Shameless (The Contemporary Collection) (32 page)

What next? Peel the potatoes. Persephone was a smart cook; she knew a sharp knife was safer than a dull one. She didn't mess with dinky little paring knives, either, or poor quality blades.

Was he expecting too much of Cammie, he wondered, coming here like this? It wasn't fair to make a single person responsible for your whole happiness. Of course, she couldn't know how much it meant to him, had no idea the power she held over him.

She might begin to understand it the minute he told her how he felt. Hell, knowing Cammie, there was no doubt about that part.

Could he stand it if she took what he said and used it against him? Maybe. What he couldn't stand would be if she heard him out, then gave him what he wanted of her out of nothing more than unselfish compassion. He suspected that was a real possibility.

He didn't hear the door.

The first thing he knew was a wafting of cool air on the back of his neck and the brush of a touch on his back. So little, and yet it was enough.

Instincts, laid aside for the first time in long, careful years while he concentrated on his task and his plans, sprang to life in the space of a single heartbeat. They had only one hard-drilled purpose.

The knife turned in his hand as he came around. Sharp edge uppermost, point forward, he drove it with every ounce of his strength toward the soft vitals of whoever posed this incipient threat. Perfectly timed, lightning in execution, there was no possible defense.

A drift of gardenia scent combined with fish and hot peanut oil. A familiar, incomparably necessary presence, felt rather than seen.

The warning screamed through his brain in a red-hot vapor trail of pain. Mind and instinct clashed. Muscles cramped, tendons creaked. Bones wrenched, bending under opposing pressures. The cry that tore from his own throat mingled with a soft, feminine sound of terror and regret.

Too late. Cringing, soul-sick, he felt the instant that steel slashed cloth, sank into tender, giving flesh, ripped free again.

Cammie.

She spun away from him, falling with an impetus half his doing, half her own reaction to danger. Her eyes were wide and dark with pain. The blood, spreading, was bright red against the soft green of her sweater.

He moved like a whiplash, unfurling to catch her before she struck the floor. Slinging the knife across the room to clatter against the wall, he gathered her against him. There was a rough voice babbling. His, he thought, though he had little sense of the words.

“Not — your fault,” she whispered against his chest. He felt the heat of her breath through his shirt, and he shivered. Then her lashes fluttered down, and he stopped living.

He was there, but also not there, for what followed. Ripping the plug of the deep-fat fryer from the socket. Putting Cammie into the Jeep. Cursing the nurse in the emergency room for being so slow, for hurting Cammie while she undressed her, for waiting until the wound was exposed before she sent for the physician on call. Refusing to release Cammie while the doctor explored the wound and stitched up the slashed opening. Barely listening while he was told that nothing vital had been touched, that the wound was clean — hearing only that the knife blade had passed within minute fractions of an inch of the main blood supply of the body.

He had known it could be no other way. It had been, God help him, his target.

By then Cammie was awake and trying to excuse him while he explained. She hadn't wanted anything for pain, had tried to refuse to take it. He had snatched the syringe from the nurse and, shivering, pressed the needle into her soft flesh himself.

He drove her home. On the way, he kept his mouth shut tight on all the things he longed to say. And he watched her, imprinting the memory of her white face and clear, absolving gaze somewhere in the recesses of mind and heart where it could never be erased. Against future need.

She hadn't wanted anyone to stay with her. He was all the help she needed, she said. He called her aunt Sara anyway.

She scowled and told him he was a bully. He didn't answer. It was true.

The sedative took effect at last, though she winced in her sleep as she tried to move. He allowed himself to come close then, kneeling beside the bed, holding her hand to his lips, watching the rise and fall of her chest under the bandaging. Counting the pulse that throbbed under his fingers. Touching the soft, gold-brown silk of her hair. Brushing her cheek with his knuckles. Watching the shadows of her lashes merge with the shadows spreading under her eyes.

Until her aunt came. He let the fussy, frightened old biddy hustle him out of the room then. He was even grateful to her for preventing him from doing anything stupid, such as kissing Cammie good-bye.

His Jeep was in the driveway, but he forgot it. Walking out the back door of Evergreen, he turned automatically for the woods.

