CHAPTER 13
Tony pulled the car to a halt down the road a ways from Walter’s Grocery and Dock. “I’m going to let you off here,” he explained, pointing to the thick woods near the car. “I’ll go hide the car where nobody will find it. If they can’t see it they won’t know for sure where to look for us.” He reached out and touched her wrinkled brow gently. “Don’t worry. I’ll ditch the car, make the phone call to Cliff and be back here within an hour.”
“I’ll go with you,” she protested, and he knew she didn’t want to be left alone in the woods again.
“Libby, that isn’t practical. Those men could find us at any moment. It’s obvious they have a network of people working with them. I can move faster on my own and I’d feel better if I knew you were here, safe and sound. You wait here for me. Stay off the main road and stay out of sight,” he instructed as he reached across her and opened her car door.
“Hurry back,” she said softly, then turned to him and kissed him fully on the lips.
Tony held back only a moment, then he kissed her hungrily, returning the fervor, the intensity. He finally pulled away from her, looking into the blueness of her eyes. “I’ll hurry back.” He smiled softly. “Don’t you remember? I’m one of the good guys.”
She nodded, pressing her lips against his scruffy, whisker-darkened cheek.
Tony held her close for a moment longer, feeling the tightening of his muscles as passion fought against cold, common sense. He would have loved to linger here, take her into his arms and make love to her in the back seat of the car. But he had to go now…before the albino caught up with them. He needed to get in touch with Cliff immediately and get something set up. He couldn’t afford to dally. Time was of the essence.
“Libby,” he said gently, breaking their embrace. “I’ve got to go.” He pulled the necklace out of his pocket and fastened it securely around her neck. “I don’t want anything to happen to this. If I don’t return, you go down to Walker’s Grocery at dawn tomorrow morning. Somebody will meet you there.”
“You’ll be back,” she said firmly, as if the idea of his not returning was totally intolerable. Without another word, she got out of the car and, blowing him a kiss, she disappeared into the thick brush at the side of the road.
What a woman, Tony thought as he put the car into gear and took off down the dusty, gravel road. No scenes, no tears; she had accepted the fact that he had to leave. She would have made a mighty fine policeman’s wife. He sat up straighter in the seat and frowned. But he was no longer a policeman and the very last thing he needed to be thinking about was Libby’s qualifications as a candidate for a wife. He didn’t want a wife.
It was better to hurt a little now and stop the love that had flowered between them before it burst into full fruition, then rotted from neglect on the vine.
Tomorrow the necklace would be handed to the proper authorities, and they would go back to Kansas City. Libby would go back to working in her pawnshop, and he would immerse himself in his work.
“It’s best this way,” he muttered to himself, pulling up in front of Walker’s Grocery. He shoved all thoughts of Libby to the back of his mind as he spied the pay phone on the side of the little store.
* * *
Libby looked around with satisfaction. She had found the perfect place for her and Tony to spend their time until morning came and they could unload the necklace. She had stumbled on the small hiding place quite by accident.
When Tony had let her out of the car, she had walked for several minutes, wading through tall weeds and fighting thick underbrush. Finally, knowing she was far enough off the road for safety, she’d sat down to wait his return.
Ahead of her was a grove of evergreen trees. The trees grew straight and tall, but the bottom of their trunks were obscured by tangled vines and thick brush. She’d been sitting, staring at them blankly for several moments when she realized there was a small break in the undergrowth that looked like a small, inviting door.
On impulse, she scrambled to her feet and made her way to the small, nature-made doorway. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled through. She sat back on her haunches and looked around, satisfaction welling up in her heart.
It was like being in a very small room, with the overhanging boughs above forming a ceiling and the thick bushes and tangled underbrush forming walls. The floor of the tiny area was covered with brown pine needles that had fallen throughout the winter months and now made a comfortable, soft carpet beneath her knees.
She lay down on her back on the carpet of soft needles, gazing upward, where glimpses of the brilliant blue sky could be seen through the overhanging pine boughs.
It was a beautiful day, but the beauty was somehow tainted by the knowledge that this would be her last day and night spent with Tony. Tomorrow, if all went as planned, they would return home to Kansas City. And what would happen then? What would happen to the tenuous connection she and Tony had made? Would they lose each other when they got back to reality…away from the surreal world they’d existed in for the past couple of days?
