Table of Contents
Originally published by Cobblestone Press.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Under the Magnolia
Copyright © 2008 Moira Rogers
http://www.moirarogers.com
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Wesley Saxon sipped his coffee and stared out at the darkened August sky. Normally, two o'clock in the afternoon was bright, sunny, but today was an exception.
Lightning flashed against slate-gray clouds, and he rubbed his thumb against the side of his mug as he unconsciously counted off the seconds before he heard the rumble of thunder. "Storm's moving in fast, Howie. If you want to get in one last cigarette, you'd better head out before the storm hits."
Officer Howard Westbury snorted. "It'll wait. Bea wants me to quit anyway."
Wes grinned. "Scared of a little rain?"
"Nope. But this one's supposed to be a doozy."
The
sky lightened for a few moments before rain began to thump against the roof of
the police station. In less than a minute, Wes could barely see out the
windows. "Nothing stronger than a Category Two has hit the
Howie just shook his head. "I don't like it."
As quickly as it had come, the rain subsided. "It's coming down in fits and starts, that's for certain." Wes moved back to his desk and checked the phone line to make sure it was still operable. "At least you didn't have to handle evacuations. Jack and Chris said some of the vacationers out on the island didn't want to leave at first."
Howie grimaced and rose, adjusting his gun belt over his substantial girth. "Dumbasses. That bridge is built so low that it'll be the first thing that floods out, and then they'll be stranded, maybe for days."
Wes shook his head. "Nah, nobody wanted to stay after they heard all the hotels and stores were closing up. Being stuck out there would be bad enough even if you weren't going to be alone. Turns out, nobody wanted to risk it."
"Good." Howie moved to pour himself a cup of coffee. "You want more, or can I finish this off and start another pot?"
"Go for it." Wes eyed his computer screen. "It looks like the—"
Wes' words cut off as the phone pealed, demanding his attention. He picked up the receiver. "Carter's Bay Police, Chief Saxon speaking."
"Wesley, we've got a bit of a situation over here at the shelter." The soft, melodic voice identified the caller as Howie's wife, Beatrice.
"What's wrong, Bea?" Howie looked up sharply when he spoke, but Wes shook his head and held up a hand. "Something bad happen?"
"No, not exactly. We've got two kids over here who were just out on the island. They say they were campin' on the beach, missed the first couple of evacuation notices, then got their car stuck in the mud."
Wes frowned and set down his mug, already dragging his jacket off the back of his chair. "So how'd they get to town?"
"Well..." Bea sighed and lowered her voice to a whisper. "Wesley, they say a woman came out of nowhere and winched their car free then told them she'd meet them at the shelter. But they haven't seen hide nor hair of her yet."
Something in her tone of voice gave him pause. "What are you not telling me, Bea?"
He heard a rustle of activity and a murmur of voices, and Bea said, almost apologetically, "Honey, they're describin' her as 'a crazy blonde lady in a ratty old Jeep’."
His heart stuttered painfully. "Where?"
"Out by the Cove in the park, they said. Oh, Wes, you'd better hurry."
He bit back a groan as he dropped the receiver back in its cradle. He should have known who it was the second Bea mentioned a woman driving straight into the path of a hurricane to rescue two strangers.
Adelaide Gardner had gotten herself into a lot of trouble in her day. Her penchant for driving into the middle of storms and chasing wildly after tornadoes had certainly made life interesting on more than one occasion; her habit of showing up in the midst of trouble vexed the law enforcement in her tiny town to no end. Wherever there was trouble, Addie was there, up to her knees in it more often than not.
Now was no exception. The hurricane closing in on the coast was a Category Two at the least. She'd heard rumors on the radio that the pressure had dropped again at the last recon flight, with winds now pushing 110 miles per hour. She'd completed her storm preparations the morning before, and she should have been curled up in the basement with her radio and her computer.
Instead, she was wedging rocks and branches underneath her tires in a frantic attempt to free her Jeep from the mud.
"So much for precognitive ability," she muttered angrily as she stomped on the branch she was holding, breaking it in half. One end went under the left tire, joining the rocks she'd already shoved there.
Things like this weren't supposed to happen to psychics. They especially weren't supposed to happen to a psychic whose particular gift was seeing the future. Sure, she was always around when there was trouble, but she was there to help other people, not to put herself in need of rescuing.
And yet, here she was, struggling to free her Jeep from a quagmire in the face of an oncoming hurricane. Not in spite of her gift, but because of it. Because she'd woken up in a cold sweat from a nightmare about two college kids, trapped and terrified as they struggled to keep from drowning.
Apparently she'd woken up from the vision before she got to the part where her Jeep got mired in the mud, leaving her stranded in the middle of the island's rustic state park, miles from anything approaching a reasonable shelter.
The sky opened up again as she worked the second branch under her right tire, hopefully giving her the traction she'd need to drive free. She was drenched to the skin and shaking from nerves as she climbed back into the Jeep and tried again.
The wheels spun, and for a moment—just a moment—she thought the Jeep was going to lurch free. Please, please.
But the Jeep didn't move, and she found herself cursing as she scrambled out again, fighting a rising feeling of panic as she dropped to her knees in the mud. It would be the perfect lesson for her class. When this was all over and she was back in the classroom, she'd tell them this story, make them work out a solution.
She wrote the lesson plan out in her head as she struggled with the rocks, using the exercise to keep herself calm. She would have to duplicate a smaller scale of the conditions, which wouldn't be difficult. Mud would be a bit too messy in the lab, though she could probably use the old cornstarch and water trick. Combining them would create a quicksand-like substance, and this mud certainly had a quicksand sort of feel to it. It was all too easy to imagine her Jeep slowly sinking into the earth as she struggled to free it.
She ignored the chattering of her teeth and the increasing howl of the wind, letting her mind formulate a perfect lesson for her tenth graders even as her body moved on reflex. Shove the rocks under the wheels, hope the wheels grip the branches... Try not to think about what might happen if the bridge is flooded by the time I finish this.
Addie almost didn't hear the rumble of an engine over the sound of the wind whipping through the massive pines surrounding her. She straightened and squinted through the downpour, shoving her hair back from her face as she struggled to focus on the source of the sound.
A utility vehicle with the police department logo emblazoned on the side pulled to a skidding stop on the road up the hill from her, and a man in a navy blue slicker climbed out.
He called out to her as he slipped and slid down the embankment. "Addie Jo Gardner, you are giving me gray hair!"
She could only imagine what she must look like, drenched from the rain and covered in mud. If it had been any other man she might not have minded, but of course it was Wes. Handsome, funny Wes, with the gorgeous blue eyes and the charming smile that had been distracting her more and more over the past year.
It was silly. She'd known him since middle school, and never once during her hormonal teenaged years had she thought about him in more than a friendly fashion. Her heart had belonged to the school's resident math genius, a brilliant young man who'd spent endless hours studying with her without noticing that she was a girl. Or maybe Chuck just hadn't known what to do with girls; he certainly hadn't seemed interested in them.
She doubted there had ever been a time when Wes hadn't known what to do with a willing woman. He'd been popular with the girls in high school, and every last one of Addie's friends had been in love with him at one point or another. If she'd ever been able to pull her attention away from Chuck, she might have joined them. He was impossibly charming after all.
Better late than never, crushing on the quarterback, she grumbled to herself as she resisted the urge to wipe at her face. She'd only add to whatever mud was already there, and now was not the time to be worrying about appearances.
So she smiled at him a little self-consciously and gestured to the rocks under her tires. "Got a little stuck."
He shook his head, clear blue eyes taking in the sky. "Leave it. The bridge is covered over, anyway. We'd better make for the plantation house."
"Shit." She turned back to the Jeep, dragging her bag from the back seat before giving the vehicle one longing look. The chances she'd see it again in one piece weren't very good, but she'd rather live than get sentimental over a vehicle.
She slipped the strap of her bag over her shoulder and followed him back to the steep slope. "Did those kids send you out here after me?"
He paused only long enough to lift the backpack off her shoulder and throw it over his. "Yeah. They went over to the shelter at the Presbyterian church like you said. Bea Westbury called the station when you didn't show."
"I thought I could make it out." And she felt more than a little guilty that she hadn't, since now she'd dragged him into the path of danger with her.
"Doesn't matter," he told her shortly as he dragged open the passenger side door and gave her two quick slaps on the back. "Get in and buckle up."
He moved with enviable ease, even in the driving rain and under the considerable weight of her bag, and it took no time at all for him to shove the knapsack between their seats and climb in behind the steering wheel. "You ready to go?"
She nodded, but all of her attention had shifted to the growing tension inside her, the feeling she got just before she had one of her waking visions. Not now, God, please not now.
Psychic ability might be the newest pseudoscience to go mainstream, but Addie still had occasional nightmares—not visions, thank God, but garden-variety bad dreams—that she would find herself the toasty target of a witch hunt if her placid, boring neighbors ever found out about her abilities. Even if they didn't run her out of town, she imagined no one would want her to keep teaching their children. The ACLU was already having a field day prosecuting employers who suddenly “let go” employees who displayed psychic power.
Addie's waking visions weren't subtle. Even now, her heart raced and her breathing sounded fast and loud in the closed confines of the car. She curled her hand around the handle of the door, closing her eyes as she tried to fend off the rush of power that sent a shiver up her spine and raised the hair on the back of her neck.
"Hey." His voice was concerned but stern, and his fingers touched her bare arm. "Are you okay, Addie?"
Heat flooded her as the world disappeared. She was on fire, burning from the inside out, and Wes was above her, skin sliding against hers in tantalizing ways as he dragged his tongue up the side of her neck. He whispered something she couldn't understand, and she caught the faintest flash of those devastating blue eyes before his teeth closed on her ear. In the next moment he was thrusting into her, and she had been waiting for this so long, so fucking long—
The vision released her as quickly as it had seized her, and she jerked her arm away from his fingers as color rushed to her cheeks. Holy shit.
The closest Wes could figure, she was in shock, or maybe getting feverish. It was the only explanation for the way she barely seemed to hear him, for the flush that spread over her neck and cheeks.
They were going to be stuck out there until the storm blew over, and the last damn thing he needed was to have little Addie Gardner die on him. Her grandmother would kill him. He cursed and shook her shoulder. "Addie, talk to me."
"I—" Her voice broke, and she batted at his hand almost as if she didn't want him touching her. "No, I'm fine. We should…just drive, Wes. I'm fine."
She was right about that much, at least. "All right. Buckle your seatbelt. The wind was blowing me all over the place on my way here."
He put the 4x4 back in gear and started carefully down the road. It was only a few miles to the edge of the park then a few more to the plantation house, but conditions were treacherous, and he had to use all of his concentration to keep the truck on the road.
The short drive took nearly half an hour, and it was time they could ill afford. The old plantation, which had since been converted into a boutique hotel, would offer them shelter on high ground as well as enough supplies to last the storm, but none of that would matter if the storm hit before they could get inside.
"You still doing okay?" he asked tersely, his hands clenched on the wheel, knuckles white and aching.
She didn't say anything for a moment, though he could hear her teeth chattering. He'd turned on the heater to warm her, but it couldn't change the fact that she was drenched to the skin. It was one more thing to worry about—getting her into something warm and dry before she ended up sick.
When she finally spoke, her voice was hoarse. "I'm okay. Just cold."
She must have been in shock, because he could believe she was cold in her wet clothes, but it wasn't that cold. Still, she was shivering violently. "Are you sure you're—"
His breath hissed out in a curse as lightning struck a tree a few dozen yards ahead of them with a blinding flash and a sharp crack. Another one sounded seconds later as a large branch broke free of the tree and went tumbling to the road in front of them.
There wasn't time to slow to a stop before they hit it, and swerving to one side or the other on the half-flooded pavement would have been suicide. Wes cursed again and concentrated, focusing every bit of his energy on the branch.
It flew up, almost as if moving in reverse, and tumbled off to the side of the road. They still barely managed to avoid hitting it, and Wes didn't dare glance at Addie as he continued up the drive.
She was silent until they reached the parking lot that had been constructed when the old house was converted into a swanky resort. When he finally chanced a look at her, she was studying him with her eyebrows slightly drawn together. Then she tilted her head to the side. "I knew you cheated the last time we played pool."
"I don't cheat," he told her shortly, shutting off the engine. "Get inside, and wait for me in the lobby. I'll bring our stuff."
She snorted at his preemptory tone, but she didn't argue. "We'll talk about this later."
He watched her sprint toward the door, then checked his phone for a signal. He got none, so he ran through the channels on his radio. Nothing greeted him but static. Finally, he dragged Addie's bag out of the truck, along with the two emergency bags he'd loaded up, and headed for the hotel, dreading the next few days.
The situation would have been bad enough normally, but why couldn't he have been stranded with the new hire over at the power company or maybe Glenda Barrett, his on-again, off-again girlfriend? Why did he have to get stuck with Adelaide Gardner, the slightly odd teacher with legs up to her neck and brown eyes to die for? Adelaide Gardner, who had once been endearingly gawky and the only girl who'd ever turned him down for a date.
He gritted his teeth, pushed the door open, and found Addie waiting next to the front desk, still shivering. "Come on. Let's grab some things and get downstairs into the basement. I don't want to get caught up here with all these windows when the wind picks up. Someone did a real half-assed job of boarding them up."
"Basement should be safe enough," she agreed absently. "This is the highest point on the island, and the storm surge's never gotten this high before. And it'll be safer in case of tornadoes." She seemed to have regained her composure a little, even if she still looked like hell. "Maybe they've got some spare uniforms or something that I can put on. I need some dry clothes."
"The laundry's downstairs, too." He guided her toward the service stairs. "Even if we can't find any uniforms, there should be some clean robes and bedding."
"I've only been in here once," she admitted as she descended the stairs. "Had lunch with my thesis advisor in the restaurant. I have never paid that much for chicken before in my life."
"Why would you want to when your granny can make buttermilk fried chicken the way she does?" he laughed. "I swear, that woman sold her soul to the devil to cook like that."
