Deep in the Heart (11 page)

“That sorry road jockey. He’s gone! Just like that! And he said he loved me.” She then buried her face in her hands and cried some more. Her blond curls bobbed as her slender shoulders shook from her sobs.

Montgomery stared some more and then remembered his mouthful of food and swallowed, chasing the half-chewed bite with a long drink of iced tea.

“What’s your name, honey?” Marylee asked.

The woman’s face was covered in tears along with long, black streaks of cheap mascara that ran in jet rivulets down her painted cheeks.

“Claudia,” she mumbled, and wiped at her face with the handful of paper napkins Marylee thrust in her hands. “Tony is a pig. A dirty, lying pig. He said he loved me. We were going cross-country and when we got home to Las Vegas, we were going to get married.”

With that bit of shared news, she began sobbing again and buried her face on Marylee’s shoulders. Marylee was slightly shocked that the woman had all but thrust herself into her arms, but couldn’t prevent the spurt of shared grief she felt at the news. She’d been on the receiving end of some male lies in her life, too.

“There, there,” Marylee said, and patted Claudia roughly on the back. “It’ll be all right. It always is, honey. You just have to pick up and go on like you never knew him. Don’t let the sorry s.o.b. get you down, you hear?”

Several men in the café looked around nervously, as if half expecting the women in the place to suddenly turn on them and use them for punching bags in place of the missing Tony who’d just left Claudia behind.

Claudia bobbed her head against Marylee’s neck and sobbed a little more before allowing herself to be pushed away. She turned a tearful face toward Marylee.

“I need help,” she said.

Marylee swallowed a groan. She should have known.

“I’m not asking for charity, you understand,” Claudia said, wiping furiously at her face. “But I wonder if you would have an opening. I’m a good waitress. I’ll only need to work long enough to get the money for a bus ticket home. I’ve got family back in Nevada who’ll take me in until I can get on my feet.”

Marylee didn’t have an opening. But she had a soft heart. Just thinking about her own past misfortunes made her even more sympathetic toward the abandoned woman.

“I suppose I could put you on the evening shift,” Marylee said. “It’s only minimum wage, but the tips are good. It shouldn’t take you long to make enough for a ticket out of here.”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” Claudia threw her arms around Marylee’s neck, totally ignoring the fact that they were in a public place, and that she’d just unloaded her entire world of troubles for any and everyone to hear.

Marylee grinned and started to herd her new employee toward the kitchen, when Claudia’s next question stopped her in her tracks. At the time, she began to wonder what she’d gotten herself into.

“I don’t suppose you know of a cheap place to stay, just until I get my money?”

Marylee sighed. This was getting out of hand fast.

Montgomery saw the waitress’s panic. He fidgeted in his seat for a moment, and then as his gaze met Marylee’s nervous look, he heard himself telling her that there was an empty upstairs apartment at the old Earl house in Rusk. Then he felt like an idiot for involving himself in the drama.

But when Claudia turned and gave him a smile that made him drop his fork into his tea glass, he decided that maybe he’d done the proper thing after all. Besides, he
was
an officer of the law, sworn to uphold justice and protect the innocent. And this Claudia person sure looked as if she needed protection.

“Come on, girl,” Marylee said. “I’ll make the call. I know the realtor. Maybe he’ll let you rent on a week to week basis.”

“Is it far from here?” Claudia asked, as Marylee ushered her into her tiny, makeshift office off the kitchen area. “I don’t mind walking a bit, but if it’s too far…”

Marylee then heard herself offering the use of her old, black pickup—just until Claudia earned her bus money—and reminded her that it was a piece of junk.

“I haven’t used it for anything more than hauling off trash for years. You can’t be driving it far,” Marylee warned.

Claudia’s pale, green eyes shimmered through the mascara tracks on her face as she clasped her hands over her breasts and praised Marylee as a wonderful savior.

Embarrassed by the stranger’s fuss, Marylee hastened her toward the kitchen of the café. In no time, Claudia found herself in possession of a new home, an old pickup truck, and ten dollars advanced on her first paycheck.

