FOR THE CHILDREN Page 7

  "What are you doing?" she said, trying to draw her arm away from him.

  "Shh." His whisper was no more than a tiny puff that disturbed the air in the heavy darkness. Drawing her closer, he bent down and murmured into her ear, "There's something outside. Did you hear it a few minutes ago?"

  His warm breath stirred the hair on her neck and sent shivers rippling across her skin in places that had never been particularly sensitive before tonight. She nodded mutely as the heat of his body shimmered around her, filling her senses with the nighttime scent of him.

  "I'm going to take a look." Even his low whisper couldn't hide the grim resolve in his voice. When he raised his right hand, the huge black gun he held gleamed dully in the dim light.

  "Wait!" Abby reached out and grasped his forearm. "It's probably just an animal out there."

  Damien froze, staring down at her hand on his arm. Suddenly Abby was aware of the feel of his skin under her fingers, hot and pulsing with life. Her hand tightened involuntarily around the hardness of his muscle and the springy coarseness of the hairs on his arm.

  As she stared at him, she realized that he wore only a pair of boxer shorts and nothing else. She stood too close to his chest, her face only inches away from the lean planes of carved muscle and the mat of black hair that covered them.

  He stood utterly still until she let go of him and backed up a step. "It's probably just a coyote," she repeated, her voice breathless in the warm night air.

  "Is your cat outside?" he asked, looking down at her. His obsidian eyes were unreadable in the darkness.

  "No. I keep him inside at night."

  Damien nodded once, then turned and headed for the door. Abby wanted to call him back, to tell him he didn't need a gun to chase away a coyote, but she couldn't get any sounds past her throat. She watched him as he stood on the porch, the moonlight gleaming on his bare shoulders before he disappeared into the night.

  She strained to hear him outside, but it was as if he'd vanished into the night mists that rose off the lake. Nothing moved beyond her window but the wind, murmuring through the trees. There were no sounds of an animal pushing through the underbrush, no noises from the man who pursued it.

  Abby stood in the kitchen of the cabin, straining to hear something from the woods outside the door. Nothing reached her ears except a silence heavy with expectation, as if all the creatures of the night held their breath and waited.

  Something was wrong. Fear blossomed inside her like a malignancy, growing and spreading too quickly to be contained. Opening a kitchen drawer with shaking hands, she grabbed a knife, not caring that its razor-sharp edge sliced into her finger. Holding it in front of her stiffly, she hurried into the twins' room and lowered herself to the floor next to their bed.

  Maggie and Casey slept peacefully, unaware of their aunt crouching beside them or the man who hunted in the woods beyond their window. Abby watched them for a moment, trying to calm her racing heart. They were safe, she repeated to herself, No one knew about this cabin, or that they were here. Damien was chasing some nocturnal animal through the woods, and he would return in a few minutes.

  But the minutes seemed like hours in the silent stillness of the twins' room. Damien had been gone too long, she thought, straining to hear some sound that would assure her he was all right. He should have been back by now.

  Something brushed against the side of the cabin, near the back door, and Abby struggled to her feet. Shifting the knife to her right hand, she crept through the kitchen toward the door, trying to hear over the pounding of her heart.

  The door opened silently, and Damien slipped into the room. He stopped abruptly when he saw Abby approaching him. "It's me, Abby," he said, speaking in a low voice.

  Damien's gaze was fixed on her hand. Looking down, she realized she held the knife extended in front of her, pointing at him. Lowering her arm, she said, "I wanted to be prepared."

  "For one of those coyotes to come bursting into the house?" he said in a mild voice.

  She hid the knife behind her leg and continued to watch him. "For whatever came through that door. I couldn't hear a thing when you were outside."

  "You weren't supposed to hear anything."

  "What did you find?"

  "Nothing." He turned away, and she saw the gun shoved into the waistband of his shorts at the small of his back. In the faint moonlight from the door, she could see his shorts were red, faded almost to pink, and thin from many washings.

