Til Death Do Us Part (5 page)

She felt a big hand gently clutch her shoulder. Gasping, she turned quickly, bumping into J.T. and losing her balance. He grabbed her by both shoulders to steady her.

“Elena's all right,” he said. “I promised her that I'd walk you home and try to persuade you to stay on at the ranch.”

“Which you won't do, will you?”

He rubbed her shoulders with his big hands. “You're tight as a coiled spring, honey. What's wrong with you? You act like you're afraid of me.”

“I told you once before that I'm not afraid of anything, most especially not you.”

“Well, that's good to know, because I'm harmless. I'd never hurt you.”

Joanna longed to believe him, to take him at his word, but she knew better than to trust a man like J. T. Blackwood. Any man, for that matter. Joanna hadn't trusted a man in five years. Not since a monster had sadistically raped her in her own apartment. Not since her devoted fiancé had walked off and left her to face the trial and months of therapy without his love and support.

“I'd never give you the chance to hurt me, Mr. Blackwood.”

“I thought we were finally on a first-name basis. Remember, I'm J.T.—” he released one of her shoulders and tapped his chest with the tips of his fingers “—and you're Jo.” He pointed to her.

“Please, don't call me Jo.”

“Elena calls you Jo.”

“I know, but that's different,” Joanna said. “She's my good friend and you're…you're—”

“Not your friend?”

“No, not my friend.”

“Then what am I?” He slipped his arm around her waist, urging her closer.

She couldn't seem to breathe. Her head spun. She clutched his arms, feeling firm muscles beneath her fingers.

They both heard a man clear his throat. J.T. glanced over Joanna's shoulder and saw Cliff Lansdell, his ranch foreman, standing in the yard. Turning Joanna around so that she stood at his side, J.T. kept his arm about her waist.

“What's wrong, Cliff?” J.T. asked.

“Sorry to bother you, J.T., but you told me to let you know when Queen Nefertiti was about to foal. I've called Dr. Gray.”

“Thanks, Cliff. I'll come on out to the stables in a few minutes. After I walk Miss Beaumont home.”

“That's not necessary,” Joanna said at the same moment Cliff spoke.

“I'll be glad to walk Joanna home, if you're in a hurry to get out to the stables, J.T.”

“I'll walk Jo home.” J.T. said her name in a sultry way, tightening his hold around her waist.

Joanna had the oddest notion that J. T. Blackwood had just laid claim to her, that somehow he had warned Cliff that she was out of bounds to any other man.

“I'll see you over at the stables, then.” Cliff's shoulders slumped. He glanced at Joanna. “Good night.” He tipped his hat, turned and walked away.

“I can get home by myself.” She snapped out the words, not caring how she sounded.

“Would you like to come to the stables with me and wait for the blessed event?” J.T. ran his fingers up and down the side of her waist.

Joanna sucked in her breath. “No. No, thank you.”

“My Appaloosa, Washington, is the colt's sire and this will be Queen Nefertiti's first. It's a special occasion.”

“Then you should go on. Don't waste time walking me home.”

J.T. guided her off the porch and across the yard, not saying a word. When they reached her front door, she unlocked and opened it, then turned to him. “Good night.”

“Goodbye.” He lifted his hand, touching her face with his fingertips; the caress was soft, hesitant and quickly over. “I'll be back in Atlanta when you return from the reservation, so it could be months, probably Christmas, before I come back to the ranch.”

“Goodbye, then. I—I won't see you at Christmas. I plan to go back to Virginia and spend Christmas with my mother.”

“If we're very careful, we should be able to avoid ever seeing each other again,” he said.

She nodded agreement. They stared at each other for a brief moment before J.T. turned and walked away. Joanna took a deep breath, thankful that he hadn't kissed her, then went inside and locked the door behind her.