That earned him a laugh, a rich, full sound. Addie had never been one for fake little laughs or girlish giggles. "Gran loves you, too. I bet she never lets you pay for a thing at the restaurant."
"She tries not to," he confirmed. "I keep on telling her she's going to get me fired, but she insists that it's not a bribe because I'm family." He didn't add that most of the elderly woman's comments to that effect had to do with him being destined to marry her favorite granddaughter.
"Poor Wes." She reached the bottom of the steps and turned suddenly, blocking his path. "So. Everyone in town whispers that there's something not quite right with me, but I've never heard anyone accuse you of being a psychic."
He dropped her bag by her feet and arched an eyebrow at her. "Maybe that's because I'm damn careful about where and how I use my...talents. If I knew, for instance, that there were a couple of kids in danger out at the beach, I'd probably call the authorities, not try to save them myself."
A hint of color rose in her cheeks. "If I called y'all every time I got a vision, there'd be more than just rumors about me. People whispering that I'm a little nutty is one thing, but you know as well as I do what tends to happen to people like me when word gets out."
He knew. At best, she could be put into protective custody, conscripted into working for government intelligence. At worst, she could simply disappear, sold to the highest bidder, and no one would ever know what happened to her. His mouth went dry, and his heart started to pound. "You could have called me, Addie. Hell, you've known me for twenty damn years."
There was a flash of emotion across her face, gone too fast for him to be sure what it was. She turned and moved down the hallway, heading to the door marked ”Laundry”. She pushed open the door before glancing over her shoulder at him. "I guess I could have. I just…didn't know how you'd feel about it."
Wes told himself that she hadn't meant for the words to sting, but it was hard to keep the hurt out of his voice. "At the very least, I hope you know I wouldn't sell you out to some smuggler," he said flatly. "And I wouldn't ask stupid questions if there were lives on the line." He gestured into the laundry room. "You go look for something to wear and maybe some towels and bedding. I'm going to check the kitchen."
He didn't wait for a response, just stalked off down the long concrete hallway. It was one thing to know that Addie had no interest in him as a lover, but quite another to learn that she apparently didn't have the slightest bit of confidence in him as a friend.
Addie knew she'd made a mistake before Wes turned his back on her. She opened her mouth to call him back, but his long legs took him to the other end of the hallway before she could figure out what to say.
Great. Fabulous. She groped along the side of the wall until she found the light switch and flipped it on. The room had three commercial washer/dryer sets and, blessedly, a long rack of metal shelving along the far wall stacked with clean bedding, towels and robes. She pulled the door shut and locked it for good measure then hurriedly stripped out of her damp clothing and shoved it into one of the dryers. Now let's just hope the power lasts long enough to dry it.
She pondered the hurt expression on Wes’ face as she moved to the shelf full of linens. She'd lied to him, a stupid little lie meant to cover the schoolgirl crush that she was far too old to have at all, much less hide so desperately.
She had considered calling him. She considered it every time she woke up trembling and terrified from a vision of disaster. Some of them were things she could do nothing about—distant plane crashes, a murder on an unrecognizable city street. But some of them...some of them, he could have helped with. Some of them he could have done something about, if only she'd had the courage to ask for help.
But fear had kept her silent. In the beginning it had been fear of admitting the truth, fear of what could happen if the wrong people found out about her abilities.
Then her feelings for Wes had started to change, and concern about her own safety had turned to speculation about his reaction. Wes had seemed fond enough of her when she was gawky Addie Gardner the teacher and scientist. Fear that he wouldn't feel the same way about a psychic had kept her silent.
Of course, he'd just demonstrated how absurd that was. She smiled as she found a soft, expensive-feeling robe, worthy of the sort of overpriced resort that the old Carter plantation had become. She'd been stupid for all the wrong reasons, but now she knew better. And we have the whole night. Stuck here together with nothing to do...
Oh, yes. She had all sorts of ideas about how to pass the time. And she didn't have to wonder if he'd be interested; the blinding passion that had seized her along with the vision of their bodies entwined was all the encouragement she needed.
She found Wes in the kitchen, stacking cans and boxes of food on a stainless steel countertop. He eyed the fluffy white robe, his pale blue eyes flashing nervously, and ran a hand over his short-cropped brown hair. "The, uh, hotel uses gas ranges, so we should be able to eat hot meals even if the power goes down. Cell reception is crappy out here on the best of days, though, and the radio in the truck isn't working. Something must have happened to the nearest tower."
"Yeah?" She leaned against the counter and met his eyes. "Wes, I didn't mean that I don't trust you. I know you'd never sell me off to smugglers or anything. And if I had gotten into trouble, you would have been the first person I called."
A can hit the counter with a metallic thump. "You were in trouble, Addie. I know you were just trying to help those kids, but how do you think that makes me feel?" For a moment, his expression was open, frightened, and then he turned away. "Who did you think would have to go talk to your family—to Granny—when you wound up missing or dead?"
"Yeah, but I didn't know I was in trouble. Which is sort of ironic, now that I think about it."
She'd tried for a light-hearted joke, but he looked even crabbier. "It isn't funny, Addie."
"I know," she soothed at once, though there was something irresistible about him when he was being grumpy and protective. "It was stupid, Wes. I know better than anyone how stupid it was. But I thought the Jeep could handle it. I've driven through worse."
"Okay." He held his hands up and shook his head. "Let's just...talk about something else, all right?" He hesitated then gave her a grudging grin. "You did good. Those kids are all right now, thanks to you."
That brought an honest smile as she pushed a few strands of her damp hair back from her face. "I like being able to help," she admitted, moving around to help him sort through the cans. "I'm just not sure I can deal with what would happen if the truth came out. People would feel differently about me. I might not be able to keep my job. And that's not even considering the likelihood that someone would try to kidnap and sell me."
"That's all true. But you can't keep risking your life, Addie," he warned, nudging her with his elbow. "My nerves can't take it. And I wasn't kidding about the gray hair. See?"
If there was any gray mixed in his perfect brown hair, she couldn't see it. His short beard was equally free of gray and suited him all too well. She felt her heart rate increase as she looked away again, fiddling with the label on the can of soup she had in her hands. "You know, I had a vision while we were driving over here. That was why I got all...weird."
"Oh yeah?" His eyes darkened, and she could practically see him go into cop mode. "Something bad?"
Time to go for broke. "Guess it depends. How do you feel about the imminence of what is apparently going to be the hottest sex I've ever had?"
It was quite obviously the last thing he had expected to hear, because he just stared at her, his expression unchanging. Then he managed to stammer, "Wh-What did you say?"
For one brief moment, Addie was forced to consider the possibility that she hadn't had a vision at all but rather a moment of insane fantasy brought on by adrenaline and the proximity of a very, very attractive man. And if he's not interested, I just made a fool of myself....
She cleared her throat and wondered just how pink her cheeks had gotten. "Something about really hot sex. I'm...not sure how we're going to get there, though, since you're sort of staring at me like I'm insane—"
The rest of her words were cut off by his mouth covering hers.
Wes knew it was a bad idea, but he didn't care. All he knew was that Addie had been gazing up at him, looking vulnerable and talking about hot sex, and he had to kiss her. Hell, he'd been wanting to for more than fifteen years.
He had to kiss her.
It was shaping up to be the best bad idea he'd ever had, too, because she felt like heaven. Her mouth was warm and pliant under his, and he grasped her hips, his fingers digging into the plush terrycloth as he pressed her back against the counter. Then she parted her lips and tilted her head a little, and her tongue teased at his lower lip, soft and almost a little shy.
Shy wasn't a word he usually associated with Addie. She was smart and brazen and the tiniest bit odd, but she'd never been bashful. He broke the kiss and stared down at her, panting. "Is something wrong?"
She shook her head, looking just as breathless as he felt. "No. God, no. I just…I've sort of been thinking about this for a while. I didn't realize it'd go this well."
He frowned at her. "What, the kissing? Did you think I'd suck at it?"
That made her laugh. "Hardly. If you did, all the women in town wouldn't be banging down your door. Which is sort of why I thought it might not go so well. There's a lot of competition, you know."
He snorted. "Says the only woman who ever turned me down cold. Or have you forgotten that, you little heartbreaker?"
Her expression went from amused to perplexed in the space of a heartbeat. "I did what?"
"Oh, come on," he teased, brushing her hair back from her face. "You have forgotten!" He stepped back and eyed her with mock dismay. "Senior year, back when all this was just uninhabited island and an old, abandoned plantation? Jeff Meyers was throwing a party here, and I asked you to go with me. Ring any bells?"
"Well, yeah..." She tilted her head to one side and got that look, the one she always got when she was trying to work her way through a problem, with a tiny furrow between her eyebrows. "But I didn't think you were asking me out. I thought you felt bad because Chuck had just blown me off and I was depressed."
"I asked you to meet me here," he reminded her. "Under the big magnolia out front, away from where they always built the bonfire."
"I thought you felt bad for me," she repeated, one hand coming up to fiddle with the collar of his shirt. "I figured you didn't need your dorky friend moping around and cramping your style at a party."
It had been the last thing on his mind, he remembered that much. "You did cramp my style. You stood me up." He'd waited out under that tree, a beer in each hand, for more than an hour. Finally, he'd untied his boat and motored home, depressed and disappointed.
"Oh." Her brown eyes held a warmth he'd never seen before as she looked up at him. "I wouldn't stand you up now."
The temptation to kiss her again nearly overwhelmed him, and Wes found himself leaning toward her, his fingers threading into her damp hair. His mouth was nearly on hers when the room went dark and silent. He closed his eyes and backed away, sighing. "Guess the lines are down."
Addie's hands knocked into his chest, tangling in his shirt as she took a breath that sounded a little panicked. "Damn it. We didn't find candles."
Wes covered her hands with his. "It's okay. They've got to have—" A whirring thump drowned out his whisper, and dim light swelled in the room. "There's the emergency generator."
Her expression was a little self-conscious. "I'm a little old to be scared of the dark, but it's not my favorite thing."
"Is that..." He cleared his throat. "Dreams? Is that how you see things? I…I read that a lot of precognitive visions come in dreams."
"Vivid, horrible dreams." She sounded haunted, and her hands shook a little. "You wouldn't believe how bad they can be. Those kids…" Addie shuddered.
"The campers from the beach?"
"They were going to die, terrified. Him first, because he loved her and tried to protect her, but then she gave up...."
Wes’ throat tightened, and he gathered Addie close to his chest and tucked her head against his shoulder. "Shh. It's okay now. They're out in town, probably drinking coffee at the shelter and listening to Mabel Wilson and Patty Dupree argue over whose apple crumb cake recipe is the best."
"Good." Addie relaxed against him slowly, her face staying pressed against his neck. In twenty years, he'd never seen her so vulnerable. Addie had always been strong, irrepressible, but now her hands were wrapped in his shirt as she leaned against him, letting him support her.
Protectiveness rose up in him. The feelings weren’t surprising; he'd been watching out for Addie in one way or another since the sixth grade. But this was something different. He felt almost possessive, as if caring for her was his responsibility. His job. "Come on, honey. Let's find someplace to sit down."
Addie followed him, one hand clutched in his. The door past the laundry room opened into an employee lounge. It looked comfortable enough, with a worn leather couch, an old-fashioned refrigerator, and several plush chairs covered in magazines and newspapers.
He led her to the couch and glanced at the door. "I'm going to go rustle up some blankets and things, all right? Just...try to relax."
"I'll be okay." She smiled up at him gratefully. "I just... Sometimes I get a little thrown by the bad ones."
He tried to give her a reassuring smile. "Hey, I get it. Just relax. I'll be right back."
There were fewer lights in the laundry area, so he had to pull the small flashlight from his utility belt to search the shelves for bedding. He finally snatched up an armful of blankets and some pillows then leaned against the wall.
Addie was a psychic. It was the sort of thing that people around town had whispered about for years, every time she popped up in the middle of some bit of trouble or other. He'd tried to ignore the rumors, but every time something new and strange happened, he'd always wondered if he should ask her about it. Perhaps they could have helped each other through some of the tougher times. At the very least, he could have made sure she didn't go rushing off into harm's way.
But it was too late for that. Something had kept him from mentioning it. If he were going to be brutally honest with himself, he'd have to admit that he hadn't wanted to take the chance that she would have no idea what he was talking about. She'd look at him as if he were nuts, and any chance he might have had of getting her to go out with him would be ruined.
Selfish damn coward, he berated himself, then straightened. Whatever his reasons—or hers, for that matter—the past was the past. All either one of them could do now was go forward.
He only wished that his heart didn't skip a beat when he thought about the possibilities.
By the time Wes returned, Addie had mostly pulled herself together. Her stubborn, independent side balked at the fact that she'd almost fallen apart in front of Wes, but the more practical voice inside her whispered that perhaps it had been exactly what she needed.
A chance to not be alone. Not that she was ever alone, precisely, but she had learned early on that it was hard to hide her abilities when she had a man in her bed. The one long-term boyfriend she'd had in college had figured it out after a few months of listening to her whimper in her sleep about disasters that appeared in the newspaper the next morning.
But Wes knew. She wouldn't have to pretend with him. She wouldn't have to sneak out of his bed or make sure he didn't stay in hers. There would be someone there when she woke up, terrified—
Getting a little head of yourself there, girlie, she admonished silently as he walked back into the lounge, his arms piled high with pillows and blankets. One little vision of incredibly hot sex didn't mean she was about to start having sleepovers with Wes, no matter how appealing the idea seemed.
And it was appealing. It was damn appealing. She imagined her expression was all kinds of inviting as she smiled at him. "Thanks, Wes."
He just arched an eyebrow at her. "For what?"
Both of her eyebrows went up before she could stop them. "For driving into a hurricane to save me, for one thing."
He looked uncomfortable as he tossed her a pillow and a blanket. "It's my job, Addie."
This was not heading toward hot sex or anything remotely approaching it. "Wes, did I do something wrong? I mean granted, I haven't been dating much, mostly due to the fact that any man who spends the night with me has a good chance of listening to me predict major catastrophes, so I'm probably out of practice."
