Lifeline Echoes (17 page)

Ryan edged his way around the counter. A
pair of long jean-clad legs emerged from a cabinet beneath the deep
sink. One leg was straight, the other bent at the knee. Every few
seconds, the flexed knee pushed against the floor, as though
bracing against something beneath the sink. Then the cursing
started.

Crouching next to her, Ryan tried to look
beneath the cabinet but saw nothing in the dim light.

Gently, he touched Sandy on her bent knee.
She jumped and propelled herself from under the sink, sitting up
and casting him a blinking stare. "You’re back."

"Looks like." He craned his neck to get a
better look at what she was doing. "Plumbing problems, huh?"

She smiled, showing no trace of the agitated
plumber. "Looks like."

"Want a hand?"

She gave him a crooked smile and held out
the wrench. "If you know what you're doing, have at it."

Ryan grinned. "It just so happens, plumbing
is one of my specialties."

Sandy stared. The wrench slipped from her
fingers, landing with a clank on the ceramic tile floor between
them.

"You okay?"

She shuddered. Then she recovered with a
shake of her head. "Um, yeah . . . it's just . . . someone else
said that once and I was just thinking about him. You startled
me."

Ryan could feel the muscles in his jaw
tense. No need to ask who had said it. Her twenty-three hour love.
He forced himself to relax. She didn’t bring the man up often, but
each mention incited a corresponding prick of jealousy, stabbing
like a needle in Ryan's gut. It was pointless to be jealous of a
dead man. Unless his ghost was still a tangible presence standing
between them.

He forced the thought down and reached for
the wrench. "Move on out of there, woman, and let an expert show
you how it's done.

****

"I can't believe you got it off so easily."
Sandy glared at him through narrowed eyes, then suddenly broke into
a good-natured smile that made those chicory-colored eyes dance
like flowers in the wind.

"And I can't believe you pulled the trap
without having a replacement." Ryan tugged the strand of hair that
had escaped her loose pony tail.

She made an exaggerated pouty face. "I had
duct tape."

Ryan handed her the roll of tape, a smile
lifting the corners of his mouth. "You're going to want to repair
that the right way by tomorrow. I can do it for you."

She tilted her head back and grinned up at
him. "Got lots of experience, have you?"

"Hey, anyone can repair a sink trap." He
chuckled as they entered the main bar. "But it just so happens I've
re-plumbed an entire house."

Next to him, her steps faltered. Then she
stopped. When he looked over his shoulder, she was staring at him
again.

"What?" he asked.

"You just keep surprising me," whispered
Sandy.

If her smile seemed a little too bright,
Ryan forced himself to ignore it. But he couldn’t seem to ignore
his deep-seated need to touch her whenever he was around her.
Turning, he held her gaze. Her eyes widened when he cupped her face
in his hands, caressing her cheeks with his thumbs. Then he bent
and teased her with a butterfly touch, rubbing his lips back and
forth along hers. She sighed, and he took the kiss deeper by
inches, coaxing instead of demanding, giving instead of taking. Her
breath caught and her hands settled on his waist. Ryan took his
time, lingering until he felt her tension dissolve.

He ended the kiss, laying his forehead
against hers. "Hey you."

"What was that?" she whispered.

Ryan laughed softly. "I guess I'm still not
doing it right."

The roll of tape dropped to the floor with a
dull thud. Sandy's arms slid around to his back and she pulled
herself against him. "You've never not done it right."

After a quick, hard hug, Ryan stepped away,
his hands moving to the buttons on her sweater.

"What are you doing?" She tugged the edges
of her sweater together.

Ryan stilled his hands but left them at her
buttons. He leaned in and kissed her once more, a little harder
this time. When she finally relaxed against him, his hands worked
at the buttons again.

"You don't need this." Leaning out, he
tugged the sweater off her shoulders, then straightened, folding
the soft garment and laying it on the bar. "That's better."

