Out of the Dark Read online

  He walked into the office to pick up his shirt. His mouth was compressed with his determination to feel nothing as he crossed the room to where Tory had given herself to him so completely, for reasons of her own that he’d convinced himself were all that mattered. That determination wavered as, picking up his shirt from the floor, he saw the tiny scrap of pale blue cotton that were her panties, forgone in her fear for Mac.

  A sudden image of himself tearing them from her body, of her letting him do it, helping him, flared vividly to life in his mind. A wave of renewed heat swept through him, cramping his body with a need he couldn’t believe was so strong—so powerful—even after the wild coupling that had taken place between them.

  He heard footsteps on the porch, and hastily stuffed the scrap of blue cloth into his jeans pocket. He would put them in her room, save her at least from that much embarrassment, should Hobie walk in here.

  And it wasn’t until he’d done so, until he was standing in the tidy blue-and-white room that managed to be cheerful and feminine in comparison to the rest of the businesslike house, that an explanation for how easily she’d let him walk away came to him. It made him feel nearly as nauseous as that swelling fear had. What if she’d gotten all she wanted? What if she truly had only wanted him to, as she’d said, teach her?

  In that case, he told himself harshly, you should be damn glad. Because it’ll make walking away a whole lot easier.

  And after tonight, he knew that walk had to come even sooner than he’d planned.

  * * *

  “He quit?”

  Hobie shrugged. “That’s what he said. Reckon he’s off to Whitey’s or somewhere, to get himself good and drunk.”

  Tory sank down on the living room sofa. She’d heard Cole drive off before she’d even come in from the barn after settling Mac down and making sure Rocky hadn’t inadvertently scratched the horse. She’d been startled by his tire-spinning departure, and had come quickly out of the barn in time to watch his truck pull out onto the main road. She’d found Hobie coming out of the office after shutting off the light.

  Inanely, all she could think of to say was “It’s nearly midnight.”

  “Closin’ time’s two. A man can get a powerful lot of drinking done in two hours.”

  “But...why?”

  Hobie looked at her consideringly. “I thought you might be able to answer that.”

  Tory’s eyes widened. Had Hobie guessed what had happened tonight? “What do you mean?”

  “I got the feeling it was something to do with you.”

  Tory felt a sudden chill. “Are you saying he went out to get drunk because of me?”

  “Honey, all I know is he’s been as edgy as a green-broke stud ever since he got here. Why, the Cole I used to know was so laid back you’d think an earthquake couldn’t budge him, until he uncoiled on you so fast it made your head spin. But now...”

  He ended with another shrug. Then he yawned. “He’s a big boy. He’ll get home all right. I’m going back to bed.”

  She gave her uncle a hug, and watched him walk off to his room, but her mind was racing in what seemed like a hundred directions. And she wasn’t liking what she found in any of them.

  Why had he looked so grim, even after they’d found out what had caused the disturbance in the barn? Why had he left so abruptly? Why, after what had happened between them, had he felt the sudden need to escape? Why the apparent need to obliterate the memory? Had it been so distasteful to him?

  It certainly hadn’t seemed that way, not when he had cried out her name as he’d arched into her in those final seconds. Was he afraid she would now expect something from him? Hadn’t she made it clear enough that she’d gone into this with her eyes open, knowing she would get nothing more than he’d promised her that day by the spring?

  Or was that it? Had it been more for him, too, as it had for her, much more than just raw, out-of-control sex? Was that why he’d run? Because it had been more, and that scared him?

  Dream on, girl, Tory chided herself, knowing she was being foolish.

  She kept pacing, thinking, wondering, until she felt like she was about to spin off in all the different directions her thoughts were taking. The square of moonlight streaming in the front window that marked the halfway point of her circuit, gradually shifted shape and size, until it finally disappeared, continuing its arc behind the house. It was the absence of the silvery light that at last made her look at her watch. Nearly four. Whitey’s had closed over an hour and a half ago. She came to a halt.

