Conard County Marine (23 page)

In his barn, he pushed one of the old cars to the far end and began to dig the hole. Soon Kylie would occupy it. The thought made him hum as he dug.

*

After the sandwiches, Coop wasted no time in pulling Kylie upstairs to the bedroom. Her heart began to beat wildly even as a smile grew on her face. She been almost afraid to hope that he would take her all the way with him. Afraid to hope that he’d lower his barriers that much. The couch had been nice, but incomplete.

Now she could have all of him.

Except his feet, it seemed.

Standing beside the bed, he pulled her T-shirt over her head. The air felt contradictorily chilly and warm—chill from the spring night, heated by his gaze traveling over her. Her insides quivered in anticipation, and it felt as if the oxygen was leaving the room.

“So beautiful,” he said, as if she had no scars. She knew those scars, all four of them on her torso. She almost blushed as he released her bra and pulled it away. One of the ugliest gashes was on her left breast, but Coop merely bent to kiss it. “So brave,” he murmured.

Trailing his mouth downward, he slid to his knees and reached for the button of her jeans. She closed her eyes as she felt it release and listened to the sound of the zipper being lowered. Feeling dizzy with need and weak with hunger, she reached out, steadying herself on his shoulders.

Then, inch by inch, his mouth tracing the trip, her panties and jeans lowered, leaving her almost completely bare to his gaze.

She couldn’t have opened her eyes to save her life. Everything inside her except passion had shut down, leaving her tangled in yearnings so strong they nearly collapsed her.

Hands gripped her waist and put her on the bed. Oh, man, she wanted to see him, but then he began to stroke her from head to foot. Somewhere her sneakers and socks went away. She knew she was utterly naked, but his caressing hands held her in thrall; her core throbbed so strongly she nearly cried out.

She heard something and managed to open her eyes a crack. He was pulling off his shirt. Satisfied that he would come to her, she opened her arms wide to receive him.

But he had a different idea. He stroked her inner thighs with those magic hands of his, deepening the pulsations inside her until she was gasping like a runner near the end of a race.

“Coop...”

“Shh...”

She parted her legs in invitation, feeling her hips rise trying to find his. Then at long last he settled between her legs. She could feel his hardness against her dewy center. His arms slipped beneath her waist, and the next thing she knew, he had rolled them over.

She was lying atop him. Startled, her eyes opened.

“Ride me, darlin’,” he said thickly. “Ride me.”

She looked down, saw the point where their bodies would join, then raised her gaze to see his sleepy smile. Man, he was gorgeous, that broad chest of his begging for her touch.

Rearing up, cradling his condom-covered hardness between her thighs, she smiled lazily down at him and began to run her hands over his chest. Those small pointed nipples of his were as sensitive as her own, she discovered as she heard him gasp and felt him buck a little.

But then he retaliated, swallowing her breasts with his large hands, caressing her nipples with his thumbs. Then he gave her a pinch that made her cry out and arch.

“Ride me,” he said again, and this time there was no mistaking what he wanted. His hands gripped her waist, lifting her a little, until the exquisite moment when he entered her, piercing her, answering the ache deep within her with what she needed most in the world.

Then he slowly guided her movements until her body took over. Propping herself on his shoulders she rocked, desperation growing apace with need. His big hands steadied her, but she could hear from the pace of his breathing that he was coming with her.

Thought flew away. Her body controlled everything now, and it was pushing, pushing, needing, reaching for satisfaction as it never had before. Life summoned her and she answered.

“Now,” he growled. “Now!”

As if she could have held back. She rocked a couple more times, then felt the shattering begin. She became one big, almost-painful ache from head to toe, stiffened, and a moment later she rode the tsunami to the other side. An instant later, she felt him jerk inside her, which unleashed another astonishing wave of completion inside her.

A million stars exploded in her head. It was a long time before she moved again.

*

Eons later, or so it felt, she rolled off him. He turned with her, cuddling her close. “I got some business I need to attend.”