Ryan looked her over head to toe. Her
flowing white blouse had wide gauzy sleeves, which ended just above
her wrists. It was light and airy, and completely covered her. But
Ryan knew what lay beneath. Just the memory of that wonderland he
had yet to fully explore made his body thrum into awareness, and
clear his mental dance card for the evening.

Her head was angled as she looked at him.
Her eyes were gleaming. A hint of a smile played around her lips.
Oh yeah, she was aware of him too. And maybe, just maybe, a little
less aware of the ghost from her past.

Music filled the room, a slow easy number
about the intent behind a particular kind of kiss. Ryan looked up
to see his brother tipping his hat from the updated version of the
juke box in the corner.

Sandy held out a hand. "Dance with me?" Her
smile promised much more than a dance.

Want and need held hands and skipped through
his system. He answered with the most profound statement he could
think of. "Okay."

Taking her hand, Ryan pulled her against
him. This time, his mouth closed over hers in ardent possession.
With a throaty moan, she returned the kiss with the same passion.
Her free hand slid up over his shoulder to play with the ends of
his hair just touching his collar. He bent and licked the
super-sensitive spot just below her left ear. Then he edged them
onto the dance floor. They moved into as easy rhythmic sway. Sandy
hooked her hands around Ryan's neck and leaned back to look into
his face. In the dim recesses of his mind, he felt the sensual
glide of her body against his as they danced, but his whole world
swirled in those incredible chicory-colored eyes. He wondered if
she knew her heart showed in them.

"If you don't stop looking at me like that,
sweetheart, we're going to have to find a preacher and get
married."

He didn't realize he'd spoken the thought
aloud until her startled expression pierced through him.

"What?" Her fluttery laugh pricked at the
edges of his nerves.

Ryan scanned her face. Was she frightened or
was she turned off?

"Whoa, rewind and delete. I'm on fast
forward again." He kissed her softly, followed by a peck. "Just
ignore me, sweetheart. It's a saying around here. Like telling
someone to get a room."

Her lips curled gently upward and fear eased
its grip on his heart.

"I have no intention of ignoring you." Her
fingers played over the nape of his neck. "We can rewind. But, we
don't have to delete, do we? Maybe just . . . hit pause?"

He hugged her more tightly to him. He didn't
know how he'd found her but he sure wanted to hang on to her.
Winding his hand into her hair, he tugged gently until the soft
waves spilled freely around her shoulders. "So much better." He
buried his face in the waves of softness and inhaled.
Strawberries.

Around them the dinner crowd began to filter
in, no more than a handful of people to start. Sandy seemed content
to let her staff run the place without her. They moved into the
next song together, prolonging the connection. When the song was
over, Ryan captured her lips in a gentle kiss, spinning them into a
prelude to fulfillment. Applause sounded from the dozen or so
people seated at the tables on the edge of the dance floor.

"I'm sorry, Chicory. I'm afraid we just went
about as public as we can."

"And I told you yesterday." She cupped his
cheek in one hand and held his eyes. "I. Don't. Care. I love being
with you."

****

The flickering candlelight playing across
Sandy's face was mesmerizing. They needed to talk but Ryan couldn’t
find the words to start. So he smiled and stuck to light
conversation instead. "You never seem to be the same person
twice."

Sandy giggled. "So, what, you think I have
multiple personalities or something?"

A smile pulled at his lips. "No," he said
softly. "You've just got a lot of facets, maybe even some I haven’t
seen. I'm wondering if I've seen the real Sandy yet or if you've
only managed to show me a string of disguises."

She swallowed hard and looked away for a
moment and Ryan worried that he'd lost her. But when she turned
back to him, she was smiling. "You found me out. When things matter
I get nervous."

"Nervous?" Ryan scratched
along one eyebrow, thinking about her more sensual side.
"Interesting expression of
nervous
."

Sandy laughed. The sound affected him the
way it always did, with a wash of warmth that raced through his
system. "It's mostly an act, Ryan." She shrugged and picked up her
water glass, watching him over the glass while she sipped. She set
the water down again and ran a finger around the rim of the glass
while she spoke. Ryan couldn’t pull his gaze from that finger. "I
did some amateur stage work before I came here. Enough to put on a
pretty convincing act of wild west barmaid. It, um . . . entertains
the regulars." She shrugged. "And it gives me some clout when I
need to discourage troublemakers."

