Sound of Secrets (24 page)

She pulled him to her, wordlessly inviting him to enter her. She was slick and so ready that hot sensation burst in her gut and in her heart. On the infrequent occasions when she had been intimate with a man, she had been a silent lover. Now soft groans and moans escaped her as the powerful climax rolled through her. Gray’s body convulsed a moment later, starting her own quakes all over again.

His heavy body pressed her down into the mattress as aftershocks sizzled through her. He smelled musky and male, and her hands slid over his back in one long, needy caress. After a moment, he rolled her over, making sure they were still joined. She lay with her head on his chest, and she could feel her heart beating against his. He didn’t speak until their synchronized beats had slowed to more normal levels.

"What did you mean," he asked, stroking her hair, "when you said you’d been waiting for me?"

She raised her head to look at him. No matter how difficult it was, she'd give him a truthful answer.

"I meant that on some level I knew this was inevitable since I saw you at the gas station. It feels as though I were waiting for you to come into my life," she said and added in a softer voice. "That I was waiting for this."

An indentation appeared between his brow, and his eyes turned troubled. "I should have told you this before. I’m not in the market for forever. I can’t make promises about the future."

"Shhh." She covered his mouth with three fingers, refusing to let herself be greedy. She didn't want to think about tomorrow. She wanted to savor this moment, this man. "I’m not asking for promises. But there is something I want."

He merely looked at her, then gave a short nod.

"I want to know if you recognized me that first time at the gas station?"

She stared into the depths of his eyes, willing him to say he felt connected to her in the same puzzling, mysterious way that she did him. He sighed.

"I don't want you to read too much into this because I wouldn’t exactly call it recognition,” he said. “There was a flash of something. For an instant, no longer, I thought I knew you."

A light seemed to switch on somewhere deep inside her, banishing the darkness where she'd dwelt since arriving in Secret Sound. "I knew I hadn’t imagined it," she whispered.

"What if we’re both imagining things?"

"I don’t mind being crazy if I have somebody to be crazy with me." She rubbed against him and felt him grow hard inside her body. She kissed him long and slow before lifting her head. "Come to think of it, there are other things two can do better than one."

Since Gray agreed, they got busy doing one of them.

An inhuman scream emerged from the inky-black sky, and Cara fought through the familiar terror to search for the source of the noise.

As always, she heard the flapping of the great bird's wings before the eagle drew close enough for her to see with the naked eye. It lowered its knifelike talons, poised to snatch her from all that was dear and familiar.

The soles of her feet seemed glued to the ground, her limbs dragged down with weights too heavy to bear. The eagle circled overhead, gave its piercing cry once more and then swooped. Still she stood there, too frightened to move.

"Run!"

She’d heard it so often by now that she readily identified Skippy’s youthful voice, and she searched frantically for the little boy. He was ahead of her in the field, his now-familiar freckles standing out against his pale skin and shaggy black hair in the moonlight. The air above her stirred, and she heard again the deceptively soft flapping of wings.

"Run!" Skippy yelled again before turning and fleeing himself. His command gave her the strength to follow him through the field.

Ahead of her, Skippy ran as fast as his short legs would carry him. Behind her, she could sense the eagle getting closer. Somebody sobbed, a great torrent of tears, and she realized it was her.

She blinked, trying to clear her eyes, so she wouldn’t trip and seal her fate. The field came into focus, but something was wrong with it. In an instant, she identified what.

In the past, the field had always been a vast expanse of green, without beginning or end. Now she saw its edge and it bordered the street in front of Sam Peckenbush’s service station. Skippy didn’t seem to notice that the danger now came at him from two directions. He headed straight for the street, his arms and legs pumping furiously.

She wanted to yell at him to stop, but the eagle pursued, ready to tear into them with its talons. Skippy stopped once at the shoulder of the road to gaze at her imploringly. Then he turned and ran into the street. She heard the car approaching, felt the eagle's wings stir the air and screamed.

"No," she sobbed. "No. No. No."

"Cara." The masculine voice didn't belong to Skippy but to an adult who sounded almost frantic with concern. "Cara, wake up, sweetheart. It’s a dream. Only a dream."