  "Where are you going?" she asked sharply as he headed for his room.

  Slowly he turned back to her. "I'm going to bed, and you should, too. I didn't find a thing outside."

  Anger swept away the last of her fear. "You mean it really was an animal out there? That all this melodrama was for some poor beast looking for a meal?"

  "I didn't say that," he answered, his voice steady. "I said I didn't find anything."

  She stared down at the knife in her hand. "Then what do you think it was out there, Damien? Was it just an animal, or was there someone in the woods?"

  He moved so quietly that she didn't realize how close he was until he gently removed the knife from her hand. Setting it on the counter next to her, he shifted her hand in his and looked down at it, as if studying the lines in her palm.

  After a moment he said quietly, "You've cut yourself." She looked down at the small cut on her index finger. Damien traced the wound with one fingertip, barely touching her skin. She watched his fingers in the dappled moonlight, moving over her hand, and heard her breathing quicken.

  His finger stilled over hers, then his hand tightened for a moment before he let her go. "You should put something on this. You don't want it to get infected."

  Curling her fingers into a ball, the places where he'd touched her still throbbing, she nodded. "I will."

  Damien looked up at her, but she couldn't read his expression.

  Even in the darkness he was closed and shuttered. "Go to bed, Abby. There's nothing outside now."

  She realized he hadn't answered her earlier question. "What was out there earlier?"

  He was silent for so long that she didn't think he was going to answer. Finally he said, "You don't give up, do you?" She could hear the grudging respect in his voice.

  "No, I don't. What was out there?"

  "I told you the truth. I didn't see anyone or anything. Not even an animal."

  "What do you think was out there?"

  He watched her for a moment, then turned away. "It could have been anything, Abby. Anything at all."

  He headed for his bedroom, and as he passed the screen door she saw the dark red marks on his back. "Damien, stop," she said, and he turned instantly, pulling the gun out of his waistband in one smooth motion.

  "What is it?"

  "Put the gun away," she said in a low voice. "There's something on your back."

  Holding the gun pointed toward the floor, he craned his neck and peered over his shoulder. "I don't see anything."

  "Come over here." Abby turned on the kitchen light, squinting at the sudden brightness. Turning him around, trying to ignore the feel of his hot skin on her hand, she tightened her fingers on his shoulder as she stared at his back.

  "You're covered with scratches," she whispered, appalled. Some of them had oozed blood, and it had dried in swirls and smears over his skin. "What were you doing out there, Damien?"

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  «^»

  "Nothing happened, Abby." His voice was even as he turned to face her. "I looked through the woods, I didn't find anything and I came back here."

  "Didn't you feel the bushes scratching you?" She could hear the incredulous note in her rising voice, and forced herself to speak more softly. She didn't want to wake the twins. "Didn't you care that you were hurting yourself?"

  "No." The single word fell into the space between them, its sound as hard as Damien's eyes. "Not noticing things like that is part of my job."

  As she stared at him and he
stared back, she saw the hard, distant look in his eyes softening just a little. Unable to look away, she whispered, "I don't want you to get hurt because of us. You should have been more careful."

  "I didn't have time to be careful," he replied, finally looking away from her. "I did what needed to be done. Don't worry about it, Abby. I'll survive. It's only a few scratches."

  When he turned and headed back toward his bedroom, she said, "Wait a minute. Aren't you going to clean those cuts? Some of them look pretty deep."

  Without turning around, he shrugged. The gesture was too casual. "They can wait until morning. I don't feel like taking a shower right now."

  With a flash of insight she knew exactly why. "You're afraid something will happen and you won't hear if you're in the shower, aren't you?" she whispered.

  He paused, and his stillness filled the room. When he answered, his voice strummed across her nerve endings like rough velvet. "Don't conjure up bogeymen that aren't there, Abby. I told you I didn't see anything."

  Reaching the door to his room, he turned around and looked at her. "Go to bed, Abby. Forget whatever it was that you heard outside."

