Outsider (23 page)

“Andy Webb has the option on it, at Jacobsville Realty,” Cy told them. “Since old Hob had no living relatives, there's no one to inherit. Some of the proceeds will go toward his burial and the rest will be invested, with the proceeds to go to our local needy fund. Hob always used to say that poor people needed more help than they ever got from the government. This way, he can go on helping, even though he's no longer here.”

“He must have been a nice person,” Sarina said softly.

“He was,” Cy replied. “Why don't you two look around? I'll sit in the truck and talk to Lisa on the phone.” He grinned sheepishly. “We do that a lot, with the baby almost here.”

Colby chuckled and drew Sarina along with him. “If you'd known him six years ago,” he told her wryly, “you wouldn't think he was the same man. Marriage has changed him.”

“He seems very much in love.”

He caught her slender hand in his. “He is.” He walked to the back of the property, where the yard was thick with denuded rosebushes and shrubs. Beyond was open pasture that ran to a line of trees far on the horizon. “Lots of space here,” he mused. “Like back on the reservation, when I was a boy.”

“Your father talked about it a lot,” she said softly. “He knew he made a lot of mistakes in his life. He was sorry for all of them, especially when he lost touch with you. He felt responsible.”

His hand contracted around hers. “I blamed him for every bad thing that ever happened to me,” he reminisced. “Even after I was grown.” His broad shoulders rose and fell. “But I'm just beginning to understand how he felt. He loved my mother, but he couldn't give up the bottle. After she died, he must have hated himself. It only made the drinking worse.”

“He did hate himself, for a long time. But when he knew I was carrying his grandchild, he sobered up and never took another drink. Not even a beer. He liked to think he made up for a little of the past by the way he took care of Bernadette while I worked. He loved her very much.”

He turned and looked down at her somberly. “So do I, Sarina,” he said in a tone like rich velvet. “More every day.”

She searched over his scarred face, up to his dark, quiet eyes. She'd loved this man half her life. She wondered how she ever managed to live without him. Love was a tenacious thing, she pondered. Tenacious and terrifying.

He touched her soft mouth with his fingertips. “You loved me,” he said in a quiet harsh tone. “I knew it, but I still gave you hell. I deserved what happened to me with Maureen. You don't build happiness on someone else's despair.”

Her heart jumped. “You loved her,” she began.

“Hell,” he said harshly, “I wanted her. I never liked her, as a person. She was selfish and grasping, and she never put herself out for anyone. I feel sorry for the child she'll be raising. It will probably be in juvenile hall before it's thirteen. She's nobody's idea of a mother.” He shook his head. “And I wanted children with her. Lucky me, that we never had one.”

“Didn't you ever wonder, about that night we spent together?” she asked curiously.

He laughed softly, with self-contempt. “I thought you were experienced, remember. I thought you were on the Pill. It never occurred to me that there might be a child.” He searched her eyes slowly. “Have you thought about how it might have been if Maureen hadn't deliberately ignored your call for help?”

She managed a weak smile. “I did, occasionally. I couldn't help wondering what you would have done.”

“I'd have come to you like a shot,” he replied immediately. “I wanted children more than anything in the world,” he said with faint bitterness. “I was convinced that I couldn't have any.”

“Then maybe you wouldn't have believed she was yours,” she began.

He put his forefinger against her lips, to silence her. “It's easy to get a DNA test these days. There wouldn't have been any doubt for long. Especially once I saw her,” he added gently. “I never thought of you as the sort of woman who'd go from one man to another so quickly. Especially,” he added uncomfortably, “after what I did to you.”

She moved into his arms and pressed against him, embracing his waist so naturally that he enveloped her with delight. “Maybe we're not remembering the same thing that you did to me,” she whispered. “I was remembering when we took a shower together, while you were getting over malaria.”

He actually shivered. His mouth searched for hers, found it, ground into it in the windy chill of autumn that surrounded them. He groaned when he felt her instant response.

“It was glorious,” he whispered roughly. “I've never felt anything like it. Especially after…” He stopped dead and lifted his head. “Oh, God,” he whispered, his face tautening.

“What?” she wondered.

“Sarina, we didn't use anything,” he said heavily. “Baby, you could already be pregnant.”

Her delicate features lifted in a warm, comfortable smile. “I suppose I could,” she replied, overwhelmed with pleasure at the way he looked—wondering and happy, all at once.

He chuckled. “You wouldn't mind?”

She shrugged. “I love kids.” The smile faded. “Except…”

“Except that we aren't married,” he said for her. The smile grew softer. “When we get this case solved, we'll make decisions. Okay?”

She felt as if she could walk on air. “Okay, Colby.”

He kissed her again and reluctantly let her go.

They walked around the property, discussing its merits. Colby felt her presence, as she seemed to feel his, because her face flushed. He reached beside him for her hand and locked it tight into his. He felt as if he were vibrating with need. He wondered if she felt the heat as he did. He looked down at her and saw eyes almost burning with hunger. His lean fingers tightened almost painfully around hers as Cy joined them at the front gate.

“How much of the land is in pasture?” Colby asked, trying to make his voice sound normal.

“About two-thirds of it,” Cy said. “The rest is in hardwoods and a stream runs through it. You'd have good water. Well? What do you think?”

“Where do we find this Andy Webb?” Colby asked abruptly, and smiled at Sarina's obvious delight.

Cy grinned. “I just happen to know where his office is. Climb in!”

