Dream a Little Dream (17 page)

“Everything happened too fast. I didn’t have time to think of it.”

He lifted an eyebrow and took a lazy step forward. “Hand it over.”

Her heart felt as if it were moving toward her throat. “No way, Slick. This is mine. It was a present from my grandmother on my sixth birthday.”

“Give it to me.”

“She sold zucchinis in the broiling sun one entire summer so she could give this to me, and she made me swear always to keep it.”

“We can do this easy or rough, it’s up to you.”

She swallowed hard. “Okay, you win. I’ll give it to you. But first I need to dry myself off. I’m freezing.” She edged away from him toward the family room.

He stepped in front of her, blocking the way. “Nice try.”

With one swift movement, he pulled the chest from her arms.

Ignoring her gasp of dismay, he headed for the stairs. “Go ahead and dry off while I put this away. And I’ll take that key when you’re done.”

“Stop it!” She couldn’t let him do this, and she charged after him across the marble. “You’re being a sadistic ass! Just let me look at it.”

“Why?”

“Because I might have left something inside.”

“Such as?”

She hesitated. “An old love letter from Dwayne.”

He regarded her with disgust and turned back toward the stairs.

“Stop!”

He kept going.

“Wait!” She grabbed his arm, then wished she hadn’t touched him, and quickly let go. “Okay, maybe Dwayne might have left something in it.”

He paused with one foot on the bottom step. “Like what?”

“Like—” Her mind raced. “A lock of Edward’s baby hair.”

“You’re going to have to do a lot better than that.” He began to climb.

“All right! I’ll tell you.” She struggled to come up with another lie, but couldn’t think of anything that would be even mildly convincing. She would either have to tell him the truth or let him take the chest away. It was no choice. She couldn’t let the chest disappear again until she’d looked inside it, and she’d have to take the risk.

“Like the secret behind where he hid five million dollars.”

That brought him up short. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

She gazed up at him and worked hard to swallow. “The money’s mine, Bonner. It’s Edward’s legacy. There are still some debts left, but the rest belongs to him. I earned every penny!”

“How do you figure?”

She got ready to give it to him—her smartest, sassiest, most wiseassed response. But then, just as the words were coming out, something happened inside her throat, and her voice broke. “Because I sold my soul for it,” she whispered.

For a moment he didn’t say anything. Then he tilted his head toward the top of the stairs. “I’ll get you a robe. Your teeth are chattering.”

Half an hour later, she sat across from him in the kitchen wearing nothing but her panties and his maroon terry-cloth robe as she stared down at the Kennedy chest. Her eyes were dry—she’d never cry in front of him again—but inside, she felt desolate.

“I was so sure.” She shook her head, still unable to believe the chest held no clues. They had examined every microscopic inch of it and found nothing: no secret compartment holding a safe-deposit key, no Swiss bank-account number etched into the wood beneath the lining, no map or microfilm or computer password.

She wanted to slam her fists against the table, but instead, she forced herself to think. “The county sheriff was there along with the Salvation police, so there was a lot of law enforcement. One of them must have looked in the chest when he confiscated it and found something. One of them must have it.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Gabe picked up her coffee mug and carried it to the sink, where he refilled it from the pot on the counter. “You told me you checked the box before you got into the car. You looked and didn’t find anything, so why would they? Besides, if the sheriff or one of our local police had stumbled on that kind of cash, we’d have seen some evidence of it by now, and the only person in the community who’s spent any big money has been Cal.”

“Maybe he—”

“Forget it. Cal made millions while he was in the NFL. Besides, if he or Jane had found anything in that box, they wouldn’t have kept it a secret.”

He was right. She slumped back into the red-velvet banquette in the kitchen’s eating alcove. In her day the alcove had been wallpapered with gruesome full-blown metallic roses on the verge of decay, but they were gone now, replaced with small yellow rosebuds. The wallpaper was so completely out of place that it could only be some kind of private joke on the part of the current owners.

Gabe set the fresh mug of coffee in front of her and brushed her shoulder in a surprisingly gentle gesture. She wanted to tilt her cheek against the back of his hand, but he removed it before she could give in to the impulse. “Rachel, the odds are the money’s at the bottom of the ocean.”

