Authors: Sandra Chastain
Sam moved closer to the fire to examine the bright slash of blood across his chest and shoulder.
He removed his shirt and stood obediently in the firelight.
“Okay, darlin’, examine me. I’m yours.”
Andrea caught her breath and swallowed the sound welling up in her throat. He was even more magnificent without his shirt. She guessed him to be in his early thirties. Whatever else he was, Sam Farley was a man of the earth. His upper body was nicked with scars. He obviously was used to physical work. His skin was bronzed a golden color that picked up the rosy tones from the fire. Except for …
“Mr. Farley! What is …
that?
”
Sam glanced from the disbelieving expression on her face to himself and back again, before breaking into a grin. “You mean my tattoo?”
He turned so that Andrea could get the full benefit of the large pink heart with the word
MOTHER
etched across his upper arm.
“What do you think of it?”
“What any woman would think. That all you need is an earring and a motorcycle. It’s disgustingly barbaric.”
“Not every woman,” he contradicted softly. “My mother liked it.” He held up his shirt and examined the blood once more. “I think that we’d better examine you, Chief. This blood isn’t mine.”
“Me?” She faltered, looking from the shirt he was holding to her own. There wasn’t a spot on it. What was he saying? “Certainly not, Mr. Farley. If there’s something wrong with me, I’ll wait until I get back to the station and check it out.”
“Nonsense. I could have hurt you earlier. We
can’t take a chance on a thing like that. I’m good in emergencies.”
“I hardly think we have an emergency here,” Andrea began shakily as she took a step backward. “My vital functions aren’t impaired.”
“I’m not too sure about that, darling. We won’t know until we check you over, will we?” He started toward her, his serious gaze on her face. “Turnabout is fair play. I insist, Chief Fleming. Take off your shirt.”
Andrea gasped. “You’re crazy, certifiably insane.” She backed out of the parlor and into the hall. “Don’t touch me. They know where I am back at the station.”
Sam stopped, spread his legs, and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, watching through nearly closed eyes. He hadn’t meant to scare her. He was only teasing. He’d better set her straight before she called in the cavalry.
Andrea was holding up both fists, her body set in a boxer’s stance. “If I don’t get back, the whole county will be after you. Louise Roberts knows what you look like,” she warned.
“After me?” he said dryly. “Put down your dukes, Chief. Who do you think I am? I’m not going anywhere, at least not yet. I’m sorry if I frightened you. I think the blood on my shirt must have come from your head. All I want to do is look.”
Andrea glared at him suspiciously. She realized that she was responding to him as a woman, not as the chief of police. But at the moment she was having trouble keeping the situation professional. Being teased by a dark-eyed stranger was new to her.
In the end it was his mouth that told her she had nothing to fear. As she watched, his tightly drawn lips began to soften. She remembered Louise’s description of a frown to cover his real feelings.
“Are you all right, Chief?”
Louise was right. Underneath his tough-guy manner, he was worried about her.
“You must have cut your head when you fell. Then you brushed against my shoulder when we, when I … when the lightning struck.” He held out his hand. “Come over by the fire and let me see.”
It took some strong doing, but gradually she began to relax and see the situation for what it was. The only danger she was in was the risk of being caught up in the moment. Sam Farley was just different from the men in Arcadia. He was a stranger with a confident way of looking at life that was new to her.
“All right, cowboy, but I want to know why you’re here,” she said with authority in her voice.
“Fine,” he agreed. “Come over here by the fire and let me examine your head, and I’ll level with you.”
He added more logs to the fire, uncovered an overstuffed couch in the shadows, and pulled it toward the fireplace, inviting her to sit down.
“My name
is
Sam Farley, I swear it. I was born in Texas. Lived all over the West while I was growing up. My mother liked oil and the men who found it.”
“An oil man? I thought you were a cowboy.”
“Only by birth. I was born in Texas. I’m a carpenter. I build things—houses, furniture, cabinets. If it’s made of wood, I can do it. Millie Hines was my mother. Mamie Hines was my grandmother. I have no brothers and no sisters, and unless my mother had family that she never mentioned, I’m guess you could say I’m all alone.”
