Deep in the Heart (9 page)

“It’s not so bad once you get used to it. Besides, staying busy helps pass the time, and right now I have more time on my hands than I know what to do with.”

The screen door squeaked in protest as he pushed it wide, waiting for her to follow. As she walked past, he reached back inside and switched off the light.

“So the bugs won’t come,” he explained unnecessarily. She remembered how the night moths and June bugs would dive-bomb a light source, slamming themselves without caution into whatever stood in their path.

“I guess I should have a fan or something inside the house to cool it off. But I never much liked central air-conditioning,” he said. “Makes me feel all cooped up.”

Samantha dropped into the porch swing, leaving him room to join her, and leaned her head against the high wooden back. The swing gave a jerk, then righted itself as he slid his arm across the back to balance their weight, giving him the excuse to get that much closer to her.

“And you need your space, don’t you, Johnny? With me here, I doubt you’ve had one free minute to yourself. I’m sorry everything is so—”

“He blew up your apartment.”

The words came like a thief in the night, suddenly and without warning. It took a moment for what he’d said to sink in and then when it did, she forgot what she’d been going to say.

A coyote yipped once beyond the trees, and somewhere behind the swing, a cricket in the grass ran its raspy but melodic scales. Bullfrogs bassooned beyond the hill, echoing profusely along the creek bank as they joined the other creatures of the night in welcoming darkness.

“Oh God.”

He’d been waiting for her reaction. But that soft, helpless cry made him sick. He stared at her face, trying to perforate the darkness to gauge the depth of her fear. And then he heard it. The quiet, almost hopeless sound of a sob. The swing rocked as she buried her face in her hands.

“Dammit, Sam. Don’t cry.”

He turned with an almost violent motion, pulled her across his lap as tremors of shock had their way with her sanity.

Her pain was almost more than he could bear. He held and he caressed, he whispered and he begged. But her tears continued and her body shook, in spite of everything he knew how to do.

Fury came swiftly. Like heat lightning in the middle of the night. In spite of the fact that he had sworn to uphold the law, John Thomas knew that, in that moment, had he been face-to-face with the monster who’d perpetrated Samantha’s hell, he could have killed him.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” he whispered against her cheek. Suddenly he forgot that she’d lied to him long ago. He forgot that she’d been untrue to their love. He forgot, because he wanted to.

“I will take care of you, Sam. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die. I will always be here. You know that.”

Samantha shuddered as his hands roughly brushed away the tears lingering on her cheeks. She sighed, then rested her forehead against his shoulder and wished that she could see his face. She’d heard his words, and believed them completely. But she’d have given a lot to have been able to see the expression on his face when he’d said them.

Suddenly, selfishly, she didn’t want what he’d just sworn to do to come from a sense of duty. She wanted more than that from Johnny Knight. She just wasn’t certain what he was willing to give, other than empty promises. Once she would have bet her life on his love. But she’d been wrong then. She could be wrong now.

“Are you going to be all right?”

“I have no other choice, do I?” she said. “I guess I should be thankful I wasn’t inside when it happened, instead of here, crying for what is gone.”

He inhaled, remembering that there was more he hadn’t told.

She felt the massive swell of his chest as he took the breath, and tried to quell a second wave of fear. “What?” she asked.

“Pulaski says that it happened—the bombing, I mean—out of some kind of spite. The police psychologist says that the stalker was sending you a message.”

“What kind of message?” she whispered, unaware that she’d gathered a fistful of his shirt in each hand as she clung to him on the swing.

“That he knows you’re gone. And probably knows that you went with me.”

“I don’t understand,” Samantha whispered. “How can they know all that just from a bomb going off in my apartment? Did he leave some kind of message or…”

“In a manner of speaking,” John Thomas said. He tightened his arms as he unconsciously pulled her closer to his chest. “The bomb was detonated from somewhere else, but it was on your bed when it went off.”

“My bed?”

“Sort of a pissed-off, thumb-your-nose warning that you can’t go from that bed to mine without retribution.”

She was silent too long. And he had nothing left to say.

“I am so sick of this I could scream,” she said finally.