He stared down at the other blankets in his hands before answering. "No, you didn't do anything wrong. But maybe if I'd done something right, you wouldn't be stuck out here right now in the middle of a damn hurricane."
She couldn't even begin to fathom what twist of logic had led him to the conclusion that this was somehow his fault, but that was something she had every intention of heading off at once. "How long have you known me, Wesley Saxon? When's the last time you saw someone stop me from doing something once I had my mind set on it?"
The line of his jaw immediately tightened, and he unsnapped his holster, withdrawing his gun. "I'd been meaning to ask you how you kept finding trouble. I suspected the truth, but I found ways to put it off, to chicken out. All because I didn't know how to tell you my own secret." He checked the gun, laid it down on a long table, then unbuckled his heavy leather belt. "Like I said, I'm a chicken."
A chicken was one thing she'd never call him. "Well, now you know. I'm just as nutty as everyone says, and maybe a little more. But I didn't want to drag you into the middle of it, Wes. And I thought—" It sounded stupid now, but she said it anyway. "There are still a lot of people out there who aren't interested in getting involved with a psychic. But then I felt guilty about asking you out when I'd have to lie to you." Maybe they were both cowards. She felt more like a teenager than a woman who had passed thirty a few years back.
His belt hit the table with a thump, and he raised his hands to the buttons of his shirt. His expression had relaxed a little, and he looked amused. "Then can we just agree that we're both idiots?"
"We're both idiots," she agreed at once. "I can't believe you thought I'd stood you up though, Wes. I would never have done that!"
He arched an eyebrow at her as he unbuttoned his shirt. "Really?"
Oh, that was entirely unfair. She'd never seen the body that would surely strain whatever T-shirt he had on underneath his uniform, but her vision had provided her with an extremely vivid memory of the way the hard muscles of his shoulders had felt under her fingers as she'd clutched at him in utter desperation.
She swallowed, forcing her eyes back to his face. "No," she said. "But I don't know if I would have dated you in high school. You were sort of bossy."
"Bossy?" The cotton shirt pulled taut over his chest turned out to be dark blue. Addie had always thought that all the talk about rippling muscles was a particularly silly bit of hyperbole, but she'd been wrong. Wes’ shoulders did, indeed, seem to ripple as he shrugged out of his uniform shirt. "Assertive, I'll give you. But bossy?"
"Bossy." She narrowed her eyes. "You're still a little bossy, you know."
He grinned at her and stretched, his movements slow and lazy. "It's all part and parcel of the job, Addie Jo. Doesn't mean I'm on some power trip." He lowered his arms and swung them back and forth a few times. "Why don't you just ask me?"
It figured that he knew her well enough to know she'd be burning with questions. Putting aside all thought of his bossiness, she shifted into a more comfortable position. "Okay. When did you find out that you were psychic?"
"Freshman year of college." Wes turned and leaned to sit on the edge of the table. "The first time I really noticed it, really believed, I was at my Mama's house. I knocked a jar of dill pickles off the counter, and I didn't move fast enough to catch it." His smile faded a little. "The damn thing just...froze. Midair."
"Wow." She fiddled with the edge of her robe as she considered that. "So what did you do?"
He shrugged and smiled ruefully. "Tried to pretend it didn't happen. That lasted all of fifteen minutes. I've never been one to stick my head in the sand, you know."
"Did you find someone to help you with it?"
"Nope." He clasped his hands, twining his fingers together, and looked down at them. "What about you? Did you go to one of those specialists to confirm your visions?"
"Not one of the government ones." She could remember all too clearly the fear that had gripped her as she'd tried to decide what to do. "It was my sophomore year before I had to admit it. I was twenty and scared out of my mind, but I'd had a friend...a clairvoyant. She--" Addie swallowed and closed her eyes. "They've got it even worse than the precogs do. She went to one of the Psychic Testing Centers, and two days later some guy from the Center was clearing out her things. She just disappeared."
Wes looked torn between sympathy and anger, and he scratched his jaw. "Maybe she wanted to go. I've heard of some who didn't, though."
Addie doubted very much that Sarah had disappeared willingly, but there was no point in arguing over it. "Well, I didn't. I found one of the underground facilities. The ones run by other psychics. They helped me some...helped me learn how to deal with it. There was a doctor who prescribed me some sedatives. It took me five years before I started really sleeping again."
"What about your granny?"
She blinked at him. "Gran? I know she's the unchallenged ruler of the gossip mill in town, but I'm not sure she's psychic, no matter what people like to say."
Wes laughed. "I meant, does she know? The truth, not the rumors."
"Oh. No, I never told her." She shrugged and looked down at her robe again. "It didn't... It just didn't feel safe. Like I might be dragging her into my problems. And that'd be a pretty awful thing to do after she pretty much raised me."
"I don't know about that." He pushed off the table and walked across the room to lower himself into one of the chairs. "My mother knows about me."
A tiny hint of fear spiked through her. She hadn't even considered the possibility that being psychic would put Wesley in danger, too. "Do people—I mean, I haven't heard. If telekinetics are as much in demand as precogs and clairvoyants."
He stretched his legs out and leaned back into the chair with a soft sigh. "No clue. I know none of the drug enhancement studies have worked to make TK more reliable. Aside from that..." His eyes were bleak when they met hers. "I try not to pay too much attention."
It was hard to see him look so disheartened. "Why?" she whispered. "Are you worried about what would happen if people found out?"
"I
could always go back to
She hadn't let him get away with that sort of thing in high school, and she didn't now. She rose to her knees and moved to the other end of the couch, reaching out a hand to rest on his. "You think I won't understand?"
"On the contrary," he said softly. "I think you'd understand entirely too well, Addie Jo."
Addie took a deep breath and let it out before tightening her hand around his. "It doesn't matter to me, you know. Obviously."
Wes laid his other hand over hers. "I know. I guess the secretive thing is just a hard habit to break."
"Yeah." His hand was warm on hers, strong and just a bit callused. It was all too easy to imagine his fingers sliding over her body, to imagine how good it would feel. Her libido reminded her that there was extremely hot sex in their future, and she fought the sudden urge to slide into his lap.
Danger and adrenaline. It wasn't a possibility she wanted to face, but it was there. In a town as small as Carter's Bay, a nasty falling out could be unbearable. She worked for Wes’ mother, and he spent every single lunch hour in her grandmother's restaurant. If they let the allure of shared secrets and the danger of the storm lure them into doing something…
Waiting a night or two wasn't going to hurt them.
He sighed again and pulled his hand from hers. Her disappointment was quickly supplanted by breathless desire when his hand rose to her cheek, his thumb rubbing over her skin. "Things don't always work out the way you think."
"Sweet Jesus, Wes. If we're not going to have hot sex, you have got to stop being all...hot. And romantic. And irresistible." Oh, that was smooth. Why don't I just babble a little more?
For a second, he looked just as thrown as she felt. Then he flashed her a smile. It was the same smile she'd seen him give other women, usually right before they offered him their panties. "Sorry, sweetheart, but I need a little time to downshift from confessions to hot sex."
Addie laughed and fell back onto the couch, dragging the pillow over her face. "We have got to keep it under control. I can't face your mother tomorrow if I violate her little boy in the basement of the old Carter place."
He made a strangled noise and swore. "Damn, Addie Jo."
She frowned and tugged the pillow away only to realize that her robe had slid open, baring her legs to the tops of her thighs. Her cheeks flamed as she scrambled to drag the blanket over her nakedness, glaring at him. "Stop it. I just said I was behaving."
"That’s a shame," he said in a hoarse voice. "Given a little time to get used to the idea, there are far worse ways to pass the time than getting naked with the woman of your dreams."
Her heart jumped. "Is that what I am?"
His laugh was more than a little self-conscious. "I used to wish my chemistry grades were a little worse," he admitted, "just so I'd have an excuse to ask you to tutor me. But you were always so busy with what's-his-face. The computer guru."
Addie groaned. "Chuck. God, what a waste of my teenage years. You know, I don't think he ever actually noticed that I was a girl. I suppose I should be glad. Anyone that impressed with himself was bound to be a terrible boyfriend." And even worse in bed.
Wes snorted. "You were quite a fan of his back then."
"Oh, let's not go judging people based on who they liked in high school." She shifted over on the couch, clearing a space for him in what she hoped was subtle invitation to move to sit next to her. "Or do you want to talk about the head cheerleader and the prom queen?"
She could tell she'd made her point when the tips of his ears turned red. "Fine. What about since then?" He rose from the chair and moved to sit next to her, stretching his long legs out in front of him again.
"What? Men?" Addie snorted. "You know how dating in this town is. Between the matchmakers and the gossip, I might've hid from the men even if I didn't have an unfortunate habit of talking about the future in my sleep. Besides, I've been pretty focused on teaching and my thesis, which I'd like to finish before I'm sixty."
"Not men, Addie," he said softly, his eyes boring into hers. "Me."
Oh. My. God. She had to try twice to stammer out her reply. "Career Day," she finally managed. "It—when you came to Career Day. Afterwards, when you were helping me clean up that mess that Bradley and John made..." He'd frightened the troublemakers to within an inch of their young lives then stayed to clean up broken beakers with her, flirting the whole time.
It was hardly the first time he'd flirted with her, but before it had always seemed like casual teasing between friends instead of anything sexual. But her grandmother had sent her to school with a pecan praline pie that morning—Wes’ favorite—and they'd stayed in her office well into the evening, laughing and talking over pie and coffee. By the time he'd walked her to her car, the world had been alive with possibilities she'd never considered before.
He laughed and rested his arm on the back of the couch, his hand barely brushing her shoulder. "That was some damn good pie. And some damn good company." His breath feathered against her cheek. "But that was months ago."
Heat shot through her, and her voice sounded low and hoarse even to her own ears. "Maybe I was a chicken, too."
"Maybe," he agreed as his thumb brushed her cheek. "Do you mind if I kiss you again, Addie?"
Just a kiss. Just one little kiss... It was a bad idea, but that didn't stop her from wrapping her arm around his neck and dragging him into the most deliciously erotic kiss of her life.
Wes had kissed his fair share of women, and probably a few others besides, but something about the way Addie's lips parted under his was unbearably arousing. Her kiss was bold and assertive, yet still soft and sweet. It was a maddening dichotomy he had associated with Addie for the last fifteen years.
He shifted, trying to get close enough to press her tightly to his chest, to feel her curled up against him, but the pillows and blankets between them got in his way. He pulled his mouth from hers long enough to toss the bedding to the floor, and his arms flexed as he picked her up and drew her into his lap.
She squirmed a little, shifting until her knees dug into the couch on either side of his hips. Addie didn't wait for him to kiss her again but claimed his mouth, making soft noises against his lips.
Wes’ hand landed on her leg, left bare by the parting of her robe, and the intimacy of their situation hit him full in the face. If he didn't stop, they'd be making her vision come true sooner than he'd planned...and in the middle of one hell of a crisis, too. He broke the kiss and looked up into her dazed brown eyes. "Addie—"
A loud crash of broken glass and whistling wind interrupted his words. It sounded close, and the large, barely secured picture windows of the lobby sprung to mind. "Dammit," he ground out, already lifting her off his lap.
She climbed to her feet and tightened her robe as her eyes slid to the door. "I was too distracted to notice if they boarded the windows or not."
He'd mentioned it, but she'd been in sorry shape when they'd arrived. "Not very well. It could be downed trees or debris." He reached out and grabbed his rain slicker and flashlight, hesitating only a moment before taking up his gun, as well. "There's a deadbolt on the door. Lock it behind me, and only open it back up for me."
Addie stared at him with her mouth gaping open, and he could almost see her temper rising. "The protective thing was nice when I was actually feeling shaky, but don't push it, Wes. I will kick your ass."
That wasn't the reaction he'd expected. "Is there some reason you think I wouldn't tell a six-foot tall trucker, in whom I had no sexual interest whatsoever, the same thing, or are you just that touchy?"
She glared. "The six-foot tall trucker probably isn't working on a Master's degree in meteorology. If there were bank robbers or kidnappers up there, you would absolutely be the boss of me, but that's a hurricane. I can do hurricanes."
He fought the urge to call her "little lady.” "Do I still get to be the boss of you if there are looters up there, looking to score from a posh and ostensibly deserted resort?"
Addie blinked, her mouth snapping shut. Then she tilted her head and considered his words for a moment, her expression finally shifting from annoyed to accepting. "Okay, I guess that's why you're the cop and I'm the scientist. I can't begin to imagine why anyone would be stupid enough to drive into a storm just to steal stuff."
"Agreed." He gave her a wink. "Though there are a lot of people who can't understand why you'd risk your neck to drive into one, either." He glanced at the door. "I have to go check this out. Just...wait here. Please?"
"Okay," she replied softly, smiling at him. "Be careful."
He nodded then quickly headed out and toward the stairs. He held his gun at the ready, his flashlight above it. The hotel hadn't been locked when they'd arrived, and he hadn't bothered to secure it behind them, but people looking to take advantage of a bad situation rarely bothered to check doors. Smashing windows was far easier, especially when there was no one around to care.
Wes didn't encounter anyone on his way up to the lobby, and he found a large cabbage palm intruding through a broken window and onto the glossy tile floor. A quick examination of the glass in the immediate area revealed that it didn't seem to have been disturbed, and only their own wet and muddy footprints marred the tile.
He blinked rain out of his face and peered out of the broken window. The storm must have been drawing closer, but he couldn't see a damned thing for all the wind and rain. Maybe, in a little while, Addie could come up and take a look at things.
Leaving the palm tree in its new home, he turned and trudged back down the stairs, only stopping to grab a fresh towel. He'd barely finished knocking when she jerked the door open, and he gave her a rueful grin as he rubbed the towel over his wet hair. "No criminals up to no good. Just a tree."
