The Love of a Lawman, The Callister Trilogy, Book 3 (36 page)

"Isabelle, listen to me." His voice came low and soft and warm as the fire. He ran the backs of his fingers up and down her arm. "I'm an ordinary guy who's done more wrong than right, but I know this much and it has nothing to do with philosophy. The way it is with us doesn't come along every day."

True enough. In her most far-fetched dreams, she hadn't anticipated encountering in
any
man what she had found in John. She missed his good company, his easy laugh, from some level deeper than she understood, the sense of connection to another human being. She smiled into his eyes. "Okay, I admit it."

He picked up one of her hands and lifted it to his warm lips. "I don't have wise answers to anything, but I believe people who care about each other can work through whatever happens. That would include your brother."

"You make it sound a lot simpler than it is."

"What's so hard? You just get up every day and do the best you can with what comes. I'm open-minded. As long as he doesn't break any laws I have to enforce, everything's cool."

"That's the challenge. He's so unpredictable."

She looked down at her small hand inside his large one. "You know what I thought that morning after we—well, when you left here so worried about me getting pregnant?"

A half-smile quirked a corner of his mouth. "Are you? Pregnant?"

She grinned at the expectation in his expression. "No. Don't you think I would've told you?"

"I know that's what you said, but..."

Hearing his voice trail off, she knew he
had
thought she would be that spiteful and a little pang pinched her. A frown tugged between her eyes and she cocked her head. "Did you want me to be?"

"I don't know. Maybe. What I mean is, I wouldn't have minded.... Would you?... Mind?"

She wasn't prepared to answer that question. With his eyes locked with hers so intensely she had to look away. "I want you to know I felt bad after what I did that day. When I watched you driving down the driveway, I was thinking, here you are, honest and loyal, and I'd done something that worried you."

"It wasn't really worry, but it made me stop and think. Made me realize we'd been treating our feelings too casual."

"But me being Frenchie Rondeau's daughter, my getting pregnant could damage you in this town, John. I don't want to ever do anything to damage you."

"Darlin', a tiny little baby never damaged anybody. Anyway, you're taking too much of the blame. The way I remember it, you weren't all by yourself that morning." He grinned and winked. "I had a real good time." He leaned forward and began to kiss her face, her nose, her cheeks. "Sometimes fun has results you didn't expect, but it's still fun."

The tip of his tongue tickled her earlobe and she tilted her head for more. Lord, she did love his touch.

His fingers came beneath her chin and he turned her face to him. His eyes leveled on hers, his lips only inches away. "The only way you could damage me is if we don't take up where we left off. That would seriously damage my heart."

He was so close she could smell his cologne, smell the coffee on his breath, hear the soft lisp of his tongue when he spoke. "In a roundabout way," she said, "it's Paul I'm talking about. How me being his sister could damage you."

"I'd rather talk about how sweet your lips are."

"You're a Pied Piper, John Bradshaw. It isn't fair I'm such a soft touch."

"Hmm.... Thank God for that."

Her misgivings dissolved like candy in the warmth of his sweet mouth. She couldn't refuse to kiss him back. His hand slipped under her sweater and in one quick movement unhooked her bra. The same hand closed over her breast as his tongue played with hers. His thumb brushed her nipple and a familiar urgency called out from a deep place in her belly.

He cupped her shoulder, eased her back and pushed his knee between her thighs. She was such a slut. Already she had grown hot and swollen and damp. "You really are a devil," she whispered when they stopped to breathe.

"I almost went crazy when I thought I'd lost you," he murmured. "Don't you know I need you?"

She sniffed away gathering tears. "You had lunch with Rita Mitchell."

"Not lunch. Not even a full cup of coffee."

His deft fingers moved down and undid her jeans, pushed them down her hips. "Lift up," he said and she lifted her bottom for him to slide her jeans and panties past her hips. He slipped them off one leg, then undid his fly.

His erection made a tent in his boxers. She opened the fly, freeing him. His penis, swollen and roped with full veins, stood like a monument bronzed by the firelight, visibly throbbing, and it was all hers. She closed her hand around him, sat up and took the bulbous head into her mouth, ran her tongue over the velvety cleft, tasted his salty moisture.

A grunt, low and deep, came from his chest and his body stiffened. "I don't know if I can stand that," he choked out. His hands closed on her shoulders and he pulled her up. "It's been too long since it was inside you."

He wrapped his arms around her and rolled her to her back. In no time, through a tangle of arms and legs and denim fabric and with her help, he slid his boxers down and rolled a condom onto his turgid shaft. He pushed into her and the utter bliss of him filling her made her gasp.

His head lifted and eyes dark with passion looked into hers. "Okay?"

Oh, she was so okay words eluded her. She sniffled and nodded.

"Then stay with me," he whispered. He clutched her bottom, pressed her closer and seated himself. She lifted her knees and took him deeper. A guttural response came from the back of his throat and thrilled her. He braced himself over her, hooked his forearms behind her knees, spreading them wide. She lay helpless beneath him, his long, thick erection buried to the hilt, but she wasn't afraid. He would never hurt her and delicious sensations were rushing through her. She would do anything to please him.

For a few seconds, he held himself motionless, looking into her eyes. "I love you."

She thought her heart might burst with joy. How could she have ever believed she could be happy without him? The tears that had been hovering trailed from the corners of her eyes, past her temples. "I love you more."

"Not possible." He began to move, in and out with a slow, steady rhythm, the tip of him touching her deepest place with each stroke. Their souls met and she felt the moment they became a unit. She lost count of his thrusts, lost touch with time, could think of nothing but the incredible friction as the root of him drove against her again and again. She wanted to squirm, her hips wanted to pump, but couldn't, pinned as she was. Lightning began to skitter inside her, sending fire everywhere, pushing her to the edge of a steep cliff. His mouth moved over her face, her throat. His voice murmured sexy words in her ear, whispered how much he loved making love to her.