She knew what he meant. She’d felt the condom when he’d entered her. She sighed, knowing she had to let go for a few minutes.

“I’ll be right back,” he promised.

Then she opened her eyes and a gasp escaped her. He was still wearing his boots, his sweatpants down around his ankles. “Boots?” she said. “Really? Coop...” She hardly knew what to say but it seemed so out of place.

He cupped her face. “If you’d been the places I’ve been... Well, boots stay on until the threat is gone.”

She supposed it made sense, but she had to admit it was almost funny to watch him pull up his pants halfway and hobble to the bathroom. Boots!

But even as the humor of it struck her, she was still enraptured by everything about him, from his broad shoulders to his narrow hips, from the muscles of his arms to his thighs, the kind that indicated total fitness. A finely honed piece of manhood.

Sighing contentedly, she pulled a corner of the blanket over herself and tried to recall every single moment of their lovemaking, replaying it in her head as if she could prevent herself from forgetting even the least little part of it. Engraving it.

Given her apparent short-term memory problems, however, it seemed even more important to remind herself of every moment she still retained.

But in spite of every effort to relive each instant of the last hour, reality insisted on intruding.

She couldn’t force back the onrush of memory, small though it was, of that knife flashing down and stabbing her, of that dead black rose that had been delivered by an innocent child.

Of the coffee pouring. Her brain fixed on that, sensing that if she could see the moments just before or just after she might answer one of the most important questions of her life: Who had attacked her?

Even the sound of Coop’s return couldn’t pull her out of the anxious memories.

“Kylie?”

“It’s hitting me,” she muttered. All of a sudden breathing seemed painful. Anxiety crawled along her nerves like a million ants. It didn’t even help when Coop stretched out beside her and pulled her into his arms.

Her mind was rebelling. It wouldn’t give her peace. It wouldn’t give her anything.

*

Coop held her while she shivered and panted. At least she was letting him hold her, but he had a good idea what she was experiencing. He’d gone to this place a few times himself. Well, more than a few. He’d just had more opportunity to learn to deal with it.

He didn’t know whether to hope she had remembered something new or not. Much as he had tried to keep things on an even keel, he hadn’t forgotten that black rose and the threat it implied. What he couldn’t understand was why her attacker would announce himself. Why not just come unexpectedly, with no one anticipating him?

Or maybe it had just been some other kind of sick creep who’d heard about the rose in Denver and was enjoying the thought of how much terror it had probably evoked.

At this point, anything was possible. They had someone frightening people all over town by speaking to children, yet no child had been threatened, other than by being approached by a stranger. So why not someone who loved scaring people to death and had used the rose to do the same thing he was doing to the kids?

Psychologically it might fit nicely. What did he know? All he was certain of was that he had to protect Kylie if anyone threatened her. And he admitted he was worried about the kids around town. Who knew when or if this creep might decide to attack? He felt particular sympathy for his cousin, Connie. She’d been through this ten years ago when her ex-husband had unexpectedly taken their daughter. She’d walked in this hell, and wondering what might happen now had probably started that hell all over again for her. At least she had her job to reassure her that she could do something, and Ethan to support her emotionally.

Part of him felt like he ought to be looking out for Connie’s kids, but it was Connie who had deputized him to look after Kylie. She had appointed him to this task and it was clearly what she most wanted from him.

Not that he felt he was doing the best job of it. He couldn’t promise her she’d be okay. He couldn’t take away the fears that stalked her. He couldn’t help her get her memory back. He couldn’t do anything at all except hold her until she got through the nightmare that would probably spring on her without warning for a long time to come.

So he held her, and stroked her back, and waited for her tremors to fade, waited for her to come back to him. She would, but it might take a while. Only someone who had been traumatized could understand the emotional grip of reaction, even if you couldn’t remember what had happened.

Some guys he knew got angry and dangerous with that anger. Some hid away, not wanting a single soul to see them, touch them, speak to them. Some went to places they couldn’t even describe when they emerged hours or days later. It was a grip, all right, a vise that clamped over thoughts and feelings and wouldn’t let go. Reality could scarcely reach through it; sometimes it couldn’t at all.

