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Chapter 10

Megan awoke to the now-familiar sight of Deacon waiting by her bedside and to the not-familiar aroma of frying bacon drifting through her house along with the scent of freshly brewed coffee.

Jake was here. When had he come in? But she knew—didn't she?

She looked at the sheet covering her. Jake had spread that sheet over her—hadn't he?

She gripped the edge of the sheet. "Oh, God," she whispered. Because suddenly her memories were all mixed up with her dreams, with snippets of things that had come through in Lydia's—her—journal, in those two moments that became more frightening in light of that diary—the ones where she had seen Lydia—and in those strange, vague reminiscences of words she knew she had never heard. "Oh, God."

She found Jake in the kitchen, leaning back against the sink, holding a cup of coffee in both hands, still wearing the clothes he had on the night before as well as several more hours' growth of beard.

He raked a glance over her, and Megan hesitated in the doorway. She hadn't taken time to dress, but merely covered her gown with its matching white cotton robe and run her fingers through her hair. Now she regretted that decision, but not enough to leave the room.

Strangely, she didn't question how Jake had gotten into the house or even his right to be there. What she did question was why he had come, again, almost as though he had known she needed him.

"You should have checked before you came running in here," he said. "I could have been a burglar."

Had it been Jake who came into her room? "I don't think so," she said softly, caught by the intensity in his eyes as he seemed to wrestle with some equally heavy questions of his own. "Deacon would have warned me."

He looked as though he wanted to argue with her about that but thought better of it. Instead, he turned and grabbed another cup from the cabinet, filled it, and held it out to her.

"Anyone could have gotten in this house last night. What good does a lock do when it isn't used?"

"I did lock it," she said. "Oh. I went out on the porch later. I guess I just thought I locked it again when I came in."

"Megan, this may not be D.C., but it isn't any smarter to sleep with all your doors and windows open here than it is in any large city."

She walked to him and took the coffee. "I know that, Jake," she said.

"Then why in God's name did you leave yourself vulnerable to anyone who wanted to walk into your house?"

This was a side of Jake Kenyon she hadn't seen before, and she wasn't sure she liked it. He was beginning to sound an awful lot like Roger Hudson. No, not Roger, she amended. Roger would have been more concerned about the things in the house than about her; Jake seemed truly concerned for her safety.

"I said I thought I'd locked the door. Why are you so angry, Jake? And why do you look like you've been up all night?"

He peered at her over his coffee, closed his eyes briefly, and stared at a spot somewhere over her left shoulder. "Three nights," he said.

"Three nights," she repeated, as a chill went through her. "Since the raid. Why?"

"Damned if I know," he said harshly. "Any more than why I really came down the hill that night and found you surrounded by Pitchlyn County's version of storm troopers, or the second night and had you launch yourself at me as though I was some sort of lifeline, or last night only to find your lights on, your front door open, and you crying in your sleep. And I don't like the not knowing one damned bit, so if you have any suggestions I'd sure like to hear them."

Megan groped for the table behind her. "Could we sit down? Please."

Jake reached the table first and pulled a chair out for her. "Are you all right?"

Megan shook her head as she sat in the chair, pulled her feet up to the rung, and carefully tucked her nightgown around them. "I don't know." She smiled shakily, wanting to reassure him, wanting to reassure herself but not knowing how.

"Three nights," she repeated. She took a deep breath, knowing she probably shouldn't say anything but knowing she had to. "Has anything else happened?"

"You mean strangers prowling around or word about Rolley P's activities?"

She shook her head. "That too," she said, "but I mean—I mean really strange. Things that have absolutely no logical explanation."

He looked puzzled, and well he should, Megan thought.

"You mean like—"

"Like memories that don't belong to you," she said in a small soft rush.

"Memories . . ."

She knew he wanted to deny it, just as clearly as she saw the moment when he knew what she meant.

"Tell me," she prompted. "Please."

"Is it really important?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Probably. Because three days ago my life changed too, and I'm not sure how much the raid really had to do with it."

He took a drink of his coffee, grimaced, and grasped the cup with both hands. "All right," he said finally. "Most of what's happened, I'm not even sure has happened . . ."

