Wait Until Dark (20 page)

"Oh, Jake!" It was a shuddering sigh as she let go of the last of her inhibitions and clutched at his hair.

"Gently, baby," he murmured. She was arching herself against his mouth and trembling and begging silently for release.

"Please don't stop," she gasped when his mouth didn't return to finish what it had started. But then, before she could even really begin to miss him, she felt something even better, the thick burning length of him sliding against her, pushing inside her, filling her to bursting, causing her body to pulse with a million fiery tremors as he sought his own pleasure at last. She clung feverishly to him as he took her with hard deep thrusts until she was striving with him, until she came, until her body exploded into a fireball of sensation that rocked her world.

If there was such a thing as sexual nirvana, that was where she landed.

She was just floating back to earth when the cabin door opened and two men carrying flashlights and God knew what else stepped inside.

11

A NUMBER OF THINGS HAPPENED
almost simultaneously.

Sadie erupted barking from beneath the bed. The flashlights found them. Jake hissed, "Get under the bed!" and shoved Charlie over the far edge, then launched himself off the mattress toward the newcomers in a low, fast dive. A gun boomed.

Charlie hit the floor hard on her hands and knees, and screamed as a bullet tore through the mattress to lodge with a thud just inches from her fingers.

The men were now engaged in a desperate struggle. They were cursing and grunting and thumping around, and to her horror Charlie recognized the voices of Woz and Denton. Oh, God, if she and Jake had left just a few minutes earlier, they would have escaped.

The most mind-blowing sexual experience she had ever had in her life was going to lead to her death. How ironic was that?

The sickening sound of blows came fast and thick.

Sadie barked frantically. Both flashlights had apparently hit the ground at around the same time Charlie did, dropped in the newcomers' surprise at Jake's assault. One was rolling away across the room, casting weird shadows as it went. The other lay near the men's feet. Its beam pointed toward her, illuminating the floor, the underside of the bed, her and Jake's abandoned clothes—and the screwdriver.

With no very clear idea of what she meant to do but knowing that in a crisis of this nature any weapon was better than none, Charlie snatched up the screwdriver and, crawling on her hands and knees, rounded the foot of the bed. The men were very near. It was easy to tell which one was Jake because he was barefoot and naked. Jake was grappling with Denton, who was taller and thinner than Woz. Jake had a choke hold on Denton's neck and a grip on his gun hand and seemed to be using him as a shield against Woz, who circled the writhing pair, darting this way and that and lashing out with his fists and feet in a kind of deadly dance, looking for an opening. Woz had his pistol ready, but unless he wanted to risk hitting Denton it was obvious that he was going to have to be careful how he used it. It was, however, clear to Charlie that it was just a matter of time before Jake went down. Naked and weaponless, he couldn't best two armed men.

"Get the girl!" Denton grunted. Woz glanced around.

"Damn it, Charlie, run!" Jake roared.

But it was too late. Even as Charlie backpedaled frantically, then tried to roll under the bed, Woz was upon her, knotting a fist in her hair, locking an arm around her neck, hauling her to her feet. Charlie didn't bother to scream, or fight. She hung limply in his hold, letting herself be dragged toward where Jake and Denton still struggled.

"Hey, asshole, I got your girlfriend!" Woz said in a taunting voice. His arm, in a bulky twill coat, was wrapped around her neck. He held her so that there was no possibility of escape, with his pistol pointed at her head.

Charlie clutched the screwdriver and prayed.

Sadie came running up, yapping frantically at this assault on her mistress, and launched herself at Woz's leg.

"Get out of here!" Sadie was too small to do much damage, but Woz glanced down, and angrily shook his leg. The pistol wavered and fell...

Charlie took a deep breath, and drove the screwdriver with all her might into his thigh. It pierced his pants, and sank deep, feeling like a fork going into tender meat.

He screamed, and let her go, and dropped his gun, clapping both hands to his punctured thigh and falling writhing to the ground.

"Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!"

"That was for Laura," she said, and went diving after Woz's dropped gun.

Jake did something violent to Denton, but Charlie didn't know exactly what because she was sliding across the floor just about then. When she came up with the gun, scrambling to her feet and gripping it in both shaking hands, it was to discover that the fight was over.

Denton was on the floor near Woz, and Jake, gun in hand, was taking careful aim...

