The rain, splashing up from the concrete walkway, wetted the legs of his jeans. He looked down at his bare feet and turned slowly back to the house.
Where the hell was she? This was unlike her. She was always so responsible, even if she sometimes had to be reminded about important things like paying bills immediately or making sure there was always mouthwash in his bathroom. Marsh was torn between the fear that something bad—maybe
really
bad, maybe she was hurt, or dead, or
taken
—had happened to her, and the fear that she was exposing him to others, who might not understand or condone the things he knew were necessary.
He closed the door behind him, his wet feet slick on the tile of the entry. But this time he didn’t lock it. If she was out there, trying to get home to him, she’d need to be able to get in the house. They would discuss her stupid, risky behavior in the morning.
Marsh slid down the wall and sat on the cool tiles. He’d just wait right here for her—the room was beginning to swim a little, anyway, and he felt like being still for a while. He’d wait right here.
Then, first thing in the morning, if Abigail hadn’t come home, he’d go see that clerk at the convenience store. Look in his eyes, see what was truth and what was not. Maybe knock a little sense into him.
He nodded to himself and watched the living room whirl and teeter. It was a good plan.
Marsh’s eyes closed and he sagged gently to the side, coming to rest with his cheek against the wood panels of the front door. He slept the sleep of the drunk and the just, not even twitching when a terrific blast of lightning struck somewhere nearby.
Chapter 7
P
rogress was good along the marl road at first. Its shadowy-pale ribbon was easy to follow, and while Abby kept alert ears for noises in the underbrush to each side of the road, she heard nothing but an occasional night bird calling, and the ceaseless screeching of the cicadas with a choir of crickets for harmony. She stayed on the high crown at the middle of the road, where wheels hadn’t rutted or softened the grade. The footing was more sure and firm there. The moon was low in the sky already, but her eyes were well-adjusted, and its glow was enough to delineate the road from its edges. For a while her pace was rapid, as she sought to put distance between herself and the campsite. Then, feeling a little more certain she had managed to escape without Cade discovering her absence, she slowed enough to catch her breath.
Before long, Abby wished she’d thought to grab a bottle of water along with her wallet. The night was still warm, and she had a headache from the day’s heat and her own emotional excesses. Water would have helped. She swallowed, but her mouth and throat were dry.
Stupid,
she told herself. Once again she had jumped without looking, without a plan. But on she trekked. By morning she hoped to be somewhere far down the highway, on her way to Gainesville and a different life, no matter how rough the beginning might be. Maybe in a few weeks she could go back to Wildwood, after she had her feet under her, a job, a place to live. She would go back only long enough to gather up the critical things from the house, and she’d get Judy and Drew to go with her. After this debacle with Cade Latimer and his truck, she’d never again feel reluctant about revealing the truth of the relationship she had with Marsh. Marsh had played on her pride and her humiliation to keep her in thrall, but never again.
“I was stupid not to tell Judy the first time he hit me,” she said aloud now. Her voice sounded strange in the darkness. Judy would have helped, Abby knew that now. Distance from the situation had lent the necessary perspective at last.
A ways off she heard a soughing, rushing noise, and before long a light, dancing breeze cooled her sweaty skin. She lifted her face to the sky and saw the fat bulges of thunderheads blotting out stars. Summer thunder was more common in the sauna conditions of afternoon, but not unknown at night. As she looked up, the clouds lit from within, heat lightning flickering inside. The breeze increased, gusting past her, and bringing with it the electric stink of ozone.
At first the breeze was like the wet warmth from a steaming shower, but it quickly pushed the heat away and brought the rich scent of wet earth and thirsty greenery quenched by storm rains. The heat lightning became bolts shooting from cloud to cloud, blinding Abby so that she had to halt, eyes closed, until the afterimage faded and she could see to walk safely again. Clouds thickened overhead, and at last the moonlight was gone, leaving only the weird storm light and the gray marl to show her the way.
With a massive crack of lightning and a rumble of thunder, the rain crashed down as if someone had upended a bathtub. The rain was warm at first, but it rapidly cooled the air and Abby’s overheated body. Within a few moments her clothes were as waterlogged as if she had plunged into the nearby river. A shiver trembled through her, followed by another, and then a third. Her pace slowed even more as her shoes became soaked and squishy, with the wet material rubbing her sockless feet in multiple places. She’d have blisters before long.
Soon the water on the road was deep enough to seep into her shoes just above the soles. She stayed on the crown of the road in pointless hope that the flood was shallower there, but each step became a slog, heavy and splashing, and the shivers increased. She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.
