Familiar Strangers (18 page)

He’d run through the woods blinded by rain shouting her name. There was no response but the howling wind. To his left, deeper in the woods he saw a faint white light flicker. Guided by instinct, he followed the light into a clearing he’d never been. There the wind died, the rain slackened, and an eerie quiet feel over the trees. There, lying like a crumpled doll, lay his Nora, her eyes closed, one pale hand open to the night sky, the other clutching a torn piece of material. Her neck bent at a slightly odd angle showed him the cause of her death. Wrapped tightly around the delicate skin of her neck lay the velvet cameo necklace he’d given her.

Galen didn’t release her hand after he helped her from the truck. Regin was faintly surprised and embarrassed by how intimate the gesture seemed, especially in public where his friends and neighbors would see them. It shouted possession. Trying gently to tug her hand free resulted in a slight squeeze and half smile. “Settle down or everyone will think you’re mad at me,” he teased her.

This had been his mood all afternoon since he’d woken her from her nap after Caprice’s visit.

Lee had invited them to the crawfish festival. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now she wasn’t so sure.

Galen teased, touched, and made her feel like there was no other woman in his world. She didn’t understand his change of heart. A few days ago, he’d been moody, closed mouth, and wanting nothing to do with her. But tonight everything was different.

“Maybe they wouldn’t be too far off the mark,” she teased back, enjoying the sense of freedom he gave her.

Lowering his head, warm lips nibbled her ear sending desire flooding her veins. “Is that a dare?”

Tracing her earlobe with his tongue Regin struggled to remember what they were talking about. “Wh...what dare?”

Soft laughter coated her nerves and a sense of déjà vu plagued her. Why did this seem familiar?

“To prove you like me,” he answered. His arrogance charmed her instead of irritated, as was normally the case. It gave her back the balance she’d lost the moment her foot touched ground on St. Ann’s island.

Leaning back within the circle of his arms, she taunted, “Think you can, big man?”

All it took was the heated look in his eyes, the tightening of his arms, and laughter was the last thing on her mind. The desire to lose herself in his arms gave her the strength to pull away. “Come on, cowboy, show me this big bad festival of yours.”

Briefly anger flared within the smoky silver depths of his eyes before his smile broke through the anger. “Darlin, I’m all yours.” Tugging her hand within his callused one, he led her to the crowded fairgrounds.

She didn’t dare look at him as they made their way through the crowd of people and the smells of cotton candy and frying grease. She couldn’t let him distract her from the danger she placed him in. If he knew the truth, he would hate her for bringing danger to his peaceful home.

Giving his hand a squeeze of her own, she smiled up at him, unaware her face had lost it’s haunted mask and caused him to catch his breath, “What catches your fancy?”

It was foolishness that allowed her to be with him tonight, savoring each touch and glance. She wanted this one afternoon and night with him. Something she never dared before and would never dare again. She wanted the small gestures, the heated looks. Everything she had never allowed herself before. She would absorb their time together, so on long lonely nights in the future she would have him to dream of and remember.

She was on borrowed time and didn’t have the luxury of waiting for the letter to arrive. If he was watching her, and she knew he was, so she needed to leave before he realized how close she had grown to Galen.

Laughing off her cares for the night. “Everything,” she whirled around hands in the air. “I want to ride every ride and eat at every booth.”

With a stunned look on his face, Galen reached out and hugged her. “Everything it is,” he said, leading her to the neon light of the nearest ride. The scents of animals and hay combined with a hint of grease, oil, and mingling people.

“Food or fun first?” he asked.

“Rides I think, then food.” As fairs went, it wasn’t a large one, but it boasted a dozen different rides and she was determined to hit each one.

****


Driving home hours later, mouth covered with sticky cotton candy, Regin was content and satisfied with the nights events. She had met and talked with so many people that faces and names were blurred now.

Wrapping his arm around her waist maneuvering her closer, Galen leaned down to whisper in her ear. “You satisfied yet?”

