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  At the end of the service, she slipped out with half a dozen other ladies to put the finishing touches on the supper in the church basement. Amanda would be remembered with love and friendship, and with casseroles and cakes. Her son would be greeted and condolences would be given by one and all, including herself. Nothing could shake her sense of duty and propriety, not even Colton Haines.

  She’d take her time. She’d regroup and find another way to steel herself, but the words would be spoken, words of compassion and respect. It was one of the ways people survived. She wouldn’t deny him his due.

  As Colt stood by his mother’s casket, he clasped another hand, and then another. He greeted most people by name. That was all—just their names. They poured out their heartfelt clichés, though some tried for more, especially the women. He answered with their names and tried not to feel anything, not the welcome they offered and certainly not the comfort. Comfort implied pain, and he wasn’t ready for the pain.

  His mom had been fine at Christmas when she’d spent a week out in California with him, and at fifty-five she’d been far too young to die from heart failure. Whatever the hell that meant.

  Tension tightened his jaw, making it impossible for him to get out the next few names—Ed, Charlie, Roberta. He knew them all, every one, and none of them had called to tell him his mom was sick. The doctor had said he’d tried a week ago, but Colt had been on the other side of the world a week ago, saving somebody else’s life.

  “Mrs. Childress.” He spoke the preacher’s wife’s name and held her small, weak hand in his. Wisps of gray hair floated out of her coiled bun, giving her a softly electrified appearance.

  She patted his arm and gripped him tightly, as if holding on to him would stop the perpetual trembling of her hands, or as if she could support his young man’s body with her old woman’s spirit.

  “She went quickly, child. No pain. We tried to contact you so many times, but you are a very difficult person to find.”

  Colt wanted to stop her right there. He needed his anger. He didn’t want a kindly soul to take away the only emotion he trusted.

  “It’s my job,” he said, his voice as empty as the rest of him. Then he wished he hadn’t spoken, especially so rudely to the preacher’s wife.

  She misunderstood, though, disallowing even his anger at himself.

  “We’re all very proud of you, Colton, of all our service boys. We know it’s a difficult job, defending the country. We’re very appreciative.”

  He’d meant it was his job to be hard to find. And he doubted if any of Rock Creek’s other “service boys” had seen his kind of action. He hoped not. Some of the things he’d done he wouldn’t wish on his enemies, let alone a Wyoming cowboy. But he had, of course, wished the wildest, most carefully constructed worst-case scenarios of the United States government on his faceless enemies and bent them to his will through force and cunning, through speed, surprise, and the ability to disappear.

  He was good, maybe too good.

  Doris Childress squeezed his hand and moved on to his grandmother. He had two uncles and an aunt there, too, but he was having a hard time finding anything to say to anybody. He’d come back for his mother, out of love and respect, despite their differences, despite the man she’d loved. He’d never told her anything to tarnish her dream.

  Robert “Bull” Brooks was in the church. Colt had seen him, but the older man wouldn’t meet his gaze, or even look in his direction. Smart man. Colt had forgotten nothing, and he’d learned a hundred ways to maim and kill. Bull knew only one. He must also know that half his protection had passed away with Amanda.

  Amanda . . . Colt closed his eyes. He’d always loved her name, and she’d loved that bastard. At least five more emotions tangled themselves up in the mess that was his heart—another kind of anger, an unslaked need for vengeance, disgust, shame, and a sense of injustice. He’d felt them all for ten years, and fought them all. But his mother had died and everything inside him was opening up, no matter what he did to keep it under control.

  * * *

  The storm was worsening, darkening the sky, when they returned to the church from the cemetery. Colt had wanted to call it quits right then and there, with the dirt falling on his mother’s grave, but leaving hadn’t been an option. He had to face the whole thing from beginning to end like the officer he was. He had to stick to the plan, without screwups. Forward was the only allowable direction.

