he realized that he hadn’t planned on eating his own words for breakfast.

“When?”

The question was staccato sharp, and Pulaski winced and held the phone away from his ear.

“This morning,” he answered, then looked down at his watch. “What would have been about ten o’clock your time.”

John Thomas inhaled slowly, closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose to alleviate the pressure of a headache that had suddenly appeared.

“What do you know so far?” John Thomas asked.

Pulaski sighed. “Not much.”

“Well, hell, why am I not surprised?”

“Look! I had that coming. I don’t deny it. But we’ve got a damned good bomb unit. If there’s something to find, they’ll find it.”

“And while they’re looking through what’s left of Sam’s life, what do you expect me to do? Do you know what this news is going to do to her? Dammit to hell, Pulaski, why didn’t you believe her earlier, before it went this far?”

Pulaski sighed, remembering how casually Samantha Carlyle’s own bosses at the agency had treated the threats after weeks had passed without an incident to prove her theory. The fact that he’d let their opinion of her behavior color his own judgment didn’t sit any better.

“I wish I could change what’s happened, but I can’t. Look, Sheriff, I’m only human, you know. We all are. All I can tell you is to be on the lookout for strangers.”

John Thomas snorted softly. “Well hell, Pulaski, that won’t be hard. With a population of less than twenty-five hundred, around here strangers stand out like cows in a pen full of steers.”

Pulaski rolled his eyes at the metaphor, assuming that what Knight just said made some sort of sense in Texas.

“Okay then,” he said. “I’ll call you as soon as I know more. For now, you should work under the assumption that Samantha’s stalker knows she’s gone and is obviously angry.”

“What makes you think he knows?” John Thomas asked. The warning was unexpected, and he didn’t like its implications. He didn’t like it at all.

“Because the bomb was placed on her bed, that’s why. And my police psychologist tells me that the location of the bomb can be read two ways. The stalker is angry that she left with you, another man. By blowing up her bed, he’s telling her that leaving her bed to crawl into yours was unacceptable. It’s that, or else it was leaving L.A. altogether that set him off. Either way, the stalker has to know she’s gone.”

“Oh hell.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Pulaski said, and hung up.

John Thomas frowned as the line went dead. He set the receiver carefully in place, and then covered his face with his hands.

“Horseshit.”

“Bad news?” Carol Ann asked.

John Thomas smiled. It was not an expression of joy. The look on his face made the dispatcher shiver.

“Well hell, Carol Ann, in this business is there any other kind?”

The door slammed behind him as he headed for his truck. The last thing he wanted to do was go home and tell Samantha what he’d just learned, and then watch the smile die on her face.

But while it might be the last thing he wanted, he had no choice. Before the night was over, what he’d learned would put fear back into her world.

5

R
EBEL BARKED ONCE
at the sound of a pickup truck pulling to a stop outside, and then dropped his chin back onto his paws and refocused his attention on the woman who was standing at the kitchen sink.

Samantha looked at the soulful expression on the dog’s face and laughed, using her wooden stirring spoon for a pointer as she waved him out of the kitchen.

“If that’s the best you can do, then get, you worthless animal,” she said, and looked up to see John Thomas standing in the kitchen doorway with an odd expression on his face.

“But I just got here,” he said. “Can’t I eat before you run me out?”

She grinned. “I didn’t mean you,” she said. “I was talking to Rebel.”

“Talking to dogs now, are you?”

She heard the laughter in his voice and knew that she was being made sport of.

“At least he doesn’t argue with me,” Samantha said.

His smile disappeared as he turned away to hang his hat on the hook inside the door. She could tell Johnny was trying too hard to be congenial and that wasn’t like him. Something was bothering him. Samantha could feel it. But she supposed if he wanted to talk about it, he’d do so in his own good time.

“I’m going to wash up and change,” he said. “Be back in a minute to help you finish up supper.”

As he walked away, she noted the stiff set of his shoulders, and the way he all but stomped from the room. Being the sheriff of an entire county had to have its drawbacks, as well as its rewards. Obviously, today the former had outweighed the latter.

In his room, John Thomas slammed his gun and holster up on the closet shelf and then dropped onto the edge of the bed. The springs creaked loudly under his weight.