"Good." Addie tugged him into the room and closed the door behind him, sliding the bolt into place. When she turned to him, her eyes were a little sheepish. "I'm sorry I snapped at you before. You know how I can get. I can't stop thinking like a scientist."
Her apology was unnecessary and made him feel vaguely bad for no discernable reason. "It's not a big deal. I have a hard time getting my own head out of cop mode, too. If it were easy, I'd have probably realized that the chances of that being anything other than bad weather were slim to none."
She nodded and moved past him to curl back up on the couch, her legs tucked under her and her robe modestly arranged. Her expression turned serious as she cleared her throat. "Since you're going to be spending the night wi—in the same room as me, you'll probably need to know what to do if I wake up freaking out."
Wes arched an eyebrow at her before crossing to the employee refrigerator and examining its contents. It held the usual collection of Tupperware containing leftovers of questionable freshness, along with a selection of soft drinks and a few containers of yogurt. "Why, does your head spin around, or something?" he asked absently as he examined a delicious-looking slice of pie. A note on the top of the plastic container threatened death to anyone who touched it.
"You have to be careful," she warned. "If you touch me before I'm awake... I broke my boyfriend's nose in college. Even if it seems like I'm awake, I might not be."
Addie was in pretty good shape, but the thought of her being able to get that decent a hit in on him was downright depressing. "I'll be careful.” He pulled a soda from the refrigerator and waved it at her. "You want one?"
She eyed him in consternation. "You're not at all concerned?"
"About you? Yes." He grabbed another soda and handed her one anyway. "About you hurting me? Nope."
"Maybe I just hate the idea of looking like an idiot in front of you," she admitted ruefully. She cradled the soda between her hands, but made no move to open it. "It's not always pretty. I sweat and scream and cry and kick all the blankets off and pretty much act like a crazy person."
He flashed her a grin and teased gently, "What's wrong with that? I do the same thing when the Bulldogs lose a bowl game."
For a second he thought she was going to throw the soda at him, but she finally gave him a grudging smile. "Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you."
"I have been more than adequately warned, Addie Jo." Wes opened his soda and took a big gulp then stretched. "It's still early, but damn, I'm tired."
"Don't call me Addie Jo." She wrinkled her nose at him and shifted on the couch, but her eyes were anything but annoyed. Warmth had crept back into them, and the slightest bit of something a whole lot hotter. "You going to curl up with me?"
"Not if you're going to punch me in the nose," he retorted as he sat down and unlaced his boots. "Scoot over and give me some of the covers, Addie Jo."
It started the way it always did. The dream she was having began to fade and rising horror took its place. She struggled in her sleep, clinging desperately to the hazy image of Wes and a beach and the sun glinting off his hair as he laughed about something silly. It was a good dream, warm and comfortable and slipping through her fingers like so much sand.
With the fear came darkness, and for several seconds there was nothing but the sound of her own heart beating frantically in her chest. She fought, desperate to wake up before the vision claimed her.
It didn't work. It never worked. And between one heartbeat and the next, she was thrown into terror.
Fire.
It surrounded her, crawling up the walls and writhing like a living thing. The curtains had turned into monstrous billowing sheets of flame, and Addie could feel the young woman's terror as she shook her husband again. "Wake up, baby. God, wake up, Mark—"
She couldn't have been much older than twenty-five, roundly pregnant and sobbing as she tried to rouse the man next to her on the bed.
Addie knew he was dead, knew it before the firefighter crashed through the door and dragged the young woman away from her husband's body. Knew it before the firefighter's partner moved to heft the man's dead weight.
The girl struggled, fought as the firefighter lifted her bodily to pull her from the room. She screamed her husband's name over and over in a broken voice, hoarse from tears and smoke inhalation. She screamed until her words dissolved into sick, wracking coughs.
Addie could see the future, and the future was death. The building would collapse on everyone inside. An unforeseen catastrophe, seven dead. Panic throbbed through her as she fought back a scream and tried to remind herself that she wasn't inside. This wasn't happening to her, and she would wake up safe in her own bed—
"Addie."
Find a clue, find something.
It could have been any bedroom in any apartment in any city. The window was a mass of flames, and outside she could just make out a building, a billboard showing—
"Addie, you're dreaming. Wake up."
The explosion was deafening, and walls fell. She was stuck inside, trapped, and no matter how much she struggled she couldn't break free--
Strong hands wrapped around her arms and shifted her, pulling her against something solid and warm. "Addie, honey—"
"
"Shh," Wes soothed, his hands threading into her hair. "Do you know when?"
Addie wasn't even sure she was completely awake yet. Fear still gripped her, and her body trembled as she dragged in a deep breath of cool, clean air. She forced her eyes open and stared at Wes as she tried to organize her thoughts. "I…I should have tried to find a date. Some mail, or a newspaper…"
But she hadn't. Panic had taken her again, and the knowledge of her failure burned through her as she fought back tears.
"Hey, hey." He gathered her closer, his voice low in her ear as he rubbed her back. "It's not your fault, honey. You can't change everything, and expecting to be able to help from clear across the country is asking too much of yourself."
She shuddered again. She could change everything, or at least a lot of things. The government had resources they'd devoted to breaking down precognitive visions and preventing tragedy. Electronic monitoring while they slept, therapists on call to walk them through the visions to pick out tiny details. Dozens of computer gurus on call at all hours to track down the slightest clue. SWAT teams standing by to avert catastrophe.
She could save dozens, maybe even hundreds, of lives. But it would mean giving up everything she had—her studies and her job, her friends. Living in government custody for the rest of her life. Oh, it would be for her own protection; every criminal organization from the mob down to small-time bookies would pay well for their own precog. Drugs had even been developed that could reliably induce visions, though their safety was a hotly debated issue.
"Sometimes it makes me feel guilty," she admitted in a small voice. "Sometimes I think—I think of all the people who would still be alive if I went to the government. If I turned myself in. But I'm too selfish, Wes. I want a life."
He didn't say anything for a long while, just rocked her gently and made low, soft noises of comfort. Finally, he said, "I'm glad you haven't disappeared into some federal program already. It's hypocritical, but there it is. I mean, I put myself on the line for people every day, Addie, but I... The thought of you doing it..." He shook his head.
"If it were just the visions--" She shivered and curled closer to him, shifting to rest her head more comfortably against his shoulder. "You hear things. About the drugs. That it's not just the criminals who use them, but that the government might, too. I met someone, once, who'd used them. He did it to himself, because he wanted to see things." And it had driven him slowly insane. The drug-induced visions were reportedly more intense than the real thing, so terrifying and vivid that several psychics had suffered fatal heart attacks.
"Okay, now, that's crazy talk." His voice held an edge of fear. "You're not doing that kind of shit. I will beat your ass first."
That startled her enough that she jerked her gaze to his. "Oh hell, no. God, Wes. No. I'm guilty, not suicidal. And I'm not a martyr."
"Good. Because if you even thought about it, I'd bring the wrath of Granny Gardner down on your head."
A giggle escaped her. It was slightly hysterical, but it was better than sobbing. She dropped her head back to Wes’ shoulder and gave in to tired laughter as her stress began to seep away. "God. I would have slept a lot better the past fifteen years if you'd been around."
She said the words without thinking, but they fell into the easy space between them like rocks in a pond. A whole world of might-have-beens started under a magnolia tree not so far away. Maybe it never would have worked if they'd started dating as teenagers. But maybe…
Maybe she'd wasted fifteen years of her life when she could have been sleeping like this, curled up in his arms and feeling safe and loved.
Wes just brushed her hair back from her face and grinned against her cheek. "I hog the covers. And you wouldn't believe the snoring. Still want to sleep with me?"
"We could give it a go. A trial run, maybe." She pulled back enough to kiss him softly as she lifted one hand to cup his cheek. "We seem to do all right with the kissing, anyway," she murmured against his lips.
"Won't hear me complaining," he agreed, then urged her mouth open with his thumb on her jaw. His tongue delved past her lips, exploring, and she moaned in encouragement as she tilted her head.
Kissing him was right. It was perfect, as if they each knew exactly what the other wanted. He probably had far more practice at it than she did, but she could tell she was doing fine by the way he groaned and tugged lightly at her hair, tilting her head back farther so he could deepen the kiss.
Too soon, Wes lifted his head. His thumbs caressed her cheeks as he stared down at her with heavy-lidded eyes, his breathing fast and erratic. "We have to stop doing that."
"Especially since I'm practically naked already," she teased, her tone wicked. "Though I suppose I could always avoid your Mama for a few days and hope she doesn't find out I did bad things to you." The worst part was that she was only half joking.
He chuckled and shook his head. "Oh, no, you don't. I don't intend to have sex with you for the first time on some skanky couch in a break room. We need flowers and wine and sexy music."
Addie caught his lower lip between her teeth, nipping at it teasingly, then pulled back and snuggled down in his arms again. "Fine. But only because I'm pretty sure we were on a bed in my incredibly sexy vision, and I wouldn't want to mess that up."
"Fair enough." He shifted carefully, stretching out this time and drawing her down to lie against his chest. "I have nightmares sometimes, too, you know."
She rearranged the blanket over both of them then relaxed against him. "What about?"
"Usually about the...the telekinesis." His voice was low, halting, and his fingers fiddled anxiously with her robe. "It doesn't always work, you know. Sometimes it's easy, but other times... I concentrate so carefully but I just can't get it done. And…and I have nightmares that it fails me. When it really matters. When people are going to die."
Controlling her abilities had never been an issue—or even a possibility—for Addie. She'd never really considered what it might be like to depend on it only to know it might not always be there.
"You must be pretty strong, though," she whispered as she rubbed a soothing hand over his chest in aimless circles. "I mean, you tossed that branch out of the way like it was nothing."
"It happens that way. Some days, it's a snap. Other times, I can't flip a light switch from across the room."
She frowned a little as she considered it, her brain turning over the problem and offering a hundred different ways to test his skills, to find out when they worked and why. She made a rueful noise and forced herself to stop. "You should never give me a mystery like that, Wes. Now I want to take you home and start making you move plates until I can figure out how it works."
He just laughed. "Don't think I haven't tried. Though I usually work with books and free weights."
Addie propped her chin up on his chest so she could look at him. "When it comes to bad guys, you're the boss of me. When it comes to the scientific method, I am the boss of you. Besides..." She slid one hand up a little, tickling at his neck. "I bet I could think of all sorts of ways to rattle your concentration."
His grin was wicked. "You rattle my concentration just by breathing, woman."
"Oh yeah?" It wasn't difficult to believe him, not when she was snuggled up against him and could feel the hard proof of his arousal. "Well, if it's going to be a real scientific experiment, I'll have to rattle you a lot. There might be lingerie involved."
"A real scientific experiment, hmm? We won't be able to establish a control when you're around, that's for sure." His low, dulcet tone gave the words a double meaning, and she fought a shiver.
"And here I thought control was your thing." She traced her finger along the shell of his ear, barely touching him.
"Under the right circumstances, but not always." He turned his head quickly and nipped at her finger with a laugh. "Now, knock it off. I meant what I said about flowers and music and all that stuff."
"Mmm." Her finger skated along his lip, light and teasing. "Maybe I'm experimenting already. How's your telekinesis doing?"
Wes arched an eyebrow at her, and she felt a light, almost tickling touch along her lower back. "How do you think?"
Addie's mouth fell open. She could still feel his hands on her hips, but the soft stroking caress that was working its way up her back felt so real she had to resist the urge to look over her shoulder to make sure no one else was there. Somehow she hadn't quite considered the implications of going to bed with a telekinetic as creative as Wes.
Oh, this could be good. This could be really, really good.
He grinned, and she had to wonder for a moment if he could read her mind, as well. "Wondering what else I can do?" he asked before bending his head and tracing his tongue up her throat.
"Maybe a little." She barely noticed when he sat up, bringing her with him as if it was effortless. They ended up in much the same position they'd been in earlier, with Wes leaning back against the couch and her straddling his lap. She felt that maddening caress continue up her back even as his tongue found the base of her throat. Addie moaned and tilted her head back. "Maybe a lot."
"If you're not going to let me be a gentleman, you might as well find out," he murmured against her skin. The soft strokes on her back lengthened until the imaginary caress drifted from her shoulders down to her ass. "But I feel like I should warn you...."
"Warn me?" It was hard to concentrate on anything when she felt his hands on her skin even though she was still wearing that damn robe.
"Mmm." He raised his mouth to her ear. "I've been wanting to do this for a long time."
Addie groaned and dropped her hands to the belt of her robe. "How long?"
"I didn't ask you out in high school for the hell of it," he whispered, staring into her eyes as he moved one of his hands from her hip to slide up her leg, under the robe.
"Oh." She tugged the knot free and watched his face as she slowly parted the robe. "Now I have to wonder if I'll live up to it."
His gaze dropped to the smooth, pale skin she revealed. "I don't think you have to worry about that, Addie Jo." He pressed his mouth to her collarbone as his hand reached the juncture of her thighs. "It's just that I want to do all kinds of dirty things to you, given that I've had fifteen years to think about it."
She squeezed her eyes shut as his fingers stroked against her, finding her clitoris and teasing at it with a barely there touch. Heavy pleasure flooded her, made her feel hot and desperate as she moaned and slid her fingers up into his hair.
Kissing him was suddenly the most important thing in the world. She dragged his head back and sought his lips blindly with her own, begging entrance to his mouth by sliding her tongue over his lower lip.
His lips parted under hers as he twisted, turning them both so that she landed on the couch and he hit his knees beside it. He pulled at the white terrycloth, shoving it down her arms, then reached up and covered her breasts with his hands as he deepened the kiss.
She tried to move her hands back to his head, but she was still tangled up in the robe, which was pinned under the weight of her body. Addie groaned against his mouth, unashamed to admit to herself that there was something sinfully perfect about being at his mercy.
And he seemed determined to keep her that way—or to keep her too distracted to care. Heat shot through her as he rolled one tight nipple between his thumb and finger, and he swallowed her desperate moan when he did it again. His tongue stroked against hers in a sensual mimicry of sex, plunging into her mouth as if he meant to conquer it.