It was just a thunderstorm, she told herself. It would pass in a few minutes. Florida storms didn’t last. They passed like speeding trains and were gone. Her jeans grew heavy on her hips, dragged down with the weight of water. The seams felt cold and rough against her skin as she walked.
Stupid,
she told herself again.
You should have known from the feel of the night we were due for thunder.
She knew she’d have done it all over again, though, given the chance. She didn’t need to involve anyone else in her mess. She’d done enough harm. She wrapped her arms around herself, tucking her hands in her armpits, where there was little warmth.
Abby didn’t hear the truck over the noise of the storm. It wasn’t until she saw headlights splattering across the dimpled, streaming surface of the road that she knew Cade had found her despite her having slipped away without waking him. By now she was shivering uncontrollably. She thought about ducking into the pinewoods and running; it would be easy to disappear forever. But instead she stopped, turning. It could be only Cade, anyway. She already knew the sound of his truck’s engine, familiar, and strangely welcome—the agent of her deliverance from Marsh. She stumbled to the side of the road, where the water rushed from the low crown and poured away into the sandy scrub and swampy river land beyond.
As the truck neared her position, the headlights dimmed from high beam to low. It pulled alongside, and Abby heard the clunk of the engine when Cade shifted out of gear and set the hand brake. There was a short, sharp screech as the passenger door opened. The dome light came on, and Abby looked into the dry interior with a longing nearly as intense as that she’d experienced at the convenience store earlier in the day.
Had it been less than a day? She felt as if she had been struggling along for hours. Maybe forever. She was so tired. Maybe she’d been wrong to sneak away. Maybe she didn’t have to be afraid.
The warm, dry cab drew her, but Cade’s face—tired, eyebrows drawn together in irritation, raw red scar and all—was a more welcome sight still. His blue eyes seemed to glow, and though his mouth should have been tight with annoyance, instead a smile was growing there. He wasn’t angry with her. There wasn’t something ugly lurking beneath the surface. He was Cade Latimer, a good man—she was sure of that—and even though he was an officer of the law, she didn’t have to be afraid. He had changed clothes since she saw him last. The fishing vest was gone, and he was no longer wearing his sooty jeans.
Cade had come after her, but not to punish her. By now, Marsh would have hold of her arm to drag her to wherever she was supposed to be. If there were anyone else around, his excruciating grip would be hidden by her long-sleeved shirt, and his angry words would have been whispered in her ear. She shuddered and pushed the thoughts of Marsh away. Right now, the only thing she wanted more than to climb into the warm, dry truck was to have Marsh erased from the face of the earth and for her life to be normal again. Maybe that “normal” could even include friendships and relationships with someone decent, like Cade Latimer. Though why he’d bother with her, she couldn’t think. Why he’d come after her at all—the thought filled her with irrational, giddy hope.
“I’m impressed,” said Cade, speaking loudly to be heard over the flapping wipers and the downpour on the truck’s roof. “You managed to get out of the camper without me hearing you. And Mort let you. I’ll be damned if I can figure out how you charmed him.”
Abby stared at Cade, rain running down from her hair, over her face, into the collar of her shirt. There was no hiding her nipples, hardened by the chill she felt after the rain had so abruptly cooled the night and her body, except by wrapping her arms around herself. She didn’t speak. Her teeth were chattering too hard and she was afraid she would bite her tongue. In the back of the truck she could dimly see Mort’s nose pressed against the side window, and the pale fog of his breath on the glass. A good dog, one she would have liked to know better. In so many ways Mort was a subtle echo of herself, as finely tuned to Cade’s every movement and word as she had been tuned to Marsh’s. The difference was obvious, however—Mort, while watching attentively for his master’s commands, wasn’t seeking to avoid the next blow.
Cade sighed and flicked off the slapping windshield wipers. It was as if the truck’s heartbeat had suddenly ceased, leaving the hum of the engine and the noise of falling water everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. Abby suddenly noticed the cicadas had ceased their noise. It was a relief not to have that continual tension and screech. The rush of water and crashing thunder had taken its place. “I know you’re not a criminal, Abby. You’ll catch your death of pneumonia or be struck by lightning. You’re probably well on your way to hypothermia. Get in.”
As if to reinforce his words, lightning flickered in the distance and a slow, deep rumble of thunder wandered toward them. She knew the center of the storm was far away, and besides, she’d been out in thunderstorms for years, rejoicing in their violence before she understood what violence truly was. Marsh was the lightning—when it was close, it struck before she could hear the warning. Was Cade any different? Was he, a man so comfortable in his physicality, his strength, his command, the thunder? Was there a storm waiting within? Or was he what she thought—
hoped
—she sensed: an honorable man, confused by her irrational fears, but drawn nonetheless?