 

J.T.
WALKED BY
the old bunkhouse on his way back from the stables shortly after daybreak the following morning. He hadn't expected to see Joanna, dressed in jeans and an oversize shirt, sitting on her porch. He had thought—hell, he had hoped—he'd never see her again after last night. He couldn't quite put his finger on what it was, but there was something about Joanna Beaumont that sent up red warning signals inside his head. She meant trouble for him, and J.T. never let a woman cause him trouble.

“Good morning,” she called out to him. “Is everything all right with Queen Nefertiti and her colt?”

J.T. walked over and placed his foot on the bottom step leading up to her front porch. “Mother and daughter are doing just fine. When I stopped by and told Washington he was the father of a beautiful filly, he acted as if he knew what I was talking about.”

“Maybe he did.” Joanna clutched a large, tan mug in her hands. “Sometimes I think animals are a lot smarter than we humans give them credit for being.”

“Yeah, you're probably right.” J.T. ran his right hand over his face, the overnight's growth of beard scratchy against his palm. “I need a shower and a shave and about ten hours of sleep.” He eyed the mug she held. “But first I could use a cup of coffee.”

She glanced into the pale brown liquid she'd been sipping on for the past few minutes, then looked down at J.T. “Come on up and have a seat. I'll go inside and get you a cup. How do you like it? Black?”

“Black, but with a little sugar. A teaspoonful will do.”

“Okay. I'll be right back.”

While she went inside to get his coffee, he walked up the steps and onto the porch, then slumped down in one of the cane-seated rockers. God, he was tired. But it was a good kind of tired. Here on the ranch he could work hard
enough to physically exhaust himself, but he didn't have to face the stress and pressure of his job, which was far more exhausting—mentally as well as physically.

“This is high-octane stuff,” Joanna said when she returned with his coffee. “If you're planning on going straight to bed, the caffeine could keep you awake.”

He accepted the cup she offered, being careful not to touch her hand in the process. “I don't think anything will keep me from sleeping this morning.”

Taking a swig of the coffee, he sighed. “Good. And just the right amount of sugar.”

She sat down beside him in the other rocker and lifted her mug to her lips. She hadn't expected to see J.T. this morning. She'd had no idea he'd stayed at the stables all night. But there was no reason to panic, no reason to be rude to him. By noon today, she'd be packed and ready to leave, and when she returned next week, J.T. would be gone.

While she was away, she would have to come to terms with her foolish dream of finding real love and happiness in New Mexico. She had met the man who had inherited Benjamin's ring as she had inherited Annabelle's, and knowing J. T. Blackwood had opened her eyes to reality. There would be no fantasy lover come to life for her. There would be no happily-ever-after for a pair of present-day lovers, any more than there had been for the star-crossed lovers over seventy years ago.

“Do you always get up so early?” J.T. asked.

“What?”

“It's barely daylight and you're up, dressed, and have already fixed coffee,” he said. “Is this your normal routine?”

“Not always. But sometimes I get up this early and
paint. There's nothing more glorious than a New Mexico sunrise, unless it's a New Mexico sunset.”

“You're really in love with this country, aren't you? You've fallen under its enchanted spell like so many Easterners have done over the years.”

“My great-grandmother fell in love…with New Mexico over seventy years ago, when she and her husband spent the summer here on an archaeological dig.” Joanna finished her coffee, placed her empty mug on the table between the two rockers, then looked toward the east at the morning sky.

“Yeah, Elena told me the story, or what you told her.” J.T. took another swig of coffee, then placed his half-full cup beside Joanna's. “Your great-grandmother was a married woman who had an affair with one of the natives, then left the guy and went back home to her safe, secure life in Virginia as the wife of a well-to-do college professor and renowned archaeologist.”

Joanna's spine stiffened; she clutched the arms of the rocker. “There was a great deal more to their affair. They were truly in love. It broke her heart to leave him. She loved him as long as she lived.” Joanna thrust her right hand in front of J.T.'s face. “She wore his ring until the day she died.”

