The Soldier's Promise Page 10

  “I stopped by to thank you for everything you did for us. You and Amos. Nick wants to thank Amos. Can we stop over tomorrow after school? Just for a few moments?” She said the last words in a rush. Their gazes met. She looked so earnest. Tenderness swept through him. He touched her hair and pushed back a curl, then let his hand drop to his side.

  He knew he shouldn’t touch her at all. She’d just been through pure hell after Nick was struck by the rattler. She was vulnerable. But then their hands brushed and his enclosed around hers. She leaned into him and suddenly she was in his arms, and their lips met, tentatively at first. Her lips parted slightly and her eyes, always alive and curious, misted. He stopped. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman and he’d never felt the potent mixture of tenderness and passion as he did now. It stunned him.

  The need was insistent. A connection with another person. He had been running away from that most of his life, but now it was irresistible. His arms went around her, and she trembled against his body.

  She felt good, so damn good. She attracted him as no other woman had. But maybe these feelings were like fireworks: great explosions of light and then they fizzled out as they fell to earth.

  He reminded himself that she was vulnerable after the scare with her son. And he didn’t want sex that way. Not from her.

  He leaned down and kissed her, slow and gentle, then held her against him. It went against all his instincts not to take the next step. Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day, when she’d had time to unwind from the scare.

  She looked up at him. Her eyes were glazed, her face flushed and her breath came in short bursts. “I don’t usually fall into men’s arms,” she said softly.

  “I know. I usually back off.”

  “I know,” she replied, some regret in her voice.

  “Besides, everyone in town probably knows you’re here,” he said drily.

  “Probably,” she agreed.

  “And the longer you stay...”

  “I didn’t think you were the type to worry about that.”

  “I couldn’t care less for myself. It’s you I’m thinking about. You and the boy.” He let a few seconds go by before adding, “It’s good to know he’s doing well. I know you were frightened.”

  “Terrified.” Her voice shook slightly, and he knew the nightmarish afternoon was still with her. “Nick doesn’t really know how bad it could have been.”

  “Maybe he did and didn’t want to scare you.” He paused, then added, “There’s something to be said for being young. When something doesn’t kill you, it becomes an adventure.”

  She smiled at the truth of that. “He keeps asking about Amos. I know him. If he doesn’t see for himself that Amos is fine, he’ll find a way to get here. Probably by bike. I thought I should warn you.”

  Her gaze was locked on him, and the color of her eyes seemed to be changing. Damn, but they were beautiful, particularly when they were swimming with emotion.

  “I appreciate it,” he said and stepped away before he grabbed her and carried her off to bed. He’d placed a wall between them. Invisible, but he knew she sensed it.

  “What happened, Josh?”

  Her voice was soft and caring, and he knew she wasn’t asking about the snake or the cabin. She was asking about the months and years before, about the part of himself he protected.

  Her eyes were so searching, he almost told her. About his rotten childhood, when he’d learned not to trust anyone. About how when he did learn to trust the members of his team, he’d betrayed them. He’d gotten them killed. He was a Jonah, plain and simple. He couldn’t even take care of a damn dog without it getting snake bit.

  “Josh?” The question again. The one he didn’t want to answer.

  Just then Amos barked, and Eve seemed distracted.

  She tipped her head. “I’m so glad he’s okay, too. He’s such a beautiful dog. Stephanie told me that he had gone home after an overnight stay.”

  “Did she say anything else about him?”

  She shook her head. She stepped closer, put her arms around his neck and those wide hazel eyes looked up at him questioningly. “Tell me about him.”

  “I told you he was a military dog. Dave was his handler for four years, and they were close. Because we were often in places without kennels, they slept together, ate together. Then one day Dave didn’t come back. Amos wasn’t with him on that particular mission because his paw had been injured. Amos waited and waited and waited. He wouldn’t respond to anyone. Barely ate. He was sent back to the States for retraining, but that didn’t work. He simply refused any command and was put up for adoption.”

  “Were you there when Dave was killed?”

  She saw too much. He nodded and he knew his voice was rough when he said, “I promised him earlier I would take care of Amos if anything happened.” He stopped, closed his eyes.

  She waited, silently, for him to continue. “I was injured in the same battle,” he said huskily, “and after a stay in Germany I was sent to a military hospital stateside. Then I started looking for Amos.” He didn’t tell her everything, not about the months of pain and operations and, worse, the guilt that never faded.

  She didn’t say anything but her arms tightened around him and she rested her head against his heart. No words, but he didn’t need any. She’d known loss, too, loss deeper than his own. Someone everyone loved.

  Change the subject.

  “I think in trying to save your son, Amos might have saved himself. Stephanie tried to tell me when we first talked about Amos that maybe he needed a purpose. I thought he had withdrawn because he missed Dave, and I still think that’s a very large part of it, but then I looked at what happened to Amos the past year. He was mourning, probably thought he’d been deserted by the person he loved most, then was shipped off alone to kennels stateside.” He paused. “Maybe he found a purpose Friday. At least made a start.”