  This was too ridiculous. Here she was, pacing the floor like some worried woman waiting for her wayward man to stagger home. It was such a trite picture it made her laugh. And then it made her angry. She wasn’t going to be that kind of woman. She couldn’t be.

  She walked to the door of Hobie’s room and listened. He was breathing easily; there was little trace of the rasp left. Reassured, she went upstairs to her room to change her clothes.

  She felt her breath catch when she saw the patch of pale-blue cotton lying on her bed. And she remembered Hobie going into the office to shut off the light. He couldn’t have missed the discarded pair of panties, if they’d been there. But they hadn’t.

  Cole. Cole had done this for her, so she wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of her uncle. There could be no other reason. She felt like she’d been tossed from a horse and had the wind knocked out of her. She sat on the edge of the bed, fingering the blue cotton that matched her dress, trying not to think of how eager she’d been, how urgent he’d been, when he’d practically torn them from her.

  When she finally left the house, clad now in her usual jeans, she wasn’t sure any more if she was angry or worried. She drove carefully, searching the roadsides, and peering at the infrequent oncoming cars, looking for Cole’s truck. She’d been concentrating so hard that when finally she did see a dark, squared off shape beneath the patch of scrub oak the main road had obligingly been curved around, it took her a moment to realize it was really him.

  She pulled off onto the shoulder, her headlights bathing the back of the pickup in light. The cab appeared empty. It seemed awfully close to the trees, and for a moment she was afraid he’d hit them. She braked to a halt, threw the Jeep into Park and scrambled out.

  “Hey, kill the lights, will ya?”

  Cole’s voice came from somewhere in front of the truck. She flipped off the headlights and hurried that way, deciding that if he was doing something embarrassing, it would serve him right.

  He was sitting under a tree, his back propped up against the rough-barked trunk, his battered strawhat tilted forward over his eyes. The moment she got within a yard of him, she could smell the whiskey—or was it bourbon? She never had been able to tell.

  “You are drunk.”

  “You bet.”

  “Well, at least you’re not driving,” she muttered.

  He pushed the brim of his hat back with an unsteady finger. “Course not. I’m too drunk to drive,” he said rather righteously. Then he grimaced, gesturing over his shoulder to some thick brush a few yards away. “Besides, I had to stop and get sick. I’m not used to this anymore.”

  “Charming,” Tory said, gingerly crouching down beside him. But illuminating, she added silently. This obviously wasn’t typical behavior for him. And oddly, although his voice was thick, his words weren’t slurred. In fact, he was enunciating each one with great care, as if to compensate for an uncooperative tongue.

  “Hey,” he said, as if he’d only now remembered where he was, and that this was an unlikely place for her to be, “what are you doing here?”

  “Never mind. It would take too long to explain, and you wouldn’t understand right now anyway. Come on, I’ll take you home.” Home. Her mouth quirked wryly at the instinctively chosen word.

  “Home?” he echoed, sounding puzzled. Then, his voice suddenly taut, the alcoholic haze lifting a little, “God, it didn’t happen, did it? Hobie? Is that why you’re here?”

  “What didn�
�t happen?”

  He was sitting up now, grasping her arm so tightly it hurt. “He’s alive isn’t he? God, Tory, tell me he’s all right!”

  “Hobie?” She was utterly confused now. “Of course he is. Why wouldn’t he be?”

  “Because I came. Shouldn’t have. They always die when I try to help.”

  There was something so bleak in his drunken voice that she couldn’t help the shiver that raced up her spine. “Who always dies?”

  “The ones they love.”

  The shiver came again at the starkly simple words, even though she didn’t understand them. She tried again. “Who?”

  He sagged back against the tree. There was very little light, since the moon had nearly set. All she had to go by was the tone of his voice. And it was appallingly grim when, after she’d thought he wouldn’t, he went on. His voice was clearer, as if the horror had chased away some of the whiskey’s effects.

  “Gil. Neal. Little Timmy. All of them. Because the women who loved them asked me to help.”

