Jackson grabbed Rachelle’s hand and tugged.
“Hey, wait a minute. What’re you doing?” She remembered their last encounter, which she’d sworn was to be their final one. And here he was, smiling and charming and wanting something from her, no doubt.
“Let’s get out of here.”
She considered the way he’d kissed her—and her stupid heart fluttered. “I don’t think—”
“I just came from Thomas Fitzpatrick’s house.”
“He’s back in town? But he canceled an appointment with me—” She was rising from her chair, scooping up her purse and jacket before she even realized what she was doing. From the corner of her eye she saw the bushy-eyed man purse his thin lips and watch her escape with Jackson.
Outside, the afternoon sun had disappeared, the wind cool with the coming night. Shadows lengthened across the asphalt parking lot. Rachelle pulled her hand away from his and stopped. “You spoke to Thomas Fitzpatrick?” she asked suspiciously.
“That’s right.”
“When?”
“This afternoon at his house.”
“Oh, sure. And he just opened his door to you, invited you in for a drink, welcomed you as an old family friend.”
A grin tugged at the corners of Jackson’s mouth. “Not quite. I didn’t get in the front door, or even the back for that matter.”
“Are you crazy? Why would you go there? The man hates you! Don’t you remember what he did to you?” she cried, using the same arguments with Jackson that her sister, Heather, had used with her.
A middle-aged couple, approaching along the cement walk, stared at them, then exchanged knowing glances. The man leaned over to the woman who covered her mouth with one hand and whispered into his ear.
The back of Rachelle’s neck burned and Jackson took her hand once more, pulling her toward a huge motorcycle. Images of another night flashed through her mind. “Wait a minute. What’re you doing?”
“We’re getting out of here.”
“On that?” She pointed a disbelieving finger at the bike.
“Mmm.”
“You and me on the bike together? Oh, no. I don’t think—”
He swung a leg over the gleaming machine. “Just get on, Rachelle.”
“No way. I’m not going to let you bully me into…” She let her words drift away when she spied Scott McDonald walking briskly down the street. He’d filled out over the years, but she still recognized him.
“Another one of Roy’s friends,” Jackson observed, his eyes following Scott as the man shoved open the door of the pharmacy and walked inside. “Didn’t any of them leave?”
“Not many,” Rachelle said, and when he looked sharply at her, she shrugged. “I’ve done a lot of research for my articles. It seems the people closest to the Fitzpatricks stuck around Gold Creek.”
“Small town, small minds.”
“Not entirely,” she replied, surprised that she would stand up for anything to do with this town. She’d suffered here at the hands of many of her peers as well as an older generation of townspeople. There had been no haven. She’d been tormented in school, at the newspaper office where she’d been fired for no apparent reason other than she was on Jackson’s side, even in church, where several of the women had tossed looks over their shoulders that silently damned her as a sinner. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Mrs. Nelson had come up and asked her to wear a scarlet A on her blouse.
Her mother had tolerated her own share of pain. Not only had her husband run off with a younger woman, but her older daughter had proved she was no better than her philandering father had been. Ellen Tremont had dropped out of her bridge club, avoided church gatherings and generally cut off her social life.
Yes, Rachelle’s one night with Jackson had scarred most of the people she loved.
“Well?” Jackson was waiting. His jaw was clenched hard and a muscle worked double-time in his jaw. He was straddling the bike and had turned on the engine. It thrummed loudly in the quiet street—an invitation.
She glanced up at his face, saw a glimmer of tenderness in his eyes and her resistance melted. You’re being a fool—a crazy, masochistic fool!
Despite all her arguments to the contrary, Rachelle climbed onto the back of the huge machine, still not touching him.
Jackson stuffed her purse and notes into a side pouch and cast her a glance over his shoulder as he guided the bike into the slow stream of traffic. “Where to, lady?”
She lifted a shoulder and slowly placed her arms around his torso. “This was your idea.”
His mouth lifted into a wicked smile. “You’re going to let me take you wherever I want?”
Her pulse rocketed at the innuendo and she had to force a cool smile onto her lips. “You’re in the driver’s seat, Jackson.”
CHAPTER TEN
RACHELLE KNEW SHE SHOULDN’T have gotten onto the motorcycle with Jackson, just as she’d known she shouldn’t have climbed into Erik Patton’s pickup twelve years earlier. She couldn’t believe she’d made the same mistake twice, but she had. Her gut was coiled tight as a clock spring as Jackson took off on the north road, roared under the old railway trestle and headed toward the lake.
“The lake? We’re going to the lake?” she shouted above the roar of the bike. She couldn’t hide her disbelief.
“Why not?”
“You really are a masochist, aren’t you?”
“The lake is where it all started,” he replied with a thread of steel in his voice as he shifted down and they hugged a corner.
“You know what people will say—that the criminal always goes back to the scene of the crime.”
He cast her a hard look over his shoulder. “Let them talk.”
“But—” She snapped her mouth shut. He’d made up his mind; he was driving the damned bike and nothing she could say would change his mind. She felt a jab of irony at the situation. How many times after Jackson had left town had she daydreamed that he would return for her, that he would take her back to the lake, and there, against a backdrop of pine and rising mists, they would make love, sealing their destiny to be together?