“I can’t imagine being completely alone in the world …,” Andrea said softly as she lowered herself to the edge of the couch, “… without any family or friends. At least I still have Buck.”
Sam wondered a moment at her use of the word
still
. He liked the way she talked, all warm and soft and slow, like a woman after she’d been made love to. He shrugged his shoulders as he answered in a tone made sharp by the impossibility of his thoughts. “Maybe, but I don’t owe anything to anybody. There is nobody to tie me down, and I go where I choose.”
“And where have you chosen to be, Sam Farley?”
“Home has been wherever the work was, darlin’. I’ve built quarters for the workers on the Alaskan pipeline, rebuilt hospitals after the earthquake in Mexico, helped put up shopping centers all over the country, and even restored one of the houses in Williamsburg. There aren’t many places in the country I haven’t seen. What about you?”
She was subdued, gazing at him with the wonder
of a little girl listening to the story of Sinbad or Cinderella. The flames bit into the new logs, lifting orange tongues up the chimney. “Me? I … really haven’t been anywhere, and I’m not going to. I stay right here, in Arcadia, because I choose to.”
There was something so final about her words that Sam found himself leaning forward, reaching out to comfort her, involuntarily touching her cheek before realizing his mistake. He moved his fingertips to her hair and waited for her to accept his caress before he began his inspection. When she didn’t say anything, he gently parted her hair and began to explore. Then she flinched.
“Here, I found it. The cut is just a small nick on the scalp, nothing serious. It’s already stopped bleeding.”
Andrea felt a blush creep across her face. She moved her head away from his disturbing touch, dismissing her strange feelings with a practical question. “What about your father? Was he in construction too?”
“My father? Never had one, at least so far as I know. Didn’t bother me, but my mother seemed to think that would be a problem for the home folks.”
Andrea regarded him with new understanding. Beneath the teasing cowboy rogue, she glimpsed the brooding uncertainty that he tried to hide.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” he said roughly, as though he’d revealed too much. “Being here in the house is getting to me, I guess.”
She decided that not having a father bothered him more than he would admit. Choosing her words carefully, she provided an answer to his unasked question. “I think your grandmother would be very pleased to know you’ve come.”
“My mother always said we’d come back here someday, but we never did,” he said, continuing to stare into the fire. “I never knew why she left. Coming back was important to her, yet she always put it off. Then she got sick, and it was too late.” As he watched the flames dancing eagerly about the old dry logs, the lines in his face gradually relaxed.
“Miss Mamie’s been gone for two years. Why did it take you so long? Were you that busy?”
He turned and ambled to the window, glancing out as though he found standing still a problem. “There’s a place in Alaska where you can stand on top of a mountain and the sky is so full of stars that you want to reach up and take a few in your hand. There’s a windswept beach on Baja that’s so pretty, it seems unreal. There’s a whole world out there, and I’ve only seen a part of it. It’s been hard for me to stop wandering long enough to come here.”
“You know they’re about to auction off the property for taxes. Nobody knew how to reach your mother.”
He looked back at her, frowning. “I know. I found the auction notice in my mother’s papers when—” he hesitated for a second, dropped his voice, and walked back to the fire, “after she died.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” Andrea fought back the urge to go to his side and lay a comforting hand on his tense shoulder. Instead she said quietly, “You’re still in time to pay the taxes and claim the land, if you choose.”
He looked at her in surprise as though that thought had never occurred to him. “Me? Stay in a wide place in the road like this?” His tone was one of disbelief, overwashed with scorn. “Darlin’, do I look like a small-town boy?”
“No, I guess not.” Andrea shook her head and watched his mouth tighten.
“I’ve got a little money left, but not enough for that, even if I wanted to stay. For the moment all I’m good for is … a little food, a little wine, and—” he paused, turned his frown into a rakish grin, “
thou
, providing you don’t have expensive tastes. No, I’m not going to claim the homeplace, except for the night. I guess I just wanted to see it once.”
‘Thou’? Andrea considered his flirtatious words in silence. The rain had turned into an intermittent drizzle, the little moments of quiet coming like a pause for breath.
She watched him stand and put his shirt back on.
“What if we go get some pizza and beer?”