  “Cole—”

  “Ever been to a kid’s funeral, Tory?”

  “No,” she answered, knowing she didn’t want to hear this. But she didn’t dare stop him, not the way the words were coming from him in slow, agonized stops and starts. This had clearly been building in him for a long time.

  “It’s the casket that gets to you,” he said. “It’s so damn small. And they’re always white. Ever notice that? ‘Cause the kid’s an innocent, you know? Never had a chance to be anything else.”

  Tory felt her hands curl into fists, her nails digging into her palms.

  “They told me the kidnapper killed him early, that he’d probably meant to do it from the beginning. But he was alive when I started looking. I know he was. I could feel it. Hell, he was my blood. I knew he was alive.”

  Oh, God, Tory thought.

  “He was...family?”

  “His mother was a...a second cousin, I guess. Closest relative I’ve got, anyway.”

  His head lolled back against the tree. His hat, nudged by the movement, slipped to one side and tumbled to the ground. He didn’t reach for it.

  “One little boy, and I couldn’t find him. If I’d been better, or faster...or something...”

  “Cole, stop—”

  “You know what the worst part was? Lisa, Timmy’s mom. She just looked at me, all sad, saying she knew I did my best. And then she asked if I’d come to the service.” He groaned, low and harsh. “Me. She wanted me, the guy who didn’t find her son in time, to be at the funeral. What kind of sense does that make?”

  “Maybe she knew it wasn’t your fault,” Tory said, feeling far out of her depth, but knowing she couldn’t let this kind of pain cry out unanswered. “Things like that happen, Cole. They’re awful, but they happen.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “They do. Especially around me.” His voice caught. “Timmy was...the last straw. I knew I couldn’t risk it again. He was just a baby, barely five, and...”

  There was so much bitterness in his voice as it trailed she wondered that the acid of it hadn’t hollowed him out inside. Or maybe it had. Maybe that was the answer she’d started out to find tonight.

  “What did you mean, they happen...around you?” she said, feeling her way carefully.

  He lifted his head then, and she knew he was looking at her, even in the darkness.

  “Don’t you see? That’s why I didn’t want to come here. You and Hobie. Me. That’s the combination.”

  “The combination?”

  “Gil and Sherry. The Carltons. Timmy and his mom. Them and me. And now you and Hobie. And me. It always happens.”

  “Cole,” she said softly, coaxingly. Even though she already knew she didn’t want to hear any of this, she also knew it was tearing him up inside and it needed to come out. “What always happens?”

  “Told you. They die.” His head fell back against the tree’s trunk. “Gil. Neal. Timmy. And now Hobie, if I don’t get the hell out of here.”

  The ones they love. That’s why I didn’t want to come here. You and Hobie. Me. That’s the combination. They die. And now Hobie.

  The combination.

  Tory turned it over in her mind, trying to make sense out of his disjointed explanation. She was only able to come to one conclusion.

  “Are you saying that...if a woman comes to you because someone she loves is in trouble...”

  Cole said it simply, as if it were the most self-evident, incontrovertible of facts.

  “He dies.”

  Chapter 14

  Tory sat back on her heels, a little stunned. Surely Cole couldn’t really believe he was...what, some kind of jinx? But the string of names he’d reeled off shook her. Three times, it had happened to him that way?

  “Gil,” she said, remembering the first name.

  “My best friend, back in the army. We were in special forces together.” She heard him swallow, as if his throat were painfully tight. “Made it through that. When we got out, he got a little crazy. Hooked up with some guy who was going to make him rich, fast, some kind of land deal. When Gil found out it was a scam, he went after the guy. Sherry came to me to try and stop him.”

  “But you were too late?” she asked softly.

  He made a sound, a short, expressive intake of breath. “I wish I had been. Maybe he’d still be alive. All the guy wanted was to get out of the country with the half-million he’d looted. But when I got there...he panicked. And Gil was dead.”

  “That wasn’t your fault, either,” she began.