Too tired to take offense, she leaned her weight against his solid frame. “For now.”

“For now?” his eyebrows lifted in surprise. “What else is there for you to ride, eat, or see?” They had been on every ride the carnival offered, sampled food from every vendor on the midway, then hit the local wares being offered within the pavilion.

“There was that alligator person you didn’t let me talk to,” she pointed out.

Huffing out a weary sigh, he explained again. “Tom, the one-armed alligator wrestler, is not someone I want you on friendly terms with. He lives alone somewhere on the bayou, has no other means of support, except taking tourists out on the water, and two of them didn’t come back. Honey, you saw him. Did you really want to get up close and personal with him?”

When he put it that way, she could see his reluctance. The Cajun man had been dressed in dirty torn jeans, his sleeveless shirt gaped open, leaving the twisted flesh on his shoulder where the arm had once been, exposed to curious eyes. When he opened his mouth to speak, you could see numerous gaps where teeth were supposed to be. His remaining hand was dirty, nails embedded with dirt and grime. She shuddered at the thought of shaking his hand, but plowed on with typical Regin stubbornness. “You don’t really believe he fed those two old women to the gators do you?”

Reaching the boat dock, Galen switched off the engine before turning to look at her. Moonlight caressed her silky hair. The memory of all the times that hair teased his hands, lips, and other body parts caused his groin to tighten. “I think Tom is a crazy old man who is capable of anything. Maybe he did kill those old women, but no one can prove of thing.” Grabbing Regin’s hand, he slid them both out of the truck and into boat that would bring them back home. “Why are you so interested in old Tom anyway?”

“I was curious to see what would make someone kill another person. If you could see the evil lurking behind their eyes, I guess.”

He gassed the boat, hitting the sandy shore of the island harder than he intended then turned so he could watch her face when he spoke. “You wanted to see the face of a killer? Why the hell would you want to do that?”

The instant the words left his mouth, he knew he’d made a mistake. Regin wasn’t ready to open her past to him. By pushing the issue, he ruined the mood he’d worked so hard to set all night. “I didn’t mean it that way.” He tried to cover, but her face had closed up, shutting him out.

Tugging her hand free, she jumped out of the boat and made her way over the damp ground, putting as much space between them as fast as she could. Galen knew she hadn’t meant to let it slip, but Regin’s guard had lowered over the hours she’d spent in his company. She forgot the need to guard her words.

“Damn you” he cursed, grabbing her shoulders and spinning her body around. “Why can’t you admit it?

****


“Admit what?”

Oh God, please not this, she prayed. Don’t let me hurt him, please.
“Admit you want me. Admit you’re as drawn to me as I am to you. I dare you to look me in the eye and lie.”

She couldn’t. There was no way she could look into Galen’s quicksilver eyes and deny what her heart was shouting. But to save his life? Weren’t a few moments of pain worth his life?

There was also the nagging voice in the back of Regin’s mind whispering she couldn’t trust him. He would betray her when she needed him the most. “There’s nothing to deny or confirm.”

Regin pulled free of his grasp and walked along the water’s edge, hoping her vague answer would put him off long enough to make an escape. She should have known better. Galen was at her side demanding more.

“What the hell kind of vague bullshit answer is that? I’m not letting it go, Regin. You owe me more.”

She could tell he was struggling to contain his temper. Perversely it made her want to push harder. “It was the only answer you’ll get. So I suggest you be satisfied with it,” she continued her walk, trying to appreciate the starry night after so many cloudy ones.

“I’m not satisfied with a damn thing and you know it. Why won’t you answer me?” he demanded, stepping into her path. A subtle move that blocked her movement forward or to the dry ground on the left. Her only option was to walk through the water to get around him. He obliviously didn’t think she wanted to get her shoes wet. He didn’t know how badly she needed to get away from him. Space where she could breathe without inhaling his scent or looking at his thick tousled hair. Any place he wasn’t was where she wanted to be. She would walk barefoot over hot coals to avoid him and the never-ending questions right now.