“Pizza and beer? Take the patrol car across the county line?” Andrea laughed, even though she knew from the look in his eyes that he was serious.
“Sure. I’m starving. Where’s your southern hospitality, darlin’?”
The cowboy persona was back, grinning at her without a care in the world, disregarding rules and glibly suggesting that she disregard them too. “Mr. Farley …”
“No ‘mister,’ just Sam.”
“Sam, this is Arcadia, Georgia. You don’t understand about my town. If I took you out for a beer, by tomorrow morning
everybody
would know. Besides, I’m on duty, and I take my job seriously.”
“I can already see that you have a problem, darlin’. You’re entirely too serious. Before I leave, I’m going to have to teach you to lighten up and have some fun. I’ve been told that I’m a very good teacher.”
Sam wasn’t sure why he was flirting with Andrea. She wasn’t a pizza-and-beer kind of woman. Something about her worried at his confidence and wouldn’t let go. Seeing that she wasn’t warming up to the idea of taking him out, he tried a different approach. “Surely,” he said, making his expression look pitiful, “it’s your
duty
to keep a man from starving to death?”
“You’re right,” she agreed enthusiastically as inspiration hit her. “An officer of the law has a duty to help someone in need. And a Fleming always does his, eh, her duty.” She remembered the thermos of coffee and the homemade cookies that Louise had sent to Buck, still on the front seat of her car. “Show me your identification, and I’ll find you something to eat.”
“Agreed.” He buttoned the last button and grinned at her. The heels of his boots clattered on
the wooden floor as he strode into the hallway and disappeared into the darkness. “I’ll get my wallet. It’s in my backpack.”
Andrea glanced at her watch, anxious now to get back to town. He was an intriguing man, this grandson of Mamie Hines’s, with his rangy build, broad shoulders, and narrow waist. But it was his intensity that caught at her emotions. She could easily imagine him standing on a windswept beach or on a snow-covered hill in Alaska. She also imagined that with his bad-boy good looks and charm, he wouldn’t be standing alone.
It was almost ten o’clock. She’d been away from the station too long. If Buck called in, he’d be worried. She’d better find her gun and her cap, then head back to town. If Sam Farley wanted to stay in this boarded-up house with no electricity, she wasn’t going to argue tonight.
Andrea took a burning limb from the fire and held it aloft like a torch as she searched the shadows. With a sigh of relief, she spotted the pistol laying at the base of the lace-curtained front door. She replaced it in her holster and buttoned the restraining loop over it.
“I seem to have a problem, Chief.” Sam said from the hallway behind her.
“Oh?” Andrea felt a sense of dread fall over her. She knew what he was going to say before he said it.
“I seem to have misplaced my wallet. My money, my identification, and all my papers are inside it.”
“Of course you did.” Andrea began edging her way down the hallway past him. She didn’t know what kind of game he was playing now, but she knew that chief or not, she needed to put some distance between them.
“Now, wait a minute, Chief. I do have a wallet. I just can’t seem to find it. Unless … wait a minute. That old farmer, the one who gave me a ride.”
“I suppose one of our citizens picked your pocket?” Andrea said without thinking, then wished she’d kept silent. Let him concoct his story. He could tell it to Buck tomorrow.
“I threw my pack in the back of his truck. With all the bouncing around that truck did, the wallet must have fallen out. Come on, Chief, you probably know the man. His tractor had broken down, and he’d been somewhere to get a new part. Name was Otis something-or-other.”
“Parker,” Andrea supplied with relief. Otis always had something broken down. “Fine, we’ll have a talk with Otis tomorrow and see if he knows anything about your wallet. In the meantime, I’ll forget about any charge of breaking-and-entering tonight, but you’d better be able to prove who you are tomorrow, or you’d better be gone.”
Andrea spotted her cap on the floor, picked it up, and slipped past Sam Farley into the kitchen. “Good night, Sam.”
“Wait a minute, Chief. What about my food?” He dropped in behind the woman who was charging out the door and striding down the drive.
Food. She’d promised to feed him. Andrea brushed back a lock of wet hair and remembered that she’d left her rain slicker on the porch. “All right, cowboy, come with me.”