The darkness of them closing around him was welcome. He didn't stop, however, but kept walking, winding through the trees, crossing creeks, scaring up deer that were bedded down in thickets, driving deeper and deeper into the cool, covering blackness.

The effort caught up with him at last. His breathing had sunk deep into his lungs; he could hear it rasping, labored, in his ears. His heart pounded with sickening crashes in his chest. Sweat poured from him. His steps took on a jerky, locked-knee cadence.

He tripped. Reaching out to catch himself, he grasped a saw brier vine. The stinging pain ripped through his hand, piercing into the blackness in his mind.

He sat down as if he was the one who had been knifed. There was no point in going on; he couldn't outrun this new horror any more than he could leave behind the last one.

His chest hurt as if his heart was dissolving in the corrosive acid of unshed tears. He would not let them fall. It was too late for that. He would lock them away, just as he must lock away every plan, every endearing dream.

It had been his fault, and he knew it all too well.

He should never have tried to come so close, never thought of reaching for more than he had been given.

Killing, maiming, was all he knew. Maybe it was all he was good for.

The thing he had wanted most was to love and protect Cammie. The best way to do that, it seemed, was to stay away from her. Far away.

He would manage it this time, if it killed him.

And it might.

THE BEDROOM WAS DIM WHEN CAMMIE
opened her eyes. She lay for long moments, letting her mind catch up with her body. It seemed she'd drifted for some time. She remembered waking off and on, and being handed medication to swallow with water. Her aunt Sara had been there. Strange.

Memory returned abruptly. She turned her head, expecting to find Reid beside her. No one was in the room. He'd been there, she knew; it seemed she still felt the imprint of his hand on hers.

But it couldn't be. She had slept through a night and most of another day. The last time she'd seen Reid, it had been completely dark.

She slowly lifted her hand and settled it over the bandages that swathed her midsection. She was touchy and sore under them, but it was nothing to make such a fuss about. Her back was just as sore from lying so long in bed.

She rolled to her side and levered herself up to a sitting position. Her stitches protested a little, but nothing dramatic happened. Pushing to her feet, she moved carefully toward the window. Her balance wasn't the best in the world, but that seemed to her the effect of the painkillers. She wasn't used to anything much stronger than an aspirin.

Beyond the window curtains the evening was sultry and still. A gray-blue bank of clouds spread across the sky above the trees. There was a greenish tint to the fading light, as if the rich spring color of the grass and leaves was being refracted through the humidity-laden air as through a prism. It was going to rain; there might even be a storm building to the north.

As she stared out toward the woods of the game reserve, uneasiness invaded her. Where was Reid? Why hadn't she seen him today? He'd been so upset in his quiet, desperate fashion, so withdrawn.

She was to blame for the whole thing. He had laid out the rules, and she'd failed to follow them. She had just been so surprised to see him, so fascinated by what he was doing in her kitchen. And she had somehow taken it for granted that he was always aware of every little noise and movement around him. She had thought, in her conceit, that he would always know when she was near. So stupid.

She'd tried to tell him, or maybe she dreamed it. She didn't know, really; her brain felt as if it had been wrapped in quilting batting and put away on a back closet shelf.

“Good gracious, Cammie! What are you doing up?”

Cammie turned as her aunt bustled into the room, bringing with her the smells of onions and baking chicken. She forced a smile. “I'm all right. I was tired of being in bed.”

“You'll hurt yourself. You've been cut wide open.”

“I don't think it was that bad,” Cammie said in dry tones.

“No thanks to Reid Sayers,” her aunt returned in indignation. “When I think of him turning on you like that, my heart fails me. Your uncle tried to warn you. Now I hope you'll listen.”

“It was an accident, that's all.”

“He could have killed you as easy as not! You don't know that he didn't intend it, too, not after the way Keith was shot in cold blood.”

“Reid wouldn't dream of hurting me.” Cammie tried to keep her tone firm.

“How you can defend him is more than I can see or understand. I was never more glad of anything in my life than when he took himself off last night. It made my skin crawl to be in the same room with him.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Cammie said sharply.

“You'll think ridiculous when he comes after you again. Things like that happen, Cammie. You see it all the time on television and in the papers. There are people in this world who would just as soon kill you as look at you!”