Her head spun as she teetered on the edge, panting and desperate. "John... oh, please..."

His pace picked up. His chest heaved, his breath rasped in her ear. He thrust harder and she began to spasm. She dug her fingers into his biceps and hung on as he flung her into a great abyss and she cried his name as she fell.

Then she was floating in a mindless purple haze. She felt his body turn rigid, felt him buck, heard him shout out, caught him as he sprawled on top of her.

They lay for quiet minutes, until the last embers of the fire within them died, until the last contraction made him shiver. She loved knowing they had come to this moment together.

"Godalmighty," he mumbled. He slipped to her side and took her with him, cocooning her in the nest of his arms. "Christ." His chest heaved for several breaths. "Want to know what I think?"

"I want to know
everything
you think."

"This feels a lot better in bed without our clothes.... Not that it felt bad."

She giggled and nuzzled his chest, inhaling the scent of him in his clothes. A pulse thumped in the hollow at the base of his throat, just above the neck of his T-shirt. "Want to know what I think?"

He grunted.

"I think you're right. We should try it again. Ava won't be home until after church tomorrow. Do you want to stay the night?"

"I thought you'd never ask. I've had dreams about waking up with you."

"I'm a witch in the morning."

"Haven't I ever told you how good I am at witch-handling? I'm as good with witches as I am with horses."

"Are you hungry?"

"For food?"

"Soup? It's homemade."

"Sounds good. I might need the energy later. 'Cause I intend to fuck you 'til you beg me to stop."

She smiled and ran her hand through his soft hair. "Never happen, cowboy."

They gathered themselves and while Isabelle went to the kitchen to reheat the soup she had made the day before, John added logs and stoked the fire in the fireplace.

The rain had increased in intensity and beat in a roar on the house's tin roof. They ate on the sofa in front of the fireplace, then stretched out their legs, placing their bare feet in front of the flames.

"I can't think of a thing to do but go to bed," John said.

She laughed. "I can. I have to take the dogs out."

He groaned. "Awww, shit. I'll do it."

"I should let you since it's your fault they're here, but your clothes are still damp. I don't want you to take pneumonia. I'll only be a minute. You can warm up the cold sheets."

* * *

While she took the dogs out, John cleared away their dishes and put them in the sink. Then he wiped the counter and straightened the clutter they had left in the kitchen, the whole time his mind on the coming hours. Lord, if sex with Isabelle got any better, he would end up so pussy-whipped he couldn't function.

In her bedroom, he picked up the picture of her and Paul as children, rubbing the scar on his stomach as he studied it. Five weeks had passed since the bar fight. Enough time for a wound to heal up and hair over, but John hadn't forgotten how close the knife slash had come to being serious. As he looked at the picture of Paul this time, he saw him from a different perspective.

He began to undress. He wanted to be in bed when she returned so he could watch her take off her clothes.

He had just pulled off his T-shirt when she came into the room. Her gaze landed on the scar, still red and angry, on his abdomen.

She came to him and placed her palm on it. "Oh, John. I had no idea.... When you said he cut you, you made it sound like a scratch."

He picked up her hand and kissed it. "It's well now."

She looked up at him, her eyes glistening. "This is what I mean? How can we—"

"Shh. One step at a time, remember?"

They crawled under the blue quilt and he wrapped his arms around her. She kissed his shoulder. "Paul really isn't a bad person," she said.

John's feelings about Paul Rondeau spanned a wide spectrum. "Tell me something, Isabelle. I know he's your brother, but he's a grown man. Why do you feel so responsible for him? Other than patching up the barn, I can't see that he does much for you. I want to understand your feelings."

"I owe him, John. Pa was so mean to him and no one ever helped him."

"If he was mean to Paul, wasn't he mean to you, too?"

"Not in the same way. He beat Paul. He used to say he was teaching Paul to be a man, but what he was really doing was destroying my brother's future."

She turned her back, but he kept her close against him, his arm around her waist, his knees fitted against the backs of hers. At least he wasn't hearing what he feared he might about Izzy and her father.

"My mother always took up for me," she went on, "but she just sort of abandoned Paul. Fortunately, he was tough. By the time he was about fourteen, he was a match for Pa. One day in the barn, Pa went at him over something, probably something that happened in the bar that had nothing to do with Paul. The next thing I knew, Paul had hit him with a shovel. Pa staggered backward against the stall. Paul had just come back from hunting and had his rifle with him. I was terrified. I thought Paul was going to shoot him."

John frowned. Even as bad as the story sounded, it didn't seem enough to warrant the kind of devotion Isabelle had for her brother. "What else?"

"What was so bad was Paul had no way to get away from him. In the summer he could run off into the forest, but in the winter he was trapped."

Her voice became a dull monotone. "It was such a nightmare in the house. Pa would come in from the woods around November or December and it was nothing but hell until he went back in June. School was the only place we could escape to. Neither Paul or I had a car. He had no friends except Merle Keeton, who did have a car. And I had no one but Billy."

"Child abuse has been against the law for years. Why didn't you go to the sheriff?"

"John, I didn't even know who the sheriff was. And whoever he was, in Callister there was no telling how he might have handled a child-abuse complaint. Besides, Rondeaus didn't hang out around the sheriff's office."

John's imagination didn't stretch far enough to picture Izzy's childhood. He couldn't imagine a man being mean to his kids, though as sheriff he had seen it firsthand. He had been out on a couple of domestic-abuse calls, one where a grown man had severely beat his wife and kids. He felt the same emotions tonight as he had felt then, disgust and frustration.