"Oh my God, don't kill him!" Charlie gasped, knowing that she couldn't be a party to cold-blooded murder even though Woz and Denton deserved it. Jake didn't even look at her before he fired. Denton screamed, clutched his leg, and rolled around on the floor.

"I'm not going to kill them, just make sure they won't be coming after us," Jake said grimly, glancing at her before repeating the exercise with the already shrieking Woz. Then he turned to Charlie, and held out his hand. "Here, give me that gun, and grab us some clothes. Time to get the hell out of here."

It was only then that Charlie realized that she, like Jake, was as naked as the day she was born. Trying not to listen to the cries and curses of the men writhing on the ground, she snatched up what clothes she could find— the flannel shirt and sweatpants, both of which were still on the bed—and pulled the one over her head and tossed the other to Jake. As he juggled the guns in one hand and yanked the pants on, she scooped up Sadie. Then the three of them headed cautiously out the door.

Only to find, parked neatly in the driveway beside the cabin, Critter Ridders' own Jeep, smashed front end and all. Charlie was embarrassed to realize that she and Jake had been so engrossed in what they were doing at the time that they'd never even heard it pull up.

"Yee-haw, I think we're in business," Jake said when he saw it. "Let's go."

The bad news was, the smell of skunk was still so strong that, after stopping to call the state police and Jake's boss from the convenience store, they had to drive all the way to Nashville with the windows rolled down, and it was cold. The good news was, the snake was long gone. But the raccoon and the possums were still in their cages.

"I've got to go," Jake said, after driving her clear back home. An unmarked car was already waiting for him in front of her mother's house, where she had told him to take her after he'd refused to let her drive on from the convenience store alone. Two men in suits got out of the car as they pulled up. Jake, wearing nothing but too-large sweatpants, lifted a hand at the men in greeting and then turned to Charlie.

"Jake." But she couldn't say anything else, because she knew it was good-bye and her throat was suddenly aching. He leaned over and kissed her, quick and hard, on the mouth.

"See ya," he said, and bestowed a quick scratch on Sadie before getting out of the Jeep. Her mother came out of the house just then, standing on the porch and staring, but Charlie stayed where she was, watching as Jake slid into the back of the car, which promptly drove away.

Only then did she climb out, and, carrying Sadie, walk toward her mother, who hurried down the walk to embrace her.

Even as her mother exclaimed over her, and hustled her toward the house, Charlie couldn't rid herself of a terrible sense of loss.

She'd taken a risk, given him all she had to give, and now he was gone. The question now was, would she ever see him again?

12

BY NINE O'CLOCK SATURDAY NIGHT
,
Marisol was still trying to explain to her insurance company exactly what had happened to her Jeep. Parachuting drug smugglers and undercover DEA agents and ticked-off skunks did not seem to fit into any categories that would ensure a prompt payout. Marisol was growing increasingly exasperated, and, though she knew it was not Charlie's fault, some of that exasperation naturally was vented at her little sister. Especially since Charlie had made the gigantic error (in Marisol's opinion) of quite firmly breaking up with Rick. Charlie had to have dog food for brains, as Marisol told her. The man was good-looking, nice to kids and animals, and had a good job.

What more could Charlie want?

Something a little more exciting, Charlie answered stubbornly. And it was so unlike Charlie to be stubborn that Marisol was truly concerned.

Whatever had happened on the night the Jeep had been wrecked—and Charlie had told her, but the whole story sounded so fantastic that Marisol couldn't help but wonder if perhaps her sister had hit her head hard in the crash and imagined two-thirds of it—the bottom line was that Charlie, sweet, sensible Charlie, had been changed ever since.

Take tonight, for instance. Charlie never suffered from stage fright—she shouldn't, she'd been singing in public since she was a little girl—but she'd been jumpy as a cat at a dog convention getting ready for tonight's performance. She'd changed costumes three times, which meant that Marisol had had to change as well, because they had to match, then in the end had gone back to the one they'd originally decided on, the new gold-sequined evening dresses with the long white gloves. This appearance at the Yellow Rose was
important,
for God's sake, it could be their big break, and Charlie was in a dither.

Charlie never got in a dither.

They were getting ready to go on, the emcee was
announcing
them, and Charlie kept peeking around the curtain, looking out at the audience as if she was searching for somebody in particular.

