Blind Trust (16 page)

After several laps without slowing down, however, Sherry realized that Clint was running with fury, with rage, with the need to purge himself of his pain, and the intent to hurt himself worse than anyone else could. His arms and legs were red, as blood pumped furiously through his body.

“Clint, slow down,” she panted. “Please. I can’t—”

“Then stop, Sherry!” he said between breaths. “Nobody’s making you run with me.”

“I’m not stopping until you talk to me!” she shouted. “I’ll pass out first.”

He kept running and she followed, though every muscle in her body rejected another step.

“Clint, I love you.” She wiped the perspiration out of her eyes and forced herself to keep up with him. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

He kept pounding the packed dirt, remaining a wall of numbness that she feared she could not penetrate.

Tears escaped her eyes and mingled with the perspiration. “Clint, please. I can’t do this much longer.”

“You can stop anytime you want to,” Clint rasped.

She stumbled, and he slowed a degree and looked over his shoulder. The simple gesture gave her hope and enough strength to catch up to him again.

“Not on your life,” she said furiously. “I’m going to keep this up as long as you do, Clint. I’m going to collapse with you!”

“Leave me alone, Sherry!” He bolted ahead of her, picking up speed again, and she saw blood on the heel of his shoe, but still he ran. She followed as fast as she could for several laps, but finally he stumbled and lost his momentum. Seizing the opportunity, she lunged forward. He tried to pick up his speed, breathing furiously, but she reached out and grabbed the back of his T-shirt.

“Stop, Clint,” she cried. “Please …”

He tried to shake free, but she caught his arm. The force made him trip again, slowing him enough for her to throw her arms around his waist. And then, with all the strength she possessed, she flung herself to the ground, pulling him with her.

He caught her before they hit the dirt, then let her go and rolled away from her to his back. His breath came in gasps, and his arms hung idly at his sides. She sat up and looked down at him, tears in her eyes.

“I love you,” she grated through her teeth. “I love you no matter what you do to me or yourself. And you can’t run from that.”

His shoulders quaked, and he sat up and buried his face in her neck and held her, coughing as his lungs screamed for oxygen. The pink of his skin drained to a pallid gray, suddenly matching hers, and she wanted to sit there and comfort him until their breathing settled. But he pulled up and coaxed her to her feet. “Get up, baby,” he told her. “Come on, get up. We have to walk.”

Wiping at the perspiration on his face with the back of his hand, he draped his other arm across her shoulder and pulled her beside him. They walked at a brisk pace for a lap, then two more, slowing until their pulses were normal. And when their breath settled and their hearts were no longer threatening to resign, he pulled her against him and again dropped his face into her shoulder. “I can’t do it without you,” he admitted in a forlorn whisper. “Not any of this.”

“You won’t have to,” she returned, in spite of what it would mean. “Not any of it.”

Then he pulled her into the house, into one of the back rooms. She sat him on the chair, and carefully worked his jogging shoe off of the injured foot, then the other. One tear dropped onto the bloody spot as she looked at it, but Clint cupped her chin and brought her face to his. His kiss was gentle, grateful, tender. “The foot will heal,” he whispered. “The heart needs a little more care.”

And Sherry knew that she had no choice but to mend the heart that needed her.

Chapter Nineteen

P
retty night,” Madeline said as she came upon Sam. He was sitting on a chair on the porch, guarding the front door.

“Pretty lady,” Sam returned, smiling. “But I thought you were avoiding me for dear life after what you saw this morning.”

“You were the one who didn’t come to dinner,” she pointed out softly.

He smiled. “You call slapping a piece of bologna between two slices of bread
dinner
?”

Madeline shrugged. “We’ve all got to eat.”

“Yeah, well. Guess I wasn’t hungry.”

Madeline sat down on the bench next to him and braced her elbows on her knees. Cupping her chin in her hand, she looked out over the dark water rippling in the breeze. Tree frogs exchanged mating calls in the distance, accompanied by chirping crickets and an occasional splash of an acrobatic fish. Overhead, the stars shone clearly, and the air was cool, lacking the usual southern spring humidity. The atmosphere gave one the deceptive feeling of permanency, and though she knew it was deceptive, Madeline clung to it. Fear was something that erected barriers, and she had no time for those.