By the time Montgomery was through with blackberry cobbler, the dessert of the evening, a place had been made for Claudia on the floor, and the waitresses on duty had gladly offered to share the first night of tips with the newcomer.

On the way home later that evening, Montgomery remembered that he would probably be seeing more of Claudia than just at the café. How strange fate was, he thought, as he drove back to the outskirts of Rusk. All he’d intended was to go to supper. What he’d done was inadvertently get himself involved in a strange woman’s plight. He wasn’t sure whether he’d done the right thing or not, but it was too late to worry. What was done was done. Besides, he had his own set of worries, and they had nothing to do with stranded women and sorry-ass truckers.

John Thomas rolled over and sat straight up in bed, listening again for the sound that had pulled him from a deep, dreamless sleep. There! He heard it again and this time recognized it for what it was. The floorboards in his living room were squeaking, just as they always did when someone walked across them.

“Sam.”

He knew the moment he said her name that this time he would follow the sounds to the woman who made them. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard her walking the floor when she should have been sleeping. She didn’t rest easy, even at night. With him in the same house—in the next room—it had become impossible for both of them.

He crawled out of bed and into a pair of blue jeans, leaving the top two buttons undone in his haste to get to her. He hurried down the hallway to the living room. There he stopped, staring into the shadows at the silhouette of the woman standing at his window, looking out into the night.

“What’s wrong?”

His voice made Samantha gasp. She turned in fright, and then leaned against the window with relief as she recognized the familiar figure in the doorway.

Her answer was a shrug.

A faint glow of moonlight filtered through the trees around the house, past the thin, transparent curtains at the windows. He saw the slight movement of her shoulders, and the way her head tilted downward in a weary gesture of defeat. In seconds he was across the room and pulling her into his arms.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. Then she let him hold her. There was no fight left in her tonight. She needed what he had, what he was willing to give, his strength and his protection.

“You haven’t slept good in days,” John Thomas whispered, splaying his hand across the back of her hair and pulling her close so that his chin rested on the top of her head.

He threaded his fingers through the silky strands and then absently combed them downward in a calm, soothing gesture. He shuddered as she stepped closer and sighed, letting herself go limp within his embrace.

“Ah God, Sam,” he whispered, and wrapped both arms around her shoulders. “I wish I could make this better for you. I would give a year of my life to know that you never had to suffer anything like this.”

Tears pricked at the back of Samantha’s eyes, but she couldn’t let herself fall apart. She was afraid if she did, even John Thomas, as strong as he was, would never be able to put her together again.

“Never barter away your life, Johnny,” she whispered, and wrapped her arms around his waist, loving the feel of his bare chest against her cheek and the way his heartbeat increased as she moved against him.

“It wasn’t a trade. It was a gift. And I meant it.” His hands splayed across her back and then in spite of his resolve, moved down and stopped just above the place where her hips flared. It took everything he had not to move those few inches more and let his fingers cup the shape of her.

“Go back to bed, Johnny. You’ll feel awful tomorrow if you don’t get some sleep.”

“Not without you.”

His words shocked her. She wasn’t certain whether he’d meant it. Without speaking, she tilted her head, peering into the darkness, trying to see past the shadows to the familiar features of the man she was learning to love all over again.

He stepped back. His right hand touched her shoulder and then slid slowly downward along her arm past her elbow, until he came to her hand hanging limply at her side.

Samantha shook as his fingers threaded through her own and he tugged once, gently but firmly, begging by action what he could not say again.

For a moment neither moved. And then without conscious thought, she found herself walking beside him through the darkness down the hallway. He stopped at the doorway to their rooms, and for a long, silent moment all that could be heard was their harsh, labored breathing.

Knowing that what he needed to do might take more strength of character than he had left, John Thomas moved in front of her and led her through the doorway to her bed.

He leaned over and carefully straightened the rumpled sheets, then gave her a gentle push toward the bed that she’d abandoned.

Samantha’s head hit the pillow at the same time that he bent down and pulled the thin covering over her feet and legs and up above her waist. His hands lingered just below the curve of her breasts long enough to let her know that denial was torture to him.