He didn’t know where Kylie was, but at least she hadn’t rejected him or tried to escape his touches. She just shivered, locked in the clutching talons of fear and perhaps more. He couldn’t imagine all the emotions that had been seared into her by that attack, and he hadn’t asked.

Talking about it had to be her choice. Prying would only make her uncomfortable. He prepared himself to be as patient as necessary.

It seemed like a long time, but it was probably only a half hour. He felt her shivering weaken, felt her body beginning to relax. He continued to stroke her back soothingly, waiting for her return.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“No apologies. It’s not like you can help it. Did you remember something else?”

“No...no. It was the same memories but all of a sudden they felt like I was there again. I don’t know why, it just came over me.”

“There doesn’t have to be a trigger.” He pitched his voice low, trying to avoid disturbing her. He was certain she wasn’t fully back in the present moment.

“Coffee and a knife,” she murmured after a while. “What useless things to remember.”

Like anyone got a choice. “Think you can sleep now?”

“I don’t know. I do feel exhausted.”

He wasn’t surprised. Reluctantly he let go of her and rose to pull blankets over her. Then he pulled on his sweatshirt.

She watched him with pinched eyes. “What a way to thank you for our lovemaking.”

He flashed a grin, though it didn’t feel easy. “No thanks necessary. I was there, too.”

But her face still didn’t relax. He thought he understood. He eased himself back onto the bed beside her and scooped her close along with the blankets to keep her warm. “I’ll be right here. Not going anywhere at all. Sleep if you can. Talk if you want. I’m here for you.”

Those words sounded like a promise. He considered them as he waited for her to finish unwinding and drift toward sleep. He was in no position to be making promises of any kind.

But somehow the sound of that was good. He’d be here for her.

*

The pressure inside Todd was becoming intense. He sat in his kitchen drinking coffee while the night deepened outside, and considered the changes in himself. Until he’d snapped and attacked Kylie, he’d daydreamed about taking vengeance, but he’d never felt almost physically pushed to do it.

Now that he’d done it once, he could almost feel as if he were being kicked in the ass by the need to finish the job. And he’d started thinking about the next woman, a woman he hadn’t chosen yet, but one he was evidently going to need.

The changes he recognized in himself at once astonished him and pleased him. He had become an actor, an important actor, in a life that had always made him feel like part of the scenery.

For the first time in a long time, if ever, he stood back and took a long look at himself. He’d been living mostly by rote his entire life, doing what was expected of him, first by his father, then by his employers. He had lived believing that something good would come along if only he played it straight.

But now he realized that he’d been letting life and others drive him. Kylie, the one thing he had wanted that was just for him, had scorned him more than once. Even after he’d grown up and had become reasonably successful financially, and had met up with her in Denver, she still wasn’t interested. In fact, she was less than interested, although he couldn’t begin to understand why.

Now, even without her memory, she still didn’t seem interested. She’d accepted his token gift pleasantly enough but, other than an offer of coffee, had given him no sign that she had become interested.

Not that it mattered. If she got her memory back, her lack of interest would become a lot worse.

But all of this was irrelevant now, he told himself. Except for the part about taking care of her for good before she remembered him. No, now he was filled with power—power he had tasted when he’d thought he had killed her. The power of life and death.

That was so much more intoxicating than money. In fact, that experience had been the most real and intense one of his entire life. He had a taste for it now.

He wasn’t going to blend in and disappear again. Oh, he wasn’t going to let anyone know about his new powers. He’d keep all that secret from everyone. But
he
would know, and that was the most important thing of all.

He had found the true Todd at last. The real one. The one who could hold a life in his hands and extinguish it.

Feeling the power course through his veins, he decided tomorrow would be the day, as long as Connie and Ethan Parish were working. The older girl would be as inattentive as usual, and the boy would probably soon be alone in his sandbox. It could all go down in a matter of minutes.