His mouth drifted lower, blazing a hot path between her breasts to her belly. His hands dropped back to her hips as he dragged her to the edge of the couch, but the feeling of him toying with her nipples didn't fade. If anything, the sensations increased, sharpened, as he kissed past her belly. His hands gripped her thighs, pulling them farther apart as tongue circled her clit.
"Wes!" His name ripped free of her as she threw her head back and squirmed under the onslaught of sensation. She'd lost the ability to think, lost the ability to breathe as his tongue stroked dizzying circles and his ghostly touches tormented her breasts. She tried to wiggle free of the robe, but his hands tightened on her thighs, holding her still so she had no choice except to wallow in the feelings.
And wallow she did. Her body climbed toward orgasm so fast she was breathless with the speed of it, unable to comprehend how it could possibly get better. Then one of his hands moved, his fingers slipping inside her, and heat raced through her as her body started to shake. "Wes…Wes, God, baby—"
He raised his head, his thumb moving to take the place of his tongue as he rocked his hand against her and watched her face. "Come on, Addie...." His tongue traced another hot path back up to her breast, and he closed his mouth around her nipple.
She couldn't deny him anything, not now, when she was balanced on the edge of release and wound so tight she knew that there was no stopping it. And in truth she didn't want to, not with him staring up at her with that desperate look on his face, as if seeing her come would be the hottest thing he had ever witnessed.
Addie let her head fall back against the couch as she let go, and orgasm slammed into her with all the force of the raging storm outside. She might have screamed, but she couldn't be sure. Pleasure crested inside her and rolled outwards in wild, uncontrollable waves that made her entire body shake and her toes curl.
He coaxed her through the waves, stroking into her with his fingers and rubbing her clit, dragging it out until she had to whimper in protest at the stimulation.
He tugged his hand away and kissed her shoulder. "Sleep?" His voice was as tight as his shoulders. "It's late."
She squirmed the rest of the way out of her robe before sliding off the couch to straddle his lap. Her fingers still shook, but she managed to find the hem of his shirt and drag it upwards. "Trying to be a gentleman is one thing, Wes, but now you're just talking crazy."
He kissed her, his tongue sweeping the inside of her mouth. Then he pulled away and let her coax his shirt off. "I tried. Lord knows, I tried."
"Should have known better," she whispered as she threw his shirt to the floor. Her hands fell back to his shoulders, and she stroked down his chest before bending her mouth to kiss his shoulder. "Can't stop me when I set my mind to something."
"Obviously not." He lifted her and set her back on the couch. Then he stood and reached for his pants, freezing when he had them undone. "Shit, Addie. I don't have any condoms."
Addie reached out and grabbed his pants, tugging them down. "You worried about getting me pregnant, or something else?"
His eyebrows shot up again. "I don't need to worry about anything else, or I wouldn't be about to have sex with you."
She laughed and slid her hands back up his legs before wrapping her fingers around his cock. She stroked him once slowly, still staring up at him. "Then you don't have to worry at all."
He groaned low in his throat and dropped to the couch beside her, pulling her back into his lap. "You're on something?"
"Other than you?" She traced her lips down the line of his jaw until she found his ear, then bit it softly. "I'm on birth control, Wes. It's fine."
He kissed her again, hard, then maneuvered until his cock prodded her entrance, pressing inside. He groaned her name, his hands shaking on her hips. "Jesus, Addie. Christ—"
She rocked her hips, taking him deeper each time until her body was pressed against his. Her fingers curled around the back of the couch as she sucked in a breath then dropped her forehead until it rested against his. "How's your control feeling now, honey?"
"What control?" He ground a curse between his teeth and thrust up against her. "Your experiment is either a smashing success or a horrible failure, because I don't think I could do a damn thing right now except fuck you."
The coarse language, so unlike Wes' usual easy-going nature, was hot enough to curl her toes again. "Good." She braced herself against the couch with one hand on either side of his shoulders. "You keep telling me how much you want to fuck me, and I'll..." She raised her hips a little and then slammed them back down with a groan. "Do this."
"Fuck—" His hands wrapped around the back of her shoulders, cupping them and dragging her down into his next thrust. "You can't tell how much I want this? How badly I want to feel you come again?"
She dragged one hand down his chest and slipped it between their bodies until she could brush her fingers over her clitoris. Fire shot through her, and she threw back her head with a groan. "That shouldn't…take long…."
He grinned again before pleasure twisted his features, and she felt the touch of his telekinesis again, phantom fingers on hers, urging her on as he braced his feet on the floor and plunged up into her even harder. "Now…"
This time she did scream, his name flying out of her as she hung on the edge of release for an endless moment. When she fell there was nothing but grinding, panting pleasure, and she rode out her orgasm, her lips blindly seeking his.
With blood pounding in her ears, she felt rather than heard him cry out, a hoarse, wordless sound of pleasure muffled against her mouth. He arched into her and shuddered, his hands scrambling over her skin, drawing her closer. "Addie...Addie…"
"Wes!" This time his name was a helpless moan as she rocked with the aftermath of her orgasm, the slight movement of her hips drawing another soft swell of pleasure from somewhere deep inside her.
It took several long moments for his hips to still, moments he spent whispering into her neck, stroking her skin. "I'm usually a lot smoother than that, you know."
She couldn't help the exhausted laughter that escaped her as she slumped against his chest, thoroughly sated. "God, help me."
"I'm not kidding," he panted. "I can bring it. You just wait and see."
"Mmm. I'm not doubting you, Wes." How could she, when their hasty, frantic groping had already been more satisfying than any sex she could remember. She was exhausted, wrung dry from the stress of the day and the force of their passion. She could fall asleep like this, cradled against his chest with his hand sliding up and down her back.
And if a tiny little voice in her head nagged that it hadn't been the sex of her vision... There's time for that later. Dirty old break room couches don't really encourage romantic lovemaking.
She barely noticed when Wes shifted them, finding a comfortable position half propped up against the arm of the couch with her body cradled against him. She closed her eyes and made a soft, contented noise as she curled against his chest, snuggling under the blanket he dragged over both of them. Held in his arms and wrapped in linens smelling of expensive fabric softener and something vaguely floral, she drifted toward sleep.
It would have been perfect if only she could have banished the terrifying possibility that she'd destroyed any chance of having that sweet, emotionally charged sex by moving too fast.
Wes awoke with Addie sprawled across his chest, snoring lightly. Every exhalation tickled his neck, and he smiled as he shifted her slowly and carefully until he could extricate himself without disturbing her.
There were no windows in the break room to help gauge the passage of time, and he wasn't sure he trusted his internal clock, not under the circumstances. A glance at his watch told him that it was just after six, and he tilted his head, listening to the quiet. It would seem the storm had blown over. Assuming they could quickly find a seaworthy boat, they could be back on the mainland in an hour.
He watched the gentle rise and fall of Addie's chest as he pulled his boots back on and tightened the laces. She was gorgeous, smart, and so stubborn she'd argue with a fence post. It was a deadly combination, and all of the reasons he'd had for not asking her out before now seemed ridiculous and overblown, especially in light of the way they'd spent the night. He hated to think of the time they'd missed, time he could have spent figuring out everything she ever wanted and giving it to her.
Of course, his mother would say he was counting his chickens before they'd hatched, assuming that they were going anywhere at all. Twelve hours of moony, longing looks and one night of scorching sex didn't make for matrimony.
He stifled a choking cough and stood abruptly, reaching for his pants. Matrimony? They hadn't even started the dating yet. Sure, they'd known each other forever and a day, but he didn't know what her favorite color was, or how she felt about kids, or any of the things she wanted to do before she died.
The woman had broken his head.
A soft noise drew his attention back to the couch, where Addie stirred sleepily. Both hands went over her head as she stretched, her eyes popping open when her hands encountered the arm of the couch. Her gaze darted around the room before falling on him, and her expression cleared. "Hey."
"Good morning," he smiled as he tugged on his boots then glanced up. "Sounds like the storm might be over. Want to go up and have a look?"
Addie tossed the blanket aside and laughed self-consciously when she realized she was still naked. She snatched up the discarded bathrobe and wrapped it around her body with a shiver. "Maybe I should get some clothes on, first. My shoes, especially, if there's glass up there."
"Go ahead and gather all of your stuff," he told her, strapping on his belt. "If it's cleared up, we're getting out of here. With the amount of rain we probably got, the bridge will still be flooded out, but there's no reason we can't take a boat."
"If we can find a boat." She rose to her feet and smiled. "I'll meet you upstairs."
"I've got a better idea. Why don't you look through the emergency supplies and have an energy bar while I fetch your clothes?"
She opened her mouth—to protest, it looked like—but she closed it again and smiled. "Okay. Thanks."
"Excellent. You'll need your strength for later, I think." He grinned and left before she could throw something at him.
Wes found himself whistling as he walked down to the laundry room. Getting Addie to agree with him might have been a small victory, at best, but he'd take what he could get. He checked the dryers, finally finding the one with her clothes in it. They were still a little damp, but the electricity didn't appear to have been restored yet.
"You might have to go naked, after all," he told her as he nudged the door back open upon his return. "Your clothes didn't get dry."
The look Addie gave him was downright dangerous. Her hands landed on the belt of her recently donned bathrobe and started to untie it again. "Naked, huh?" The fabric gaped open a little at the neck, revealing the smooth swell of one breast. "Really?"
Maybe the clothes weren't dry, but his mouth was. He turned his back and barely glanced over his shoulder at her. "You can check them," he told her, moving back far enough to lay the bundle of clothing on the couch. "But they're still pretty...damp."
Her robe landed over his shoulder. "I guess I'll just have to live with being a little bit wet."
He fought a groan. The last thing he needed was to get caught up in her again, especially when he had work to do. "You could make a preacher cuss, you know that?"
At least the rustle of fabric attested to the fact that she was getting dressed, damp clothes or no. "What do you mean could? Don't you remember when I got chased out of the church for the frog fiasco?"
Wes laughed. "Brother Daniels always was a little too worldly. You weren't living here when he ran off with the church treasurer, were you? I'm sure your granny told you all about it."
"She might have," Addie agreed, sounding amused. "You know she called me every week with all the gossip."
Which
meant Granny must have told her why Wes had moved from
"Heartbreak?" Her voice was light as she walked around the couch, fully clothed. "Gran said you couldn't bear to be away from her pecan pie. Seemed believable to me, considering that you can eat a whole damn one by yourself."
He gave her what he hoped was his most dashing, knee-melting grin. "It's likelier she didn't want you to know I was seeing other women."
Addie gave an unladylike snort. "How could you not have been? They always threw themselves at you, and I never noticed you doing much dodging."
Wes had done his fair share of dodging, but Addie seemed to like the idea of him as a lady-killing Lothario, so he let it lie. "I had to find some way to kill the pain of your rejection," he teased.
She bent down to tighten the laces on her boots and then rose, picking up her bag as she did. "I'll soothe your ego later, sweetheart. For now, let's go see how much of this island is left."
He made a face at her and lifted the bright red emergency bags from the table. "You're a smartass, Addie Jo." He held the door open for her. "It's probably been at least twenty-four hours since you've heard that, though, right?"
Addie just winked at him and started up the stairs.
The devastation in the lobby was an indication of how bad things would be on the rest of the island. Addie picked her way across the broken glass, her eyes taking in debris that had blown in through the decimated windows. "The fact that the building's still standing is a good sign." She poked carefully at the wobbly front door. "The winds must have dropped down before it hit."
Wes snorted. "Either that, or it veered away from us, and there are worse places up the coast."
"It could have." She moved out onto the front porch, and her brown eyes surveyed the sand-scattered drive and the downed trees around them with a cool, scientific detachment. "Damn, I should have been at home with my equipment."
"You were busy, Addie." He stepped past her, his boots crunching on glass and small, sodden branches. A wrought-iron café table rested, upended, against one edge of the porch, and he tapped her shoulder and pointed to a golf cart sitting low in the branches of a live oak. "Finding a boat that'll still float might be trickier than I thought."
"The fact that the water probably rose a half mile won't help things." She sighed and glanced at him. "Ready for a long morning?"
He raised an eyebrow at her as he tried to puzzle out her words. "The water doesn't look half a mile higher today to me."
"Half mile inland," she clarified. "Though I wouldn't be surprised if the storm surge height on the island was ten feet. If this plantation weren't so high above the high-tide line, it would have been wiped out decades ago."
"Ah." That made more sense. He took a deep breath and nodded his head toward the small marina. "We can check over here first. If we have to try the park, then we're probably out of luck."
He waved Addie down the steps in front of him, being careful to watch her steps, ready to catch her if she lost her footing on the glass-strewn path. Part of him still wanted to be alone with her, but he knew they needed to get back to the mainland. They both had work to do.
They found a boat that had probably started out a good half mile from where they ran across it. Wes seemed confident it would get them across the bay.
And the fact that I'm ready to start bailing doesn't mean I don't trust you, Wes. She watched as he maneuvered the boat toward the mainland with practiced ease, using the sight of him struggling with the barely sputtering motor to distract her from the fact that her beloved Jeep was still behind them, possibly wrapped around a tree. If it's lucky.
The storm surge hadn't been nearly as bad as she'd feared, which made her think the hurricane had decreased in intensity instead of simply veering off course. Wes was even able to find a place to steer and land the boat, though the usual docks were, for the most part, completely submerged under the water.
He climbed out with enviable grace, taking a moment to tie off to a small tree before reaching out a hand to her. "Up you go."
She handed him the heavy bag at her feet instead and scrambled out of the boat by herself. "I'm going to need to find someone to give me a ride out to my house to check on things."
Wes peered the stand of trees in front of them. "It's not that far to the station. I could pick up another car and drive you home. Or get Howie or somebody to do it."
It was tempting to agree, but she wasn't sure she'd be willing to let him leave again. Nothing short of her house being leveled was going to distract her from the temptation to strip him naked again and try to recreate her vision, this time in her bed.