She looked up into the shadowy features of her first love, and knew that from this moment on, the young boy would be forever lost to her. The man that he’d become was so much more.

“Johnny…”

“Go to sleep, Samantha Jean,” he whispered, and ran his fingers one last time through the fan of black hair lying across her pillow before he straightened with a heavy sigh. “You have nothing to be afraid of.”

When morning came, he ate breakfast in anger while the dark circles beneath her eyes haunted him. They were all it took for John Thomas to make a decision.

“Get dressed. You’re coming with me,” he said, and exited onto the back porch without looking back to see if she was listening. “I need to leave in about fifteen minutes so don’t dawdle.”

Samantha swallowed her mouthful of coffee and stared.

“Where did that come from?” she asked, but there was no one to answer.

She set her cup on the table and followed him outside. The hood was up on his pickup, and he was busy adding a quart of oil to the engine.

“What was that all about?” she asked, as she walked up behind him.

“You’ve been alone too long out here, that’s what. I shouldn’t have left you out here with only Rebel for company.”

Samantha smiled and folded her arms across her chest, unaware of the tempting picture she made standing barefoot in the dirt, wearing only cutoff jeans and one of John Thomas’s old T-shirts.

“Don’t argue with me,” he continued. “I don’t have time.”

“I didn’t say a word,” Samantha said sweetly, and turned toward the house. “I’ll be ready when you are. Just honk.”

“Well, fine then,” he said. But in his experience, when a woman should argue and didn’t, it was time to be wary.

Oil dripped on the toe of his boot. He looked down and then grimaced just as the sticky drop connected with leather. “Shoot,” he muttered, and swiped at it with the rag in his hand.

Five minutes later he crawled into the pickup and shut the door, squirming and fidgeting behind the steering wheel until he knew he’d delayed all he could. The flat of his hand was on the center of the steering wheel, ready to honk, when she came out the door.

The warning hadn’t been necessary after all. Samantha was as good as her word. She had hurried. She was dressed. And she was smiling. He swallowed once and then leaned across the seat and opened the door on the passenger side.

She climbed in, slammed the door shut, and began fumbling with the seat belt. She looked up, unintentionally surprising an expression on John Thomas’s face he hadn’t had time to hide.

“So what are you waiting for, Christmas?” she asked, and then without waiting for his answer, began tucking her T-shirt into the waistband of her jeans.

He grinned, happy to see some life back in her eyes.

“Someone made a real smart-ass out of you, didn’t they, Sam?”

She returned the smile. “There was this boy I knew when I was a kid. He had an answer for everything, whether it was right or not. I guess some of it rubbed off.”

“I guess it did,” he said, and put the pickup in gear.

Carol Ann, the dispatcher, grinned as her boss turned three shades of red, and then ducked her head when the lady he’d just introduced as Samantha blithely kissed him on the cheek before going out the door.

“Yes, I’ll call in every couple of hours,” Samantha repeated, aware that the reminder was probably hanging on the tip of John Thomas’s tongue. “No, I won’t take candy from strangers, and I will not put my lips on the water fountains or sit down on public toilets.”

“Well, Jesus Christ, Samantha Jean. Watch your language,” John Thomas muttered, and frowned when he heard Carol Ann’s whoop of delight echoing in the room behind him.

“Look who’s talking,” she said with a smile.

He shoved her out the door and then gazed after her, spellbound by the way the Texas sun bounced off her hair, making it shine like polished jet.

“You’re so damned pretty,” he said softly, and hated himself instantly for his weakness in admitting it to her face.

“Why, Johnny, how you do talk,” Samantha murmured, and turned to walk away, trying valiantly to ignore the spurt of joy his words had evoked in her.

“Check back with me around noon,” he reminded her. “If I’m not out on a call, we can eat lunch together.”

She turned. The smile on her face stopped every conscious thought he had. Absently noting her nod of agreement, he watched her walk away without saying another word.

Montgomery Turner pulled up in front of the sheriff’s department just in time to see the young, pretty woman wave good-bye to the boss. He froze in place as a sad expression crossed his face, but by the time he’d exited his car, it was gone.