Charlie hadn't really told her, but Marisol knew her little sister well enough that she was willing to bet she could even guess who: this Jake guy, this DEA agent who had, in some tangled fashion that Marisol still didn't quite have sorted out in her head, been responsible for the ruination of her Jeep.

For Charlie's sake, she hoped he showed up.

Then they were on stage, breaking into their opening song. Marisol was shaking her booty along with her tamborine and looking beautiful and Charlie was strumming her guitar and singing like an angel and looking beautiful, and everything was going just as it should, when Charlie's eyes fixed on something beyond the stage and she stopped singing and broke into this absolute shit-eating grin and missed
two whole chords.

Horrified, Marisol tried to take up the musical slack even as her gaze followed Charlie's. In just a couple of beats Charlie was with her again, but not before Marisol spotted him.

Not that it was hard. He was the only gorgeous hunk in the place with a pair of ladies size seven, black ostrich leather cowboy boots sitting on the table in front of him.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

KAREN ROBARDS
lives in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, with her husband, Doug, and their three sons: Peter, sixteen; Christopher, ten; and Jack, four. Besides her family, books are the great passion of her life. The award-winning author of twenty-six novels describes herself thus: "I read, I write, and I chase children. That's my life!"

O
NCE

IN A

B
LUE
M
OON

L
INDA
A
NDERSON

1

SILENCE CLOAKED THE OLD LIBRARY, Settling over the empty aisles and overburdened bookshelves like an old friend and invisible protector. The grandfather clock struck a solemn nine gongs.

Addie Rivers glanced up from her desk in surprise, then checked her watch. "Yep. Working late again, Addie," she said to herself.

Her mother would be worried, which was a major source of irritation for her twenty eight-year-old daughter. For a brief moment, Addie missed Buck's presence and his habit of driving her home every night. Buck had become a bit smothering lately, but he did get her home early enough to alleviate her mother's anxiety. Addie, however, loved the nights when she jogged home, and looked forward to her solo run tonight.

She reviewed the material on her computer and decided another thirty minutes would do it. Tomorrow was the first day of ghost stories for the children's hour. Halloween would be here soon, and the children loved each session as she built the suspense to a higher and higher pitch.

Outside, a late October wind wailed and hurled brittle leaves against the long, slender windows. Addie shivered, and drew her sweater close around her shoulders. The converted nineteenth-century Victorian house was drafty and difficult to heat. Addie had begged the Blue Springs town council for a new heating system, but they'd turned her down.

An unfamiliar noise distracted her. She cocked her head and listened, but heard nothing and decided she had imagined it. She went back to work, then stiffened when the rustle came again. A soft, sibilant sound like a slipper sliding on a polished floor came from somewhere in the dark nether region of the history section.

"Coffee? Is that you?" She called the cat. "Coffee?"

A plaintive purr and a rub against her ankle surprised her. Coffee had been sleeping at her feet beneath the receiving desk.

"There you are. Thought you were in the stacks. The wind must have found a fresh crack in the wall to whistle through." She lifted the dark brown cat to her lap and rubbed her cheek against his thick coat. "Time for us to say goodnight. I have to go home, and you have serious mouse duty for the rest of the night."

Fifteen minutes later, she had changed to jogging sweats, had passed the familiar and impressive old houses on Elm Street, and was running along the tree-lined path that paralleled the two-lane highway out to the farm. The night was cold, and stars twinkled like chipped ice in the black sky. Headlights from an occasional passing car flashed over her bright red sweatshirt.

There was little traffic this late in the evening in Blue Springs.

Her eyes smarted and watered as the brisk air lashed against her face, but Addie found it stimulating and forced herself to breathe evenly. This three-mile run always gave her a sense of freedom. Each long stride increased her feeling of power and control, both of which she'd found little of lately. Her mother's increasing fear for her safety irritated her, and Buck's pressing for a wedding date made her feel as if he'd placed her in a box and locked the lid.

There were times when she felt like she couldn't breathe.

Exercise released her bottled up tension. With no tennis courts, golf courses, or swimming pools, Blue Springs, West Virginia, held little opportunity for exercise, so she made a point of walking to work in the mornings. She'd jogged home every night until six months ago when Buck decided it was his duty to drive her home.