“Reid isn't one of them.” She turned her back on her aunt, moving to her closet, where she jerked down the first thing her hand touched, a pair of jeans.

Her aunt followed her. “What do you think you're doing? Get back in bed right now!”

Cammie pulled a blue oxford cloth shirt from its hanger and turned to face the other woman. The look in her eyes was both firm and sad as she said, “You're my mother's sister and my only real kin, Aunt Sara, and I love you. But I'm long past the age of being told what to do, even for my own good. I'll be fine. Why don't you go on home?”

Her aunt's face crumpled. She turned away, then sank down on the bed to sit staring at her hands.

Cammie closed her eyes, then opened them again. She tossed the clothes she held across the bed and dropped down next to her aunt. Putting her arm around the older woman, she said, “I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You can stay, if you like.”

Sara Taggart gave herself a shake, then lifted her head, trying to smile though her eyes were red-rimmed. “It's not that. It's … nothing important. I'm just being silly.”

Cammie hesitated, uncertain her aunt was telling the truth. Still, prying had never been her way, and she wasn't sure she could deal with another problem just now, no matter how small.

“I'm a witch for turning on you when you've taken such good care of me. Please say that wonderful smell coming up the stairs is your famous chicken and dressing, because I'm starving.”

She meant it as a diversion, but when Cammie had dressed in her jeans and a loose shirt over her bandaging, and made her way downstairs, she felt the first stirring of actual hunger. The chicken and dressing, shrimp mold, asparagus, and coleslaw her aunt served at the kitchen table smelled delicious. She picked up her fork to attack it.

It was then that her glance was caught and held by a kitchen appliance shoved to one end of the cabinet near the door, with a cluster of paper bags and boxes around it. She stared at them for several seconds before she realized what she was seeing.

A deep-fat fryer.

Her appetite vanished as there bloomed in her memory once more the smell of peanut oil and frying fish and fresh-peeled potatoes. Her stomach muscles contracted, and her stitches burned as they pulled.

What little conversation there was between her aunt and herself died away. They went through the motions of eating, but little more. Cammie insisted on helping her aunt put away the remains of the meal and tuck the dishes in the dishwater. Afterward, when her aunt mentioned, in a tentative way, that she might go home after all, Cammie's protests were no more than halfhearted. Possibly Aunt Sara sensed it, for she began to gather her things together.

Wind lifted the ends of Cammie's hair and flipped her shirt collar against her cheek as she walked with her aunt out onto the back porch. She could see it shifting the branches of the trees with a restless motion. The cloud bank she had noticed earlier had moved almost directly overhead. A storm was gathering, the light fading. The mercury security light at the end of the driveway had already come on.

It was that light reflecting in the polished finish of Reid's Jeep that made her turn in that direction. The vehicle was still sitting in the drive, pulled well up in front of her aunt's battered Oldsmobile.

Cammie turned a questioning gaze on her aunt. “I thought you said Reid left?”

“He walked.” Her aunt's lips tightened, then she seemed to relent. “Beat all I ever saw. He just disappeared into the woods like some injured animal. I reminded Lizbeth, when she called to check on you, that the Jeep was still here. Nobody came for it.”

“Lizbeth called?”

“Four times. At least, she did the talking. I could hear Reid there somewhere in the background, though, telling her what to ask.”

The fear that had clenched inside Cammie eased a little. “He did make it home, then.”

“So it seems. The key's in the Jeep; I looked. I can see if Jack will come drive it over to Reid's house to get it out of your way.”

Cammie shook her head, the hair trailing down her back swinging between her shoulder blades. “Never mind. I suppose Reid will come after it when he wants it.”

Aunt Sara gave her a long look, as if she knew what Cammie had in mind. She made no comment, however. A swift hug and a few more reminders of things Cammie shouldn't do, then her aunt was gone, pulling away down the drive.

Cammie went back into the house. She walked to the kitchen, where she stood for long moments staring at the deep-fat fryer on the cabinet. Reaching out, she lifted the glass lid. It was full of cold oil with cornmeal floating on top of it like scum, and pieces of soggy, half-done fish at the bottom.