"I know," she said, encouraging him when he hesitated.

He lifted one corner of his mouth in a combination smile, acknowledgment, and question. "I'm glad somebody does."

She felt a totally inappropriate laugh building but refused to fight it. Too many times in her life, humor had been her only solace.

"And I'm glad you think this is funny."

"Jake." She reached across the table and placed her hands over his where he grasped the mug.

"I understand, Megan," he told her, unknowingly echoing her own thoughts. "Sometimes black humor is better than no humor at all. Why were you crying last night?"

She shook her head. "You first."

"Okay. But first, do you know that someone is prowling around the place late at night?"

She drew her hands back and clasped them tightly in her lap. "Here, near the houses?"

"No. South of the first ridge. At least I think their exploration is limited to that side. This has been going on for several weeks now, since sometime after Renfro moved out, which was about the time you moved in.

"I was out trying to get a lead on who was prowling when I heard the cars come in that first night. Now why I was on this side of the ridge, why I was anywhere near your place, is one of those things I can't explain. Why I took you home with me instead of sending you to the hospital is another. But those are fairly normal responses to an abnormal situation.

"What isn't normal is my reaction to you. It's almost as though we had really known each other all these years we've been related, instead of never meeting. It's almost as though there's a shared history between us, and everything I've done has somehow been as a result of that history."

He set his cup on the table and held out his hands, looking at them as though they might hold the answer. "Crazy, isn't it?"

"Not yet," she said quietly. "Is there more?"

"God, woman! What do you want me to tell you?"

"I want you to tell me what you remembered when I first asked you this question."

"And then you'll tell me why you were crying?"

"I think so."

"All right, damn it. Nothing has been specific, just nebulous thoughts, a dream or two; I think one woke me just as I was finally getting to sleep the second night. But tonight—last night, I guess it is now—when you were getting the grill out of the cabinet, I . . ."

"Yes?"

"You know how you have internal dialogues with yourself?"

"Oh, yes," she admitted. "I'm far too familiar with those."

"Well, I guess I was having one, because just as clearly as I hear my thoughts right now telling me to shut up before I get myself committed, I heard a voice in my mind tell me . . ."

"What, Jake? What did this voice say?"

He smiled at her and sighed. "It said, 'She's not for you, old man. Not now. Not ever.' "

Megan sank back in her chair. She closed her eyes and hugged herself tightly against the chill Jake's words caused. It wasn't quite as much as she's hoped for but it was enough.

"Thank you," she said. "Now I know I'm not alone in this."

"In what?" he demanded.

"Ah, Jake," she said with a sad little smile, "if I knew what, neither one of us would be having any trouble talking about it, would we?"

"Megan—"

She held up a hand. "Bear with me just a little longer, please. One or two more questions."

He didn't say yes, but he didn't say no either, so Megan gathered up what little courage she had left. So far she hadn't admitted nearly as much as he had, but she was getting ready to, and she wasn't sure how Jake would react.

"When you came in my room earlier—you did, didn't you?"

He nodded.

"And covered me up?"

Again he nodded.

"Did you have some saddle bags with you?"

He didn't have to answer her verbally; she saw puzzled denial in his expression.

"And did you sit and watch me sleep?"

"No, damn it. Megan, was someone else here tonight?"

"With Deacon in the house? You know that's not possible. One more question," she said when she saw him searching for words. "Have you ever sat and watched me sleep?"

"The first night. At my house."

"In a high-back wooden chair with your feet propped on a crate?"

"Close enough. A kitchen chair, with my feet on the nightstand drawer."

"And leaning back against the wall?"

Jake shook his head. "There's no way I could have done that from where I was sitting."

Megan glanced down at the dog by her side. She had no doubt he could sniff out drugs, track down fleeing criminals, and fend off attackers, but he had been absolutely no protection from anything that had happened to her since Jake had charged into her life. She wondered if he would come to visit when Jake charged right back out again, which he might do when she finished her story.