“If she loved him so damned much, why didn't she leave her husband and stay here in New Mexico with him?” Grabbing Joanna's hand, J.T. twisted the silver-and-turquoise ring around and around on her finger. “I'll tell you why. Because Benjamin Greymountain was good enough to take as a lover, but not good enough to marry. He wasn't good enough for her to give up everything and spend her life with him. That's not love, Jo, that's—”

Jerking her hand out his, she jumped to her feet. “What would you know about love? Listening to you talk about
our great-grandparents in that way is a sacrilege. If you had read Annabelle's diary, you wouldn't say such things. You'd know how deeply she loved Benjamin, and how completely she trusted his love for her.”

J.T. stood, grabbed Joanna and whipped her around to face him. “You're right. I don't know the first thing about love, but I know all about lust, all about how good it feels to scratch an itch that's driving you crazy.” Lowering his head, he nuzzled the side of her face with his nose.

No, no! her mind screamed. She wasn't going to let him do this. She wasn't going to let him reduce the beautiful love Benjamin and Annabelle had shared into some meaningless sexual affair. And she wasn't going to let him prove his point by showing her that the two of them felt those same animalistic urges.

She struggled against his hold, a feeling of panic building inside her. J.T. clutched her waist, pulling her up against him. She gasped when she felt his arousal. “We could have what Benjamin and Annabelle had, if that's what you want. We could spend the next week making love night and day, and then I'll go back to Atlanta and you can write in your diary about how exciting it was, having an Indian lover.”

“Let go of me.” She glared at him, hating him. Hating him for making light of their great-grandparents' love. Hating him for stirring passion to life within her.

“You don't want the kind of affair your beloved ancestress had?” J.T. taunted her. “Are you saying you didn't come to Trinidad—” he yanked her hand up, entwined their fingers and pulled their hands between their faces so that they could see their matching rings “—with all kinds of romantic notions of a Navajo man fulfilling your sexual fantasies?”

“You don't know anything about me. About my dreams. Or my fantasies.”

He lowered his head. She held tightly to his hand, trying to keep their clasped hands in front of her face. He pulled their hands down, leaned closer and brushed a light kiss across her lips. She stiffened.

“I know you want me—as much as I want you,” he said.

She didn't fight him, made no protest when he kissed her. She had thought the kiss would be harsh and cruel and savage. But it wasn't. He took her lips with force, but it was a sweet, tender power that swept through her body like a strong but nondestructive wind.

She returned the kiss, opening her mouth, allowing his invasion. Tingling warmth spread from her breasts to the core of her femininity. When he cupped the back of her head with one hand and caressed her hip with the other, pushing her firmly against his hard sex, she slipped her arms up around his neck. She had never known anything like this raging hunger inside her, this overwhelming need to possess and be possessed.

Just when her knees weakened and she trembled with passion, J.T. pushed her away. He stood several inches from her, his breathing ragged, sweat beads dampening his forehead.

Reaching down, she gripped the arm of her rocker for support as she stared at him, not knowing what to say or do. She wanted to lash out at him, accuse him of something horrible, but she couldn't. She had been a willing participant, her need as wild as his.

“Go to the reservation, Jo. Paint your noble savages and your magnificent sunrises and sunsets. But find yourself another Indian to take as a lover. I'm not in the market for a summer fling with a bored debutante.”

He glared at her. She stood ramrod straight, unmoving, her face an unemotional mask. When he turned and stomped down the steps, out into the yard and toward the main house, Joanna stayed on the porch, silent and still, until he disappeared from her view. Then she released the tight control she'd been determined to keep over her emotions. Tears filled her eyes. The unbearable pain in her chest burst free when she gulped in a deep breath of air and let out an agonized moan.

J
OANNA PLACED HER
art supplies in the back of the Jeep, then lifted her small floral suitcase and her matching overnight bag. She'd packed light, taking two pairs of jeans, two blouses, a nightgown and several changes of underwear. She would stay with Elena's cousins, Kate and Ed Whitehorn, who had opened their home to her on several previous occasions. She had telephoned them this morning, apologizing for giving them such short notice, and found Kate delighted to have company.