He was surprised to hear anger in her voice.

“I don’t know who the hell this wacko is, yet he’s trying to tell me who I can and can’t sleep with? Oh, this is great!” Her laugh was harsh as she swung her long legs out of his lap and stomped toward the screen door. “If he only knew. I’ve slept alone so damned long I wouldn’t know how to share a bed if I had to.”

The door slammed shut behind her, leaving John Thomas with nothing but the darkness for company. He sat so long on the swing that his foot fell asleep. But he didn’t care. He’d been unable to move, let alone think after what she’d said. She slept alone! That meant there wasn’t anyone special. Hadn’t been anyone special. At least not in a long, long time.

Hours later he lay in his bed staring up at the ceiling and wondering how long this ache between them could continue before something happened. The more time he spent with her, the more intrigued he became with the woman that Samantha had become. He rolled over and punched the pillow beneath his head.

He shouldn’t trust her. Once her troubles were over she’d be gone and he’d be right back where he’d been years ago, alone and hurting. But knowing and doing were two completely different things. It remained to be seen which would win out—his dignity, or his emotions.

The next morning, in front of Cotton’s only garage, Pete Meuller, the mechanic in charge, witnessed another explosion. Only this one happened in front of his station, and came from beneath the hood of a dusty, burgundy Jaguar. Right after the blast came steam, hissing and pouring from every opening and crack possible. The driver did a fair job of erupting himself as he swore, in what Pete would later claim to have been three different languages.

Aaron Reuben cursed cars and engines, mechanics and motors, taxes and Texas, kicking futilely at each wheel in turn as he circled his dying car.

“Great! I’m in the middle of nowhere. How the hell am I supposed to get to Dallas if I’m in the middle of nowhere?” Reuben yelled.

Pete stuck his grease rag in his left hip pocket, and sauntered toward the man and the car, making bets with himself as he neared about which of them was doing the most hissing.

“You ain’t in Nowhere, mister. You’re in Cotton. Would you like me to take a look at your car?”

Reuben sneered. “Look all you want. But answer me this. Have you ever worked on a Jag?”

Pete shook his head.

Reuben rolled his eyes. “Have you ever worked on
anything
other than trucks and tractors?”

Pete stuffed his hands in his pockets and started walking away. He was of the opinion that the son of a bitch was either crazy or stupid. Why would he insult the only man in sight who’d just offered to help? Then he looked down as he started past the car and noticed the California plates. That would explain it. A dumb tourist.

“Hey!” Reuben yelled, realizing that he’d insulted his only means of escape. “See what you can do about this, will you?”

Pete turned and shrugged. “I ain’t promising nothin’,” he said.

“Why am I not surprised?” Reuben muttered. And then he asked louder, “Where’s the nearest motel?”

Pete pointed. “Closest one—only one. Three blocks down and then to your right.”

He watched the man walking away and remembered what he’d heard about Samantha Carlyle’s ordeal. He made a mental note to himself to tell Sheriff Knight about the man from California who would be residing at the Texas Pig Motel for the next few days.

Reuben yanked a suitcase from the backseat and started down the street, kicking up fuss and dust with every other step. And his nature did not improve when he turned the corner and saw the larger than life-size concrete armadillo mounted on a slab of limestone. It served as the only source of decoration in the motel’s tiny yard.

The minuscule, individual houses sat in a neat row of seven, while a sign over the office door proclaimed that there were vacancies at the Texas Pig Motel.

“Again, why am I not surprised?” Reuben muttered, shifted his bag to the other hand, and headed for the door.

John Thomas sat stiff-backed in his chair and tried not to frown as he watched his new deputy sign the last of the papers before him and then hand them back.

He looked again at the signature.
Montgomery Turner.
Turner wasn’t the deputy he’d been expecting, and the excuse he’d gotten from the greenhorn on the other side of his desk did nothing to ease his worry.

The man couldn’t be more than twenty-five. He was above average height, but if he weighed more than a hundred and fifty pounds John Thomas would have been surprised. He looked too frail for the heavy leather gun belt riding his hip. And the gun butt protruding from the holster seemed too bulky for his hand. But there was a glint in his eyes, and a jut to his chin that told John Thomas the kid had possibilities.