  Still he hesitated at the top of the church steps. Wind whipped the rain into his eyes and across his cheeks, but it went unnoticed by a man used to salt spray at twenty knots and free-falls from four miles up.

  Forward meant Sarah. If he went forward, he’d have to face her again. He swore under his breath.

  She should have changed more than she had. She should have cut her hair. Age should have changed the gray of her eyes. She should be taller or fatter, less gentle, less inviting. She shouldn’t be able to look at him and make him hurt.

  His grandmother continued into the church, and he automatically moved forward to keep his supporting hand on her elbow. His moment of hesitation was over, his last chance gone.

  The church kitchen was a maelstrom of activity: twenty hot dishes, ten salads, assorted vegetables, five cakes, and seven women shuffling it all from oven and microwave to table. Sarah knew when Colt walked into the basement, her eyes unerringly lifting from where she was cutting Paula Jenks double-fudge cake.

  She forced her gaze back down. She’d served a dozen remembrance suppers, and she’d serve one more before she gave him the speech she’d been stumbling over for the last hour. The one about being so sorry, about how wonderful his mother had been, about if there was anything he needed—though she’d make sure she said that part just right, with a vacuous, saccharine quality he’d surely be smart enough to understand meant he shouldn’t ask—about how good it was to see him.

  No . . . no. She’d decided against that part completely. She’d tell him it was good to have him home in Rock Creek, using that same vacuous expression that acted like a wall against any real feeling. Above all, she had to avoid real feeling.

  And timing. Timing was another key to a smooth condolence. There would be a crush of good-byes after the supper, and she’d shove herself forward in the middle of it, making it clear she’d tried hard to get to him. She’d speak her short piece and politely let herself be shoved aside, maybe with a lift of her shoulders or her eyebrows to let him know how sorry she was they couldn’t have talked longer.

  More the fool she for believing in best-laid plans. The supper got completely away from her, with her running back and forth from the kitchen to the serving area, and a couple of mild catastrophes, when the coffee urn stopped in mid-perk and then when some little kid, one of the Barton boys, accidentally sent the fudge cake crashing to the floor, though luckily after most of it had been served.

  A hundred people ate, and Sarah barely saw a one of them. She got frosting on her knees from the cake cleanup. Every time she turned around it seemed she was brushing coffee grounds off her dress, or she’d put a run in her stockings. But the worst, the absolute worst, was when she finally got everything under control, the supper was over. She came out of the kitchen to find the basement practically empty. The Women’s Auxiliary was still in full force, tidying up the dining area, but the townspeople had dispersed . . . and taken Colton Haines with them.

  She was crushed, instantly and totally. Her shoulders lowered into a confused, rag doll slump. She looked again, from corner to corner, even behind her, as tears and a surprising panic rose up.

  He was gone.

  A lump thickened in her throat. Her facial muscles gave up all semblance of tone and structure, and her lower lip trembled. He was gone. The wound was ten years old, but the pain was as sharp as a cut from a knife.

  Her life was such a wasteland. No lover, no husband, no family of her own. It wasn’t supposed to have been like that.

  He’d come home for the first time in ten year
s, and she’d wasted all her time concocting face-saving speeches. Somebody ought to take her out and shoot her, but nobody would, not in Rock Creek. They needed her to dole out their medicines and give advice and first aid—and she needed something else, somebody else. A soft, quick sob broke from her. She was going to cry right there, maybe have a whole breakdown, and she didn’t give a damn who saw her.

  The first tear was already halfway down her cheek before she covered her face with one hand and wrapped her other arm around her waist. Then she heard it, a voice unlike any other, deeper, stronger, for all its quietness.

  She lifted her head and wiped her cheek, relief flooding her veins and pushing her toward that voice. Mike Clymer saw her coming and finished up talking with Colt, giving her the chance for a private moment of shared sorrow with the hometown hero. A few seconds passed between Mike’s departure and her entrance into the hall where the two men had been talking, and in those seconds all of her doubts returned. She wasn’t going to change her mind about talking to him, but she couldn’t remember what she was supposed to say.