Joanna glanced down at her watch as she stepped up on the porch. Eleven-twenty. She would double-check everything in the house, making sure no electrical appliances had been left on, then she'd fix herself a sandwich and eat lunch before running up to the main house to say goodbye to Elena. She prayed J.T. would still be asleep so she wouldn't have to see him again.

The telephone rang just as she entered the house. Leaving the front door open, she dashed across the living room. She picked it up on the fifth ring, just in time to keep her answering machine from being activated.

“Hello,” Joanna said.

“Joanna?”

“Mother?”

“Yes, dear. How are you?” Helene Beaumont asked.

“I'm fine.” It wasn't like her mother to call unexpectedly. Senator Helene Caldwell Beaumont was the most
organized person Joanna had ever known. Her mother called twice a month, at nine-thirty on Sunday morning. “Is something wrong? Did Uncle Peter have another heart attack?”

“No, dear. Peter is just fine.”

“Then what's wrong? Why are you calling?”

“I—I don't quite know how to tell you this, but—”

“For heaven's sake, Mother, will you just tell me? You're scaring me to death, acting this way.” Her mother never stuttered, never hesitated, never postponed till tomorrow what could be accomplished today.

“That policeman, Lieutenant George, came to my office earlier today.”

At the mention of Lieutenant George, every nerve in Joanna's body screamed, every muscle tightened. Milton George had been in charge of her rape case and all the other cases involving the serial rapist who had attacked a total of twelve women in the Richmond area before being arrested.

“What did Lieutenant George want?”

“I thought about flying out there to tell you, but—”

“Dammit, Mother, just tell me!”

“Lenny Plott has escaped from prison.” Helene let out a long sigh.

“But that's not possible.” Joanna couldn't believe the monster who had brutally attacked her was free and running around loose. “He's in a maximum-security prison. It would have been impossible for him to escape.”

“I know what a shock this must be for you, dear, but I'm afraid it's true. Lenny Plott did escape. And—and I'm afraid there's more.”

“More?”

“He escaped less than forty-eight hours ago and he's already found Melody Horton.”

“What do mean he's ‘already found' Melody?” Melody was the twenty-year-old college student who, along with Joanna and two other victims, had testified against their rapist and sent him away to prison for the rest of his natural life.

“She was kidnapped. A neighbor recognized the man she drove off with. She identified him from police photographs. It was Lenny Plott.”

“Have the police found her?”

“Yes.” Helene's voice was so low, Joanna could barely hear her.

“Is she…?”

“She was strangled to death,” Helene said, her words spoken unquaveringly. “Lieutenant George wanted you and Claire and Libby to know that Plott is on the loose and has already killed…?. Please, come home, dear. Your life is in danger. Come home and I'll hire a bodyguard for you.”

“Lenny Plott has no idea where I am now,” Joanna said. “He doesn't know I moved to New Mexico and he doesn't know where Claire and Libby are. I don't even know where Libby is.”

“Lieutenant George is afraid Lenny will somehow find out where the three of you have moved. He thinks Lenny will hunt y'all down.”

“How could this have happened? When Lenny Plott went to prison, our nightmare was supposed to have ended. I won't—I can't live in fear. Not again. Not ever again!”

Joanna would never forget those first few weeks after her rape when she lived in fear the man would return and rape her again. Even after Lenny Plott had been arrested, she hadn't felt safe. To this day, she knew there was always a possibility that it could happen again, but she had
learned to face the fear and put it in its proper place. She was careful, always cautious of strangers and new acquaintances. She'd bought a gun and learned how to use it properly. She'd taken self-defense classes and had undergone months of therapy. No, by God, she would not allow Lenny Plott's escape to destroy the life she'd built here in Trinidad. She would not run scared.

“Joanna, are you still there, dear? Please, say something.”