  Before he could vanish into the darkness of the bedroom, she said, "At least let me clean those scratches for you. They'll feel a lot better if you take care of them tonight."

  "You don't have to do that."

  She flushed. "I know I don't have to. I don't have to do anything," she retorted. "But I want to."

  Damien shrugged and walked back into the room. "I suppose it's a good idea. We don't want to get blood all over the sheets."

  She opened her mouth to tell him that had nothing to do with it, then bit off the words. She wasn't sure she wanted to think too much about her impulsive offer, an offer she was already beginning to regret. "Come on into the bathroom," she said in what she hoped was a businesslike tone. "I'll get the first-aid supplies."

  When she followed him into the bathroom, she realized immediately that she'd made a mistake. The room was the size of a telephone booth. Damien turned around to look at her, raising his eyebrows slightly in question. She gestured to the medicine cabinet, on the wall behind him.

  "I need to get the peroxide and the antibiotic lotion out of there."

  He obligingly moved aside, but she had to brush against him when she reached to open the cabinet door. His skin was warm and his muscles hard against her arm and leg. His scent swirled around her, hot and potent on the still air. She tried to avoid looking at him, but it was impossible.

  She never knew that muscles could actually ripple underneath a man's skin when be moved, or that a man's broad chest and sinewy arms could look so inviting. Damien's tanned skin slid over muscles that looked hardened by physical labor, and Abby suddenly wanted to reach out and touch him.

  Curling her hands around the peroxide bottle, she blindly grabbed for a handful of gauze pads and closed the cabinet door. "Turn around and let me see your scratches," she said, annoyed at the breathless sound of her voice.

  Damien turned around without a word, and she surveyed the damage to his back. Angry red welts crisscrossed his skin, but fortunately only a few of them were deep enough to have bled. "It's not as bad as it looks," she said, forcing a cheerful note into her voice. "Once I get the blood cleaned up, it won't look nearly as ugly."

  "There's not much worse than an ugly back," Damien said in a solemn voice. Abby clutched the peroxide more tightly and looked at him in astonishment.

  "What did you say?"

  "You're taking this too seriously, Abby," he said impatiently. "It's just a few scratches."

  "Thank goodness," she said, swabbing his back with a peroxide-soaked gauze pad. "For a moment there I actually thought you made a joke."

  He turned to look at her, and her hand faltered in midair. "I don't joke about my job. Ever."

  "I guess we should consider ourselves fortunate, then," she said lightly. "None of those coyotes are going to get within fifty feet of this house."

  Damien took her wrist and held her hand suspended over his back. "What would you prefer, that I don't do anything and let someone with a gun come strolling through your door?"

  Abby was sure he could feel her pulse pounding underneath his fingers. Under the harsh fluorescent light of the bathroom, his dark eyes were hard and unwavering. She could feel the flush creeping up her cheeks as she battled the urge to lay her palm flat against his chest and absorb his strength.

  "I would prefer that you tell me the truth. I don't want it sugarcoated. I want to know what or who you thought was outside tonight, and why you're so reluctant to tell me."

  The moment stretched tighter and tighter as he held her wrist in his fingers and stared at her. Then suddenly he dropped her hand and turned his back to her. "Finish what you're doing and we'll talk."

  Her hands trembled as she carefully cleaned his back. Talking to him distracted her and made it easier to pretend she hadn't noticed the feel of him under her fingers. It was easier to ignore his smooth, firm skin as they bickered, but now in the silence of the tiny bathroom she was overwhelmed once again by the sensual appeal of the enigmatic man so close to her.

  When all the blood had been cleaned away and antibiotic lotion covered the deeper scratches, she shoved the bottles back in the medicine cabinet and washed her hands to disguise the fact that they were shaking. Finally she turned to him and said, "Why don't we go back into the other room?"

  Without a word he let her precede him out of the bathroom. When she leaned against the counter in the kitchen, he stood and stared out the kitchen window at the smooth, quiet lake.

