Strangers in the Night by Linda Howard
“No. I’ve never needed help.”
“Until today.”
“I could have handled Thaniel. He’s been trying to bully me since grade school.”
“Has he ever come after you with a gun before?”
“Not that I remember, but then I don’t pay much attention to him.”
She was maddening. He wanted to shake her, wanted to put his hands on those bare arms and shake her until her teeth rattled. “You’re lucky you weren’t raped and murdered,” he snapped.
“It wasn’t luck,” she corrected. “It was preparation.”
Despite himself, he was interested. “What sort of preparation?”
She leaned back in her chair, looking around at the silent house. It struck Jackson that she was very comfortable here, alone in the woods, without any of the modern conveniences everyone else thought they had to have. “To begin with, this is my home. I know every inch of the woods, every weed bed in the river. If I had to hide, Thaniel would never find me.”
Watching her closely, Jackson saw the secret smile lurking in her green eyes and he knew, as sure as he knew his own name, that she doubted she would ever be reduced to hiding. “What about the other stuff?” he asked, keeping his tone casual.
She gave him a slow smile, and he got the feeling she was pleased with his astuteness. “Oh, just a few little things that give me advance warning. There’s nothing lethal out there, unless you step on a water moccasin or fall in the water and drown.”
He stared at her mouth, and felt a little jolt, like another kick of adrenaline. Despite the coolness of the house he broke out in a light sweat. God almighty, he hoped she didn’t smile again. Her smile was sleepy and sexy, womanly, the kind of smile a woman gave a man after they had made love, lying drowsy on tangled sheets while the rain beat down outside and there were only the two of them, cocooned in their private world.
The sexual awareness wasn’t welcome. He had to be careful in situations like this. He was a man in a position of authority, alone with a woman to whose house he had gone in an official capacity. This wasn’t the time or the place to come on to her.
Silence had fallen again, silence in which they faced each other across the table. She took a deep breath, and the inhalation lifted her breasts against the thin cotton of her blouse. Her nipples were plainly outlined, hard and erect, the darkness of the aureolas faintly visible where they pressed against the fabric. Was she cold, or aroused?
The skin on her arms was smooth; no chill bumps.
“I’d better go,” he said, fighting the sudden thickness in his throat, and in his pants. “Thank you for the sandwiches. I was starving.”
She looked both relieved and reluctant. “You’re welcome. You had that hungry look, so I—” She stopped, and waved a dismissive hand. “Never mind. I was glad to have the company. And you’re right about going; if I’m not mistaken, I heard thunder just a minute ago.” She got up and gathered their glasses, taking them to the sink.
He got up, too. There was something about her unfinished sentence that pulled at him. He should have let it go, should have said good-bye and got into the boat and left. He hadn’t heard any thunder, though his hearing was pretty good, but that was as good an excuse as any to get the hell out of there. He knew it, and still he said, “So you—what?”
Her gaze slid away from him, as if she were embarrassed. “So I… thought you must have missed lunch.”
How would she know that? Why would she even think it? He didn’t normally miss a meal, and how in hell would she know if he looked hungry or not, when she had never seen him before today? For all she knew, ill-tempered was his normal expression.
Witch. The word whispered in his mind, even though he knew it was nonsense. Even if he believed in witchcraft, which he didn’t, from what he’d read it had nothing to do with telling whether or not a man had missed lunch. She had noticed he was grouchy, and attributed it to an empty stomach. He didn’t quite follow the reasoning, but he’d often seen his mother ply his father with food to gentle him out of a bad mood. It was a woman thing, not a witch thing.
“Meow.”
He almost jumped a foot in the air. Now was not the time to find out she had a cat.
“There you are,” she crooned, looking down at his feet. He looked down too, and saw a huge, fluffy white cat with black ears and a black tail, rubbing against his right boot.
“Poor kitty,” she said, still crooning, and leaned down to pick up the creature, holding it in her arms as if it were a baby. It lay perfectly relaxed, belly up, eyes half-closed in a beatific expression as she rubbed its chest. “Did the noise scare you? The bad man’s gone, and he won’t bother us again, I promise.” She looked up at Jackson. “Eleanor’s pregnant. The kittens are due any time now, I think. She showed up about a week ago, but she’s obviously tame and has had good care, so I guess someone just drove into the country and put her out, rather than take care of a litter.”
The cat looked like a feline Buddha, fat and content. Familiars were supposed to be black, weren’t they, or would any cat do, even fat white pregnant ones?
He couldn’t resist reaching out and stroking that fat, round belly. The cat’s eyes completely closed and she began purring so loudly, she sounded like a motor idling.
Delilah smiled. “Careful, or you’ll have a slave for life. Maybe you’d like to take her with you?”
“No, thanks,” he said dryly. “My mother might like a kitten, though. Her old tom died last year and she doesn’t have a pet now.”
“Check back in six or seven weeks, then.”
That wasn’t exactly an invitation to come calling anytime soon, he thought. He picked up the shotgun and vest. “I’ll be on my way, Miss Jones. Thanks again for the sandwiches.”