Well, she’d grown up a lot since spinning those tender dreams where Jackson was always the hero and she the persecuted, but eventually vindicated, heroine. Now, going to the lake sounded like a nightmare.
They passed through the night-dark hills and the wind rushed hard against her face, tangling her hair. Rachelle trained her eyes over Jackson’s shoulder. She tried not to notice the scent of leather and aftershave, or the way his stomach tightened whenever her hands shifted. Pressed this tightly against him, her breasts crushed against his back, it was nearly impossible to keep her thoughts from straying to the very obvious fact that he was a male, a very virile and potent male, and she was no more immune to him tonight than she had been twelve years ago.
“Going back to the lake might put things in perspective,” he said. He didn’t glance back over his shoulder, just stared straight ahead, into the night, his concentration on the beam the headlight threw in front of the cycle.
They passed Monroe Sawmill where most of the trees cut by Fitzpatrick Logging were turned into lumber or pressed into plywood. The night was turned to day as the swing shift worked toward quitting time. Lights glared from sheds where employees in hard hats, jeans, flannel shirts and heavy gloves stood at the green chain while the raw lumber was moved by conveyor belts and sorted.
In another shed, a barker peeled the rough outer layer from buckskin logs and huge saws, spraying sawdust, sliced the naked logs into thick cants, which would soon be cut into smaller lumber and sold, adding to the profits of the sawmill while lining the pockets of the Monroes and the Fitzpatricks.
Rachelle had driven by the sawmill a hundred times in her lifetime, but now, riding in the dark with Jackson, she was reminded of the night that had bound them together forever. She stared at the formidable line of his jaw, just barely visible over his shoulder, and felt the tension in each of his muscles. H
is thoughts, no doubt, had taken the same turn as hers.
The road twisted upward through the forest. Rachelle’s stomach tightened into a hard knot as they passed by the Fitzpatrick estate. Was he taking her here? But why? She couldn’t imagine that trespassing on Fitzpatrick land would be of any help and she didn’t want to see the gazebo where Roy had attacked her, and Jackson, thank God, had come to her rescue.
He drove on, along the winding road and he didn’t stop until he came to the grounds of the Monroe house. The wrought-iron gates were closed, the thick rock walls surrounding the estate seeming unscalable.
“Now what?” she asked as they parked and Jackson sat with the beam of his headlight washing the stone and mortar. Her chest felt tight and she knew, from the charged air between them, that, tonight, she was going to do something she shouldn’t. Jackson would try to convince her to go along with him, just as he’d convinced her to come with him up here.
“Now we break in—”
“Oh, no! We did that once before, remember? You ended up in jail—”
He turned and faced her, one of his hands grabbing hers. His touch was warm and his fingers found the soft underside of her wrist, finding her pulse as it began pounding erratically. “I do remember, Rachelle,” he said quietly. “That’s why we’re here.” The night air seemed to crackle between them.
“This is wrong, Jackson. We both know it. And it’s dangerous. Think what happened the last time—all the trouble. I’m not going to take a chance on being charged with trespassing or breaking or entering or anything!”
“Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Where’s your brain? This is crazy. C-r-a-z-y!”
“And I thought you reporters would do just about anything for a story,” he chided.
“There’s no story here.” It was a lie. In fact, she’d promised her editor an interview with Jackson in order to have her series of articles approved. She bit her lip.
“Oh, I think we can scrounge up a little bit of copy—a few interesting column inches.” He looked at her darkly and his eyes seemed to smolder. Her throat turned to dust as she thought he’d kiss her again, but he let go of her hand suddenly and swung off the bike. Tossing her the keys, he said, “You can come. Or you can leave.”
“I don’t even know how to drive this thing…Jackson, wait!”
He disappeared. Half running, he made his way through the trees and Rachelle wished she were anywhere but here. Damn his miserable hide! They weren’t a couple of kids any longer. This was big trouble. Major trouble. Both of their careers could be affected, even ruined.
If she had a functioning brain, she would stuff the keys into the ignition, turn the bike around and, God only knew how, leave him to hitchhike back to town. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done that sort of thing before, she thought with more than a trace of bitterness. Her heart squeezed painfully. So why was she here, along with him, back at the very spot where she’d given him her virginity all those years before?
Because you’re a fool, girl. A romantic fool!
A small smile crept over her lips, for, despite the pain, the heartache, the bitterness she felt for him, a tiny part of her still treasured those few tender hours they’d shared as lovers. Even now, years later, there was still a fondness—a cozy feeling in her heart—when she remembered his lovemaking. Their passion had been explosive, but there had been a tenderness to him, as well, a gentle side, that few had been allowed to see. She’d often wondered if anyone but she had gotten a glimpse of that inner part of him.
The idea was ridiculous, she supposed. He could have made love to dozens of women and each of his lovers might well think that she held the exclusive hold on his heart, that she alone was witness to his pain, that she had helped balm his wounds, that she, and she only, had caught a glimmer of the kinder man beneath his hard and calloused exterior.