The murky water felt warm and silky against her sandaled feet as she walked around him. The further she backed into the water the closer he followed her. “Leave me alone, Galen. Can’t you tell I don’t want you near me?”

He didn’t stop at her harsh words, his powerful legs cutting quickly through the knee high water. When he spoke his voice was soft with the force of his anger. “You can’t look at my face much less into my eyes can you? Try again, Regin.”

Faster than she could blink one tanned arm captured her waist, the other clasped her chin, forcing her face to his. “Now tell me again and do try to make it good this time,” she couldn’t think not with her body pressed against his warm solid length.

“Let me go, Galen. This proves nothing.”

His chest rumbled with laughter. “Oh, I think it proves more than you like.” His head swooped down, capturing her lips in a dominant possession. He gave her no chance to resist or pull back. His mouth claimed hers, licking and biting, stating she was his. He was branding her with the wet heat of his mouth and she was drowning in his possession.

Lifting his lips, he breathed. “Tell me again you don’t want me.” Galen taunted before taking her mouth again.

Desire crashed through her walls like waves though sand. Everything she felt poured into the kiss. There was nothing else she could do. He commanded. She complied. He took. She gave. He demanded and she submitted.

The feelings, emotions, passion, thoughts, and desires he evoked wouldn’t be denied when he touched and tasted her, like a man starving for a drink of water. Her arms lifted twining around his neck sinking into the silky crisp black hair. “Tell me, Regin!” He whispered against passion-swollen lips, cupping her hips tightly against his straining hardness. “Tell me how you don’t want me. Want this.” His hips thrust boldly against her, passion exploding at the contact. Her head was muddled and filled with thoughts of him and the raw desire he so easily aroused. Gone were thoughts of danger, stalkers, and letters. Her world consisted of the man in her arms and the need to be filled by him.

A bump against her leg nudged her conscience. “It doesn’t matter what I want. I can never have it,” she confessed looking in the water for the offending branch or fish knocking against her calf.

Galen felt her body go rigid and heard her sharp intake of breath before he heard her hoarse cry. “Oh, Jesus, please no. Please, God, no.”

****


“Regin, what the hell is the matter with you?”

Seconds before, she’d melted in his arms and responded with a passion matching his own.

Why she wouldn’t admit that what they shared was more than satisfying sex was beyond him. She’d been on the verge of answering him. Galen knew it. What had she meant about never having what she wanted? It made no sense to him, but he wasn’t finished with Regin not by a long shot.

Galen felt her desperately trying to pull away. “What the hell—”

He stopped and followed her gaze down into the water. A dark slender hand glowed in the moonlight, brushing against the side of Regin’s naked leg. “Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he whispered before he whirled Regin around and threw her to the shore. But it was too late. She had seen the face attached to the hand. Worse, she had seen the bright red ribbon wrapped tightly around Lee’s neck.

****


Screams of terror echoed through her mind, but no sound escaped her tightly clenched lips as she sat shivering on the dew-wet grass. Galen had left minutes before to call the local authorities. He hadn’t wanted to leave her alone, fearing another episode like the other night. But she was going to hang on despite the screams in her mind and the skin numbing cold creeping along her body. She was going into shock. It didn’t matter—the fear, the guilt, the cold had to be pushed aside. There wasn’t room in Regin for anything but the mind consuming rage. He had done this to prove his point. He was out there, free to stalk her and waiting for his chance to finish what had started seven years ago. He killed someone she’d just met to prove he could.

Unless Regin left the island, Galen would be next. But she wasn’t running this time. Oh, she would leave the island, but not to hide. She would bury herself in a nice secluded location and wait. Townsend would come and, when he did, she’d be the hunter. He would finally pay for the lives he destroyed or she would die trying.