"Did you hit him? Is he dead?"
"No...all I shot was the truck. He bailed out, and I sent him back up the mountain on foot."
Hurley's smile widened. "Okay...so you dispatched Mr. Storm for the moment, then went to Miss Monroe's home. What happened next?"
Ally resumed her story.
"My father arrived about the same time we realized there was a fire on the mountain. We started for town and almost didn't make it. Wes saved our lives, and here we are."
"Well, that's enough info for me to warrant an investigation," Hurley said.
"You'd better let my crew go in first and sweep the area to make sure it's safe," Dr. Shero added. "If there's some kind of contaminant up there, we don't want to spread it."
"What if it burned?" Wes asked. "Then wouldn't everything be safe?"
"Not necessarily," Dr. Shero said. "I'm uneasy about the dead animals, but I'm most concerned about the insects being involved. What Miss Monroe described is most definitely abnormal."
"What about fire ants?" Wes said. "They swarm on people."
"Yes, but they also sting. The way she described it, the ants were simply crawling all over the men in some kind of frenzy. If the men were being stung, they wouldn't have lived five minutes."
"Oh, Lord," Ally said, and pressed her hands to her lips to keep from screaming.
Wes moved to her side as Black added his two cents into the conversation.
"You were right to be concerned, but I'm going to have to ask you two to sit back now and let us work our investigations. If we have further questions, we'll be in touch."
Before they could leave, Agent Vernon came back and handed Hurley a computer printout.
At first Hurley only glanced at it, then suddenly he was muttering under his breath.
"What is it?" Wes asked.
Hurley looked up. "There may be something more to this after all. Among other things, Roland Storm is a geneticist. He has a background in chemistry and science, and was let go from Lackey Laboratories after some research project ended. He was picked up once for suspicion of making designer drugs for some dealer in Chicago but later released."
"May I see that?" Shero asked.
Hurley handed him the printout.
"I need to make some calls," Shero said, then glanced back at Ally and Wes. "We’ll be in touch."
Everyone filed out, leaving Wes and Ally alone.
She started to shiver, then held out her arms.
"Get me out of here," she begged. "I don't want to be here anymore."
Eighteen
Wes drove up to the motel, then carried Ally inside. Her clothing reeked of smoke, and the scent made her sick. She'd seen the smoking black scar on the mountain as they'd turned toward the motel, arid it had been all she could do not to tear her hair and wail.
She didn't have to ask to know that everything that had meant home to her was gone. Not only had she lost the house and the old family pet, but her father's recovery was shaky and her brothers' whereabouts unknown. The only constant in her life was Wes Holden, and although they'd known each other little more than a couple of weeks, it seemed like forever. They'd shared laughter and tears, as well as the depths of despair, and all she could think was, thank God he was here.
Wes touched the side of her face with a finger. "You got burned."
She lay back against the pillows, watching the expression on his face as he smoothed the hair away from her forehead, then fingered the strands spilling across the pillows.
"I'm filthy," Ally said. "So are my clothes."
"Hair will wash, clothes can be replaced," he said softly.
"When this is over, are you going to leave?" she asked.
A frown furrowed his forehead. "No, I'm not going to leave you."
Ally's heart skipped a beat. She had asked one thing. He had answered another.
"Wes..."
"I don't want to lose another woman I care for."
She closed her eyes briefly, letting his vow settle deep in her heart. It had been so long in coming, this loving of a man, that she didn't want to forget a moment of how she felt.
Then she felt his mouth on her lips and his hands on her waist. That was when she opened her eyes. She'd waited even longer for this day to come, and she wasn't going to blind herself to a second of it.
"Are we going to make love now?" she asked.
Her question hit him like a fist to the gut, bringing him to an instant aching need, and at the same time, scaring him half to death.
"I damn sure want to," Wes whispered.
"Why do I sense there's a 'but' in that answer?"
"Because my feelings for you are all mixed up with sadness and guilt."
Ally sat up, then began unbuttoning her blouse.
"What are you doing?" Wes said.
"Taking the problem out of your hands. Later, if you have to, you can tell yourself I made you do it."
Wes grabbed her hands.
"Wait."
Her expression fell.
"Let me," Wes said, and began to take off her clothes.
After that, it seemed time stood still.
Between slow caresses and hot kisses, he removed every piece of her clothing, leaving her trembling with need. Then when she was bare for the taking, he stripped, too, removing the last of the barriers from between them.
"I have no protection," he said.
"Nor do I," Ally said.
He sat for a moment, thinking of the consequences and weighing them against her virginity.
"We can stop this right now," he said.
She held his face between the palms of her hands.
"Never. From this moment on, whatever happens between us is God-given. There is nothing about you that I would refuse or regret, and that includes bearing your child."
Wes shuddered. The thought was breathtaking, but, at the same time, agonizingly painful. He would never see a child without thinking of Mikey.
Ally saw through his silence and gave ease to his pain.
"Wes."
He looked down into her eyes and saw salvation.
"What you had before was precious. Nothing will ever change that or the memories that you keep. I wouldn't want it any other way. I have no wish or intention of trying to make you forget any part of your past. I just want to be a part of your future."