She closed her eyes, remembering the lovemaking they had shared the night before. They had fit together as if they were two halves of a whole, as if they belonged in each other’s arms.
Even now, just thinking about the magic of his kisses, the mastery of his caresses, that moment when he’d entered her with all his heat and strength, she felt an answering response in her own body. She sighed, a soft whisper of longing. Could this love she felt for him override the fear his parents’ marriage had built in him? Could she make him forget fear and learn to trust in love and the concept of forever? For she couldn’t settle for less than that. For her, it was either all or nothing. She’d never given herself halfway to anything in her life, and she wasn’t going to do it with Tony.
Her hand reached up and touched the necklace that lay cold and alien around her neck. She wanted to hate its very existence for all the greed and death it represented. Yet, how could she hate the very thing that had brought Tony to her?
Would it also be the thing that put an end to their love forever? A stab of cold, harsh fear coursed through her at the thought. What if the albino and that other man caught up with Tony before he had a chance to ditch the car and get back to safety? She knew Tony would die before he told them where she was, but this thought brought no comfort.
If she and Tony went back to Kansas City and she never saw him again, she could accept that, knowing he was alive. But if something happened to him and he didn’t make it back to her now, she knew she would live with an empty ache deep inside her for the rest of her life.
“He’ll be back,” she said softly with calm reassurance. After all, the good guys always returned.
* * *
Tony hid the car in a ravine about two miles from where he had left Libby. He’d made his phone contact with Cliff and set up a rendezvous for dawn. He was confident Cliff would know who could be trusted. As he jogged down the gravel road, he looked down at his wristwatch. Almost one o’clock. Approximately sixteen hours before they would meet Cliff and his associates.
Tony’s eyes narrowed as he saw a cloud of dust ahead, signaling to him the approach of a car. He dove into the brush at the side of the road and lay motionless.
The car was a brown Toyota, and it approached at a snail’s pace. Tony’s heart thudded loudly as the car passed within twenty feet of where he hid. He was close enough to the side of the road to get a good look at the occupants. They didn’t look like a typical couple out for a Sunday drive.
The two men in the car were big and burly, and the one on the passenger side had a gun pointed out the window. They were headed toward the grocery store where Tony had just been, and his nose told him they were looking for Libby and him. Obviously they were drones of the New Republic, and they didn’t look like nice men.
Once the car was out of sight and the cloud of dust had disappeared, Tony hit the road again. He stepped up his pace, anxious to get to wherever Libby hid. Thank God he’d decided to dump the car. He was certain the entire network of the New Republic group had a description, and probably the license plate number of his car. He and Libby would have been sitting ducks had they remained with the vehicle. As long as those men were looking for the car, maybe he and Libby would be safe.
“All we need is sixteen hours,” he said aloud, pacing the words to match his running footsteps. He didn’t want to think about how many things could go wrong in the space of sixteen hours.
He slowed down as he came to the place in the road where he had let Libby out of the car. Even though the scenery by the side of the road all looked pretty much the same, Tony had marked the position in his mind by noting a brilliant patch of yellow wildflowers on the left and a lightning-struck tree trunk in the distance. He left the road at this point and made his way through the thick underbrush.
Almost immediately he began whispering Libby’s name, wondering how far she might have wandered through the woods before coming to a place to stop. He walked and called to her for several minutes, then stopped as he heard her answer.
“Libby?” he called softly, looking around curiously.
“I’m here, Tony,” she answered, but he didn’t see her anywhere. He tried to follow the direction of her voice, but the surrounding trees and brush distorted it, and he couldn’t tell exactly where the sound of her voice came from.
“Libby, where are you?” he asked impatiently, straining his eyes to catch a glimpse of her.
She laughed, a wonderfully rich sound that made him smile in return. “I found a marvelous hidey-hole,” she said.
“Wouldn’t you like to share your marvelous hidey-hole?” he asked, his eyes narrowed as he scanned the area. He was surprised that he saw not one single sign of her…not a glimpse of her T-shirt, not a strand of pale, blond hair. Wherever she was hiding, it was definitely a good place.
He jumped in surprise as her head suddenly appeared in a small opening in the brush not ten feet from where he stood. “Come into my home, said the spider to the fly.” She gave him a small smile, the look in her eyes speaking of the relief she felt at his appearance.