“Lilah.”
“What?”
“Please call me Lilah. All my friends do.” She gave him a distinctly warning look. “Not Delilah, please.”
He chuckled. “Message received. I guess you got teased about it in school?”
“You have no idea,” she said feelingly.
“My name’s Jackson.”
“I know.” She smiled. “I voted for you. Jackson’s a nice Texas-sounding name.”
“I’m a nice Texas guy.”
She made a noncommittal sound, as if she didn’t agree with him but didn’t want to come right out and say so. He grinned as he turned to the door. Meeting Delilah Jones had been interesting. He didn’t know if it was good, but it was definitely interesting. The blue-moon mojo was at full strength today. When things settled down and he had time to think things over, when he could be entirely rational about the weirdness and come up with a logical explanation, maybe he’d come back to visit—and not in any official capacity.
“Use the front door,” she said. “It’s closer.”
He followed her through the small house. From what he could tell there were only four rooms: the kitchen and living room on one side, and each of those had another room opening off it. He figured the other two rooms were bedrooms. The living room was simply furnished with a couch and a rocking chair, arranged around a rag rug spread in front of the stone fireplace. Oil lamps sat on the mantel and on the pair of small tables set beside the couch and chair. In one corner was a treadle sewing machine. A handmade quilt hung on one of the walls, a brightly colored scene of trees and water that must have taken forever to do. On another wall a bookcase—also handmade, from the looks of it—stretched from floor to ceiling, and was packed with books, both hardback and paper.
The whole house made him feel as if he had stepped back a century, or at least half of one. The only modern appliance he saw was a battery-operated weather radio, sitting beside one of the oil lamps on the mantel. He was glad she had it; both tornadoes and hurricanes were possible in this area.
He stepped out on the porch, Lilah right behind him, still holding the cat. He stopped dead still, staring at the dock. “The son of a bitch,” he said softly.
“What?”
“The boats are gone,” he said, stepping aside so she could see.
She stared at the empty dock, too, her green eyes wide with dismay. Her flat-bottom was gone, as well as Jerry Watkins’s bass boat.
“He must have doubled back and cut the boats loose while we were eating. They can’t have drifted far. If I walk along the bank, I’ll probably find them.”
“My boat had oars in it,” she said. “I always have them in case I have motor trouble. He didn’t have to cut them loose, he could have rowed mine out, and towed yours. That would save him the trouble of hiking back to his boat, and once he got to his boat he’d probably let the current take them. I figure they’re at least a mile downstream by now, maybe more. That’s if he doesn’t decide to sink them.”
“I’ll call in—” he began, the notion so automatic that the words were out before he realized he didn’t have his radio. He didn’t have his cell phone. They were both in the Cherokee, which Charlotte Watkins had driven home. And Lilah Jones didn’t have a phone.
He looked down at her. “I don’t suppose you have a shortwave radio?”
“Afraid not.” She was staring grimly at the river down which her boat had vanished, as if she could will it back. “You’re stuck here. We both are.”
“Not for long. The dispatcher—”
“Jo?”
“Jo.” He wondered how well she knew Jo. Jo hadn’t talked as if they were anything more than distant acquaintances, but Lilah not only knew who his dispatcher was, she had called her Jo instead of Jolene, which was her given name. “She knows where I am, and she was supposed to send backup as soon as some was available. A deputy should be along anytime.”
“Not unless he’s already on his way,” she said. “Look.” She pointed to the southwest.
Jackson looked, and swore under his breath. A huge purplish black thunderhead had filled the late-afternoon sky. He could feel its breath now in the freshening wind that fanned him, hear its voice in the sullen bass rumble of thunder as it marched toward them.
“A thunderstorm probably won’t last long.” At least he hoped it wouldn’t. The way things were going today, the storm’s forward progress would stop just as it was on top of them.
She was staring worriedly at the cloud. “I think I’d better turn on the weather radio,” she said, and went back inside, Eleanor cradled in her arms.
Jackson gave the empty river another frustrated glance. The air felt charged with electricity, raising the hair on his arms. The blade of lightning slashed down, flickering and flashing, and thunder rumbled again.
He was stuck here for at least a few hours, and maybe all night. If he had to be stuck anywhere, why couldn’t it be in his own home? There was always a rash of accidents on a stormy night, and the deputies would need him.
Instead he would be here, in a house in the back of nowhere, keeping company with a witch and her pregnant cat.
4
Lilah put Eleanor on the floor and turned on the weather radio, then went into her bedroom, which opened off the living room, and pulled down the side window. The front window was protected by the wide porch, so rain wasn’t likely to come in there. With an ear cocked toward the radio, she then did the same in the back bedroom. She knew that Sheriff Brody had come in from the porch, but she deliberately ignored him, doing what needed to be done. He was entirely too big for her small house, too stern, too authoritative, too … too male.
He disrupted her peaceful life far more than Thaniel Vargas had ever dreamed of doing. What on earth had Jo been thinking, sending him out here? But of course Jo didn’t know, and she had, rightly, been worried about Thaniel.