"You already are," he said. "And I wish that what we're about to do wasn't going to hurt you."
"Mama used to say that the pain of first taking a man into your body was not unlike the pain of giving him your heart. She said it's all about trusting that he won't damage either one. I never knew what she meant until now."
"Do you trust me, Ally?"
"Forever."
"I wish to God I trusted myself."
"You won't hurt me, Wes. It isn't in you."
He covered her lips with his own, then sighed when her hands slid from his face to his back. It had been a long time since he'd been with a woman. In a way, it was a first time for both of them.
With exquisite torture, Wes kissed every morsel of skin on her body, even tracing the faint but healing scratches with the tip of his tongue. Her skin was satin to the touch and warm beneath his lips. Her breasts were heavy in his hands, the nipples peaked and swollen from the laving of his tongue. More than once, he slipped his hand between her legs and stroked her to a fever pitch, but each time he withdrew before it was too late. She'd waited a very long time for this day to come; he didn't want it to be over before it had begun.
They lost track of time. When she began moaning and clutching at his body, begging for something she had yet to know, he increased the pressure of his touch. Her breath began coming in shorter and shorter gasps, and she was beginning to buck against his strokes. He could feel the beginnings of her climax as her muscles trembled beneath his touch. Then, at the moment it took her, he rose up and slid between her parted legs. In one targeted stroke, he drove himself into the spiraling heat. Her body resisted, but only fleetingly as the barrier tore.
Ally cried out once as he claimed her, but then he began to move, and the climax crashed through her, emptying her to everything but the man. Blood pounded against her eardrums as her heart hammered within her chest. She had lost all sensation except in the valley between her thighs. Where she had been empty, now she was filled. She felt weightless and, at the same time, too heavy to move. When the spasms began to subside and she thought it was over, Wes rose up, braced himself with a hand on either side of her shoulders, slid a little deeper into her heat and began to rock.
When she realized he was still inside her—and he was hard and hurting in the same way that she'd been only moments earlier—she gave herself up to his need. She could see the tension in his muscles and the agony on his face as he chased that elusive mistress called lust.
Instinct led her to wrap her legs around his back, changing the angle of his thrust. Almost instantly, she felt a renewal in herself and began to rock her body against him, man to woman—heart to heart.
For Wes, it had been too long since he'd been with a woman for him to maintain any semblance of control. One moment he'd been riding the slowly building feeling, and the next thing he knew, she'd pulled him under. The sudden rush of blood from his head to his groin was instantaneous. He began to groan, spilling himself into her over and over until he was spent. Every muscle in his body was quivering as the echoes of their passion still held him where he lay.
It seemed like forever before he could move, and when he did, he took her with him until she was the one on top. He wrapped his arms around her, and began stroking her body and smoothing the long tangles of her hair away from her face. He could feel her trembling, then heard what sounded like a muffled sob. At that point, he panicked. He must have hurt her, and it was the last thing he had intended to do.
"Ally...sweetheart...I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."
She shook her head, then raised her eyes to meet his. "Wes, you didn't hurt me. I just... I never knew." Then she buried her face against his chest, a little embarrassed. "I'm so glad it was you."
He sighed with relief and held her a little bit tighter as he struggled to control his own emotions. With her trust and her love, she'd given him something precious, too—a new reason to live.
"Yes, honey, me, too," he said softly, then scooted out from under her and slipped into the bathroom.
Moments later, Ally heard the sound of running water. She rolled over onto her side, wincing from the pain in her ankle and the unfamiliar pain between her thighs.
The bathroom door opened. Wes came out, picked her up, kissed her soundly again, then carried her into the bathroom, where he was running her a bath.
"This will help take the soreness out of your body," he said.
She blushed but was grateful.
"Thank you," she said.
He stroked a finger against the side of her face, then handed her a clean washcloth and the motel's only bar of soap.
"No...thank you," he said gently. "Take your time. We've got all day to get some more clothes, and the rest of our lives to worry about everything else."
"Oh, Wes...the rest of our lives?"
A dark expression came and went on his face, then he managed a small smile.
"I am so falling in love with you, girl."
She wanted to cry from the joy of this moment, but instead she settled for the brief kiss he gave her as he left her to her bath.
Later, they had managed to get dressed and were about to go in search of new clothing, when there was a knock at the door.
Ally's face went pale. She clutched her hands against her middle as if she was about to be ill, then looked to Wes for strength.
"What if it's news about my brothers?" "There's only one way to find out."
Charlie Frame had been back at Fort Benning for almost a month and was still worrying about Wes. After he'd been sent Stateside from Iraq, he'd gone home to Tulsa to visit his family, making all the usual stops in his hometown to catch up on the news of the people who had formed the center of the universe when he was growing up. But once he'd returned to base, his thoughts had immediately gone to his friend.
As soon as he'd reported back for duty, he'd expected to find Wes out of the hospital, at the least, and hopefully moving on with his life. When he'd discovered that Wes's recovery had been nil, and that a stepbrother had arrived with power of attorney and checked him out of the hospital, he'd been stunned.