Buck meant well. They had dated since high school and through college. Somewhere along the way, Buck had assumed it was his job to take care of her. Addie hated it, but he was such a kind soul that she hadn't the heart to tell him that she would prefer to get home on her own. Thank God he taught a class once a week at the community college an hour away. The time alone gave her needed breathing room.

The drowning death of her best friend, Laurel Major, a year ago, and the mysterious disappearance of a book group friend, Janelle Knight, three months ago had triggered her mother's growing paranoia and Buck's smothering protectiveness. Her throat tightened at the thought of how much she yearned for her childhood friend, Laurel, and their good times together. Laurel and Janelle were both missed by the members of Addie's compatible book circle, which met every two weeks to dine and review current books.

Slap, slap, slap. The unmistakable beat of running feet startled her. The sound of soles crunching leaves and debris on the dirt path behind her was quite clear in the quiet night. How odd, she thought. No one who lives out this way is a runner.

She turned to see who else ran this time of night, but saw nothing except dark shadows and the trembling of a bush, as if someone had just stepped behind it.

Hogwash, Addie. Either I really heard something, or my ears need to be examined. Maybe the runner stepped into the trees for a minute.

There weren't many joggers in the small town. Buck ran some, and Joe Bolo, their police chief, and a few others. She resumed her pace, but worried that maybe a large dog followed, or a wild animal of some sort.
Come, come, Addie. Wild animals vacated Blue Springs years ago.
Blue Springs was her birthplace. She'd grown up here, and had returned to live, work, and write here because it was peaceful, and her mom needed her.

Again, the sound came, and she jerked her head around, but there was nothing there. It's a broken tree limb rubbing against a trunk, she imagined, but ran faster. For the first time in her life she wondered if Blue Springs wasn't as safe as she'd always thought.

The white board fence coming up on her left indicated the boundaries of Rivers Farm, and she moved toward it eagerly, ashamed of her irrational fear. The scent of freshly mown grass, cut earlier in the day by farmhand Bobby Heed, filled the brisk night air. A cowbell tinkled in the distance, and Rags barked. She was home.

She skirted a white oval planked wooden sign that hung from the arm of a sturdy post. A light on the ground at the base of the post shone on quaintly painted gold letters that spelled out
RIVERS FARM BED AND BREAKFAST.
She gave the sign a quick thump, and it swung gently back and forth. The squeaking of its wrought iron chains in the quiet night followed her through the gate and up the long drive.

The old farmhouse, a delightful, added-onto, sprawling semicolonial, painted pastel yellow with wide verandas and large white-framed windows, beckoned warmly. Her mother's bedroom window on the second floor was dark, but welcoming lights shone from the kitchen windows.

The last sprint up the drive was always an effort, and she was breathing hard as she passed the barn and headed toward the friendly lights of the kitchen. A happy bark came from the dark, and she knew Rags raced up from the lower meadow to say hello. The border collie reached her as she passed the barn, and she braced herself for his affectionate onslaught. They fell to the ground with a lot of laughter, licking kisses, and tail wagging.

"Okay, okay, you bandit. I love you. Now let me up."

Rags rolled over on his back to have his belly scratched. Addie obliged. She glanced up and saw an expensive sports car parked near the barn. It was too dark to tell the make of the sleek machine, but its glossy finish reflected faint yellow beams of light from the windows.

The new guest must have arrived. Her mother was happiest when her three guest rooms were filled. Eileen Rivers's hosting and cooking abilities were known all over this border region of West Virginia and Virginia.

Good,
thought Addie.
Having someone here will keep her mind off me.

She gave Rags a final rub and got to her feet. A cup of hot chocolate would taste great. She jogged the last few yards to the house, crossed the planked porch to the kitchen door, and then remembered with dismay that she'd left her house keys at the library.

"Dammit," she muttered. They'd never locked their door until recently, and Addie still hadn't developed the habit of carrying keys. She hated to wake her mother, but she would have to.

She pounded on the door, hoping that her sound-sleeping mother would eventually hear her.

The door opened so quickly that she almost fell in, and a tall barefooted man dressed only in red pajama bottoms stood before her. His well-muscled chest was at her eye level, and her gaze traced a thick patch of triangular black hair up to a strong chin and found an inquiring look on his face.

"Hi. I hope you're Mrs. Rivers's daughter, Addie," he said, and smiled. "If not, then you must be a beautiful damsel in distress lost in the country and seeking shelter at a friendly farm. You found the right place."