Tony wiggled through the small opening, then sat cross-legged on the soft carpet of pine needles and looked around in amazement. “This is perfect,” he exclaimed.
“Did you have any problems getting rid of the car?” she asked.
Tony shook his head. “I found a small ravine about two miles away. I parked the car there, then pulled some fallen branches and limbs over it.” He grinned ruefully. “I’m not exactly experienced in the art of camouflage, but the car isn’t visible from a distance.” He frowned slightly. “We’ll have to keep very quiet because this New Republic group are on the lookout for us. Let’s just hope they keep looking for the car and don’t suspect that we’ve ditched it and are now on foot.”
Libby shivered, and Tony moved closer to her and placed his arm around her slender shoulders. “Stay strong a little bit longer,” he whispered softly. “We’ll meet Cliff first thing in the morning and hand over the necklace. Then we can get back to our normal lives.”
Libby nodded, cuddling closer into his arms. “It will seem sort of strange being just an ordinary pawnshop owner after being in the middle of a national security threat.”
Tony looked down at her with a grin. “Libby, you will never be just an ordinary pawnshop owner.” He leaned down to kiss her but stopped as his stomach rumbled loudly, causing her to laugh. “I’ve been trying to ignore the fact that I’m starving,” Tony exclaimed. “But unless I like pine needles, I guess we’ll just have to wait until tomorrow morning when all of this is over.” He groaned at the thought. “God, sixteen hours without food.”
“The best thing for us to do is keep ourselves occupied and not think about food,” Libby observed.
“How are we going to do that? We’ve got sixteen hours to occupy with no television, no radio, nothing to pass the time. I left the deck of cards back in the motel room.” He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. “Waiting was never one of my virtues,” he admitted.
“I can think of one way to pass the time,” Libby said after a moment of hesitation.
He looked at her curiously. “What’s that?”
Moving out of his arms for a moment, Libby smiled at him, a sexy smile that instantly made his blood race a little faster in his veins. With one fluid movement, she pulled the T-shirt over her head and looked at him expectantly.
Tony’s physical reaction was swift and intense. “Oh, Libby Weatherby…” He sighed. “Sometimes you have the most marvelous ideas,” he murmured as he drew her back into his arms.
He didn’t think about what might happen in the next twenty-four hours, he didn’t think about what would happen when they got back to Kansas City. He certainly didn’t want to think about what a bastard he would be to make love to her once again, knowing there would never be, could never be, a future with her. All he thought about was Libby and his need to love her one last time.
His mouth was hard against hers, his tongue delving deep within. She kissed him back, reaching her hands up to tangle in his thick hair, wanting him with a fever that threatened to make her ill.
She helped him tug off his T-shirt and they both shrugged out of their jeans, coming back together naked and eager, but caressing slowly, exploring the mysteries they might have missed in the darkness the night before.
As he took his fingers and traced the rounded swell of one of her breasts, his eyes sought hers, and she saw the fires that lit their darkness. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered as his fingertips rubbed her swollen nipple.
“So are you,” she answered, reaching down and taking him in her hand, loving the feel of velvet heat, softness and strength. She stroked him gently, feeling the answering pulsating sensation, reveling in the fact that she was responsible for his powerful passion.
She gasped in pleasure as his mouth covered her breast, wet and hot, causing ripples and tingles throughout her entire body.
The afternoon sunshine danced through the thick pine boughs overhead, raining golden shafts of light onto their bed of pine needles. Even as Libby was slowly, deliciously losing her mind beneath his masterful caresses, she noticed the way the sunlight danced in his dark hair, whispered along the taut tendons and muscles of his back. And as he moved away from her breasts, his tongue licking and teasing first her flat abdomen, then lower to her thighs and finally at her very core, the sunshine overhead disappeared, instead burning brightly within her. She writhed beneath him, his expert caresses sending her falling, tumbling into a vortex of sensation, convulsing with wave after wave of pleasure so intense she feared she would die from the glory.
“Please,” she whispered, wanting him inside her, filling her with his love. With a groan, he moved over her, plunging into her. She gave a small cry and wrapped her legs around his narrow hips, pulling him deeper within her.
His rhythm was slow at first, letting her savor the gliding motion of his heat against hers. She looked up into his eyes, and she saw his love there in the glittering dark depths, the love he refused to acknowledge, the love he refused to welcome into his heart. He could deny his feeling for her all he wanted, but she saw it and it filled her up as completely as his body filled her physically.