Picking up her bag, she shot Wes a smile. "I'll find a ride. You've got things to do, and I want you to get right on about doing them. You can come over to my place tonight. There probably won't be electricity, but you requested candles anyway, didn't you?"
"Mmm, and sexy music." His answering smile was sinful. "I'll handle the flowers and wine."
"Skip the flowers," she advised with a laugh. "Chocolate is better."
"Done."
Wes
led her through the trees, though she knew the way herself, and gave her one
last, lingering kiss when they reached the east end of
"I will."
"Call me if you need me."
"I will."
Wes headed off toward the police station while Addie continued down the street, passing by Mr. O'Malley's drugstore. The evening janitor from the local high school stood outside, smoking a cigarette. "'Mornin', Miss Gardner."
"Hey, Stu." Addie smiled at him. "Don't suppose you've got your truck around here, somewhere? Officer Saxon saved me from the island, but we left my Jeep to die a horrible death somewhere in the state park."
He nodded and dropped his cigarette, crushing it under his heel. Then, with a quick glance at her, he knelt and picked up the extinguished butt. "Yes, ma'am." He brushed his lank brown hair out of his eyes. "I'd be happy to."
"Thanks." She followed him past the drug store to the little parking lot behind the hardware store. Most of the windows were still boarded up, and debris littered the street and sidewalk, but on the whole it wasn't nearly as bad as she'd feared.
She waved to one of her students as she turned the corner, smiling at the half-hearted wave he threw her in reply before returning to his task of gathering up branches from the sidewalk in front of his mother's hair salon. Stu's beat up old blue truck was parked in the corner of the lot closest to the hardware store.
He'd pulled out another cigarette, but tucked it behind his ear without lighting it. He seemed a little nervous, but Stu always seemed a little nervous to her. "You sure you don't mind giving me a lift?"
"No, ma'am. I don't mind at all." He fiddled with the radio, turning it down before giving her a bright, brittle smile. "Where do you live?"
"Outside of town, just past the Miller farm." Her bag went into the back of the truck before she climbed in and closed the door. "You know how to get there?"
"I'll find it." Stu cleared his throat and turned the starter on the truck. He had to try it several times before it cranked, but it finally rumbled noisily to life. "Better buckle up, Miss Gardner."
She did so, feeling an odd chill as she glanced at Stu again. There was something off about his expression, something more than the usual resigned weariness she saw in him every afternoon when he came to school. She tugged on the belt a little to make sure it was tight before glancing at him. "Is everything all right, Stu? Did your trailer come through the storm in one piece?"
He didn't meet her gaze as he turned onto the street and headed for the edge of town. "Everything's just fine, Miss Gardner. Nothing wrong at all."
Even if she hadn't known him for a decade or more, it would have been easy to tell he was lying. They passed the cheerful sign welcoming them to Carter's Bay, and still he said nothing, just stared ahead with his jaw slightly clenched and his fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel.
Finally Addie reached out to lay a hand on his arm, meaning to ask again if everything was all right. She didn't get a chance. The minute her fingers touched his skin power roared up inside her as if it had been waiting—
The vision slammed into her, and the fear that flooded her body was so strong she let out a startled yelp. She was soaked to the skin, shivering and sore from bracing herself against the painful jostling of a moving vehicle over an uneven road. She tried to move but couldn't; her wrists and ankles were bound together with rough rope that had already cut into her skin.
She couldn't see anything around her, and it took a moment to realize she was covered by something. Maybe a tarp. As soon as the thought formed, the vehicle came to an abrupt stop, throwing her to the side slightly. She narrowly managed to avoid smacking her head against the bed of the truck as the engine cut out.
Fear grew as a door opened and shut, and she heard footsteps approaching, crunching loudly on gravel. A hand yanked back the edge of the tarp, and she saw Stu's cold, tired face. He stared down at her with empty brown eyes and spoke around the cigarette hanging from his lips. "Sorry, Miss Gardner. It's nothing personal. You were always nice to me."
Addie opened her mouth to reply—
—and the vision faded, leaving her weak and breathless, slumped against the seat of Stu's truck.
He took one look at her pale face and trembling lips and grumbled, "Well, shit." Then his fist shot out at her, and the world went black.
Wes was whistling when he pulled up to Addie's small, neatly kept house. He'd always liked the rather pale shade of robin's egg blue, and he noted with some amusement that she'd painted the front door a bright, cheery yellow.
All day, he'd looked forward to seeing Addie again. It hadn't taken the other officers long to suss out the reason for his cheer, and he'd taken a fair amount of good-natured ribbing all afternoon.
He'd met the other officers at the community center during a break in cleanup efforts, and Chris had shaken his head as he'd poured coffee. "I knew she'd snaffle you up, Wes, just as soon as you got your head out of your ass."
There hadn't been much to say to that, so Wes had given him the middle finger and kept searching the tables of food for pecan pies. "I thought for sure that Granny would have baked."
"She did," Jack laughed. "We already ate 'em all. But don't fret. She's going to be your actual granny pretty soon, and you can have all the pecan praline pies you want then, I bet."
Howie had just shaken his head mournfully. "Y'all better get with the marrying before the end of next year, or I'll owe Bea a whole new kitchen."
Wes shut off his Explorer with a grin and grabbed the bottle of merlot from the seat beside him. If the whole town had been talking about them already, he figured maybe they'd gotten something right.
The house was dark as he approached, but fully half of the households in town were still without power. He knocked and waited then knocked and waited some more.
She wasn't home.
Wes hesitated for only a moment before returning to his truck for a crowbar and flashlight. She'll understand, he told himself as he pried the boards away from the window on her door. It isn't overreacting if you have a date and she isn't answering the door.
He'd just managed to get the last board free and was about to break the window to let himself inside when his cell phone rang. He didn't bother to look at the display as he slapped it to his ear. "Hello?"
"Wes?" It was his mama's voice, and she sounded a little put out. "You haven't come across Stu Carlin today, have you?"
Cold tendrils of dread began to weave their way through his gut as he peered in through the window in the door. "No, I haven't run across him today," he answered absently. "Why?"
"He promised he'd be in by noon today," she replied, still sounding annoyed. "We had a lot of work to do to get things cleaned up, and no one's seen him since before the storm. We even sent someone out to check his trailer to make sure he was okay."
"Was Addie there, by any chance?"
"No, can't say I've seen her. I figured she'd be resting."
Wes didn't bother to break the window, just reached for the gun in his ankle holster then cracked open the door with a well-placed kick."I'm a little busy right now, Mama. Can I call you back?"
"Wesley
Lee Saxon, what was that noise? Is
"And what do you know about that?" The front room was deserted, and Wes quickly checked the kitchen and den.
"I heard you two had a date, that's all." She sounded mildly defensive, which meant she'd been gossiping about it all day.
He withdrew to the porch once more. "I've got to go. Can you go get Mrs. Gardner and take her home with you tonight?"
There was a short pause before his mother sighed. "I'll go and get her, but you'd better call me back soon. You know how mad she'll be."
"I will. I promise. Now go." He closed the phone and slid it back into his pocket then raised his flashlight as he reentered the house.
Every entrance still boarded and locked, but the house had been left in a state of readiness for the coming storm, with no evidence that Addie had ever arrived that morning.
Even if she planned to go to her grandmother's or to the school, Wes knew that Addie would never have waited to check her house and belongings for damage. She'd want fresh clothes, and to check the weather reports, and—
His heart pounded as he phoned the station. He needed to stay calm, and he needed help.
Addie woke slowly, aware of nothing at first but the fact that she was cold and sore. The rumble of an engine under her forced her eyes open, and she found herself bouncing around in the back of a truck, bound and gagged, a tarp over her head.
Why is this so familiar?
She felt groggy for a moment, and she struggled to figure out why she had a vague sense of déjà vu. This was certainly not a situation she'd found herself in before.
The ropes around her wrists chafed as she tugged at them, and the pain brought back the memories. She'd gotten in Stu's truck, touched his arm, and then—
The vision.
Which meant she was in the back of Stu's truck. What he planned to do with her was terrifyingly open for interpretation, and Addie found herself praying it had something to do with her psychic ability. She hoped she was on her way to be sold to the highest bidder, maybe a crime lord who would pump her full of drugs and leave her in a locked room under constant surveillance. The idea scared the hell out of her, but it was better than some of the alternatives.
Shit, shit, shit.
He'd bound her wrists and ankles together but he hadn't had time to secure her carefully. There was enough give in the ropes around her wrists that she thought she might be able to wrench herself free. According to her vision she might not have time, though. The truck would stop soon, and Stu would walk around to apologize to her, as if an apology would make up for this.
Addie forced herself to breath carefully, fighting against panic as she carefully twisted the ropes binding her wrists around to where her fingers could reach the knot. She considered the vision as she did so, struggling to understand why it had come to her so late, why it had left her with so little warning. It wasn't as if she could change it now. If she hadn't gotten dizzy in the aftermath, she doubted Stu would have found it so easy to subdue her, so in a very real way the vision had caused her current predicament.
Great. Just had the best sex of my life and I get kidnapped. She hid a wince as the rope dug into her wrists, rubbing against already sore skin. She had no idea how long she'd been unconscious, but it had been long enough for her limbs to bruise and stiffen from being tossed around in the back of the truck.
The truck started to slow, and Addie panicked. She dug a fingernail into one of the knots and tried to work it loose. Belatedly she realized she should have started with her ankles. At least having her legs free might have given her some options. She inched her legs up toward her chest and brought her hands down until—
Yes! Her fingers found one knot and she struggled to tug at it without moving the tarp too much. The last thing she needed was for Stu to notice that she was awake and squirming around. She had no intention of facing him until she had managed to at least work her legs free. And then I will kick your ass, you obnoxious—
The brakes on the truck slammed on so suddenly that she slid back, knocking her head into the cab of the truck. She groaned and tried to brace herself against the throbbing pain in her skull as the truck stopped. She'd managed to loosen the knot, but not untie it completely, and she was running out of time.
The sound of the truck door slamming shut made her heart rate kick up a notch, and she fought against a moment of sheer panic. Faint, crunching footsteps echoed the ones from her vision, and she looked up into Stu's face, cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth, as he pulled back the tarp.
She waited until he reached down to pull down the gag covering her mouth then sucked in a deep breath. Anger surged inside her as she glared up into his dull brown eyes. "Let me guess. It's nothing personal."
He offered her a half-hearted smile. "I guess that is just about the last thing you want to hear right now." He leaned forward to check the bonds around her ankles, and his denim jacket fell open to reveal a pistol tucked into the waistband of his jeans. "You always were nice to me."
Kicking him might be satisfying, but it would be pretty stupid when he was armed and she was the next thing to helpless. She ground her teeth together and resisted the urge to make any fruitlessly heroic escape attempts. "If this is how you treat people who are nice to you, I'd hate to see how you treat everyone else."
His expression didn't change as he retied the rope around her ankles, securing the knot a little better this time. "About the same, I guess."
"So you're just going to...what? Rape me? Kill me?"
He struck a match with one shaky hand then dropped it without lighting his cigarette. "I ain't no pervert, Miss Gardner."
Then he knew and was going to sell her. She didn't know whether to feel relieved at the momentary reprieve or terrified at what was to come. "Then you might as well shoot me, Stu. Because you're going to get me killed."
His
face hardened. "I just want to make enough money to get out of here."
He rolled her over and checked the rope binding her wrists. "And then I
ain't ever coming back to Carter's Bay. Hell, I ain't ever setting foot in
She swallowed, closing her eyes. "And how much is my life worth?"
"Don't rightly know yet. Should be at least twenty, maybe even twenty-five thousand."
Addie couldn't help the short laugh that left her. "Then someone's taking advantage of you."
Surprisingly, he only nodded as he pulled out another match and struck it, finally lighting his cigarette. "Maybe so, but it's still the best deal I'm ever gonna see in my lifetime."
"Jesus Christ, Stu." She couldn't sit up, but she managed to shift enough to stare up at him. "Twenty thousand dollars is going to give you what? A few months of living in comfort? Is that really worth having Wesley Saxon out to get you for the rest of your life?"
For the first time since he'd stopped the truck, his eyes flashed, and he rubbed his chin as he stared down at his cigarette. "Now, you do have a point there, Miss Gardner." He reached out and clumsily brushed a lock of hair from her face.
It was hard not to flinch back from him, but she forced herself to stay calm. "It's not too late," she said, hoping her voice sounded convincing. ”This doesn't have to happen, Stuart. We could go back, before anyone misses me." And then Wes will lock you up for the rest of your life...if you're lucky.
His
eyes clouded over for a moment, and then the dull, blank look was back.
"We already crossed the
She listened to his footsteps and waited for the sound of the door opening and closing. Once the truck started, she inched her legs back up, determined to start in on the knots again.
The vision came before she had the chance. It seized her fast and hard, bringing with it the terror she'd come to expect. In the blackness she saw the scene unfold as if in a dream. She was in a cheap motel, stretched out on a lumpy, uncomfortable mattress with her hands still bound. A dark-haired man stood against the wall, the gun in his hand trained on the door.
She knew what was going to happen, and her heart constricted in her chest. She tried to scream, tried to shout a warning to the man who was coming through the door even as her heart broke—
In
the back of a beat up old truck somewhere in
Wes blew into the station and immediately started firing off orders. "Howie, see if you can get me a GPS trace on Addie's cell. Chris, call all of the teachers at the high school and see if anyone's seen her."
Chris stared at him, puzzled. "What's the matter, Wes?"
"Addie hasn't been home yet." He yanked his cell phone out of his pocket and shoved it at Chris. "A lot of the numbers are in there."
Jack came out of the back storeroom, a box of batteries in his arms. "I saw Addie this morning. Stu Carlin was giving her a ride, I guess."
Cold fear warred with hot fury inside Wes. "My mother called and asked me to keep an eye out for him. Said he didn't show up for work today."
Howie rose and walked around the desk. "Okay. What would Stuart Carlin want with Addie?"
