Best Kept Secrets (42 page)

Finally, lifting his head, he stared deeply into her eyes.

"I didn't want you to know," he said in a low, throbbing voice, "but you just kept pushing me. I lost my temper. It's out, I can't take it back, and damn me if it's not the truth."

She tried to shake her head no, the denial in her eyes vehement. She arched her back in an effort to throw him off, but she remained pinioned beneath him.

"Listen to me, Alex," he said, angrily straining the words through his teeth. "Nobody even knew Celina was pregnant until that night. She'd been back from El Paso for several weeks, but I hadn't gone to see her yet, hadn't even called.

My pride was still hurting. In a juvenile way, I was letting her sweat it out."

He closed his eyes and shook his head ruefully. "We were playing games with each other, childish, foolish, silly, boy-girl games. Finally, I decided to forgive her." He smiled with bitter self-derision.

"I went to see her on a Wednesday night because I knew your grandmother would be at prayer meeting at the Baptist church. After the service she always stayed for choir practice, so I knew that Celina and I would have a couple of hours alone to sort things out.

"When I got to her house, I knocked several times, but she didn't come to the door. I knew she was there. The lights were on in the back of the house where her bedroom was. I thought maybe she was in the shower or was playing the radio so loud she couldn't hear my knocking, so I went around to the back."

Alex lay still beneath him. Her eyes were no longer narrowed with animosity, but shiny with unshed tears.

"I looked through her bedroom window. The lights were on, but Celina wasn't in there. I tapped on the window. She didn't respond, but I noticed her shadow moving on the bathroom wall. I could see it through the door. It was opened partway. I called her name. I knew she could hear me, but she wouldn't come out. Then--''

He squeezed his eyes shut and bared his teeth in a grimace of pain before going on. "I was getting mad, see, because I thought she was just playing coy. She opened the bathroom door wider, and I saw her standing there.

"For a few seconds I just looked at her face because it had been so long since I'd seen her. She was staring back at me. She looked puzzled, like she was asking, 'What now?'

And that's when I noticed the blood. She was wearing a nightgown, and the lower front of it was streaked with red."

Alex's eyes closed. Large, cloudy tears slid from beneath her quivering eyelids and ran onto Reede's fingers.

"It scared the hell out of me," he said gruffly. "I got into the house. I don't even remember how. I think I raised the window and slipped through. Anyway, a few seconds later, I was in her bedroom, holding her. We both ended up on the floor and she just sort of crumpled in my arms.

"She didn't want to tell me what was wrong. I was screaming at her, shaking her. Finally, she turned her face toward my chest and whispered, 'Baby.' Then I realized what all the blood meant and where it had come from. I scooped her up, ran outside, and put her in my car.''

He paused for a moment to reflect. When he picked up the story, the emotion that had racked his voice was gone. He spoke matter-of-factly.

"There was this doctor in town who did abortions on the sly. Everybody knew it, but nobody talked about it because abortions were still illegal in Texas then. I took her to him.

I called Junior and told him to bring some money. He met us there. He and I sat in the waiting room while the doctor fixed her up."

He gazed down at Alex for a long time before removing his hand. It had left a stark white imprint on the lower half of her face, which in itself was ghostly pale. Her body was now pliant beneath his, and as still as death. With the pads of his thumbs, he wiped the tears off her cheeks.

"Damn you to hell if you're lying to me," she whispered.

"I'm not. You can ask Junior."

"Junior would back you up if you said the sky was green.

I'll ask the doctor."

"He's dead."

"Figures," she remarked, laughing dryly. "What did she use to try to kill me?"

"Alex, don't."

"Tell me."

"No,"

"What was it?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Tell me, damn you!"

"Your grandma's knitting needle!"

It had started out a soft exchange but ended on a shout.

The sudden, resulting silence was deafening.

"Oh, God," Alex whimpered, clamping her teeth over her lower lip and turning her face into the pillow. "Oh, God."

"Shh, don't cry. Celina didn't hurt you, just herself."

"She wanted to hurt me, though. She didn't want me to be born." Her sobs shook her whole body. He absorbed them with his. "Why didn't the doctor just take me while he was fixing her up?"