Tony was lost…lost in her moist warmth, lost in the sweet taste of her, the scent of her. He wanted to move slowly, linger over each exquisite sensation, but his control was gone. Her hands moved frantically over his back, her legs wrapped tightly around him, urged him to pick up the pace. He plummeted into her wildly, frenzied with need, shaken with the tremors that possessed him.
He felt her tighten around him, felt her body convulsing as she gasped in surrender, and suddenly he was there with her, emptying into her warmth, shattering his reality, discovering that in filling her, he filled himself.
Afterward, they lay in each other’s arms, their nakedness feeling completely natural in this secret room of sorts that nature had provided as a retreat in which they could hide.
She fell asleep first, cradled in his arms, her heartbeat conversing with his own. Her body molded to his, her soft breath warming his neck. Tony closed his eyes, trying desperately to erect the barriers that had always kept him safe before. She’d somehow gotten through the fortress he’d always kept around his heart. She’d managed to touch him in the place he’d always guarded so possessively. And the most frightening thing of all was that he didn’t know what he was going to do about it. With a heavy sigh, he allowed sleep to overtake him.
* * *
He awoke at dusk, the reds and oranges of the setting sun dusting the woman in his arms in fiery hues. His skin was cooled by the evening air everywhere but where her body touched his, and in those places was a warmth that pierced through to his heart. Her beauty astonished him; her strength awed him. She was everything he would want, if he wasn’t so sure it was best he remain alone.
As he stared at her, her eyes fluttered open and she smiled, the soft, gentle smile of a woman in love. “Hi,” she whispered, reaching her hand up and laying her palm on the side of his face.
“Hi,” he answered, and his heart seemed to stop beating for a moment as he gazed into the honest blue depths of her eyes.
“Tony…”
He placed a finger to her lips. He knew the words she was about to speak. They shone from her eyes, and he didn’t want to hear them. “Don’t say it. For God’s sake, don’t say it.” He gently extricated himself from her and reached for his T-shirt. As he dressed, he was aware of her gaze on him, level and probing.
“By not speaking of it, it doesn’t go away,” she said, reaching for her own clothes. When they were both dressed, she touched his shoulder. “I love you, Tony.”
He closed his eyes. He hadn’t wanted to hear the words. He hadn’t wanted to accept the responsibility for her feelings. “Libby…I’ve made it clear from the very beginning that I’m not in the market for a relationship.” He sighed tremulously, not looking at her. “I should have maintained some control over the situation. I guess I led you on,” he finished inadequately.
“You didn’t lead me on,” she protested softly. “You made no promises, you inferred nothing. I did only what I wanted to do. I guess I didn’t want tomorrow to come without you knowing how I feel about you.” She paused a moment then continued, “And I think if you look in your heart, you’ll realize you love me, too.”
Tony took a deep breath, knowing if he was going to put an end to this, it had to be now. “Libby, I love how we make love together, but I think you’re mistaking lust for love.” His words affected her like a slap across the face, and he fought the impulse to take her in his arms and erase the look of hurt that streaked across her features.
“I don’t believe that,” she answered, her gaze still level, forcing him to finally look away.
“Libby, I quit my job on the force so I wouldn’t become like my father. I promised myself I’d never marry so I couldn’t do to a woman what he did to my mother.”
“But you aren’t your father,” she protested, once again touching his arm. “And I’m not your mother.”
He looked at her searchingly. “But how long before you become her? How long before you fade into the shadows, let unhappiness eat you up inside?” He shook his head firmly. “No…I won’t allow history to repeat itself. I’ve always been alone, and I’ll remain alone.”
“You’re a fool, Tony Pandolinni,” she answered, her blue eyes flashing as anger swiftly usurped the hurt. “You’re a damn fool to turn your back on what we’ve found together.” These were the last words she spoke. She curled up on her side, but he knew she didn’t go back to sleep.
This is for the best, Tony thought. When we get back to Kansas City, we’ll go our separate ways. Eventually she’ll find another man to love, to build a life with.
She had an incredible capacity to love. And he would go back to his solitary life.
It was all settled, all decided. He was absolutely certain that he’d done the right thing, made the right decision. What he couldn’t understand was why in making the right decision, he suspected he was closer to being his father’s son than he’d ever been in his life.