"I didn't know I was crying in my sleep," she said. "I knew I was crying in my dream. In the dream, you were in my room. I was pretending to sleep when what I really wanted to do was ask you to come to bed with me. But I couldn't." For a moment, she thought she might give way to tears again, as she had in the dream. "And I knew I never would, and that you would never share any bed with me."

"Megan—"

"And in the dream, I wasn't me, and you weren't you, but we were who we are. Does that make any sense at all?"

"Megan, it was a dream."

"Was it, Jake?" She looked up at him. "Like it was a dream at Waterfall Canyon when you came walking out of the woods at the very place where the same man I saw in my dream had just been standing?"

"Your vacations."

"What?"

He reached for her hands, holding them together in both of his. "I knew something had happened when I saw you there on the rock. But you wouldn't talk about it."

"Well, I'm talking about it now, and I'm scared. Why is this happening?"

"You mean, after all that has happened to you, why are you taking refuge in your imagination?"

Megan jerked her hands away from his. She walked over to the sink and stood looking out the window at the tree line.

For a moment she slumped in defeat. She had so hoped he would understand. She had needed one person—one person with whom she could share something.

She gripped the rim of the sink. "If I'm seeking refuge," she said evenly, "then I'm looking in the wrong place, because I'm certainly not finding it. And if it is my imagination, how did I just happen to people my cast of characters with at least one real person?" She straightened her shoulders, her spine, and her resolve and turned to face Jake. "Even though, according to Sarah North, he's been dead for a long, long time."

How had he moved? One moment he had been seated at the table; now he stood next to her.

She watched as he lifted his hand to her cheek and moved his thumb beneath her eye, damming the course of tears she hadn't even been aware of shedding.

"So," he asked, "the man you wanted to invite to your bed is a mysterious, handsome stranger."

She looked warily at him, to find that he watched her too.

"I didn't want to invite anyone, anywhere."

"Whatever."

She sniffed back the last of her tears and tried to glare at him, but she saw a glint of gentle teasing humor in his eyes. "Mysterious, maybe," she said. "But how did you arrive at handsome?"

"That's easy. You confused him with me."

"Jake—"

"Shh," he said, wrapping her in his arms. "It's all right, Megan."

It felt so good to be held, so good to be comforted. With a deep sigh, Megan surrendered to his embrace and took the solace Jake offered. For a moment she simply stood there, wrapped in his strength and protection. Until she felt the first faint stirrings of desire deep within herself; until a faint tremor in his arms told her he too was feeling more than protective and comforting. Until she felt his lips brush across her forehead. Until the memory of Helen and Roger drove all but the remnants of desire from her and filled her instead with shamed embarrassment.

Slowly but determinedly she began extricating herself from his embrace. "I'm sorry," she said. "Oh, lord, I'm so sorry."

She felt Jake's hands on her shoulders, but she couldn't face him.

"Sorry for what?" he asked.

"I told you I was needy. Last night. I warned you. And then I threw myself at you this morning. I can't—I just—I can't do this, Jake."

"Can't do what? Can't accept a little kindness when it's offered? Can't offer a little comfort of your own without having your motives mistrusted?" He tightened his hands on her shoulders and tugged, bringing her back against his chest. "Hush, now," he said when she murmured a protest. "I just want you to help hold me up. You've got to remember, you're locked in a hot embrace with a man who hasn't slept more than six hours in the last three nights. Believe me, if I get anywhere near a bed, sleep is all I'm going to be able to do."

"Ha!" she muttered, trying for humor to help ease them past this moment and knowing she almost made it. "It hasn't been that long since I was single. Isn't your next line supposed to be, 'So why don't you hold me while I sleep?' "

He laughed softly but did not release her. "Megan," he said, "look at me."

Reluctantly she tilted her head back and found him studying her with an intensity that seemed somehow familiar. "Whatever we have between us is worth more than just a physical release. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want you. I've been fighting wanting you almost since the moment we met. But I know the timing is bad for us; I know it's too soon. Trust me, Megan. Trust me not to take more than you're willing to give. Trust me to treasure what you do give. Is that asking too much?"

