Midnight Secrets (25 page)

A sob caught in her throat as she poured out her longing into the kiss. When he pulled his mouth from hers, he was gratifyingly breathless. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Speechless and more hopeful than she’d been in years, Savannah nodded and watched him leave. After his car disappeared from view, she closed the door and leaned against it. Her fears that the only connection they had was in the past were unfounded. What exactly they did have, she didn’t know. Overanalyzing when it came to matters of the heart had gotten her into trouble before. She vowed to let things go at their own pace.

As she headed back into the kitchen to clear up the wasted dinner, two major issues pounded against her vow of not worrying. In a few weeks, she would be returning to Nashville; Zach’s job was here. Could she just walk away? Would it matter to Zach? Did their current attraction mean anything or was it just residual feelings from long ago?

The other issue was even more difficult to consider. However, no matter how difficult it was, she knew she had to come clean, too. She tried to push away the worry that it might destroy the fragile bond they were building. Whatever the outcome, Zach deserved the truth.

Chapter

Eighteen

“Hello.”

Savannah’s groggy, sleep-filled voice made him smile. Zach knew he’d woken her up. After all, it was only a little after five in the morning. The sun was just coming up and most sane people were still asleep. He’d return to his sanity tomorrow. Today, he felt like a thousand-pound weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He’d finally shared the truth with Savannah and she hadn’t slapped his face or told him to go to hell. He’d deserved both reactions. Having her forgiveness was much more than he could have dreamed of, but dammit, he wanted more. He wanted everything.

But all of that could wait until tomorrow. Today, he wanted to play. And the only person he wanted to play with yawned into his ear and said, “Huh?”

“I said, do you want to go blackberry picking with me?”

“At night?”

Swallowing a chuckle, he explained, “It’s almost dawn. The blackberries are ripe and the best time to pick them is in the morning before it gets too hot. Let’s pick blackberries, have a picnic, make pies, and—”

“Whoa, wait a minute.”

He tensed. Had he read her wrong last night? Holding his breath, he said, “What’s wrong?”

“Separate buckets?”

Relieved, he chuckled. When they were dating, they had gone blackberry picking once but had had only one bucket. For every berry she had picked, he’d eaten three. They’d walked out of the woods with barely enough fruit for a tart, much less a pie. “Yes, separate buckets.”

“I’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”

Zach grabbed his keys. “I’ll bring coffee.”

Exactly fifteen minutes later, Zach arrived on Savannah’s doorstep. The instant she opened the door, he handed her a cup of steaming coffee, doused liberally with cream, just the way she liked it.

Her smile brighter than the sunshine coming up behind him, she accepted the cup and took an appreciative sip. “Hmm, perfect.”

Zach ground his teeth and ignored his body’s response. Only Savannah could make those kinds of noises sound erotic. He had no plans to do more than hold her hand and maybe steal a kiss or two. And as disappointed as his body was going to be, he refused to try to take their relationship any further yet. They had ten years to catch up on.

He examined her attire—jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. She was definitely dressed for the occasion. Amazing how sexy a woman could look in cotton. Her golden blond hair was neatly fixed in a long braid, making her look more like the young woman he’d fallen for years ago than a sophisticated law professional. “You ready?”

“Yes. You have the buckets?”

He nodded. “And I picked up a dozen doughnuts on the way. They’re in the car.”

Her grin cheeky, she asked, “How many are left?”

She knew him too well. Laughing, he pulled her to the car. “Eight.”

Lying back on a blanket that covered a soft bed of grass, Savannah dozed happily in the shade. In the distance, a whippoorwill competed with a bobwhite for the loneliest-sounding song. A bumblebee buzzed close by, and if she held her breath and listened closely, she could hear the train that ran once a day through downtown Midnight. Savannah sighed her contentment. Supposedly, Zach was somewhere fashioning what he called a sunbonnet for her. She couldn’t wait to see his creation.

What a spectacularly wonderful day this had been. When he’d woken her at what her sister Bri would refer to as “the butt crack of dawn,” she had been stunned. The last thing she expected to be doing today was picking blackberries and giggling like a teenager. But this was exactly what they’d both needed. Yesterday’s sorrow and tomorrow’s worry had been completely obliterated. Today was to be enjoyed and savored.

The blackberries, at least what was left of them, were nestled beneath the shadiest part of the tree. Though her stomach was filled with berries now, she looked forward to making a cobbler out of what remained.

“Okay, it’s not as fashionable as I’d planned, but it should work.”

She sat up and then swallowed her laughter. Zach had taken off his white T-shirt, cut it into, and then weaved sticks into it. Lopsided and quite ugly, the bonnet looked more like a sheik’s headdress.

“Did you make that for me or for you?”

He grinned as he placed it on her head. “It’s my new line of genderless attire.”

Feeling silly and goofy, she stood and posed in several different positions. Before she realized what he was doing, Zach had pulled his cellphone from his pocket and was clicking pictures.

“You’d better not put these on the Internet. I’ll never live it down in Nashville.”

He took one more shot and then pocketed the phone. “These are for my private collection.”

Though she knew she looked ridiculous with the T-shirt hat still on her head, she had to admit she did feel cooler. Scooting over, she made a place for Zach to sit on the blanket. As he lay beside her, it was all she could do not to lean over and kiss his smiling mouth. He had done nothing more intimate than hold her hand since he’d picked her up that morning. Though she longed for his kiss, she was loath to change the lighthearted atmosphere.

Lying beside him, she gazed up through the tree branches at the intensely azure blue sky and blazing sun. A perfect summer day. And a great chance to get to know him again. “Did you like being in the army?”