  Mike’s work boots sounded on the stairs, covering her own soft tread. Colt was momentarily alone in the basement hallway, and the sudden change in him made her doubts pale once more. He looked completely lost, worn out, and ready to bolt.

  She quickly closed the distance between them, drawing his attention. The instant he saw her all his defenses went back into place like clockwork—the shuttered look in his eyes, the straightening of his spine, the squaring of his jaw. But not before she caught a glimpse of recognition and panic.

  Panic. She was sure of it. The Navy SEAL was afraid of her. She didn’t find the knowledge particularly encouraging.

  Colt fixed his eyes on Sarah, not believing his damn rotten luck. He’d been so close to getting out of there.

  She started in by saying all the things he’d been hearing for the last three hours, except she was stammering more than most. Somehow her pauses and hesitations gave the sentiments a deeper sincerity. She was sorry, of course. Everyone was sorry. His mother had been a wonderful woman. God, did they think he didn’t know that?

  So damn close. His military jeep was less than thirty feet away, parked right outside the door at the top of the stairs. If he closed his eyes, he could see his hand on the key in the ignition, turning it, the wheels rolling backward, and the highway stretching all the way to Cheyenne and escape. He could be back in California before nightfall, chasing the sun into the Pacific Ocean with a bottle of Scotch.

  He opened his eyes, nodding, pretending the lapse had been nothing more than an extended blink and not a desperate bid for freedom. She should have changed. It was an unnecessary cruelty for her to be so much the same as he’d always remembered. Always.

  Her hair shouldn’t be the same silky silver and gold. He’d never seen anything like it, and he’d seen everything else in California. But no amount of sun and sea and potions could equal Sarah’s natural coloring.

  He remembered how it felt to wrap her hair in a gentle fist and draw her near. He remembered the feel of the soft strands sliding over his bare arm, caressing his shoulder and falling across his chest. He remembered the one night he’d held the long veil aside to gaze upon her breasts, so perfect, so perfectly sweet.

  He remembered too much.

  He forced his gaze back to her eyes, but he knew he wouldn’t last long with those fathomless gray lakes measuring him from the inside out. He tried a quick glance at her mouth and was captured nonetheless.

  She’d stopped stammering, though he’d lost all track of what she was saying. He tried concentrating.

  “I still had a year of school when Tobias left, but the town muddled through until I got my pharmacist’s license. I was lucky they didn’t get too used to going into Cheyenne.”

  She was telling him her life story, and he was fascinated by the curve of her mouth, the way her lips formed words, and the occasional glimpse of her tongue. In the long run that seemed a safer area of attention than her words.

  She wasn’t married. She didn’t come out and tell him, but neither did she mention a man, or say anything that matched her up with someone. There wasn’t a “we” in her story. No children either. He knew enough about women to know their children always figured into a conversation pretty quick. It was natural. It was right.

  Sarah didn’t have a man, and she didn’t have children, and there lay his true shame. It wasn’t that Bull Brooks had whipped him for making love to his daughter, but that he’d left her in Rock Creek alone.

  How far away was his jeep? Thirty feet? Ten stairs and a few yards?

  And how would he get there? Snap his hat on his head and do an about-face? Turn away from those soft eyes and the sweet curves of her mouth as she talked to him about tax incentives for a feedlot that in the end they were sure they were going to lose to Albany County.

  His fingers tightened on the brim of his hat. His gaze drifted over the swells of her breasts, over her still boyishly slim hips. She should have changed there. Bearing children should have changed her there.

  He uttered a foul obscenity. He wasn’t any good at this. He shouldn’t have come. He shouldn’t have stayed long enough to feel the pain. Another curse lodged against his clenched teeth.

  She gave him a startled glance. “Well, it’s not all that bad, really. We’ve voted in Peter Barton as mayor, and with him being into real estate sales, we’re sure he’ll try to develop Rock Creek to its fullest potential.”