Her eyes felt as though they had been sealed shut. She opened them with a great effort. The dim light of dawn shone through the open blinds, enabling her to see a bare-chested man propped up on his elbow, hovering above her.

Gray
. The field with the eagle at her back and the little doomed boy in front of her disappeared, and she was back in bed with Gray after making life-affirming love.

"It’s more than a dream." She sat up, taking some of the bedcovers with her to ward off the cold chill of conviction. Perspiration soaked her body, her heart hammered and her voice shook. "It has to be more than a dream."

He leaned against the backboard of the bed and drew her to him with one strong arm. She laid her head on his shoulder, felt him gently stroke her hair and waited until she felt calm enough to tell him about the menacing eagle that had invaded her dreams for as long as she could remember.

"Is it a bald eagle that you see?"

She shook her head. "It’s brown with a golden wash over the back of its head and neck, and its tail is faintly banded. I looked up the different types of eagles once, and I’m fairly certain it’s a golden eagle."

His exhaled breath rustled her hair. "Sorry to tell you this, sweetheart, but we don’t have golden eagles in the south. They’re fairly common out west. It’s not often you see one even in the northeast."

"I wish somebody would tell that to the eagle in my dream," she said, trying a feeble joke. He didn’t smile, and neither did she. "I’ve had the same version of that dream a few hundred times. Always before, I was alone. It’s only since I came to Secret Sound that it’s changed. Now Skippy’s with me, and he’s as terrified as I am."

"Do you think that has any significance?"

Cara swallowed. "Maybe it means I’m losing touch with what’s real and what isn’t."

Gray gently squeezed her shoulder. After a moment, he said, "Or maybe it means we’re getting closer to the truth of what really happened to that boy."

Tyler sat next to Gray on the cool grass beside the newly paved basketball court. Their bodies were in nearly identical positions, their knees bent, their heads bowed slightly forward while they sucked in oxygen. Beads of sweat dripped from their foreheads to the ground.

"What do you think, Ty?" Gray looked sideways at him. "Are the other players getting younger or are we getting older?"

"Since those kids could walk after we finished, I’d reckon they’re pretty darn young." Tyler flopped back onto the grass, linking his fingers behind his neck as he stared up at the sky and stretched his tired legs. "But just because you’re ready for the rocking chair doesn’t mean I am."

"Who says I’m ready for the rocking chair?"

"You’re an old man, Grandpa. Way older than me."

"I’m five months older than you."

"Still counts. On account of my legs being younger, they have more spring. That’s why my jump shot has that pretty arc that sails right over your head and into the basket."

"Oh, yeah. Well, I got a theory of my own. The younger the mouth, the more bullshit it has."

Tyler laughed. "Lucky for you I can bullshit. We’d never have gotten a loan from the bank to do all this stuff otherwise."

With a sweep of his hand, Tyler indicated the pair of smooth, crack-free courts. "Jeez, Gray, wasn’t the turnout tonight great? Ten kids. That’s the most we’ve ever had."

"It’ll be even better when we get that clubhouse built," Gray added, and Tyler heard the enthusiasm in his voice.

About thirty yards past the courts, the site the construction workers had begun to prepare was nothing more than a pile of dirt. Tyler could see beyond it to a gleaming new building that would act as a haven for Secret Sound’s teens. Judging by his expression, so could Gray.

"Better for the kids, yeah," Tyler said. "No doubt about that. Any thoughts on how we’ll pay the mortgage?"

"A couple of resourceful guys like us can come up with some fund-raisers. We'll be okay for a while if we set up a reserve fund with the donations we already have."

"I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that." Tyler anchored himself into a sitting position, no longer feeling the least bit weary. "I tried calling you at home a couple of times today but couldn’t get you."

"I was at the office all day."

"On a Sunday?"

"I had a lot of catching up to do," Gray said.

"You mean that reporter with the pretty brown eyes and prettier legs has been taking up your time and keeping you from your paperwork." Tyler expected confirmation but got a heavy sigh.

"What's wrong?" Tyler asked. "I thought you liked her."