In the other paper bags were potatoes, half peeled; plus cabbage and carrots for coleslaw; onions, pickles, and a covered plastic bowl of what appeared to be hush-puppy mix. It was all the ingredients for a feast, southern-country style.

Reid had gone to so much trouble, and now it was ruined, most of it. It made her heart ache to see it.

What had he been thinking as he fried and mixed and sliced? She wished she knew.

Keith had never in his life dreamed of doing such a thing. He had never once put her pleasure before his own comfort and convenience. She had always been the one expected to do that.

However, Keith had made a serious tactical error. He had shown her, inadvertently, that she could live alone without fear, without a man — without him specifically — with no trouble whatever. After that, the rest had been easy. When he'd come back, wanting to start over, she discovered that all trust was gone, that she didn't and couldn't believe anything he had to say. And she'd known beyond doubting that she didn't love him, had never loved him.

What was between her and Reid was so much more complicated. They had brought such excess baggage into their relationship: the old family problem, the brief teenage attraction between them, the difficulties with her divorce, Reid's background, the problems with the mill ownership and the decision to sell, and later, Keith's death. The weight of all these things had spelled disaster. It was amazing to her that they had managed to wrest a few shining moments from the tangled mess.

And yet, was it really so complicated? Wasn't it barely possible that she could unravel the whole thing using a simple formula?

Three questions, three touchstones for future happiness. A set of criteria by which to judge a relationship. All she had to do was ask what she felt, instead of what she did not feel.

Did she trust Reid. Did she love him? Could she live without him?

All she had to do was find the answers.

She moved through the house in fits and starts, her thoughts and feelings as unsettled as the threatening weather. She stared out the front windows, thinking of Keith and Reid and the differences between them. She gazed out the back windows at the woods of the game reserve, thinking of Reid at the Fort on the other side of them, wondering what he was doing, and if he was thinking of her.

She stretched out on the couch in the living room, pressing her hand to her stitches, remembering the look on his face as he knelt beside her on the floor. She knew then that she had plunged him back into the unremitting pain of that other time, and she hated it, regretted it, with virulent passion.

She got up again, walking to the sun room, standing for long moments looking up at her own portrait with its too careful smile and the eyes wild with longing. Climbing the stairs, she walked into the guest room where she and Reid had made love that first night. In the dark, she touched the bed, and was startled by the visions that sprang, vivid and erotic, into her mind.

Finally, she walked out into the windblown darkness and opened the door of his Jeep. She climbed inside among the smells of oil and leather and Reid. Slamming the door, she settled into the seat where he'd sat. She closed her hands on the steering wheel he'd held. Through her mind ran the times she had pressed against him, the times he'd held her. And she stared ahead through the windshield at nothing, and at everything.

There was no conscious decision. She simply reached for the key and turned it. The engine sprang to life. She swung the Jeep in the direction of the Fort.

Lightning flashed blue fire overhead, a dim glow beyond the headlights. The vehicle jolted along, swaying with the surging of the wind. Her stitches pulled with every movement, every bump, but the pain was nothing to the ache of doubt in her heart.

She had her answers. Now all she had to do was convince Reid to listen to them.

There was a single light burning at the old log house. It shone through the narrow windows of Reid's study. To Cammie it meant that he was home, and most likely alone.

The wind nearly jerked the door of the Jeep from her hand as she swung it open. Limp green leaves were flying through the air, along with dead twigs and bits of bark. There was a crackling sound to the spider web of lightning that spread overhead. She put down her head and ran for the front door.

She heard the bell chime somewhere inside as she leaned on the button. Regardless, it was endless ages before it was suddenly dragged open.

Reid stood there with the light behind him, haloing the wild gold tangle of his hair, leaving his face in shadow. There was anger in his voice, however, when he spoke. “What in the name of all Hell are you doing here? You should be home in bed.”

“I have to talk to you. It's important.”

His gaze was riveted to her face for long moments. Wrenching it away, he stared at the long strands of her hair that swirled around her. Then, as if he could not help himself, his gaze dropped to her hand, which was pressed lightly against her bandaging. He stiffened. His tone scraping like steel on steel, he said, “Go home, Cammie. Forget it. Forget everything.”