“What I saw this morning shook me,” she admitted finally. “It made it all real. It made your job real, and that gun you wear, and that enemy I’d been hearing about but hadn’t really cared much about.”

Sam tipped back his chair, leaned his head back against the wall, and looked at her, the humor in his eyes gone. “You saw me shoot a man. I didn’t want you to see that.”

Madeline swallowed, but kept her eyes locked with his. “I really didn’t think you were capable of such a thing,” she said. But in her eyes there was no accusation. Just a deep, gnawing need to understand.

Sam dropped his gaze to the dirt at his feet. “We do what we have to do, Madeline. There’s nothing that says we have to like it or feel good about it. I had a gut instinct and I listened to it.”

She nodded and sat erect, leaning her own head back. “On one hand, I was awed. If not for you, Clint and Sherry would be dead. You saved their lives single-handedly. You’re very good at what you do.”

“And on the other hand?”

Though they were only inches apart, that distance seemed much too far. And at the same time, she had never felt closer to or more in tune with anyone. “And on the other hand, I didn’t want to believe you had pulled that trigger.”

“Why?” His voice came softly, like a caress.

“Guess I wanted to believe you were an innocent. Mysterious, maybe, but pure and untainted.”

“But I mean, why did you want to believe that?” he asked. “Even when you thought I was some criminal trying to kidnap you, you didn’t really seem afraid of me. It was as if you knew more about me than I had told you, even then.”

Madeline looked into those silver eyes that mirrored her confusion and her tenderness, and she thought how obvious it was that he was a good man. If he could only see himself that way, she thought, he would understand her certainty. There would be no question about her faith in his sense of right.

“I had a gut instinct and I listened to it,” she replied quietly.

He held her gaze for a segment of forever. “Has it changed?” he asked, finally. “Now am I some tainted, evil man who courts danger?”

She sighed, smiling slightly. “If only you were,” she whispered. “If only you were.”

Their lips met in tentative offering, and Madeline was awed at the softness of lips that she had been tasting in her fantasies. He shifted in his chair and touched her arm, such a simple gesture, but its tenderness devastated her. Slowly, she parted her lips beneath his. Had she seen the violence and the tenderness in the same man, or was one just an image her heart had conjured up to protect her from the other?

The kiss ended, but Sam did not pull back. He looked at her with eyes that had found the gold hidden away at the end of his rainbow. He pushed her dark curls away from her eyes, and let his fingertips sculpt the crest of her cheekbone and the delicate slant of her jaw. “I don’t know why he did it, but I’m glad God sent you here,” he whispered.

“So am I,” she whispered, startled at the honesty of her emotions. “So am I.”

S
herry sat alone on the couch, hugging her knees, waiting as Clint showered in his room. She saw the bloody shoe lying on the floor, and wished she had done more for Clint’s foot than put a Band-Aid on it. Was that what she had done with his life? Had she cured the immediate symptom of frustration and anger by promising to stand beside him? And what would be the end result? Would he be killed tomorrow because she hadn’t succeeded in changing his mind?

So little time, she thought, as tears welled in her eyes. Too little time to waste fighting about something that could not be changed. Clint would go through with this whether she wanted him to or not, because he believed it was right. And how could she be worthy of a man like that if she didn’t stand behind him? She took a deep breath and thought about tomorrow. She would go to court with him, and hold onto him until they called him to the stand. And somehow her being there would make him invincible. It had to.

The door opened and Clint came back in, holding a shoe box in his hands. He had showered and shaved, and he looked a hundred percent better than he had earlier. She wondered if it was the shower or her declaration of love that had done him the most good. He sat down next to her, one leg bent under him and the other on the floor.

“What is that?” Sherry asked quietly, referring to the box. He smiled at her and dropped a kiss on her lips. Then he opened the box, revealing a stack of papers covered with his handwriting.

“Your manuscript?” she questioned. “The book you said you wrote?”

He shook his head. “There was no book. I kept thinking there would be. But every time I sat down to write, I thought of all the things I wanted to say to you. And so I did. On paper, I told you everything I felt. It’s like a journal. It was my only link to you.” He breathed a great sigh and handed the box to her. “In a way, it kept you with me. It kept me sane. I want you to have it now, if you want it.”