“I'm all right. I'm staying where I am. I'm safe here. I'll tell Elena about Lenny Plott. I should have told her a long time ago, but I wanted to pretend it had never happened. Out here, no one knows about the rape.”

“But what if Lenny finds you?”

“He won't.” Joanna tried to reassure her mother, but in the back of her mind, doubts swarmed like angry killer bees. “I'll tell Elena and she can explain to Alex. There are dozens of ranch hands around this place, macho guys who know how to use guns. And Trinidad is a small town. Everybody knows everybody. If a stranger were to show up, I'd hear about it.”

“Lieutenant George is going to call you later today,” Helene said. “He's promised to keep us updated. They…the police have a statewide manhunt under way. They're going to catch that monster and put him back in prison where he belongs.”

“Yes, of course, they will. He probably won't get out of Richmond.”

“I wish you'd come home.”

“I'm safer here, and Trinidad is my home now.”

“Call me every day, just to let me know—” Helene's voice cracked.

“Every day. I promise.”

“I love you, Joanna. You know that, don't you?”

“Yes, Mother,” Joanna said. “And I love you.”

“Take care, dear. And let me know if there's anything I can do.”

“I will, Mother. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

Joanna hung up the phone slowly, then slumped down on the apricot-gold leather sofa. For just a minute she felt completely numb, as if her body and mind had frozen instantly. Then, just as quickly, the feeling returned. She shivered, suddenly cold. Her hands trembled. The quivering sensation spread up her arms, down her legs. A tight fist clutched her chest. She couldn't breathe.

Dear God, no, please, no. A sour taste, salty and hot, rose in her throat. Memories—horrendous memories—flashed through her mind. Memories she had buried so deep she thought they could never resurface. She had spent five long, difficult years recovering from that night, putting every thought of Lenny Plott and what he'd done to her out of her mind. Forgetting had been the most difficult thing she'd ever done, but she had forced herself to forget, had forced herself to go on with her life. She was too strong to allow what had happened to her defeat her.

Joanna broke out in a cold sweat. Her heart thundered at a frantic pace. Doubling over, she clutched her knees, drew them up against her body and rocked back and forth. Heavy, painful tears lodged in her throat.

“If you scream, I'll kill you.” He had whispered the words in her ear as he held the sharp knife blade to her throat.

“No! Don't do this to yourself,” Joanna cried.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to capture her tears, to stop them from falling.

Piercing blue eyes glared down at her. Hard, bruising hands clutched her breasts. A bony knee thrust between
her legs. The strong odor of stale whiskey breath covered her mouth. She tried to shove him away, tried to scream. The knife blade nicked her throat. Blood trickled down onto her chest.

Joanna's eyes flew open. She shook from head to toe as she kept rocking back and forth. “Stop this! Don't remember! Please, don't remember…?. Don't—”

The loud pounding on the front door sounded muffled to Joanna's ears, overpowered by the sound of her own heartbeat. Her mind was so filled with pain, the pain of trying not to remember, that it took her a few minutes to realize that someone was knocking at her door.

“Jo? Hey, Jo. Are you about ready to leave?” Elena called out as she walked into the living room.

Elena. Her friend. Someone who cared about her. She mustn't let Elena find her like this. Move, dammit, move! Sit up straight. Stop crying.

“My God, Jo, what's wrong?” Elena rushed over to the sofa. Dropping to her knees, she grabbed Joanna by the shoulders. “What's happened? Are you sick?”

Joanna managed to shake her head, but when she tried to respond, she couldn't. “Are you hurt?” Elena asked.

Shaking her head again, Joanna opened her mouth and tried to speak. The sound was a squeaky gasp.

“Try to tell me what happened.” Elena shook Joanna soundly. “Come on, talk to me, Jo. You're frightening me.” Elena reached out and wiped the tears off Joanna's cheeks, then slipped her arms around her and hugged her.

Joanna gulped several times, then groaned. Her body relaxed. She eased her hands off her knees and slid her feet onto the floor. Elena held on tight, continuing to hug her.