Chris gulped. "Well, there's the obvious. She's a good-looking woman, and Stu isn't exactly a treasure to behold."
That earned him a derisive snort from Jack. "Stuey Carlin may be a little creepy, but he's not the type to go around raping women."
Wes tamped down the urge to yell at all of them and held up a hand. "Then we have to think of other reasons." He was loathe to reveal Addie's secret, but he wasn't about to let her die just to keep her confidence.
Jack snorted again. "He's probably going to sell her to a trafficker. They run shipments of psychics in and out of private ports all up and down the coast."
Wes froze and looked at each of the three men in turn. "And that possibility doesn't surprise any of you?"
Howie shook his head and grabbed a notepad. "Hell, it's the worst-kept secret in Carter's Bay, Wes. Addie's whole damn family is psychic. Everyone knows that."
He'd have time later to mull over the implications of that, for himself and for Addie. For now... "Okay. Jack, get down to the Blue Lantern and find out if Stuart Carlin has been talking about taking a trip. Chris, I want you to go over to his place and look for notes, phone numbers, ticket stubs, anything like that." The two men were already heading for the door when he turned to Howie. "And I need that GPS trace. But I also need you to call Bea and see if she can get me Carlin's phone records."
Howie was already shaking his head by the time Wes finished speaking. "No, no way. You need a court order, and you know it, Wes."
"This is an emergency," he insisted, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep from clenching them into fists. "And Carlin is a person of interest in an ongoing criminal investigation where time is of the essence—"
"And you'll get fired, Wes." Howie's voice was stern, unyielding. "Look, Jack's right. Stuey Carlin ain't ever been the sharpest tool in the shed, but he isn't going to hurt her. There are other ways to find—"
"He's going to sell her, Howie." Wes could barely hear his own voice for the blood rushing in his ears. "He's going to take her down the coast and fucking sell her if we don't head him off at the pass. Carlin may not be the type to hurt her, but can you say the same about whoever buys her?"
Howie paled at the urgent certainty of Wes’ words, and he stared up at him for a moment before shaking his head and reaching for the phone. "You're the boss."
The door to the station house opened a moment later. Wes’ mother walked in, holding up a hand. "Don't give me that look. I tried to take her home, but she got right back in her truck and drove over here. I could barely keep up."
He rushed out the door. "I know, Granny. Addie's missing. I'm sorry as he--as heck."
"Hush,
boy." Granny
He
stifled a groan. He didn't doubt that the old woman's words were true; he'd
read more than one paper stating that psychic ability had a hereditary
component, and there were Howie's words to consider. But the last thing he
needed right now was to be responsible for the safety of not one, but two
The look she gave him could have flayed skin from flesh. "Are you going to waste time arguing with me, or are you going to get in the truck so we can go save your girl?"
Wes ducked his head back into the station house. "Forget the phone records, just get me that GPS trace on Addie's cell. And keep me posted. Bye, Mama."
Howie nodded, the phone still to his ear. "You got it, Chief."
His mother, however, shot him a look. "Now, wait just a minute—"
He stepped in and laid his hands on her shoulders. "Mama, if you ever want to have grandbabies, Granny and I have got to go. I'll explain it all, just not now."
"I—" Her mouth snapped shut and, from the look in her eyes, he knew he was going to catch hell later. "Fine. Go."
He'd take a landslide of maternal fury if it meant getting to Addie in time, so he strode out without a backward glance. Granny was waiting with her purse in one hand and her oversized key ring in the other. "We'll take my truck," she said, and threw the keys to him.
He blinked at her, then swore as he snatched up the keys. "Pardon my French, Granny, but what the hell are we walking into?"
"Stuart Carlin is not a career criminal," she replied tartly. "He's going to be all sorts of jumpy and scared to death of what you're likely to do to him for kidnapping Addie."
"I'm going to beat the living crap out of him, that's what I'm going to do." He opened his Silverado and grabbed a bag from the front floorboard then headed back to Granny's truck.
Granny
nodded as she waited for him to come to the passenger door and help her up into
the seat. "We're heading to
"Has he already crossed the state line?" I need to call the damned FBI already.
"Hours ago," Granny said softly. "But you can't call the FBI, Wesley. Addie will die if you do."
The engine roared, and his fingers tightened on the steering wheel. After the last day, nothing shocked him, not even Granny Gardner possibly reading his mind. "If you can promise me that she's okay and we’ll get her back, I'll hold off on it."
Granny said nothing as he pulled her truck onto the highway that led out of town. They'd gone several miles before she finally broke the silence. "I remember the first time you came to my home with Addie. Day after her mama's funeral, and she'd scared me half to death by running off. You knew exactly where to find her, and you coaxed her home somehow."
It hadn't been hard to find her. He'd just gone to the cemetery and heard her sniffling then found her high in the branches of a live oak by the front gates. "She was watching them add her mama's name to the tombstone."
Granny didn't seem to hear him. "The minute you walked through that door with her, I had the strongest vision of my life. You were down at the county hospital, grinning ear to ear as you introduced me to my great grandson. She was twelve years old that day, and you two could barely stand each other half the time, but I knew then, Wesley. I knew."
The idea of him and Addie together and having babies nearly choked him with emotion. He'd spent so many years thinking of a life with her as nothing more than a pipe dream, but Granny was telling him it was a foregone conclusion. "So...what? Nothing we do matters? Whatever will be, will be, or whatever?"
"It always matters," she countered, looking at him suddenly. "Sometimes the visions are a warning, and sometimes they're a promise. We've just got to help the Fates out a little bit. They're too busy to take care of it all."
He ground his teeth together. "Then what do we do?"
Granny just smiled. "You concentrate on driving, son. I'll tell you everything you need to know."
Addie had no idea how much time had passed when the truck finally stopped again. They'd rolled over so many twisting dirt roads that she imagined they'd covered every back road between Carter's Bay and wherever it was they'd ended up. Her stomach complained bitterly, and she peered up into the darkness when Stu pulled the tarp from over her head again.
But it wasn't Stu; it was the man from her vision. His eyes wandered over her in a blatantly assessing manner. "Good evening, Miss Gardner. I trust you had a pleasant trip?"
She blinked her eyes, trying to focus. "I trust you wouldn't care either way," she said before she could stop herself. Her mind was occupied with a different problem—changing her vision enough to keep Wes alive.
"That's
where you'd be wrong,
"Oh?" She shifted enough that she could stare up at him. "I've been tied up in the back of this truck since morning in wet clothing with no food and no water. How pleasant do you think my trip was?"
"We can remedy that," he told her, his dark eyes inscrutable in the dark of evening. "There's a motel nearby." He snapped his fingers. "We will go there at once."
"No!" The word slipped out of her before she could stop it, but the obvious fear in her voice was something she could use. She let it fill her eyes as she stared up at him. "No, I…I saw—" Careful, Addie...don't oversell it.
His eyes narrowed. "You saw what?"
She had to be careful, had to make him believe that she was scared out of her mind and not desperately trying to play him. "You need me alive," she whispered. "I won't be if we go to the motel."
The
man just leaned down, his voice soft and vaguely menacing. "And just what
happens to you,
Addie didn't have to pretend to flinch back from him. "Drug bust," she said, her mind scrambling for an explanation that didn't have anything to do with imminent rescue. "Stray bullet. Two in your leg, one in my chest."
He stared at her for a moment before smiling. "Then I apologize, but you will just have to remain cold, wet, and hungry." He straightened and snapped his fingers again. A tall blond man appeared beside him. "We will wait for Hardegree here. Watch her, and keep her bound. I have some calls to make."
Addie stayed motionless as the blond man looked down at her, nothing but vague curiosity in his gaze. She'd seen her students stare at science experiments with the same look, judging the possible entertainment value against how much work they'd have to do.
The only thing that kept her from panicking was the fact that she was apparently meant to remain unmolested. Being stared at as if she were a particularly interesting lab rat wasn't comfortable, but it was better than having him touch her.
They stared at each other, her bound and helpless and fighting against fear, him seeming more and more bemused by something. She was almost at the point where she was ready to ask him what was so damn funny when a familiar voice cut through the still night air.
"Let her go."
Relief welled up in her, followed by a surge of overwhelming terror. Please let this be enough, she thought as she shifted slowly, trying to figure out where his voice had come from. She'd changed the future that she'd seen in her vision, but she had no idea if she'd changed it enough to keep Wes safe.
The blond man started to reach for his gun, but froze as Wes spoke again, his voice pure steel. "Don't. You won't have time before I put one in your head. Back away from the truck."
He raised his hands, but obeyed slowly. "There's just you?"
"And twenty troopers in the woods around the dock," Wes answered steadily, finally coming into Addie's view. He held his gun on the blond man and glanced over at Addie. "You okay?"
She nodded and then spoke in a soft voice. "There's another one. He's on the phone somewhere."
"Okay." He didn't move, just kept his eyes and his gun on the man before him. "Drop your gun."
Something moved, brushing Addie's ankle. She stifled a cry, biting into her lip hard enough to draw blood, and realized something was tugging on the knotted rope. Wes. She tried to stay still as he manipulated the knots, not even daring to breathe.
The blond man spoke. "And what will happen if I don't drop my gun?"
"Then I'll shoot you." There was no hesitation in his voice, no uncertainty.
The dark-haired man with the accent stepped out of a copse of trees, gun in hand. "If there are really twenty troopers out there, why did they let you come in here alone?"
"Let's just say this is personal." His hand tightened on the gun.
The man smiled. "Or you're bluffing."
Wes’ throat worked as he swallowed. "Either way, you shoot me and your man here is dead."
"Oddly enough, I find myself willing to take that chance." Not even a breath passed before he fired three shots, hitting Wes square in the chest.
For one endless moment Addie couldn't believe what had happened. The world moved in slow motion as Wes fell out of her line of sight. She forgot about the fact that she was tied and bound, forgot about the men with guns, forgot about everything. "Wes!"
She lunged without thinking, not realizing until she rolled out of the truck bed that her ankles were free. Wes had undone the rope, expending valuable concentration that could have kept him alive.
It was her fault. She hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of her, and the fact that her legs were untied didn't matter. Rolling over was torture, rising to her knees worse. Her limbs were numb enough that even crawling was a challenge, but none of it mattered as she dragged her aching body to Wes’ side.
He was gasping for breath, barely moving, and she collapsed to the ground next to him with a low sob and struggled to lift her bound hands. "Wes…God, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry—"
She was peripherally aware of light flooding the darkened woods and of shouts and activity, but all of her attention was focused on Wes as he dragged in a breath and exhaled on a ragged groan. "God damn, that hurts."
Addie made a choked noise as she fumbled at his chest, the lack of blood only now piercing her haze of panic. She tugged at his shirt, heaving in a desperate breath. "You're not… You're--"
"Vest," he wheezed, even as her frantic hands uncovered the black bulk of Kevlar. "I thought I might need it."
A man with brown hair and a brown uniform approached and knelt next to them. "You're a crazy son of a bitch, Saxon," he observed with a whistle. "What if Guerrero had aimed for your thick head?"
Wes choked out a laugh and sat up. "I had it on good authority he wouldn't. Stan, this is Adelaide Gardner. Addie, this is Stanford Shikoba, Florida Highway Patrol."
He tipped his hat. "Ma'am. I guess you belong to that lovely lady currently giving one of my best troopers absolute heck."
Addie vaguely noticed Wes’ gentle hands on her wrists, loosening the ropes that had cut into her skin. She stared at Officer Shikoba blankly then looked to Wes. "You brought my grandmother?"
"You come by that stubborn streak honestly, baby," he murmured, rubbing at her wrists. "That woman will not take no for an answer."
She stared at him for so long that he probably thought she'd lost her mind. And maybe she had, because she slumped against his chest and dissolved into laughter edged with hysteria. "Oh, God," she gasped out, then hiccupped. "Please tell me she didn't—didn't bring the shotgun."
Shikoba reached under his hat to scratch his head. "She gonna be okay, Saxon?"
Wes just pulled her into his arms. "It's been a hell of a couple of days, Stan. I guess you need statements?"
The older man snorted. "To say the very least. Let's get you two into a squad and make sure that granny of hers hasn't snatched Leroy Miller bald."
It took several hours to extract them from the clutches of the Florida Highway Patrol. Addie was fed and given dry clothing, related her version of events—vague though it was—and promptly fell asleep with her head in Granny's lap.
Wes had to placate Stan Shikoba by telling him that Howie had managed to triangulate a location from Addie's cell phone, which Stu the brain trust had forgotten to turn off. What Shikoba didn't need to know was that the phone had been useless, since its battery had died before they'd even gotten off the island that morning.
There were a lot of unanswered questions, but Shikoba just nodded, took notes, and happily accepted the brief explanations Wes gave. Ernesto Guerrero, one of the Southeast's leading exporters of psychics, had been caught red-handed and apprehended without departmental injury, and that was going to look very, very good in his personnel folder when review time rolled around.
Too many hours and too many cups of coffee later, Wes was finally given leave to take his two exhausted ladies home. He carried Addie, and Shikoba abandoned his hunt-and-peck typing long enough to help Granny Gardner to the truck. She gave him a winning smile and told him that the little redhead down at the bank would be perfect for him.
Shikoba was still scratching his head when they drove away.
The sun was high in the sky by the time Wes dropped Granny off at his mother's and made a beeline for his house. Once he had Addie safely stowed in his bed, he sat in his leather reading chair by the window and watched her sleep.
He'd come close to losing her before he even had her, and to say that didn't sit well was the understatement of the century. To make matters worse, she regularly put herself in harm's way when she went tearing off across the countryside, chasing storms or chasing visions. If she kept doing it, his nerves would be wrecked.
But if he tried to stop her, to change her, then their budding relationship would be destroyed. He knew that much. He just needed to find some way to deal with it.
Finally, Wes pulled off his boots and stretched out beside Addie, still watching her, one hand stroking through her hair. She made a quiet noise and shifted closer to him, her eyes fluttering open. "Wes?"