“Don’t think I can say I liked it, but I didn’t hate it, either. Everything—the training, the friends I made, the places I went—all helped build me into the kind of person I wanted to be. I left Midnight a kid; the army made me a man.”

“You saw a lot combat, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. More than I wanted. But there were days when we weren’t being shot at or hunting down terrorists. Those weren’t too bad.”

“Lamont said you were awarded a Purple Heart.” She rose up on an elbow to look at him. “You were injured?”

“Got some shrapnel in my right side and leg. I was lucky. So many weren’t. So many never came home.”

Breaking her pledge not to touch him, Savannah ran her hand down his arm in a comforting caress. “I’m glad you made it home.”

Smiling, he rolled over and propped himself up on his elbow to face her. “Tell me about being an assistant district attorney. You want to be the DA someday?”

Two weeks ago, her answer would have been a definitive “Of course.” But right here, right now, she hesitated giving a definite answer to anything about the future.

“Maybe … I don’t know. I like the challenge of what I do, and when we win, it’s a great feeling.”

“But?”

She shook her head. How could she articulate what she wasn’t sure of herself? She only knew that, for whatever reason, she hadn’t missed work the way she had thought she would. “That seems like a million miles away from the here and now. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Like what?”

“What’s your plan to catch Henson and Dayton in the act?”

He shrugged. “I’ll just be waiting for them. As soon as they enter, I’ll walk in.”

“Without backup?”

“Their weapons are spray paint and misspelled swear words. I think I’ll survive it.”

Savannah sat up and glared at him. “You don’t know that, Zach. Just because they only write bad graffiti doesn’t mean they don’t come armed.”

“You’re right. Point taken. But I’ll be fine.”

She wanted to argue more but could see she would get nowhere. When he changed the subject to something less controversial, she went along with it, but that didn’t stop her from being concerned. Ralph Henson had almost beat Zach to death once before. If given the chance, would he try again or do something worse?

Damned if she would let that happen.

Chapter

Nineteen

The night was dark and moonless. The only light came from the lamppost at the end of the street. Zach stood beneath one of the giant moss-covered elm trees that lined many of the streets of downtown Midnight. He was across the road and three doors down from the dry cleaners. Wearing his old camo pants, a black T-shirt, and a black ball cap, he blended into the night. In the army, he’d earned the reputation of being able to disappear and reappear at will. If Henson hadn’t been so old and Dayton so out of shape, he would’ve liked to go full army on them. He wouldn’t. Scaring the shit out of them was one thing; giving them a heart attack wasn’t exactly his plan.

According to Lindsay, her brother Clark and Ralph Henson would be hitting the building tonight. This morning, while the two Dayton men had been out of the house, Zach had loaded Lindsay’s little Chevy with all of her belongings and watched her drive away.

When she had told him about overhearing the conversation between Clark and Henson, she had insinuated she wanted something other than money in exchange for the information. Though Zach wanted the information, he’d definitely not been interested in her payment method. Instead, he’d taken the opportunity to encourage her to leave town and start out fresh somewhere else.

There was something about Lindsay that reminded him of his mother—a desperate neediness. But she had something his mother had never possessed—someone who believed she could do better. The stern talk he had given her might not have been what she had wanted, but once she realized he was serious, she had backed off and listened.

Now, Lindsay was headed to Charleston, South Carolina, with two thousand dollars in her purse and an interview with one of his old army buddies who’d recently opened a gym. Learning that Lindsay had an accounting background gave him hope that she could get a job and start a new life. At the very least, maybe she could get away from the influence and abuse of her father and brother and learn to depend on herself.

He hadn’t seen Savannah today. Though he’d been tempted to call her, he was allowing her some space. Yesterday had been about as perfect as he could have hoped for, but he didn’t want to push her. When they’d been together before, with him going into the army and her going away to school, everything had been rushed, felt desperate. And though their time was once again limited, maturity had given him patience.

Mocking laughter echoed in his mind. Patience … hell. Last night he’d taken her home and left her at the door with a quick kiss on her cheek. And all he’d been able to think of since then was the regret he felt for not kissing that luscious mouth, deeply, thoroughly. He knew if he got within ten feet of her today, patience would be nothing but a word. A desire and need that went well beyond his knowledge was building up inside him. Since that kiss in her kitchen the other night, he had been on a slow simmer. One spark of encouragement for her and he’d be on full burn.

Here he stood, only a few miles away from what he wanted most in the world but unable to claim it. Instead, he was waiting for two idiots to show up and spray-paint a building just so they could feel powerful. If it hadn’t been so damn aggravating, he’d say to hell with it and let them screw up their properties as much as they wanted. Problem was, if he didn’t stop them, they’d either get him fired or might even try something more drastic. He’d put up with enough shit from Ralph Henson. Damned if the man would get the best of him again.

Savannah didn’t approve of his plan. She’d made that clear yesterday. While he appreciated her concern, he wasn’t worried. Yeah, they were breaking the law, but this was a personal attack against him. And he was going to handle it on his own, in his own way.

Zach wasn’t the green kid he’d been before. He had been an Army Ranger, had killed more people than he liked to remember and had saved lives. No, he wasn’t Superman, but neither was he naïve. Savannah feared it was a setup; Zach knew better. It was two redneck jerks who thought they were too damn smart to get caught. Nothing more, nothing less.

A small light flickered across the street. Eyes narrowed, Zach peered closer. Yeah, someone was standing on the outside of the building. The light wavered shakily and then clicked off and on a couple of times. Either someone was having battery problems or the dumbasses were too stupid to know how to use a flashlight. He was going with the second theory.

Staying low, Zach crossed the street at a run. He stopped and hunkered down behind a large mailbox, waiting. No law said Henson couldn’t enter his own building. Zach would have to catch the man in the act of spray-painting and then play it out.