To her horror, she looked at the wall surrounding the estate again, and there he was, on the other side of the gate, fiddling with some gadget—the controls no doubt. Within minutes, the huge gates began to swing, creaking open. Jackson ran to the bike, hopped on and—plucking the keys from her fingers—winked. He started the bike and drove onto the grounds.
“You are out of your mind,” she whispered, but she clung to him, her arms snug across his abdomen.
He shot her a dangerous look over his shoulder. “Maybe.”
“There’s no ‘maybe’ about it.”
The lane was dark, the asphalt chipped and cracked. Jackson drove slowly and Rachelle’s insides squeezed together. This was a mistake, a horrid mistake, she thought as he parked near the house.
The house was as she remembered it—three stories with a sharply pitched roof complete with dormers. She wondered if the furniture was the same, if the old couch was positioned near the fireplace.
“Looks like no one’s been here for years,” she said, eyeing the overgrown grounds.
“I don’t think the Monroes come up here any longer.” He got out of the car and stared up at the house. “I never could figure out how the sheriff’s department found us,” he said. “I decided they must’ve done a house-to-house search once they found my bike and learned that Roy and I had been in a fight.” He walked to the front door and tried to open it, but the latch was securely fastened.
He took her hand and they walked toward the lake. The moon cast shadows in the trees and the overgrown shrubbery snagged their jeans as they passed. The air was warm, but still, and the sounds of the night were soft—the gentle lapping of the lake, the rumble of a distant train rattling on ancient tracks, the splash of a trout as it jumped for an unseen insect in Whitefire Lake.
“I made a lot of mistakes, Rachelle,” he said as they reached the shore. Across the lake, the lights of the marina winked on the water, and cabin windows glowed a warm gold.
“What is this? An apology?”
He paused, glancing down at her. “An explanation. That’s all. Take it any way you want. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just did what I thought was best at the time.”
He stood at the shoreline, his jaw hard, his proud expression etched upon uncompromising features. He hadn’t mellowed in the decade since she’d seen him last; if anything, he’d become more jaded and cynical than she remembered. His tender side was buried deeper than ever.
“I waited,” she said softly as a tiny breeze teased her hair. She thought she saw pain in his eyes, but the shadows were probably induced by the night. “I kept telling myself that you’d come back for me.”
His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t make any promises—”
She touched his lips, surprised at the warmth of his skin. “I know. I knew it then, but I was young enough, naive enough to believe that we’d shared something special, something sacred.”
“And now?” he asked. “What do you believe now?”
She met his gaze, her eyes unwavering. “That spending the night with you was the single biggest mistake of my life,” she said, her admission tearing her in two. “I was a fool—a schoolgirl who lived in a dream world. You taught me a lot about reality, Jackson. For that, I suppose, I should thank you.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her words. “I trusted you, slept with you, lied for you.”
“You didn’t lie.”
“And you weren’t with me for all of the night.”
His teeth flashed white as he bit out an oath. “You didn’t trust me.”
“I didn’t know you.”
“I did go back to the Fitzpatrick place,” he admitted, his voice low. “I wanted to get my bike—either drive it or push it—but by the time I got there, the party had broken up and my cycle was gone. You know, I never saw it after that night.”
Her pulse was hammering in her head; she remembered that the bike had been stolen, but she hadn’t really thought Jackson had returned to the party. Why? Just for his bike? Or to settle a score with Roy? Her tongue froze and her throat worked; surely he hadn’t…
“Hell, Rachelle. You don’t be
lieve me. You think I killed Roy!” He muttered another string of oaths.
“I do believe you. I…I just wonder why you never told me before.”
“So that the story was simple.”
“But it wasn’t the truth.”
“It was,” he said. “I never saw Roy again.”
Her heart turned to stone. He’d lied—and caused her to perjure herself. To save his hide. Her stomach rolled over, and for a second she thought she might be sick. Her voice, when she spoke, quavered. “I thought more of you than this,” she whispered, her disappointment a gaping wound.
“It was a mistake. I should have told you everything.”
He reached for her, but she backed away, her ankle twisting on a rock near the shore, but she didn’t notice. “God, what a fool I was. I’d half convinced myself that you were some knight in shining armor, saving me from Roy. I’d even imagined that I was in love with you—”
“I never said anything about love!” he cut in, his eyes glittering ominously.
“I know. But I was naive enough to believe that sex and love went together. I know better now.”
“Do you?” He eyed her speculatively and her breath stopped at the base of her throat.
“Oh, Jackson, no—” She pushed him away, but there was no stopping him.
Gathering her in his arms, he kissed her, long and hard, his lips molding expertly over her mouth, his body pressed intimately against her softer contours. Her blood began to pound at her temples and she told herself that kissing him was madness, would surely lead to the same torment she’d suffered in the past, but she couldn’t stop.
“You lied,” she choked out when he finally lifted his head. “I trusted you and you lied!” Tears drizzled down her cheeks, and he slowly brushed them aside.
“If I could change anything, Rachelle, I would. But I can’t. God knows I’ve regretted a lot of things in my life, but I should never have kept my silence. I didn’t know you knew I left and I…I should have explained everything to you. I thought I was protecting you.”