She shook her head. “Dwayne had to leave the country too fast to handle any kind of complicated transaction. He couldn’t possibly have taken that much money with him on such short notice.”

Gabe sat across from her and set his arms on the table. Her eyes lingered there. His forearms were strong and deeply tanned, sprinkled with dark hair. “Tell me again everything he said that day.”

She repeated the story, leaving out nothing. When she was done, she twisted her hands on the table. “I wanted to believe him when he told me he had to say good-bye to Edward, but I knew something was wrong. I suppose Dwayne loved Edward in an abstract way, but not in any way that counted. He was too self-centered.”

“Then why didn’t he just tell you to bring him the chest? Why did he bother asking you to bring Edward at all?”

“Because we were barely speaking at that point, and he knew that saying good-bye to his son was the one thing I couldn’t refuse him.” She cradled her coffee mug. “During my pregnancy with Edward, I finally came out of denial about what was going on at the Temple, and I made up my mind to leave him. But when I told him, he went ballistic. Not out of sentiment, but because, in those days, I was popular with his electronic congregation.” Her mouth twisted bitterly. “He said he’d take Edward away from me if I ever tried to leave. I had to stay where I was, go on television with him for every broadcast, and not give any sign I was unhappy. Otherwise, he told me he knew men who would testify that I’d seduced them, and he’d prove I was an unfit mother.”

“Bastard.”

“Not the way he saw it. He found scripture to justify it.”

“You said he also told you to bring his Bible.”

“It was his mother’s. He was sentimental about—” She straightened, and her gaze locked with his. “Do you think the clue might be in the Bible?”

“I don’t think there is a clue. The money’s in the ocean.”

“You’re wrong! You don’t understand how frantic he sounded on the phone that evening.”

“He was about to be arrested, and he was getting ready to flee the country. That would make anybody frantic.”

“Fine! Don’t believe me.” She sprang to her feet in frustration. She had to find that Bible. Locating the money was the only hope she had for the future, but he didn’t care about that.

Her nose was beginning to run from too much emotion, and she sniffed as she stalked toward the laundry room where her dress was tumbling in the dryer.

He spoke from behind her, his voice as gentle as the soft patter of rain outside. “Rachel. I’m on your side.”

She wasn’t prepared for his support, and she was so tired of fighting that it nearly undid her. She wanted to lean against him, if only for a moment, and let those sturdy shoulders bear some of the burden she carried. The temptation was so strong that it terrified her. The only person she could depend on was herself.

“You’re all heart,” she sneered, determined to put up a barrier between them that was so big he’d never cross it again.

But he didn’t get angry. “I mean it.”

“Thanks for nothing.” She whirled on him. “Who are you kidding? After what happened to your family, you’re so twisted inside that you can’t even help yourself, let alone me.”

The words were barely out before she caught her breath. What was happening to her? She hadn’t meant to sound so cruel, and she felt a wave of dislike for the sharp-tongued woman she’d become.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he turned away without a word.

Not even desperation was an excuse for the kind of nastiness she’d just administered. She stuck her hands in the front pockets of his robe and followed him into the kitchen. “Gabe, I’m sorry. I should never have lashed out at you like that.”

“Forget it.” He snatched his keys from the counter. “Get dressed and I’ll take you home.”

She came closer. “I don’t mean to be a bitch. You were acting like a nice guy for a change, and I shouldn’t have struck out like that. I really am sorry.”

He didn’t respond.

The dryer buzzer went off, and she knew there wasn’t anything more she could say. He would either accept her apology or reject it.

She returned to the laundry room where she pulled out the pink dress. It was a dismal mass of wrinkles, testifying to its pre–permanent press origins, but since she had nothing else to wear, she pushed the door shut, slipped out of Gabe’s robe, and stepped into it, wrinkles and all.

She had just pulled the dress over her arms when the door opened. She drew the bodice together and turned to him.

He looked hostile and unhappy: furrowed brow, tightly set lips, hands driven into the pockets of his jeans. “I just want to get one thing straight. I don’t need anybody’s pity, especially yours.”