Reede didn't answer.

Alex turned her head and stared up at him. She caught handfuls of his shirt in her fists. "Why, Reede?"

"He suggested it."

"Then, why didn't he?"

"Because I swore that if he did, I'd kill him."

An emotion zephyred between them. It was so strong it knocked the breath out of her and made her chest ache. She uttered an involuntary, wordless sound. Her fingers momentarily relaxed in the cloth of his shirt, only to grip it tighter and draw him nearer. Her back arched off the bed again, not in an attempt to throw him off, but to get closer.

He sank his fingers into her hair, tilted his dark-blond head, and pressed his open mouth against hers. Her lips were parted and damp and receptive. He sent his tongue deep into her mouth.

Frantically, she worked her arms out of her coat sleeves and locked them around the back of his neck. He raised his head suddenly and looked down at her. There were dark shadows from weeping beneath her eyes, but the blue irises were crystal clear as they steadily gazed back at him. She knew exactly what she was doing. That's all he needed to know.

He ran his thumb over her lips, which were moist and swollen from his hard kiss. All he could think about was kissing her again, harder, and he did.

Her throat was arched and vulnerable to his lips when they left hers. He drew her skin lightly against his teeth, then soothed it with whisks of his tongue. He nuzzled her ear and the base of her neck, and when her clothing got in his way, he pulled her to a sitting position and peeled her sweater over her head.

As they lay back down, their breathing was loud and uneven, the only sound in the room. He unclasped her bra and pushed the cups aside.

His fingers skimmed over her flesh, which was warm and flushed with arousal. He cupped one breast, pushed it up, and took the center between his lips. He sucked it with enough pressure to elicit a tingle in her womb, but with enough finesse to tantalize. When the nipple drew taut, he nicked it roughly with the tip of his tongue.

Alex cried his name in panic and joy. He buried his face between her breasts and held her close while he rolled her above him and fought his way out of his jacket at the same time. She began tearing free the buttons of his shirt. He unzipped and unbuttoned her skirt, then shoved it down over her hips, taking her half-slip along with it. Alex ran her fingers through the thick pelt of hair on his chest, dropped random kisses on his supple muscles, and rubbed her cheek against his distended nipple.

They reversed positions again. She managed to get off her shoes and stockings before he stretched out on top of her.

He placed his hand low on her belly and slid it down into her underpants.

His hand covered her mound completely and possessively.

With his thumb, he parted the lips of her sex and exposed the tight, responsive kernel of flesh. His fingertips dipped into her creaminess and anointed that tiny nub with the dew of her own desire.

When she moaned her pleasure, he bent his head and kissed her stomach. Removing her panties, he nuzzled the fiery dark curls between her thighs and touched her with his open mouth.

Clumsily, he undid his fly and, taking her hand, pressed it against his erection. He hissed a curse when her fist closed tightly around him. Nudging her thighs apart, he settled himself between them.

The smooth tip of his penis slipped between the folds of her body. He covered her breasts with his hands and lightly ground the raised centers with his palms. He gave a steady, smooth thrust of his hips that should have planted him firmly inside her.

It didn't.

He readjusted his hips slightly and tried again, encountering the same resistance. Levering himself up, he stared at her with disbelief. "You mean . . . ?"

Her breath was choppy, and her eyes fluttered in an effort to stay focused on him. She was making small yearning noises in her throat. Her hands moved restlessly, searchingly, over his chest and neck and cheeks. Her fingertips glanced his lips.

The utter sexiness of all that and the satiny heat that was gloving him so tightly were his undoing. He applied more pressure and sank into her completely. Her ragged sigh of surprise and discovery was the most erotic sound he'd ever heard. It inflamed him.

"Christ," he groaned. "Oh, Christ."

Mating instincts took over and he moved his hips against hers with the ancient compulsion to possess and fill. Sandwiching her head between his hands, he kissed her mouth with rampant carnality. His climax was an avalanche of sensation.

It was soul-shuddering. It seemed to go on forever

. . . and it still wasn't long enough.