Age would help. A regimen of good diet and weight-lifting would give him some bulk. But only time would tell whether Montgomery Turner had what it took to be a Texas lawman.

“Okay, Montgomery, you’re officially on the payroll. You’ve got your schedule, your badge, and as of one minute ago, your new title. You are now a duly sworn deputy of Cherokee County.”

Monty grinned. This had been almost too easy. He’d feared a hellfire and brimstone fit from the famous John Thomas Knight because he was not the deputy the sheriff had been expecting. Instead, he’d been welcomed. Not warmly, but welcomed nevertheless.

“Please, sir, call me Monty.”

John Thomas nodded. “Only if you don’t call me sir. I’ll answer to Sheriff, or John Thomas, even boss. The sirs and the misters sort of put me off, if you know what I mean.”

Monty nodded. “It’s a deal, Sheriff. Now, I’ve got one more hurdle before I can start work. I don’t have a place to stay and the only available apartments in Rusk are, at the moment, a little out of my price range. Do you have any suggestions?”

John Thomas thought for a moment. Rusk didn’t have an overabundance of rental property. The few places that rented were nearly always full. Then he remembered. The old Earl place. Maybe there was a vacancy there.

“I might, if you’re not all that picky,” John Thomas said.

“Lead the way,” Monty said.

John Thomas did.

An old two-story house, which looked as if it had been built before statehood, sat beneath a cluster of live oaks and pines that might have been there since the beginning of time.

The branches of the oaks were wide-spreading and laden with thick clumps of leaves that let only the faintest of sunbeams filter through onto the ground beneath them. The pines interspersed among the oaks were tall, ancient soldiers pointing accusing, fingerlike branches upward toward the sun.

Montgomery Turner prided himself on being able to hide his feelings. All he allowed himself was a long, deep breath as he climbed out of the squad car and followed the sheriff up the walk toward the house. He squinted his eyes against the sun’s bright glare and casually pulled a pair of sunglasses from his pocket and slid them up the bridge of his nose.

“Damn hot for this time of year, don’t you think?” Monty drawled, as he hitched his single piece of luggage to the other hand.

John Thomas grinned to himself. The kid had spunk. The old Earl place would obviously have never made the cover of
Better Homes and Gardens,
but he liked to think it had a certain charm.

“The rooms have air conditioners,” John Thomas answered.

Thank God for small favors,
Monty thought.

The wood siding had once been white, but the years had not been kind, and now it was nothing more than a soft, weathered gray. Honeysuckle and English ivy covered the entire south wall of the house. Neat rectangles had been cut in the growth to allow viewing from the two sets of double windows on both floors, but other than that, it had been allowed to grow at will.

A wide roof ran across the entire front of the house. Had the structure been erected a few hundred miles to the east, it would have been called a veranda. But the house was in Texas, and so it was only a porch.

Yet it was a grand, imposing edifice, and the roof gave the house a stately sort of character in spite of its rather decrepit appearance. The longer you looked at the porch, the more it resembled a fine, wide-brimmed hat sitting upon the gray, aging head of an elderly lady.

“Here we are,” John Thomas said. He opened the door and entered, pointing to the grand, imposing staircase a few steps in front of them. “That must lead to the two apartments upstairs. The realtor said you had—” he peered down the shadowed hall at the two numbered doors directly opposite one another, and pointed again, “number two, downstairs.” He handed Monty the door key, and stepped aside to let the young man pass.

Montgomery bumped into the wall, and then flushed as he fumbled with the sunglasses that had been hiding his expression. In this dark, shaded hallway, they were a hindrance rather than a help.

“Thanks,” he said, as he stuffed the glasses back in his pocket and took the key from John Thomas. “Let’s take a look at ‘home sweet home.’”

The door squeaked once as it opened. Montgomery stared at the upper hinge on the door and frowned.

“Needs a little oil,” he said, and then looked around the rooms. Both men were rather surprised. It looked better inside than out.