  "I didn't see anyone out there tonight, Abby. I didn't hear anyone, either, after that first noise you heard. But I'm pretty sure there was a person out there, and not just an animal."

  "How can you tell?" she whispered.

  He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I caught a scent of him, maybe I heard something I wasn't consciously aware of. I have no idea. It was probably someone from a neighboring ranch who knows about the cabin and needed a place to stay for the night, someone who got caught out here after dark. But I can't afford to assume things like that."

  "No one followed us here," she whispered. She wasn't sure if she was trying to persuade herself or Damien.

  "No." he agreed. "No one followed us."

  "So it must have been someone who knows the McAllisters."

  "I agree. Now, why don't you try to get some sleep?"

  She paused for a moment, looking at Damien in the moonlight. With his dark eyes hidden by the night and his bare chest dappled in the faint light, he looked unearthly and faintly dangerous, like an avenging angel who had suddenly appeared in her kitchen. "You try to get some sleep yourself, Damien," she said, then she turned and hurried into her room.

  The bed in the other room creaked a moment later, but she wasn't fooled. She would have bet everything she owned that Damien wouldn't sleep any more this night. When the bed creaked again a few moments later, she pictured him propping the pillow behind him and pulling himself to a sitting position on the bed. The image of his bare chest leaning against the wall and his long legs stretched out in front of him danced in front of her eyes in the heat and the darkness. Finally, as the first birds began to sing, she fell into a light, restless sleep.

  * * *

  The tentative fingers of dawn were lightening the sky over the lake when Damien slipped into the kitchen and filled the kettle with water. He was going to need coffee, and plenty of it, to get through this day. As he leaned against the counter and waited for the water to boil, he looked at the darkened doorway of Abby's room and scowled.

  Why did Abby have to be such a light sleeper? It would have been infinitely easier if he'd been able to slip outside last night without anyone noticing he was gone, then come back in the same way. It wasn't going to make his job any simpler to have Abby watching every move he made, wondering about his motives and insisting on an explanation.

  And it didn't make life any easier to have
her treating the scratches on his back, either. He could still feel her soft touch on his stinging skin, cleaning away the smears of blood with gentle fingers, then carefully applying lotion to the cuts. Beneath her hands he'd felt precious, as if someone really cared about what happened to him.

  That was a dangerous direction for his mind to take. Turning around, he switched off the gas on the stove before the kettle could sing and wake everyone in the house. He tried to switch off the direction of his thoughts at the same time, but he found that Abby wasn't as easily dismissed.

  Mixing a cup of coffee, he took a sip of the hot liquid, trying to burn the memory of her taste out of his mouth. The scene on the beach yesterday had haunted him all night. Even if he'd wanted to sleep, her taste and her touch would have reverberated through him in the darkness, keeping him awake.

  It was the forbidden-fruit syndrome, he told himself. Abby was everything that he couldn't allow himself to care about, everything he didn't want in his life. If he was fool enough to be infatuated by a pair of caring eyes and a generous heart, he deserved all the sleepless nights he got.

  "You're up early this morning."

  He spun around to see Abby standing in the doorway of her bedroom. She wore a pair of long, baggy yellow shorts and a white T-shirt, both of them obviously in the category of favorite old clothes. Her hair fell to her shoulders in golden brown waves, and she watched him with uncertain eyes.

  "I like watching the sunrise," he lied.

  She smiled then. "Me, too. It's one of the best things about being in the mountains." She moved toward him, and he instinctively backed away. "I'll bet the best view is from the porch."

  She nodded in the direction of the narrow platform outside the front door of the cabin. Damien watched her as she made herself a cup of coffee, pouring in at least as much powdered cream as coffee. He told himself to leave, to find something else to do, but he couldn't force himself to look away. As she padded off in the direction of the porch, he found himself following her. He told himself he was merely finding a better vantage point for watching the house.