  “That’s what I told myself. Then, after I started with Sanders, it was the Carltons. Neal, and Jennifer. Poor Jenny. And I still didn’t get it. The combination, I mean. There were other cases, where things went fine.” He stopped, letting out a low, stifled groan. “God, why am I telling you all this?”

  “Because you need to tell someone,” she said softly.

  And he needed to do it like this, she thought with a certainty she didn’t question—in the darkness, where he wouldn’t have to watch her face as he laid out his crimes for her. Cole Bannister had already judged and convicted himself, but he’d bottled up his own self-condemnation for so long it had come to this, a gut-wrenching confession that he couldn’t seem to stop.

  “What happened to Jennifer Carlton?”

  A biting, humorless chuckle escaped him. “Nothing. Except that she buried her husband. Or what was left of him.”

  Tory’s breath caught. “What?”

  “Car bomb.”

  “My God.” And my looks sure as hell didn’t stop that bomb. She had her answer now. “Why?”

  “Neal ran a little newspaper that stepped on some toes. Including some gang members who didn’t like the way he kept asking for a truce on the streets.”

  Tory’s eyes widened. She’d heard about that, hadn’t she? Right after she’d come west to Hobie. She had a vague memory of news reports, of pictures of mangled wreckage sitting in front of a small office front. And something else. About the man who’d tried to save Neal Carlton.

  “Your back,” she whispered. “That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

  He didn’t answer. But she remembered, in the indelible way you remembered the gruesome scenes of a tragedy. She remembered that one of the others badly injured in the same blast that had killed the newspaperman had been the man who’d tried to save him.

  “He wouldn’t listen.” It came out in a rush. “He just ignored the threats and kept on doing what he’d been doing. He couldn’t believe anybody would really try to kill him for asking for peace.”

  “But his wife believed it,” Tory said, understanding at last. “And she came to you to protect him.”

  “And a damn fine job I did, too. Just like Gil.” He swore, low and harsh. “I told him to always let me check the car before he got into it, but he just went ahead. Jenny was worried because they’d found another threat painted on the front door. I stopped to...try and reassure her.” He let out a compressed breath. “I wo
ke up in a hospital bed a week later.”

  “God, Cole!” It burst from her involuntarily. “What were you supposed to do if he wouldn’t listen?”

  “My job,” he said flatly. “I should have made him wait. I shouldn’t have stopped to talk to her.”

  “But if she was so frightened, how could you not try to reassure her?”

  “She wasn’t my job. He was. And because I let myself get distracted, he died.”

  “But you can’t think—”

  “I did nothing but think, once I came to. For weeks, while I was lying in that damned hospital. And it always came up the same. She trusted me, and he died.”

  “And you nearly died, too, didn’t you?” A week of unconsciousness and more weeks in the hospital was enough to tell her that. “Isn’t that enough penance for something that wasn’t even your fault?”

  For a long time he said nothing. Then, quietly, “He had three kids. All under six.”

  “That makes an awful thing even worse,” she said. “But it still doesn’t make it your fault.”

  “If I hadn’t stopped, I could have caught up with him—”

  “You would have died, too. And he’d still be dead.”

  He let out a long, drawn out breath. “I’ve told myself that. I’ve even learned to believe it, some of the time. I can believe it about each time...by itself. But... ‘’

  Not three times, Tory finished silently for him. God, no wonder he was convinced he was some kind of jinx.

  “You said there were other cases...”

  Another long breath. “Lots of them, in four years. Men, women, young, old. It didn’t matter. Everything was fine. Great in fact. Never lost a case or a client...as long it wasn’t a woman trying to save her man. Or her son.”

  The combination.

  “And you think because...I asked you for Hobie’s sake...it will happen again?” She shivered involuntarily. “That’s why you quit, isn’t it?”

  He didn’t say anything. She supposed there wasn’t much left to say. Three times. An innocent child. A father to three more innocent children. And his best friend. She couldn’t begin to imagine the toll that would take. Or the haunting memories he must carry.