Ryan's mind drifted to the way she'd
diffused the situation with Bull but he put the thought aside. He'd
rather not mar their evening. Reaching across the table, he took
hold of her hands, rubbing his thumbs over her knuckles. Her eyes
swept up to meet his. "And how are you feeling right now?"

Her smile was slow and sweet and did things
to his heart beat. "Not as nervous as Friday night when you came in
here the first time."

There was something about her voice that
nagged at him sometimes, but when he was with her, mostly all he
could pay attention to was her eyes. "I've been trying since we met
to figure out your accent."

She looked at him with a sly smile of her
own and shifted in her seat. When he felt the brush of her bare
foot along his inner thigh, he choked on his next breath.
Apparently, she didn't mind taking advantage of the seclusion
afforded by their corner table, seating courtesy of Matchmaker
Mel.

Sandy giggled. "I'm sorry. I was distracted.
What did you say?"

As soon as some blood made its way back to
his brain he might be able to remember. "I wondered where you came
from. Your accent."

"I don't have an accent. You do." She
frowned. "Only your Wyoming cowboy is mixed with something
else."

"You
almost
don't have one," Ryan
corrected. "Just certain words sometimes. The way you say 'you'
like it starts with an E and ends on a question mark. It's cute.
I've heard it someplace before but I can't place it. So where did
you start out?"

Sandy smiled. "Southwestern Virginia. Blue
Ridge Mountains."

That explained why she was comfortable with
the mountains here in Wyoming. "So how did you end up moving from
one mountain range to another?"

"There were a couple of stops in between but
the short story is I made someone a promise."

Twenty-three hour man—again. Her face had
started closing off the minute he'd asked the question.

"You have family back in Virginia?" Ryan
asked.

"Only child," she said easily. "My parents
died in a car accident when I was nineteen."

Crap. Zero for two.
"I'm sorry."

"Thank you."

So, no denying the pain with statements of
how long ago it had been.

Because she wasn't struggling with their
loss the way she was with her twenty-three hour man. Ryan felt a
quick stab to the heart. There were a million ways to screw up and
he'd just stumbled onto the top one.

****

"Hey Angel, are you particularly attached to
L.A.?" Mick was slurring his words now.

"It's nice. It's not really home. I came out
here with some friends."

"Good. 'Cause I was thinking after we get
married I want to go home. Back to Wyoming. Will you come with
me?"

"I'd love that. I like to travel, see new
places, but I kind of like the idea of making a home." She checked
the log. More than twenty hours had passed. It was a miracle his
battery had lasted this long. "Why don't you see if you can get
some rest? I promise I'll stay. I won't go anywhere."

"Feel a little like . . . I'll have lots of
time for resting later." Listening to him struggle for every breath
was torture. "Angel. . ." The radio sputtered but didn't go dead.
Still he didn't talk.

"Mick?"

"Angel, I don't think they're gonna get here
in time." His voice sounded stronger, resolute.

Her heart thumped against her chest wall, an
unsteady staccato beat driven by fear. That was supposed to mean
something, wasn't it? People often got stronger, more lucid, right
before they died.

"You listen to me. You proposed to me. You
can't just leave me."

His familiar chuckle took a little longer
this time. "I'll hold on as long as I can, but I think—I think I'm
pretty torn up inside. And my leg. Something's shifted and I can
feel it again. I think it's bleeding pretty bad."

Her breath caught. With so much rubble to
get through, there was little hope he would be alive if he was
bleeding out.

"Can you move at all? Can you find where
you're bleeding from?" She tried to keep the panic from her
voice.

She heard him gasp. Then he uttered a soft
curse. Then nothing.

"Mick?" she called into the radio. Then more
insistently. "Mick!"

"I'm back, Angel. I got some pressure on it.
Not . . . an artery . . . I don't think."