Chance of a Lifetime (37 page)

“No,” she answered. “That would be too much like we were living together.”

She closed the door before he had time to answer. Tannon buried his face in her pillow and took a deep breath of the honeysuckle scent left by her hair. Of course they couldn’t look like they were living together; after all, they were only sleeping over at each other’s place. They were just friends.

He listened to the shower, wishing he’d offered to share rather than let her go first. When the water stopped and she walked out wrapped in one of his big towels, he thought this just-friends arrangement would surely put him in an early grave. If she hadn’t disappeared into the kitchen to make coffee, he might have lost what little reason he had left. This sleeping-over arrangement was a thorny heaven.

After a quick shower with his arm wrapped in a towel to keep the bandage dry, he managed to pull on a pair of jeans by the time she pattered back into his bedroom on bare feet. She handed him a cup of coffee before curling into the covers and complaining about how cold it was.

He walked over to her and pulled the covers over her shoulders. “Morning, darlin’,” he said as he pushed her hair back and kissed her lightly. “How about I warm you up while you give me that kiss you promised?” Maybe it was time to let her know they could be far more than friends. After all, she was walking around his apartment wearing a towel and complaining of being cold. What more encouragement did he need?

Cradling her against him, he moved his left hand beneath the blanket and brushed his fingers over her cold shoulder as he kissed her. The frightened child had disappeared with the light and the woman in his arms responded willingly to his advance.

Slowly, she warmed and his touch grew bolder. His hands pushed the damp towel away from her as he moved over her body hidden beneath the blanket. He kept his touch light, brushing across areas he hoped to spend a great deal of time exploring later. The advance hadn’t been planned; he simply moved with the natural flow of loving her.

“I like morning kisses better than good-bye kisses. They make me think about kissing you all day long.”

When she pulled her arms out from beneath the covers to circle his neck, he tugged the blanket lower as the kiss deepened and he felt her bare breasts press against his chest. He pulled the covers over them both and kept the kiss tender.

Finally, out of breath, she pulled away and the covers slipped to her waist.

He met her eyes, wide and filled with passion, and he knew nothing that had just happened had been an accident. “You’re beautiful.” His voice sounded low and hesitant. “And you want this.”

She smiled. “Yes,” she answered simply as if the question needed no more explanation.

“You amaze me.” He leaned over and kissed her softly as he moved his hand over her breast. “People who just sleep over don’t do this, you know.” He kissed his way to her ear and back. “And I’m guessing women who only want to be friends don’t walk around in a towel.”

“I know,” she laughed. “But I had a feeling you wouldn’t mind if I did.”

“I wouldn’t mind at all.” He didn’t want to think about what was happening, he just wanted to feel and taste and smell her close like this. Sometime in the near future he’d probably have an argument about how this dream couldn’t possibly have really happened so he’d need many details for proof to convince himself.

He shifted above her, his chest lightly touching her breasts as he dug his unbandaged hand into her wild hair and kissed her with more tenderness and passion than he’d known lived within him. This wasn’t some one-night stand after one too many beers. This was Emily and he wanted it to be just right.

Her breath shortened and her fingers moved over his back, pulling him to her. “One more kiss like this,” she whispered.

He lowered his weight over her, feeling the give of her body beneath him. His heart beat against hers. His breaths balanced with hers. His lips pressed gently against hers.

She made a little sound like a yelp. “Your hand. I forgot about you being shot.” She tried to pull away. “Stop, Tannon, stop. We might hurt you.”

Tannon laughed, pulling up the last bit of sanity left in
his brain. “You won’t hurt me. But I’m afraid I have to get dressed. I have a few employees coming in this morning to catch up on the work I’ve missed lately. Much as I’d like to do this all day, unless you want the town to know you slept over, maybe we should think about leaving.”

She squealed and jumped up from the bed, taking the blanket with her as she ran to the closet for her clothes. Then she hurried into the bathroom to dress.

“You don’t have to close the door,” he said more to himself than her. “I already know what you look like.”

The door slammed.

He climbed out of bed and managed to be dressed when she came out. “I have to head out for Amarillo soon,” he said as he handed her a now cold cup of coffee. “But we’re sleeping at your place tonight. I’ll probably give my staff a heart attack, but from now on, no one works on Sunday. That way, neither one of us will have to get up early, and your place will be more private than here. I want to work on perfecting those morning kisses you like so much, so we’ll need time to work. It might not be a bad idea to start early and work all night.”

He walked to the elevator with her, holding her purse and coat as she pinned the side of her hair up. “I’ve got to go see Mom, but I’ll be back by dark. Wait dinner on me.” He leaned into her as the elevator moved down, loving the way her body melted into his.

“I haven’t invited you over yet,” she whispered with a shy smile.

“Yes, you have. You just didn’t use words.”

The door opened and he straightened, glad to see that the office was still dark. If they played this game long enough, someone coming in early was bound to notice. Tannon didn’t care, but he figured Emily would, so he reminded himself that they needed to be more careful.

“You coming over for a quick breakfast?”

“No, I’ve got too much work to do before I head out.” He winked at her. “But it’s going to take a pot of coffee to get
rid of the taste of you and I don’t know if my mind has any chance of clearing.”

She laughed. “I started something, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did. Something I plan on finishing.”

He stood watching her drive away and feeling newborn, raw with need and happy for the first time in years.

Lifting his coffee cup, he whispered, “See you tonight, my love.”