He trailed his thumb over her cheek. "Rest, baby. I'm here."
She turned her face into his hand to kiss his palm. "I would kill for a hot shower right now."
Wes gave her a soft smile. "No need to kill anyone. Come on."
He rose with her in his arms and made his way into the bathroom. He didn't put her down until he'd turned on the shower, and steam billowed out of the tile stall as he started to undress her. "Can you make it by yourself, or do you need some help?"
Addie seemed more bemused than anything else by his careful attention. She waited until he'd coaxed her shirt over her head then smiled up at him. "I could make it by myself...." Her hands fell to his shirt, and she started to unbutton it. "I don't really want to, though."
Her smile made his chest feel tight even as he returned it. "You've got a dirty mind, Addie Jo."
"Mmm. You like it." Her fingers were gentle as she freed the last button on his shirt and pushed it open. He knew how bruised he was likely to be, but Addie sucked in a breath as her hands hovered over his chest. "Oh God, Wes…"
He looked down at the three ugly bruises that bloomed on his chest, her fingers skating over them, and he covered her hands with his. "It's okay. They don't even hurt."
The look she gave him was disbelieving. "You got shot, you absolute idiot. If you ever get shot again, I will…" She didn't finish, choosing instead to curl her fingers around his shoulders and drag his mouth to hers for a desperate kiss.
His heart stuttered and raced as he slanted his mouth over hers. It wasn't gentle or easy, and he opened her mouth with one hand on her jaw, then drove his tongue past her lips. He needed to touch and explore, to learn all of the tastes of textures of her, the things he'd barely begun to know.
He lifted her against his body with one strong arm around her waist, his other hand loosening her hair. It had dried into a heavy mess of tangles that fell around both of them. The scent was one he'd always associated with Addie—the earth and rain, the smell of the outdoors. She was wild and untamable, but he didn't need to tame her. She'd chosen him.
Addie's hands slid to his back, her fingers stroking his skin with a gentle patience that was contradicted by the frantic noise she made when his tongue found hers again. He felt the prick of her fingernails against his lower back as his mouth muffled her low moan.
He broke the kiss as he reached for her pants. "Shower?"
She was breathing heavily, her eyes a little glazed as she nodded. "Shower. I want to be clean this time before I have dirty, naughty sex with you."
His hands flew as he divested her of her clothing, lingering only over the bruises and scrapes she, herself, bore. "I'm not the only one who got a little banged up," he reminded her sadly. "I'm sorry, Addie."
"Don't you dare." She caught his face between his hands, staring up at him firmly. "Rule number one, Wesley Lee Saxon. I am not going to be your damsel in distress. I got myself into trouble, and you got me out, and I'm really damn glad you did. But you've got nothing to be sorry for."
It took him a moment to answer. "I'm supposed to take care of you."
"No." Addie's fingers tugged at the button on his pants, pulling them open before grasping the zipper and dragging it down. "We're supposed to take care of each other. And from the looks of us, we both need it."
There was no arguing with that, even if he wanted to. Instead, he dropped a kiss to the top of her head then shed the rest of his clothes and tugged at her hand until she followed him into the shower.
Wes backed her slowly under the spray, working hot water through her hair. Then he gave her a wicked grin and lowered his mouth to her throat, following rivulets of water as they sluiced down over her shoulder and onto her chest. A low sound escaped her as one hand came up, her fingers gripping the back of his head.
She wasn't content to let him do all the touching, though. While one hand curled in his hair, the other slid around his waist and down, her strong fingers digging into his hip. She moaned his name as she dragged him closer, trapping his hard cock between their bodies. "Why in hell did we wait this long to get naked?"
He smiled against her neck then nipped at her chin. "Because you never gave me a second look before last night, baby."
Addie tilted her head back to give him better access to her neck, but a moment later she was sputtering as her face dropped directly under the spray of water. Drops of water flew everywhere as she jerked her head up and let out a choked laugh. "Oh, Jesus. That wasn't very sexy."
"Wrong." His laughter joined hers as he turned them both around, pressing her against the tile and shielding her from the spray with his own body. "You are the sexiest damn thing I've seen in forever, Addie Jo. And, as soon as you're done with your shower, I'm going to take you back to my bed and show you."
One of her legs slid around his, her foot teasing at the back of his calf as she gazed up at him. "So give me the shampoo already so we can get this shower moving."
He choked back a laugh and shoved the small green bottle into her hand with an apologetic look. "You might smell a little bit like a pine tree." He didn't wait for her response, just bent and closed his mouth around her nipple.
The shampoo bottle slipped from her fingers and hit the floor of the shower with a hollow thud as Addie moaned her approval. "That—" Her voice broke as he swirled his tongue teasingly around the tight bud, and when she spoke again it was in a hoarse whisper. "Wesley, I want you. I need you."
With the way she whispered his name, hard and fast against the tile was starting to sound good. His cock throbbed, but he shook his head and scraped his teeth gently against her nipple. "Shower first then sex." He lowered himself to his knees and handed her the shampoo again. "I think you dropped this."
Her eyes watched him with barely restrained heat as she popped the shampoo bottle open and squeezed some into one hand. "If you think you're less distracting down there, you're wrong."
He dipped his tongue into her navel. "I wasn't aiming for less distracting. And why should I? You distract me all the time." He urged her legs apart just the slightest bit and slid his fingers between them. "I'm trying to get you to hurry up."
The shampoo bottle hit the floor of the shower for the second time, narrowly missing his head on its way down. Addie had managed to get the shampoo into her hair, but she wasn't making a lot of progress otherwise.
Of course, she presented a damn fine view with her hands tangled in her hair and her body arching into his touch. He teased her, backing off when she stopped bathing and resuming his stroking when she got back to business. Finally, when she was mostly done, he pressed harder, slipping his fingers past her clitoris and inside her.
"Wes—" One of her hands fell to his shoulder, the other slapping against the tile of the shower with a wet noise as she panted his name again. It fell from her lips over and over, growing from a breathless whisper to a tortured moan.
His own voice was breathless, as well. "Ready to get out?"
"Ready to get off," she retorted, tightening her hand on his shoulder. "You're a damn tease."
He rose, keeping his fingers in place, the heel of his hand rocking against her as he leaned over her, one hand braced on the tile beside her head. Blood pounded in his ears, and he barely held on to his self-control as he bit her ear then whispered, "Teases don't come through."
Addie turned her head to the side, pressing her forehead against his arm as if she couldn't hold her head up anymore. He could feel her body starting to shake, her muscles squeezing around his fingers. When she whispered his name this time, her voice was heavy with emotion, with need and desperation.
Wes urged her onward, the need to see and feel her come outweighing everything, including his own almost painful desire. When she let go, he rested his forehead against the wet tile next to her and murmured encouragement, enjoying the feel of her body shuddering against his, tightening around his fingers.
When the shaking subsided and her hips stilled, he found her mouth with a gentle kiss. "Time for bed, baby." He had it all planned out; he'd make love to her over and over, until she was too tired to say no when he asked her to marry him. Then he'd do it all again when she said yes.
Addie had never felt anything like the languid pleasure that flooded her as she wrapped her arms and legs around Wes’ body and let him carry her to the bedroom. He was aroused as hell, if the hard length of his cock pressing against her abdomen was any indication, but his lips found hers in a long, languid kiss as he lowered her back against the tangle of quilts on the bed.
She'd had good sex before. The sex last night had been fucking unbelievable.
And it had been nothing compared to this.
As her back hit the bed, Wes shifted over her, his lips tracing down her throat to her breasts. "Talk to me, Addie."
"I don't—" She hissed in a breath and threaded her fingers into his damp hair. "God, I should have told you before. I should have told you that I wanted you."
He licked her nipple and cupped her other breast as he moved his mouth back to her jaw. "Any time. Anything you wanted, I would have given you. I still will."
"You." She whispered the words as she tightened her fingers and tugged his lips back to hers. "I want you. Just you." Her body ached for him, ached for the fulfillment of her vision, for the moment of emotional bliss that would make the passion of the night before seem trivial.
His tongue dipped to the hollow of her throat and rasped up the side of her neck as he nudged his hips against hers, prodding her with his cock. His breath warmed her skin as he spoke in a low whisper. Then he bit her ear again and pushed inside her.
It was everything in the world that she'd wanted, and it was better. Her body arched sharply, and she brought her legs up, wrapping them around his waist. When he was all the way inside her, she turned her head enough to find his ear. "This is what I saw in my vision. You, whispering things I can't hear as you make love to me."
Wes braced his elbows beside her head on the pillow and caught her eyes as he pulled back and thrust again, his gaze intense. "I said, 'I love you’.”
For one moment, Addie thought her heart had stopped.
Even the pleasure of their bodies paled in comparison to the warm, glorious satisfaction that welled up inside her at three simple words she hadn't even known she wanted. She shifted her hands to frame his face, rubbing her thumbs over his cheeks. "Say it again."
The words were reflected in his eyes as he whispered them again. "I love you, Addie Jo."
He loved her. It was a silly thing to be shocked by when they'd been friends for almost twenty years. Maybe not close friends, but always friendly. Always fond.
The way he was staring at her as his body rocked into her was a far cry from fond. Love, passion, the need to be with her, to be a part of her life.
Addie brushed her thumb over his mouth as she tightened her legs around his hips, pulling him closer with his next thrust. Pleasure raced through her, giving her voice a desperate edge. "Marry me."
He made a sound that was half laugh, half groan and kissed her again. Then he hooked one hand under her knee and tugged her leg higher. "Under the magnolia out at the Carter place."
Pleasure swelled as he pushed deeper with his next thrust. Addie groaned and rocked her body up into his. "It's…it's crazy." She gasped the words out between panting moans. "We haven't…haven't even…had a date…."
Wes tightened his fingers around her leg, and the new angle rubbed the base of his cock against her clitoris. Fire sparked through her body as she struggled to keep her eyes fixed on his.
"Do we need to date?" he asked on a groan, threading his hands into her hair and moving faster. "We can have a long engagement."
She couldn't think, not with pleasure shivering up her spine as she barreled toward orgasm. Her body was alive, responding to his touch in ways it hadn't for other men. She could pretend all she wanted that it was his technique, but she knew the truth. No man had affected her like Wes because she'd never loved a man before. Not the way she loved him.
"Wes--" The building pressure inside her snapped, and she gasped the words as climax roared through her. "I love you."
He dropped his face to her neck and groaned again as his strong, steady rhythm broke. He drove into her, every stroke taking her higher, until he closed his teeth on the tender skin at the base of her shoulder.
The pleasure inside her soared again as her body spasmed around him. There was nothing left in the world but him. Addie cried Wes’ name out again as his thrusts turned frantic. When he muffled a fierce moan against her skin as he came, she felt a different sort of pleasure, one borne of possession and satisfaction and the knowledge that she was exactly where she wanted to be.
Addie scrambled to gather her wits as Wes stilled above her. His body pressed hers down into the sheets, all warm skin and strong muscles and absolute perfection. Her pounding heart slowed as she dragged in a deep breath and let it out against his cheek. "I love you, Wesley."
He
rolled over, bringing her with him, and whispered, "I love you, too,
She relaxed against his chest, soothed by the soft beat of his heart and warmth of his body beneath her. Wes stroked his fingers through her hair in long, steady movements, separating the wet strands until her hair fanned out over both of them.
There was no more need to talk, not for now. Later, they would figure out what they were doing, would make plans for the future. For the rest of the morning, Addie wanted nothing more than this. She wanted to drift to sleep in Wes’ arms, wrapped in the scent of his pine shampoo.
She wanted to wake up in his bed, warm and safe no matter what nightmares tormented her sleep.
She wanted a life with him.
"Under the magnolia out at the Carter place," she murmured against his chest, already drifting in the place between sleeping and wakefulness. "It's a date."
The
Cecily Gardner, the matriarch of the clan, sat in the seat of honor. She'd been enthroned on the waiting room's most comfortable chair early that morning and had spent the intervening hours surveying her kingdom with immense satisfaction. She was surrounded by nieces and nephews, children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, and life had never been more perfect.
"Granny!" Her youngest grandson, fourteen-year-old Alan, had given up his attempts at nonchalance. He burst through the door, a wide, excited smile on his face. He held the door open as he raised his voice to be heard over the din. "Wes has got the baby!"
Cecily rose to her feet, ignoring the excited exclamations from her family as she walked to the door. She could have closed her eyes and still made her way through the crowd without a single misstep. This moment had been frozen in her mind for twenty years, every sight, sound, and smell.
What she hadn't counted on was the emotion. Addie was the only child of her eldest daughter, the only of her many grandchildren to grow up without being surrounded by family at every turn. Cecily had done her best to replace the parents Addie had lost, but she'd worried for years about the girl's penchant for being alone.
Not anymore. Wesley Saxon had blown into Addie's life like a hurricane, bringing with him all the things that her granddaughter had needed. Love, trust, family—someone to be there for her in the good times and the bad.
And today...
Cecily looked up, and there he was, standing in the doorway with a smile so wide it almost split his face in two. Wes cradled a small, screaming bundle of white blanket, and his smile grew even wider as he transferred the baby to her arms. "His name is John Wesley."
She looked down at the baby for a moment, drinking in the sight of his reddened face and the tiny knit cap that covered his head. He quieted a little and opened his big blue eyes, and it was just as she remembered.
"Hello, Johnny," she whispered.
The End
How do you make a Moira Rogers? Take a former forensic science and nursing student obsessed with paranormal romance and add a computer programmer with a passion for gritty urban fantasy. Toss in a dash of whimsy and a lot of caffeine, and enjoy with a side of chocolate by the light of the full moon.
By day, Bree and Donna are mild-mannered ladies who reside in the Deep South. At night, when their husbands and children are asleep, they combine forces to unleash the product of their fevered imaginations upon the page. To learn more about this romance writing, crime fighting duo, visit their webpage at http://www.moirarogers.com. (Disclaimer: crime fighting abilities may appear only in the aforementioned fevered imaginations.)
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