Well, poor Thaniel wouldn’t be bothering her again, and there was nothing she could do about it. If he hadn’t run she might have—well, whether or not she could have helped him was a moot point, because it was too late now. Still, regret filled her. Whatever Thaniel’s faults—and they were many—she didn’t wish him any harm. And though she would have tried to help if … if he hadn’t run away, years of painful experience had taught her there was very little she could do to alter fate.
That was why the sheriff filled her with such panic. She had known, the moment she saw him, that he was fated to destroy her safe, comfortable, familiar life. She wanted to get as far away from him as she could, she wanted to push him out of her house and lock the door, she wanted … she wanted to walk into his arms and rest her head on a broad shoulder, let him hold her and kiss her and do anything else he wanted to her.
In all her life she’d never met a male, boy or man, who elicited even the slightest sexual response on her part. She had always felt isolated from the rest of the world, forever alone because of what she was. The thought of spending her life alone hadn’t bothered her; quite the opposite. She enjoyed her solitude, her life, her sense of completion within herself. So many people never achieved wholeness, and spent their entire lives searching for someone or something to make them whole, never realizing that the answer was within themselves. She liked her own company, she trusted her own decisions, and she enjoyed the work she did. There was nothing—nothing—in her life that she wanted changed.
But Jackson Brody changed everything, whether she wanted him to or not.
It wasn’t just his aura that attracted her, though it was so rich she was almost spellbound by it. All his colors were clear: the dark red of sensuality, the blue of calm, the turquoise of a dynamic personality, the orange of power, with fluctuating spikes of spiritual purple and yellow, healing green. Nothing about him was murky. He was a straightforward, confident, healthy man.
What had so stunned her, however, was the sudden flash of precognition. She didn’t have them often; her particular talent was her ability to see auras. But sometimes she had lightning bursts of insight and knowledge, and she had never been wrong. Not once. Just as she had looked at Thaniel and known he would soon die, when she first focused on Jackson Brody the wave of precognition had been so strong she had almost slumped to her knees. This man would be her lover. This man would be her love, the only one of her life.
She didn’t want a lover! She didn’t want a man hanging around, getting in her way, interfering with her business. He would; she knew he would. He struck her as impatient, used to giving orders, slightly domineering, and, oh my, sexy as all get-out. He certainly wouldn’t want to live out here, without any of the modern conveniences to which he was accustomed, while she much preferred her uncluttered life. She felt better without hustle and bustle, without electrical machines incessantly humming in the background. Nevertheless, he would undoubtedly expect her to move to town, or at least to someplace less isolated and more accessible.
Once he realized she couldn’t be relocated, he would give in, but with bad grace. He’d argue that he wouldn’t be able to see her as often as he could if she lived closer. He would visit whenever it was convenient for him, and expect her to drop whatever she was doing whenever he pulled his boat up to the dock. In short, he would be very inconvenient for her, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. For all the success she’d had in evading or altering fate, she might as well strip off her clothes right now and lead him into the bedroom.
That was another worry. She was rather short on experience in the bedroom department. That hadn’t been a bother before, because she hadn’t felt even an inkling of desire to get that experience. Now she did. Just looking at him made her feel warm and sort of breathless; her breasts tingled, and she had to press her thighs together to contain the hot ache between her legs. So this was lust. She had wondered, and now she knew. No wonder people acted like fools when they were afflicted with it.
If Thaniel hadn’t stolen the boats, the sheriff would have already been gone, and she likely wouldn’t have seen him again for quite a while, if ever. She would have gone about her quiet, very satisfying life. But she should have expected that trick with the boats; how else could Fate have arran
Not for the first time, she wished she wasn’t different. She wished she didn’t know things were going to happen before they did; that was asking a lot of a person. She couldn’t regret seeing auras, though; her life would feel colorless and less interesting if she no longer saw them. She didn’t have to speak to someone to know how he or she was feeling; she could see when someone was happy, or angry, or feeling ill. She could see bad intentions, dishonesty, meanness, but she could also see joy, and love, and goodness.
“Is something wrong?”
He was standing right behind her, and the sharpness of his tone told her she had been standing in one place, staring at nothing, for quite a while. Getting lost in her thoughts was no big deal when she was alone, but probably looked strange to others. She blinked, pulling herself back to reality. “Sorry,” she said, not turning to face him. “I was daydreaming.”
“Daydreaming?” He sounded disbelieving, and she didn’t blame him. A man had tried to kill her less than an hour ago, they were stranded, and a whopper of a storm was bearing down on them; that should be enough to keep her thoughts grounded. She should have said she was thinking, instead of daydreaming; at least that sounded productive.
“Never mind. Have there been any weather bulletins or warnings on the radio?”
“Severe thunderstorm warning until ten tonight. High winds, damaging hail.”
Hours. They would be alone together for hours. He would probably be here until morning. What was she supposed to do with him, this man she was going to love but didn’t yet? She had just met him, she knew nothing about him on a personal level. She was attracted to him, yes, but love? Not likely. Not yet, anyway.