“Five—five years ago, I was raped,” Joanna whispered.

“Oh, Jo…Jo. I'm so sorry.”

“I left Virginia and came out here to New Mexico to start a new life.” Joanna hugged Elena, then pulled away from her. “I didn't want anyone out here to know. I should have told you, after we became such good friends, but by then I'd put what happened behind me. I worked so hard at trying to forget.”

Elena rubbed Joanna's arms. “What happened today? Did you have some sort of flashback?”

“My mother called. It seems the man who raped me… Oh, God!” Joanna jumped up off the sofa and paced back and forth. “This can't be happening!”

“What can't be happening?” Elena asked, standing and following Joanna around the room in her frantic stroll.

“The man who raped me—Lenny Plott—was what the police refer to as a serial rapist. I was his eleventh victim. After he raped his twelfth victim, the police caught him.”

“Then he's in prison, isn't he?” Elena swirled about in front of Joanna, forcing her to halt. “Isn't he?”

“I testified against him. Claire Andrews, Libby Felton, Melody Horton and I. We made sure he would never rape another woman.”

“I know it took a lot of guts to do what you four did. But you did the right thing.”

“Yes, we did the right thing,” Joanna said. “And when our rapist was sentenced to life in prison, we all went on with our lives. Melody stayed on in Virginia and finished college. Claire moved back home to Missouri. Libby just left town. We never heard from her again.”

“And you came to Trinidad.”

“Elena, Lenny Plott escaped from prison.”

“What?”

“He escaped about forty-eight hours ago.” Joanna covered her mouth with her hands.

Elena grabbed Joanna's hands and pulled them away from her face. “What are you not telling me?”

“He kidnapped Melody Horton and murdered her. The day the judge sentenced him, he swore that somehow he'd get free and hunt us all down. He swore he'd kill us.”

Elena put her arms around Joanna, hugging her fiercely. “You're safe here, on the ranch, with us. He doesn't know where you are. He can't find you here.”

“But what if he does?” Joanna, her eyes dry and dazed, looked at her best friend. “I'm scared, Elena. I'm so scared.”

Elena rubbed Joanna's back. “I know. I know. But everything's going to be all right. J.T. will know exactly how to handle this situation. He'll take care of—”

“J.T.? No, please, I don't want your brother to know about this.”

“Don't be silly,” Elena said. “J.T. knows more about protecting someone than anybody in the whole wide world. He was a Secret Service agent until he got shot in the head and blinded in one eye. For the past six years, he's been a partner in a private security agency.”

“Mother wants me to come home. Back to Virginia. She's offered to hire a bodyguard for me. I'm sure, if I asked her, she'd hire someone and send him out here.”

“But don't you see, there's no need to hire another bodyguard when we've got J.T. It's what he does for a living.”

“No, Elena, I—”

“We're not going to argue about this. You're going to stay here on the ranch and live every day as normally as you possibly can. J.T. is an expert on private security. He'll know what to do to keep you safe.”

“I can't tell J.T. that I was—”

“Don't sell my big brother short. He'll understand. You can count on him. Trust me, Jo. Please. And trust J.T.”

Trust J.T.? How could she trust him? How could she trust any man?

“This agency in Atlanta,” Joanna said, “are there other agents? Someone J.T. could send back here when he returns? Mother will pay for—”

“What do you mean when he returns! Once I tell him about your situation, he'll stay here and guard you himself.”

“I wouldn't ask him to do that.” She wasn't sure what she feared most, Lenny Plott finding out where she was or J. T. Blackwood agreeing to act as her bodyguard. If he found her, Plott could kill her. But if she allowed herself to become involved with J.T., he could completely destroy her emotionally.

 

J.T.
DISMOUNTED
, dropped the reins and spoke softly to Washington, who followed behind him while he walked along the bank of the stream—his favorite spot on the ranch, high in the hills, secluded and quiet, close to nature.