  “Maybe his owner should take a lesson from that?” Eve said. “I can’t believe what you’ve done with this cabin in the time you’ve been here. Those skills are needed.”

  He shook his head. “I’m learning as I go along,” he said, “and, like I said, I don’t stay in places long.”

  “Maybe it’s time you did.”

  He touched her face again, this time letting his fingers linger and trace the line of her jaw. His body ached with longing. He wanted to dig deep under that calm serenity and ignite the fire he felt in her. But he couldn’t. He shook his head slowly. “I’m a wanderer and you’re a nester, and I would bet everything I have that you’ve never had a one-night stand, or one-week stand, and that’s all I know. All I want. No complications.”

  He was lying. He did want more, he just hadn’t known it until now.

  But it wouldn’t work. He would leave one day, and it could break two hearts. Maybe three.

  He stepped back.

  She gave him a long, steady look, then nodded. She started to turn, then stopped. “About Nick?”

  “You can bring him over tomorrow afternoon.” Bad decision, but the boy would be here with his mother. No temptation then. At least that was what he told himself.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, and as he closed the door he wondered exactly what she was thanking him for.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SHE HAD BEEN ready to fall into his arms.

  It was frightening how much she’d wanted that. Even now she ached for his touch.

  She’d almost told him that, almost said that maybe all she wanted was a one-night stand, too. But it would be a lie, and he would know that. He’d pegged her right. She was a nester, a forever kind of girl.

  Russ had been the only man she’d ever slept with. She wasn’t a prude. She knew the world had changed. It was just that she hadn’t ever had the desire for another man before or s
ince Russ. Oh, sure, she was human. She could lust as well as anyone over Hugh Jackman, but that was just fantasy. Perhaps because her life had been so full, so busy, these past years, she’d never given anyone even a sideways glance.

  Her marriage hadn’t been perfect. Russ was always gone. Covenant Falls High School was small, and he taught history as well as coached. In the summer, he ran the Little League program. A kid had a problem, Russ would try to work it out.

  She couldn’t even begin to count the number of dinners that had gone cold, the events they’d never made or invitations they’d never accepted. But when he was home, he was warm and loving and a great father. He loved to grill outside and cook huge pots of spaghetti and chili and other “specialties.” He never seemed to stop moving....

  Josh Manning reminded her of him in that respect. Despite his limp, he moved with purpose and even quickly when necessary. He certainly had moved fast when tossing the snake away from her son. She’d seen a tightening of his lips several times when he moved, though, and knew that it hadn’t been painless.

  But neither that nor abstinence explained the way her world rocked when he was within arm’s reach. Nothing explained that. All things considered, she still knew very little about him.

  She tried to dismiss him from her mind and headed for home and her son. She’d finally completed the budget, and Merry was checking it for errors. Some of it would meet resistance from the council, particularly the ten thousand dollars for the community center. After Merry reviewed it, Eve would go over the corrections, then it would go to the newspaper to be published Thursday. The budget was always big news in Covenant Falls, a subject of great debate, and she knew she had to be ready to defend every line in it....

  When she arrived home, Nick was on the sofa covered by three dogs. The fourth, Braveheart, was huddled next to it. Eve was happy to see her son resting, not so happy to see he was watching a detective story on television. He had been obsessed with them since his grandfather’s murder.

  “Hi,” she said. “How you doing?” Not exactly grammatical, but Nick certainly didn’t mind.

  “Grandma says I don’t have a temperature. Can I go to school tomorrow?”

  She looked at his arm. There was a small bandage where the fangs bit into the skin, but the area around it had lost the angry purple and was mostly the color of a three-day-old bruise. And it was blessedly cool. “Looks good.”

  “Grandma’s cooking spaghetti,” he said. “Why don’t you ask Mr. Manning for supper? Grandma said it would be okay.”

  “I stopped over there, and he’s busy painting a room,” she said, “but he wants to see you, too. I said we would stop over there tomorrow afternoon after school. No baseball practice for you yet.”

  “Maybe we can take something over to him,” Nick persisted.

  “There’s the rolls I baked today,” Abby suggested. “You could take those over.”

  Nick’s face fell for a moment, then he nodded. “Yeah.”

  Nick giving up his beloved cinnamon rolls was a really big deal. She was impressed. And worried. She didn’t want Nick to get too attached to someone who would probably be leaving soon. “Okay, then, cinnamon rolls it is,” Eve said. Anything to end the conversation. She feared her face flushed whenever Josh’s name was mentioned.

  She decided to divert attention. “Anything going on I should know about?” Because Jim talked to so many people at the drugstore, Abby always had a pulse on what people were saying.

  “Folks are still upset about those burglaries.”

  “Has someone else been robbed?” she asked, alarmed.

  “No, it’s just that Al Monroe is spreading his poison all over Covenant Falls about how we need a new police chief. I told him off when he said something loud at Maude’s. Isn’t a better person alive than Tom, but I’ll tell you, Eve, the businesspeople are worried. Jim is real worried because of the drugs the store carries.”

  “The other two targets had bad locks,” Eve said. “Jim has a strong security system.”