She dropped her gaze to her buttons, because it was easier than meeting his eyes, and began fastening them. “I don’t pity you, exactly. You’re too self-reliant for pity. But knowing that you lost your wife and son makes me feel sick.”

He said nothing for a moment, but as she lifted her gaze, she saw that the tendons in his neck had relaxed. He pulled his hands from his pockets. His eyes drifted to her breasts, and she realized her fingers had stalled on the button there. She finished fastening it.

“What did you mean about Ethan coddling me?”

“Nothing. My mouth got away from me again.”

“For God’s sake, Rachel, could you just
try
to shoot straight with me for once!” He stalked away.

She frowned. He was as prickly as rusted barbed wire. She finished buttoning her dress as she followed him back to the kitchen, where he’d yanked on a Chicago Stars cap and was shoving on his sunglasses, obviously having forgotten that it was drizzling outside.

She walked over to him. Her full skirt brushed against the legs of his jeans, and she resisted the urge to curl her arm around his waist. “People talk to you as if they’re afraid you’re going to break apart at any minute. I don’t think that’s good for you; it keeps you from moving forward. You’re a strong man. Everyone needs to remember that, including you.”

“Strong!” He ripped off the sunglasses and sent them skittering across the counter. “You don’t know anything about it.” His cap hit the counter, then bounced to the floor.

She didn’t back away. “You are, Gabe. You’re tough.”

“Don’t confuse me with you!”

His footsteps punished the marble floor as he stalked past her and headed for the family room.

She’d been alone with pain too often herself to even think about letting him go. The family room was empty, but the sliding doors that led to the deck were open. As she walked toward them, she saw him standing outside clutching the railing as he stared up at Heartache Mountain.

The drizzle had changed to light rain, but he didn’t seem to notice that he was getting wet. Beads of water glistened in his hair and darkened the shoulders of his T-shirt. She’d never seen anyone who looked lonelier, and she stepped out into the rain with him.

He gave no indication that he heard her coming up behind him, so that she wasn’t quite prepared when he spoke. “I keep a gun by my bed, Rachel. And it’s not there for protection.”

“Oh, Gabe . . .”

Every part of her wanted to touch him and offer what comfort she could, but he seemed surrounded by an invisible barrier, one she was afraid to cross. Instead, she moved next to him and lay her arms over the wet railing. “Does it get any easier?”

“It was easier for a while. Then you showed up.”

“I’ve made it more difficult for you?”

He hesitated. “I don’t know anymore. But you’ve changed things.”

“And you don’t like that.”

“Maybe I like it too much.” He finally turned to her. “I guess these past couple of weeks have been a little better. You’ve been a distraction.”

She gave him a weak smile. “I’m glad.”

He scowled, but there wasn’t any real anger behind it. “I didn’t say you’d been a good distraction. Just a distraction.”

“I understand.” Rain soaked her dress, but it was warmer out here than inside the air-conditioned house, and she wasn’t cold.

“I miss her all the time.” His eyes searched her face, and his voice grew deeper, huskier. “So why do I want you so much that I ache with it?”

The rumble of distant thunder accompanied his words, almost seemed part of them. A tremor passed through her. “I think . . . I think we’ve been drawn together by desperation.”

“I can’t give you a damn thing except sex.”

“Maybe that’s exactly what I need from you.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“You don’t know what I mean.” Being so close was suddenly overwhelming, and she turned her back to him. Crossing her arms over her chest, she moved to the other side of the deck. Overhead, the sky hung low, while mist clung to the mountains like a tattered gray prom dress.

“I had my womanhood stolen from me, Gabe. On my wedding night he gave me a lecture right from the nineteenth century on how my body was God’s vessel, and he’d disturb it as little as possible. He made me lie there. He didn’t touch my breasts or caress me. He just pushed himself inside me. It hurt like hell, and I started to cry, and the more I cried the happier that made him because it was proof of my virtue, proof that I wasn’t carnal like him. But that wasn’t true. I’d been fascinated by sex for as long as I could remember. So don’t try to tell me what I want.”