Several minutes elapsed before he roused himself enough to disengage. He didn't want to, but when he gazed down at her, any thoughts of prolonging their coupling fled.

She was lying with her head turned away, one cheek on the pillow. She looked fragile and haunted. Looking down at the faint pulse in her throat, seeing the bruise his kiss had branded there, Reede felt like a rapist. Filled with regret and self-loathing, he worked his fingers free of the snare of her hair.

They both reacted violently to the knock on the door. Alex quickly reached for the rumpled bedspread and pulled it over herself. Reede's feet landed hard on the floor. He hiked his jeans up over his hips.

"Reede, you in there?"

"Yeah," he called through the door.

"I, uh, I got Ms. Gaither's keys here. Remember, you told me to--"

The deputy broke off when Reede opened the door. "I remember." He extended his hand through the crack and the deputy dropped the keys into them. "Thanks," he said tersely, and closed the door.

He tossed the keys on the round table in front of the window.

The clatter they made when they landed on the wood veneer was as loud as a cymbal's crash. Reede bent down to retrieve his shirt and jacket, which he'd slung over the side of the bed at some point that escaped his memory now. As he pulled them on, he spoke to Alex over his shoulder.

"I know you're hating yourself right now, but it might make you feel better to know that I wish it hadn't happened either."

She turned her head and gave him a long, searching look.

She looked for compassion, tenderness, love. His features remained impassive, his eyes those of a stranger. There was no softness or feeling in his remote gaze. He seemed untouched and untouchable.

Alex swallowed hard, burying her hurt. In retaliation for his aloofness, she said, "Well, we're even now, Sheriff. You saved my life before I was born." She paused, then added huskily, "And I just gave you what you always wanted, but never got, from my mother."

Reede curled his hands into fists, as though he wanted to strike her. Then, with jerky, disjointed motions, he finished dressing. At the open door, he turned back. "Whatever your reason for doing it, thanks. For a virgin, you were a fairly good fuck."

Thirty-six

Junior slid into the orange vinyl booth of the Westerner Motel's coffee shop. His engaging smile collapsed the instant he saw Alex's face. "Darling, are you sick?"

She smiled wanly. "No. Coffee?" she asked, signaling the waitress.

' 'Please,'' he told her distractedly. When the waitress tried to hand him a large, plastic menu, he waved it off. "Just coffee."

After she had poured him a cup, he leaned across the table and lowered his voice to a whisper. "I was real tickled to hear from you this morning, but something is obviously very wrong. You're as pale as a sheet."

"You ought to see me without the sunglasses.'' She bobbed them up and down in an attempt at humor that fell flat.

"What's the matter?"

She leaned back against the bright vinyl and turned her head to gaze through the tinted window. It was bright outside; her sunglasses wouldn't appear out of place. That about exhausted the merits of this day. "Reede told me about Celina's attempted abortion."

At first, Junior said nothing. Then, he cursed expansively beneath his breath. He sipped his coffee, started to say something he thought better of, and finally, shook his head in apparent disgust. "What the hell's wrong with him? Why'd he tell you about that?"

"So, it's true?"

He lowered his head and stared into his coffee. "She was only seventeen, Alex, and pregnant by a guy she didn't even love, a guy on his way to Saigon. She was scared. She--"

"I know the pertinent facts, Junior," she interrupted impatiently.

"Why do you always defend her?"

"Habit, I guess."

Alex, ashamed of her outburst, took a moment to compose herself. "I know why she did it. It's just incomprehensible to me that she could."

"To us, too," he admitted reluctantly.

"Us?"

"To Reede and me. He gave her only two days to recover before he and I flew her back to El Paso to take care of it."

He sipped his coffee. "We met out at the airstrip, right after sunset."

Alex had asked Reede if he'd ever taken Celina flying at night. "Once," he had told her. Celina had been scared, he'd said. "He stole a plane?"

"Borrowed is what he called it. I think Moe knew what Reede was up to, but he looked the other way. We landed in El Paso, rented a car, and drove to the army base. Reede bribed the guards into telling Al Gaither that he had relatives waiting to see him. He was off duty, I guess. Anyway, he came to the gate and we, uh, talked him into getting in the car with us."