She took it, smoothing her fingertips across the ink and the page that testified to Clint’s love, to the months of separation, to the fear and pain he suffered, and to the fact that he’d kept her in his mind as well as his heart.

“We can’t get those eight months back, Sherry, but this might help to fill them in. And the next time we’re apart, it will hold us together again.”

Somehow it sounded like a good-bye, but she told herself that he needed her to be strong. No more tears. There was too little time left. She would cling to the man who sat before her, and concentrate on the night’s reprieve they had been granted. And if the day came for him to be torn away from her again, she would turn gratefully to the soul he had written down and handed her in a cardboard box. Then she would grieve and regret and hate.

But not before. Not before.

L
ate that night, sleep wouldn’t come for Sherry. She lay on her side and thought of the man she loved so much who could be snatched from her tomorrow. Had she loved him enough? Had she loved him too much? Should she have held back and continued trying to make him succumb to her wishes? No, she told herself. That would only have made him more frustrated and tense, but it wouldn’t have changed his mind. And he needed all his wits about him for what he would face tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Would it be the end of their nightmare, or merely a new chapter? What if Givanti’s circle was bigger than they thought? What if it reached farther? What if … ?

Closing her eyes, she covered her forehead with her wrist. One thing at a time, she told herself. Just be there while he needs you tomorrow, and believe that there is an end to the terror. Just push through one moment at a time, for tomorrow would come too soon.

T
he men sat around the breakfast table the next morning sipping their coffee quietly, nibbling at their food with a noticeable lack of appetite. Madeline, pale and drawn, sat across from Sherry next to Sam, who hummed softly. Sherry hadn’t known him long, but she had been around him enough to know that his singing often signified his anxiety.

Clint sat with his arm draped across the back of Sherry’s chair, his ankle crossed over his knee, in a stance that made him look at ease, but Sherry knew better. She had helped him tie his tie this morning, had seen the distant, too-accepting look in his eyes, and felt the rigid set of his muscles. He had been quiet. Much too quiet.

One by one, the men left the table to go and prepare for the hazardous trip to court. Clint sat still, gazing into his coffee cup. When they were, at last, alone, Sherry set her shaking hand over his. “We’ll be all right, Clint,” she whispered. “I’ll be with you, and—”

“You can’t go,” Clint cut in, his eyes luminous with dread. “You have to stay here.”

Sherry’s eyes filled with alarm, and she drew back her hand. “No. I’m going with you.”

Clint shook his head firmly. “It’s been decided, baby. It’s too dangerous. You’ll be safer here.”

“But I said I’d be with you,” she blurted, tears springing to her eyes, tears she had vowed not to cry. “I need to go, Clint. I need to be there. You can’t keep me away.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“That’s why I have to go!” she shouted. “If you’re in danger, I want to be with you. We can survive it if we’re together. And if you don’t, I don’t want to either!”

Clint caught his breath and pulled her against him, holding her with his eyes squeezed shut, as if it could keep out her terror and reasoning. “I know that feeling,” he whispered into her hair. “I do. But your father has left strict orders that you are not to come to the courtroom. And I agree with him.”

Sherry was trembling. “That’s because my father knows that you’ll be killed! If he’s willing to let you get killed for his case, then he’ll have to let me be too.”

Clint pulled her back and took a deep, ragged breath. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“No!” Sherry jerked out of his arms and stood up. “They can’t make me stay!”

She bolted out of the kitchen. Her eyes wild, she approached each officer she could find, but no one would help her.

Finally, she went to Sam, her eyes pleading. “Sam, you’ve got to let me come.”

Sam shook his head. “I understand why you want to, Sherry. I would, too, in your place. But you have to understand and respect our decision.”

“It’s not the decision. It’s the implication behind it. My father knows he’ll be hurt.”

She looked at Sam, and set her hands on her hips, struggling with the tears brimming. “I want you to tell me how you can be sure that someone won’t blow him up before he even gets into that courtroom.”

Sam looked at Clint with eyes that said he
couldn’t
be sure. “If he gets blown up, so will I.”

“Oh, that’s comforting!” she said, throwing up her hands. “And to think I’ve been so concerned!”

Sam sighed roughly. “I meant that I’m not going to leave his side until he’s on the stand. I’m a good cop, Sherry. And Clint’s a good friend.”

Sherry turned back to Clint, the fight draining from her. “Clint, please …”