  His chest was getting too tight for him to breathe. It was an odd feeling, thoroughly miserable, and it meant something he couldn’t quite remember.

  Damn her. She knew what was happening and responded in the worst possible manner. She touched him, her fingers light on his sleeve; she spoke his name, filling the syllable with compassion and her woman’s tenderness.

  He wasn’t ready for it, for any of it. He wasn’t ready for her. Thirty feet?

  He’d never make it.

  “Colt?”

  She did it again, so sweetly, with such yearning, and all the walls inside him started to shake and tremble. His ramparts were crumbling.

  His eyes drifted closed and his head lowered in pained resignation. He felt her move a step closer, felt the air change with her nearness, with her scent, with her softness invading him. A rational man would have taken a great leap for the stairs. Colt didn’t move.

  The last losing seconds of the battle raged inside him, all but forgotten as he raised his lashes and fell headlong, drowning, into the sanctuary of her eyes. He lifted his hand and found her waist. The small of her back filled his palm and he applied a gentle, insistent pressure. She didn’t resist, and all he wanted was to survive the moment. He did what had to be done. He kissed her.

  Sarah. Sarah. . . .

  Four

  He opened his mouth over hers, his tongue pressing for immediate entrance. There were no hesitations in his heart. He needed her to hold him, to hold him together, and he’d take everything she didn’t tie down.

  Sarah was captured within the iron circle of his arms, pinned between his body and her need, absolutely paralyzed by the rush of sensation flooding her.

  It had been terrible: his silence, the grim line of his mouth, and her rattling on about every inconsequential thing that popped into her mind. She’d gotten no reading off him at all until she mentioned the feedlot, and that for some reason had upset him—a mild reaction when compared to the near devastation she’d seen in his eyes when she’d mentioned that Peter Barton was the new mayor.

  She’d obviously missed something. Nobody cared that Peter Barton was mayor, not even the people who’d voted for him. She’d definitely missed something, and she’d figure it out—she promised herself she would—just as soon as she stopped dying in his arms, as soon as her feet found the earth, as soon as he slowed down from the sweet, torturous ravishment of her mouth.

  Just don’t let it be over too soon. The thought rolled over and over in her mind as she le
t herself sink against him, into him. She was ashamed of herself. She wanted to cry for needing him so much, the taste of him, the feel of him. But no other man’s kisses had touched her so deeply, and her heart reached for him.

  She’d get over him. And she wouldn’t let him kiss her forever. Just close to forever, just until she was filled with him, with Colton Haines.

  She had changed. Colt felt it. Her body was stronger, more of a match for him, molding to him with heat and need. She was fuller, her mouth intensely sweeter for being less chaste. He remembered that long-ago night, tasting himself on her lips and tongue, and what it had done to him then. He felt what kissing her was doing to him now.

  There were other changes, too, disturbing changes. The hint of desperation in her filled him with guilt. He wanted to kiss the desperation away. He was so sorry. He should have understood.

  The smartest girl he’d ever known, the one he’d loved, had never figured out how to compromise. She’d never learned how to take affection and mix it with lust and somehow almost convince herself that it was love. He doubted if she’d found much pleasure without at least the semblance of love.

  Sometimes making love was such an emptiness. He’d never wanted that for her, not from the very beginning. He’d wanted her to know only him and the way he’d loved her the first time, with care and tenderness and all the passion he’d been able to imagine and make.

  He’d been his best for her, given her more than he’d given any other woman. Kissing her in the church basement now made him want to give it to her all over again, the way he’d dreamed for a thousand nights after he’d left, until he’d learned how to compromise enough to get by without seeing her face every time he made love to someone else.

  He moved his hand to cup her face, his fingers and palm following the delicate contour of her jaw and tunneling into her hair, a selfish gesture he couldn’t resist. He’d noticed in the church how she’d fixed her hair into big, loose curls, and he’d noticed later at the serving tables how the curls had fallen out, her hair still refusing to cooperate.