 

J
UST THAT QUICKLY
, Colby made the decision to buy the property. He didn't know if Sarina would want to live on it with him permanently. There would be hard decisions to make, for both of them, if she did. But Bernadette would have both parents and security. Perhaps he could sell the idea to her on that basis. He knew that he was never going to survive letting her out of his life again. She and their daughter had already become part of his very soul.

Cy drove them back to the ranch, where they had sandwiches and coffee. Then they left, reluctantly, to go back to the hotel.

Colby stopped at Sarina's door, hesitating, because this was a small town and they weren't known. They had separate rooms. It had never bothered him before, taking a single woman into his room during long trips abroad. But now, in this tight-knit community where he was considering setting up house, he didn't want to do anything to sully her reputation. And she didn't know about that so-called annulment. It was a card he wasn't ready to play.

He tugged her against him, liking the clean, sweet smell of her body and her hair, which she wore in a ponytail today.

“How's the arm?” he asked gently.

She smiled, trying to appear calm when her whole body tingled at the contact with his. She wanted nothing more than to drag him inside her room and push him down on the nearest bed. She knew he wouldn't resist. She knew he wanted her just as badly.

“It's much better,” she said at once.

He lifted an eyebrow and tugged her closer. “You wouldn't be trying to seduce me?” he drawled with twinkling eyes. “Because I have to tell you, I'm easy.”

She smiled back. “What if I am trying to?”

“You're out of luck, pretty girl,” he murmured. “I have something a lot more permanent in mind than a stolen hour. Especially with an audience.”

“Audience?”

He quirked an eyebrow to their side, where the proprietor of the hotel was sweeping off his porch. Not that it was dirty…

She laughed softly. “Small towns.”

“Yes. I think I might like to live here, Sarina,” he said after a minute. “I've never really belonged anywhere, except on the reservation. But I've grown too far away from it to be able to go back. Here, I'd be among old comrades, people I've known for years, people who share my own history.”

“You mean, give up working for Mr. Ritter?” she asked, a little worriedly.

He met her eyes. “I'd like to give it a try. A real try.”

“Oh.”

He scowled and tilted her face back up to his. Her eyes were dark, sad. “What's wrong?”

She drew in a slow breath. “I don't actually work for Mr. Ritter. I work for the DEA, out of the Tucson office,” she said. “I have to go back.”

“Do you? Why?”

She caught her breath. “Because it's my job! I have to make a living, Colby,” she persisted.

He slid his hand under her left one and tugged it up to his broad chest. “You might be pregnant,” he reminded her. “Do you really want to have another child alone?”

Her eyes were tormented. “Of course not. It isn't that…”

“Then, why couldn't you work here in Jacobsville?”

She blinked. “The DEA doesn't have an office here,” she stammered.

“There are several law enforcement agencies here in the county,” he said. “Every town has a police force. Cash Grier, Jacobsville's police chief, is especially hard on drug dealers. So is the sheriff, Hayes Carson. Cy says they're both always complaining that they don't have enough investigators.”

“You mean, leave the DEA and go to work here?” she questioned slowly.

He nodded. “I could hit Eb for a job at his school. I'm a master interrogator. I use methods that aren't in any book of rules. And I have a reputation with intelligence gathering and martial arts. I think I could find a place for myself.”

She could hardly believe what he was saying. But he actually seemed to be serious. “Bernadette and I could come and visit you at the ranch…”

“You and Bernadette could live with me, at the ranch,” he replied, very solemnly. “I've made a hell of a lot of mistakes in my life. Most of them have hurt you. Now you have to decide whether or not you think you can spend the rest of your life with me, here.”

Her lips parted. It was like a dream come true. There were obstacles. There were concerns, like moving Bernadette to a strange town where she'd have to give up her friends and make new ones. But just the thought of it was tantalizing.

“Think about it for a week or two,” he told her. “You don't have to make decisions tonight. As I said before, at Downey's place, we'll talk about it again, after we break up this smuggling operation. How about that?”

She smiled with her whole heart. “Okay,” she agreed breathlessly, laughing.

He smiled back. “Okay.”

She reached up tentatively and touched his cheek with just the tips of her fingers. “I never even hoped that you might consider something permanent.”

He caught her by the waist and tugged her closer. “I like the idea that you might be pregnant, by the way,” he whispered, loving her soft flush. “We might think about having several more children while I've got the stamina,” he whispered wickedly.

She blushed. “I'd like that,” she whispered back.

“I know something I'd like better, just at the moment,” he murmured, bending. His hard mouth brushed over her soft one with a lazy, gradually insistent pressure that made her body ache all over.

She reached up and held him close, moaning as his arms contracted and he deepened the kiss.

It was all he could do to stop. He pulled away, his body taut, his face rigid. “Not yet,” he ground out.

“Spoilsport,” she chided breathlessly.

He burst out laughing. “I'm trying to make an honest woman of you!”

“I'm already an honest woman. We can still have sex. It's okay.”

He wondered how he'd lived so long without her. He gathered her up close in a warm, affectionate embrace and rocked her against him, still laughing. “You're going to be a handful,” he mused.

“You're going to love it, too,” she shot back.

He sighed, putting her slowly away. “I have to get some sleep. So do you. Tomorrow, we're going to put out feelers and see if we can't flush some drug dealers. I'm impatient to get this operation finished.”

“Funny,” she murmured, “so am I.”

He let her go. “Sleep tight.”

“You, too.”