Addie realized immediately that this was the newly arrived bed-and-breakfast guest. What was he doing in the kitchen half-dressed?

"Eh, yes, I'm, I mean, no - I'm not a beautiful stranger." She blushed, flustered at this vibrant masculine energy confronting her in her own house and in such an audacious manner. "I'm Addie Rivers. You must be Mom's new guest."

He nodded and stepped aside so she could enter. "You may not be a stranger, but you are beautiful. Come in out of the cold," he said. Seeming very much at home, he swept his arm in front of him and bowed.

She passed by him quickly, catching an inviting scent of aftershave and rich cigar. The heat of the kitchen hit her, warming her cheeks with welcome. Sweet smells of melted butter, cinnamon, and blackberries filled the inviting country kitchen.

A pan of cornbread sat in the open microwave, and the refrigerator door hung ajar. On the big rectangular pine table sat the leftovers of a dinner Eileen Rivers had prepared for friends the evening before: containers of sweet potato soufflé and deep-fried herbed quail. Wavery ribbons of sweet-smelling vapor rose from the remains of a blackberry cobbler, which the usurper had obviously just removed from the microwave.

The coffee maker made a tinkling sound, indicating the coffee was ready. In one long stride, the man gave the refrigerator door a nudge to shut it, took the corn-bread from the microwave, then poured himself a cup of coffee.

"Join me for a snack?"

She stared at him, aghast at the arrogance he displayed in offering her a snack in her own home. His heavy dark eyebrows lifted at her glare, amusement twinkling in his devastating eyes. A tiny gold earring pierced one ear.

"Sorry. I should introduce myself. I'm Will Court. I arrived later than expected, and your mother was about to go to bed. She asked if I'd like something to eat, and I declined. But later, after she'd retired, I suffered severe sugar withdrawal and came back downstairs. I didn't think your mother would mind."

Eileen Rivers wouldn't mind, but Addie did.

He waved a golden-brown quail wing at her. "Sure you don't want something? Your mother is a superb cook, isn't she?"

"Yes, she loves to cook."

Addie tried not to notice the width of his shoulders, and how they curved so symmetrically down into firm tanned arms. Suddenly acutely aware of her sweaty disheveled appearance, she jammed her hands into her pockets and wanted to shrink headfirst down into her sweatshirt.
Hey, wait a minute,
she lectured herself,
he's the one who's half-naked and ordering me around in my own kitchen. Who does he think he is, anyway?

"I understand you're the town librarian?"

"Yes."

"Convenient for me. I'm here to do some research."

"How nice," she said coolly. "Look, Mr. Court, I just jogged three miles from town, and I planned on having a cup of hot chocolate. I'll fix it and be out of your way shortly."

"Certainly," he said. He peered at her over the rim of his mug and gulped down half of the coffee. The steaming hot liquid seemed not to bother him at all.

With great confidence, and not a whit of shyness, he sat down at the table, helped himself to more quail, a heaping ladle of sweet potatoes, a piece of cornbread dripping with butter, and proceeded to finish the meal she'd interrupted. Addie turned away, but felt his interested gaze on her as she moved about the kitchen, and remembered the blueness of his deep-set eyes. Concentrating self-consciously on her hot chocolate preparation, Addie tried to ignore the sounds he made as he cleared his food from the table, rinsed dishes in the sink and placed them in the dishwasher.

He said, "If I've offended you, I apologize. Had no idea I would be discovered half-naked, sneaking cornbread. I have a tendency to plunge full speed ahead, damn the results."

Half-naked and not caring a fig if anyone found you,
she thought.

"Not to worry," she said, aware she should be more gracious to a paying guest. "I'm tired and not very sociable tonight."

With cup in hand, she turned to say goodnight and found him right behind her. His steady regard unnerved her and an embarrassing warm flush traveled over her breasts, up her neck, and onto her cheeks. The fragrance of his light aftershave came again, and Addie wanted to inhale it, lap it up, sleep with it.

What? Sleep with his aftershave? Sleep with it?

Good Lord, what is the matter with me? I'm lusting after a complete stranger, that's what is the matter with me,
came her shameful answer.

"Goodnight," she said curtly, and turned to cross the kitchen floor. She felt his penetrating gaze on her all the way.