  “But I don’t like it when he fills a prescription at night. He should just tell people he’s closed, but you know him.”

  “Tell you what,” Eve said, “I’ll alert the deputies on night duty. When Jim has an essential prescription, he can call them and they’ll escort him. It’s usually quiet at night anyway.”

  Abby looked relieved. “I don’t want anyone to think we’re getting special favors.”

  “They won’t,” Eve said, wondering how many other residents were equally worried about safety. “I’ll make the offer to any business open past dusk.”

  Jim arrived shortly after seven and ate with them. The four of them then played hearts for an hour. Jim and Abby packed up at nine, leaving a plate of cinnamon rolls behind when they went out the door.

  Eve followed them out and thanked them for taking care of the animals while she and Nick were gone, and for staying over today.

  “You know how much we love that boy,” Abby said. “The dogs kinda grow on you, too. Especially Fancy. Followed me all over the house when you were gone. Jim even let her sleep on the bed.”

  Abby got a nudge from her husband.

  “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that,” Abby said. “He likes everyone to think he’s a tough guy.”

  She gave Eve a quick hug. “I couldn’t ask for a better daughter-in-law. We are all so proud of you. Russ would have been, too.” She paused, then asked, “Do you know where he came from yet?”

  Eve didn’t have to ask who “he” was. “Only that he’s an army veteran and his dog was a military dog. I know he’s a hard worker—it’s miraculous what he’s done with that cabin in little more than a few weeks. More than ten years of dirt and grime gone. Basic repairs made. He’s painting. He’s cleared the area in back.”

  “Do you think he’s going to stay?”

  “I doubt it,” she said and wished that observation wasn’t accompanied by a sick feeling in her stomach.

  “Too bad. Jim said he seemed like a nice young man.”

  That made her smile. “Nice young man” didn’t quite fit her experience with him.

  She decided she didn’t want to explain that thought so she just nodded. “Just to let you know, we won’t be going to baseball practice tomorrow. Nick still needs to take it easy.”

  “There’s a big game Saturday. Will he be able to play?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll check with Doc Bradley first.”

  “Then he’ll be out of school. He can stay with us during the day while you work,” she offered hopefully.

  “He’s going to day camp at the community center, and I’m going to try to do some work at home. But we’ll certainly need you.”

  Abby beamed. “Anytime.”

  They swapped hugs, and Jim and Abby left.

  After closing the door, she played a game of chess with Nick, losing as usual. She had too many other things on her mind to concentrate, and Nick had learned from Tom. It was humiliating being beaten by a ten-year-old, even if he was hers.

  After he went to bed, she went out to the barn. Jim had cleaned the stalls and put down fresh hay. The water trough was full, and she could tell the horses had been fed. She gave them each an apple. “We’ll go riding Saturday,” she promised. They were restless, she thought, and then realized that she was restless, as well. Jumpy.

  She went to the corral fence and leaned against it. There was nothing more magical to her than a clear Colorado night sky.

  Her mother, though, had hated it. A big-city girl from the East, she had fallen in love with Eve’s father when he was in Philadelphia as a witness. Her mother’s father was the prosecuting attorney, and Eve’s father, then with the county sheriff’s department, had captured the prime suspect in a Philadelphia murder. Her father had been a long-limbed, good-looking man with a Western dr
awl and quick wit. But her mother had hated the isolation of Covenant Falls.

  She had stayed with Robert Douglas because of Eve, but the marriage had been tense and unhappy, and she had left the day after her husband was buried. She hadn’t returned.

  Eve had learned then that love didn’t conquer all.

  Attraction didn’t, either. She refused to believe there was anything more than that between her and Josh.

  She heard the soft snort of one of the horses, probably Beauty, in the barn, and it was a good sound. A familiar sound. This was home. The only place she wanted to be.

  * * *

  EVE WOKE UP with a jerk and realized she hadn’t set the alarm. The sun streamed through the windows. She glanced at the clock face. Seven o’clock. She had to get dressed, wake Nick and fix breakfast, feed and water the horses and get Nick to school by eight.

  She sprang up and went to start the coffee. To her surprise, Nick had already started it and was sitting at the table eating cereal and drinking orange juice.

  “I woke up in the wrong house,” she said. “Who are you?”

  He giggled.

  She put two slices of bread in the toaster, grabbed the orange juice and filled a glass.

  “You really should eat a proper breakfast,” Nick said with a huge grin.

  How many times had she said those words to him? “You’re pretty chipper today. Especially for a boy who’s been bitten by a rattlesnake. Does it still hurt?”

  “It itches.”

  “And you know not to scratch it? No matter how much you want to.”

  He nodded.

  “Remember, you promised not to run. Okay?”

  “Okay.” He finished his cereal. “I’ll help feed the horses. I already filled the water bowls for the dogs.”

  She munched on the toast as they left the house. He grabbed his backpack and box of cinnamon rolls and tossed them in Miss Mollie before following her to the barn. They filled the water buckets and put out oats. Her father-in-law had already cleaned the stalls yesterday.