“Come on, Abby.”
“Where will you t-take me?” The words were painful, spoken between jaws locked to keep from chipping her own teeth as they chattered.
“I
ought
to take you to a hospital. But I think instead I’ll take you to a hotel and get you warm and dry.”
Abby stood, undecided, at the side of the road, its surface softening beneath her feet. Standing at the edge as she was, runnels of water moved swiftly past her feet like waves racing back into the ocean. Soon there would be a newly eroded rut or two just next to her sneakers. She felt herself focusing helplessly on the water, the dirt, the silt, and bowed her head. She was defeated. The thought of a hotel room, comfortingly anonymous, two white-sheeted beds, white towels, tacky mass-produced artwork and a hot shower—maybe even a tub bath—made her guts twist with longing. To be safely indoors, and out of reach of Marsh’s hands, and warm, and dry...
* * *
Cade cursed to himself, quietly, but saw Abby flinch even at that low volume. He cursed a second time and got out of the truck. It took only a moment to reach the back, lift the hatch and yank out an old quilt. Only two moments more to reach Abby herself and throw the quilt around her, ignoring her shudders as he wrapped her snug and then lifted her into the cab and closed the door. But in just those few moments, the rain had soaked his upper body and water ran down his face from his hair as he hurried around the truck to slide behind the wheel.
Before he pulled the door all the way closed, he looked at his passenger. The dome light revealed Abby was somewhere between relief and shock. Her face was drawn and pale, her eyes huge and fixed on his. She was shivering violently. What a strange mixture of strength and vulnerability she was. And how he longed to fix what was wrong here.
It would be easy.
He had her personal information; for a lawman like himself, finding Marsh would be child’s play, probably no more complicated than a knock on Abby’s front door. Beating the bastard to a bloody pulp—
Like that? Feel that? Not what you thought, is it, asshole?
—might be the greatest validation he’d felt in months, since being forced to leave the undercover task force. Even the sense of accomplishment he felt when he finished his K-9 training and returned to active duty with Mort as his partner would seem small in comparison.
And it would be the surest way to lose Abby forever—in a blink, just like that. She might want to see Marsh punished, but it would mean she could never feel secure with Cade, not ever.
Cade blinked at himself. That shouldn’t matter to him. Thinking in terms of “forever” with a woman like Abby—there was no point. He had to find a way to turn this into just another job, just another case he was working. He was an idiot if he didn’t distance himself from this problem. He had a life of his own, a vacation he was missing out on, a good job he enjoyed, even if it didn’t fill all the voids in his soul.
He pulled the door shut and turned the truck’s heater on full. Abby gasped at the blast of air, but then she moved her feet to be in the hot draft. Cade leaned across the cab once more and fastened her seat belt across her body, since her arms were bundled in the quilt like a caterpillar in a cocoon. Rain from a tendril of her hair fell on his neck, a drop like a tear, and Cade knew a powerful urge to find something with which to dry her face. He could see himself in his mind’s eye, his much-washed bandanna handkerchief in his hand, wiping away the wetness and following up the tenderness with a kiss. Or six. Kisses accompanied by the slow peeling away of the damp quilt, and then the wet clothing beneath.
Hell, what was he thinking? Here she was, safe in his truck for now, and here
he
was, fantasizing about getting her to a motel room and taking off every stitch. He would tuck her into bed, slip under the covers with her and wrap himself around her until the shivering stopped. Perhaps she would sleep then, curled close in his arms, or perhaps he would turn her to face him, and kiss that soft, timid mouth until it opened beneath his and whispered his name. He would roll onto his back, bringing her with him, and she would set the pace there in the private cave of clean-smelling sheets and tacky motel bedspread. He couldn’t think of a more satisfying way to warm them both through and through than sex.
But Abby would probably turn away from the approach of a face like his, ferociously scarred. His was the very visage of viciousness, even though she hadn’t done more than anyone else would, gazing at the scarring until it lost its capacity to shock.
Abby’s teeth chattered in a new wave of chills. Cade shook his head, shoving away the fantasy. Convincing his body to settle down was not as simple. Only time and distraction would quiet the sudden raging erection constrained within his jeans. He buckled his own seat belt and put the truck into gear. God only knew how far it was to the main road, and from there a hotel or motel—anything dry and sheltered from the savagery outside. Lightning flashed frequently now. A new band of the storm was well and truly upon them, more furious than the first. Best to put this unpaved road behind them as soon as possible, before it washed out altogether.