T
RACE COULD NEVER REMEMBER SLEEPING AS SOUNDLY AS
she did Saturday night after the shooting. She’d been running on adrenaline for an hour, trying to think about how to best protect Rick. The lawyer had a death wish, she decided. What kind of man goes out looking for trouble like he did?

Then he’d tossed her against the car and kissed her in the parking lot like no other man would have dared kiss her. If she hadn’t liked it so much, she might have shot him herself.

When they were finally home and talking about the shooting, he’d started touching her and before she knew how it had happened, he was kissing her again. There had been nothing gentle about the way Rick made love to her. In fact, she was pretty sure she had a few bruises and had given a few as well.

The polite, frightened failure of a lawyer she’d met two weeks ago was gone. The man she’d slept with last night would never be called “boy” by anyone.

She slipped from his bed and tiptoed up the stairs, hoping Martha Q wouldn’t hear her leaving Rick’s room. In the shower, she checked for bruises and bites. Had he bitten her? No, that was her biting him. In the moment, it seemed like the right thing to do.

By the time it was first light, she’d dressed and climbed out the third-floor window. Somewhere close was the stalker. All she had to do was find him. He was close. He had been all along. Close enough to saw the steps and start a fire. Close enough for darts and gunfire. Close enough to cut up a children’s book in a county library without anyone suspecting.

Staying in the morning shadows, she slipped behind the house and made her way along a cottonwood trail to the sheriff’s office. If the stalker was watching the bed-and-breakfast, he’d think she was still there.

With luck, Rick would sleep another few hours at least. Trace wanted to do as much work as she could without him being aware. If Rick knew, he’d want to get involved and that could only mean trouble, because if he came along, the stalker might not be far behind.

A tired deputy coming off the night shift agreed to take her over to Buffalo’s so she could start looking around. Harley had handed the deputy a key last night, claiming Sunday was his only day off and he didn’t want to be bothered.

The deputy reached in his pocket and handed her a piece of paper along with the keys. “Harley told me that the sheriff asked him to make a list of all his customers who play darts on a regular basis. It took him a while, but he came up with those who’d probably have custom-made darts.”

When Trace looked at the list, he leaned over her shoulder and added, “The only girl on the list is my cousin Betty. She’s beat most of the regulars so many times they won’t play with her.”

“Know what color her darts are?”

“Red,” the deputy said. “Bright red.”

Trace thanked him and walked into the bar alone. After a few minutes of searching, she turned on the lights. She’d
done a dozen crime scenes worse than this one so the dirt and spilled beer didn’t bother her. Though she’d look for shells and fresh bullet holes on the walls, what she’d really come in for was to get the feel of the place. To be very still and let her mind think like the stalker’s.

She moved along the walls and into corners, each time stopping to see what the view would be. After a half hour she’d found only two places where she could see the booth by the cage clearly and where any bullet wouldn’t have to cross the dance floor. One spot was against the wall near the kitchen. It would have been too busy a place with people walking by placing orders. The other was by the front door in a space that once might have served as a coatrack. Here a three-by-four square was closed in on three sides by a wall about five feet high. Anyone standing in the space with only twinkling lights around would be almost invisible.

And there, in the space by the door, Trace found three shells. Carefully, she bagged them, realizing Rick had been right. There were better places to fire from, but any others would increase the chances that someone besides Rick would be hurt. The shooter either wanted to hit only Rick, or he’d wanted to frighten everyone.

Walking directly across to the wall behind the booth, she found two small bullet holes in the wall about six feet up. The shooter was aiming at Rick’s head. A harder target to hit but a sure kill.

Trace closed her eyes, trying to relive the moments before the shots. Rick had been standing, yelling, cheering. He wouldn’t be easy to hit. After the first shot, she’d moved in front of Rick, making the shooter’s second shot even harder. She was up beside him, watching the crowd before the third shot. Maybe the shooter was distracted and the shot went wild, or maybe he pulled the trigger in frustration, knowing the shot would frighten the crowd and cause a stampede. The perfect time to escape.

Whoever fired last night wanted to hurt only Rick, no one else.

She walked slowly back to the sheriff’s office piecing
together what she knew, what she’d been trained to organize, until answers formed. The shooter would come again, more deadly next time and in a place where he could have more control.

When she got to the station, Phil Gentry was signing in. He smiled at her. “How’s our lawyer this morning? I heard what happened last night.”

“He’s still asleep. I left Martha Q and Mrs. Biggs to watch over him.”

“What can I do for you, Marshal?”

“Could I see the names of all the people in the county who have registered .22 pistols?” She handed him the bag of shells.

“Sure, but it’s not many. Most folks don’t register guns unless they buy something new. Even if they were registered once, the owner may not still have them.”

“But you know they have them?”

“Of course. If we demanded every Texan to register every gun, half of them would claim all the guns they owned fell in the lake.” He smiled at her frustration. “If you want to know who has a .22 here in town, go over to the gun range next to the golf course. Bill Ottoson can tell you. He not only runs the range, but he also works on any weapon that needs fixing.”

An hour later, Bill had talked her into letting him fire her service weapon while he rattled off names.

By the time Trace made it back to Winter’s Inn, it was afternoon. She found Rick working at the desk in the second-floor sitting room. He looked up when she walked in and smiled.

She had no trouble reading his mind. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right. How about we talk about the shooting. Maybe it’ll turn you on like it did last night.”

She scowled and he nodded once as if in apology.

“I’ve been studying all the lists we have here.” He showed her all the yellow pads he’d collected. “Clients I’ve worked with. All in jail but the Peterses and Martha Q, who
thinks she’s a client. People who have visited the library in the past few weeks. No one stands out.”