"I do like her, maybe too much," Gray said. "You know me, Ty. I'm not good long-term material."

"No reason you have to think long term. She's passing through town, right? Enjoy today and let tomorrow take care of itself."

"I wish it were that easy. Cara's not the free and easy type." Gray blew out a breath. "But enough about that. We're talking business, not women. So tell me why you called. As long as you don't say the donations have already run out."

"I can't track down the donations."

Gray’s brows drew together. "I thought you said the community relations department was handling them. Didn’t you pick up a cashier’s check last week?"

"A check for twenty grand," Tyler confirmed. "I thought it was from a bunch of separate donors. Last night I found out Karen donated every red cent of that money."

"If she did," Gray said, twisting his mouth, "then what happened to the donations Dad wrote about in his column?"

"That’s my question. Seeing that it’s Sunday, I haven’t been able to do much digging. I did call Cindy Lou Baxter at home. She said the only money that came through the community relations department was from Karen."

"The rest of the money’s got to be somewhere," Gray mused.

"What’s to say that somewhere isn’t in somebody’s pocket?"

"You think Cindy Lou stole the money?"

"Whoa, there. I wasn’t talking about Cindy Lou. Why, I remember Cindy Lou found my wallet once in high school. I got it back with all the money inside."

"How much was in there, Ty? Five bucks or six?"

"Don’t be a smart aleck. The point is that Cindy Lou was honest enough not to take the money that was there."

"It’s easy to be honest when your take would only be a couple bucks. But Cindy Lou’s husband is out of a job and she has three little kids to feed."

"I still can’t believe Cindy Lou’s pocketing our money," Tyler said. "Maybe we’re jumping to the wrong conclusion and the money’s been misplaced. Or maybe somebody else at the paper has run off with it."

Gray grew silent. Tyler studied him, knowing that look. "Gray, what did you think of?"

"Nothing useful. I’ll ask my Dad tomorrow if he has any idea where the money’s gone.” Gray must have noticed Tyler's probing look, because he continued, "It’s just that some mighty strange things have been going on around here, that’s all."

"Strange? How so?"

Gray blew out a breath. "Cara, well, she's been asking questions that are making somebody nervous. Seems somebody in town doesn’t want her around. I thought it might be Stoney Gillick because he yelled some ugly things at her when she was with me on a call. When I questioned him, Gillick acted like he didn't know what I was talking about."

Although Gray’s words were matter-of-fact, Tyler picked up on a thick undercurrent of worry. He obviously had something intense going with the reporter and he’d assigned more significance to Karen’s prank phone call than it deserved.

Tyler inhaled deeply. "I can trust you, can’t I, buddy?"

"With your life," Gray answered. "Why?"

"I know something that maybe could ease your mind." Tyler plunged ahead, assuring himself he wasn’t betraying Karen, but unburdening Gray. She hadn't done anything criminal, after all. "If you're talking about that phone call Cara got last night, I wouldn't worry. Karen made it."

"What?"

"Karen called Cara and told her to leave town, on account of how Karen thinks she feels about you. It was a harmless prank. Cara doesn’t have anything to worry about."

"Did Karen tell you this?"

Gray angled his body forward. His features were tense. He wasn't acting like a friend who had been told a confidence, Tyler thought irritably. He was acting like a cop.

"Yeah, she told me. She’s mighty embarrassed by it, too. So don’t go getting it into your head that you’ve got to ask her about it."

"I do have to ask her about it," he said gravely.

Tyler gave a short, unbelieving snort. "Oh, no you don’t. This was just you and me talking. I told you so you’d know that lady’s not in danger from one frigging prank phone call."

"There have been more than phone calls, Ty. Cara thinks somebody drained the fluid from her car's power steering so she'd have an accident. Right after she got the phone call, a car tried to run her down."

"And you think Karen did all that?" This was unbelievable. Tyler leaped to his feet and paced from the grass to the cement of the court. "God almighty, Gray, you’ve known Karen as long as I have. She’s a little mixed up, sure, and I know you’re angry at her for what she blabbed about Suzy. But she’s a good person. She’d never try to kill anybody!"