He unbuckled his belt, yanked his shirt from the waist of his pants, and then pulled sharply at the collar. Snaps gave way to the angry insistence of his fingers. He closed his eyes and inhaled, wishing that his news wasn’t going to wipe the smile from her face. And as he tried to relax, he absorbed the changes her presence had made in his solitary life.

His house was old but sturdy, with pine walls and floors. There was nothing on the floors to soften the sound of boot-heels on wood, and nothing on the walls but paint. It was a man’s house, and he liked it that way.

At least he had until lately. Now he caught himself thinking about Sam’s bare feet, and how they sounded on the naked boards as she walked down the hallway during the night. He inhaled again and caught the good, homey smells of food cooking and the faintest hint of soap and powder. He’d bet a month’s wages that she’d crawled out of a bath less than an hour or so ago. His gut clenched just thinking about her naked body and how it would look all wet and soapy.

“This is getting me nowhere,” he muttered, and grabbed the heel of one of his boots and pulled. It wouldn’t budge, and he cursed the heat of the day for swelling his feet inside them.

“Need some help?” Samantha asked.

He straightened, a little surprised by her presence, then told himself not to read anything into it. They met each other look for look as they took the other’s measure. Finally he nodded.

It was only then that she moved from the doorway and into his room.

“Hike your leg,” she said, grinning slightly at the shocked expression on his face before he complied.

She swung her leg, mounting his boot as she might a horse, giving him nothing but her backside to look at. Then she bent slightly and gripped the boot with both hands.

“Push,” she ordered, and tried not to mind when he placed his other boot firmly on her rump and did as he was told.

She tugged fiercely, and when she felt the tight leather beginning to give, pulled even harder. She grunted with satisfaction as it finally came away in her hands.

His foot hit the floor as she dropped the boot. Blind to everything but the enticing view she’d given him, he shuddered as she straddled his other leg and said, “Next.”

Next what, Samantha Jean?
Wisely, he did not put the question into words, but instead did as he was told.

Samantha grasped the remaining boot, hitching his leg a bit tighter against her inner thigh while she waited patiently for his foot to center again on her backside. But this time when contact was made, it came slow and gentle, and she could feel his sock-clad foot sliding up her thigh to her hip before scooting into place.

She shivered from the contact, wishing it was his hand instead that was touching her so intimately. As a result of her frustration, her next words came out all cranky and wrong.

“What are you doing back there, homesteading? Push dammit! I’m letting supper burn.”

His lips firmed and his eyes narrowed. She wanted him to push? Well hell, who was he to argue? He shoved firmly, smiling with satisfaction as his leg straightened and sent her shapely body flying, taking the boot with her as he ejected her from her perch.

She stumbled and staggered, catching herself just before she fell across a chair. Then she turned and glared, daring him to laugh or tease. He did neither.

“Thank you, Samantha.”

His voice was as deep and full of meaning as those damned brown eyes of his that held secrets she’d never been able to share.

She frowned as she ran her hand across her hips, expecting to feel the heat from a sizzling brand, because the imprint of his foot was as vivid as if it was still in place.

“Don’t mention it,” she said shortly.

Rebel barked once.

Samantha sniffed the air. “I guess the pork chops are done,” she said.

John Thomas sat on the edge of his bed and watched as she hurried away.

“Oh great! My dog talks to her, too. What’s scary is that she understands him,” he muttered. He just wished to hell that he understood what was happening between them as easily as that.

A lid banged against a pan in the kitchen and he heard the sound of running water.

“Johnny!” she called.

“Coming,” he said. He hustled out of his work clothes and into a well-worn pair of jeans, sliding his feet into old canvas deck shoes as he bolted for the door.

He grabbed a shirt from a hanger on his way to the bathroom. The food had given him a reprieve from having to tell her about the call from California. He’d wait until after supper before he broke the news. But it couldn’t wait any longer than that. Samantha had to know that the stalker had struck again, and this time it had been with more than words.

John Thomas took the last pan from the drainer as Samantha let the dishwater run from the sink. He gave it a halfhearted swipe with a soppy dishtowel and then stacked it inside a larger one in the cabinet below.

“All done,” she said.

He nodded, and tried to return her smile.

“Let’s go outside a while,” he said. “After all that cooking, you’ve got to be feeling this heat.”