Asking too much? Megan felt her chest tighten, felt those damned tears lurking dangerously close. Jake had just offered her more than anyone else ever had, and he was concerned that he was asking too much?

"No," she told him. "No, it isn't."

 

Jake slept in her bed, guarded by Deacon, who had at last abandoned her for what must be his real duty. Megan checked on him later, after he had conceded his need for sleep, after she had promised to wake him in a ridiculously short time, and found him sprawled diagonally across the mattress with one of her feather pillows securely in his scarred hand and tucked under his cheek. He'd tugged off his boots and loosened his belt, but other than that he remained fully dressed.

He was dark against her white sheets, the result of hours outside, and the two scars seemed even more like obscene desecrations as she watched him in the innocence of sleep.

Who was Jake Kenyon? In spite of knowing instinctively she could trust him, in spite of the shared history he claimed he felt with her, she didn't really know him.

He didn't seem the type to have been married to her sophisticated, worldly sister-in-law. And he didn't seem the type to have spent years submerged in the debased lives he would have found in pursuit of those who trafficked in drugs and human misery, although at rare moments she had glimpsed the fervor that would have sustained him as he dragged himself through the morass of suffering his work must have exposed him to.

She suppressed a shudder. He was out of that, thank God. Or was he? Helen had complained when he resigned from the DEA and accepted the temporary appointment as sheriff; if Megan hadn't tuned out Helen that time, as she so often did, she would have remembered Jake was back in Pitchlyn County. She might know if his resignation was permanent; she might know if he planned to run for the position of sheriff at the next election; she might know how he meant to spend the rest of his life.

She looked enviously at her pillow. The need to slide into bed beside him, to wrap herself in all he had to offer, almost overwhelmed her. That, in itself, was pretty amazing. She wanted him, much more than she had wanted her handsome, charismatic young husband, even before her wedding night had taught her just how little she really meant to him.

Even more amazing, she trusted Jake to treasure what she was able to give.

Treasure. But not particularly want. Because he had been married to her sophisticated, worldly sister-in-law until death had separated them. Because even on her best days, Megan had been unfavorably compared to Helen too often to want to subject herself to that humiliation again. And because what she had to give demanded a lot more than just physical release, too.

So her pride conspired with her knowledge of his exhaustion to hold her poised in the doorway, watching him sleep, rather than crossing the few feet that separated them and joining him.

While Jake slept, Megan considered and discarded all the things she would have once convinced herself she had to do that morning. Too noisy, she told herself. They'd all disturb her sleeping warrior.

The notebook drew her. Its soft brown leather cover caressed her fingers like an old friend, and perhaps it was. She'd spent hours with it last night, after she had recovered from her initial shock. Now its pages tempted her to lose herself within them again, to revisit the life they had shown her, to explore more of that life.

That possibility was as frightening as it was tempting, because the neat copperplate script that now filled so many pages still was not her own.

Temptation won. Jake was here. For some reason she felt safer pursuing this other life just knowing he was in the house with her. After another trip to her room to make sure he still slept undisturbed, Megan took the notebook and a tall glass of iced tea out onto the front porch and settled herself in the blue canvas chair with her feet propped on the porch rail.

She ran her fingers idly over the cover, not opening it yet. Lydia Tanner, whose handwriting proclaimed her the owner of this book, led a life completely alien to Megan, yet almost parallel to her own.

The daughter of an influential man, Lydia had lost her mother at too young an age to remember her. As had Megan. Her father had married again, to a woman whose influence and connections could further his career. As had Megan's. Lydia had been moved to a completely different world as a result of her father's ambitions. As had Megan. She had been sent unwillingly away to school. As had Megan. And although this had not yet been fully revealed, she was being groomed to make an advantageous—for her father—marriage. As had Megan.

Coincidence? Or the vagaries of the human mind?

Megan leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. Had she created Lydia out of her own needs? Had she peopled this story, this alternate life, with a more loving cast because of the absence of love in her own?

Because Lydia did have love. The gentle Choctaw woman Daniel Tanner married to gain citizenship in the rich and fertile Nation had loved Lydia, and Lydia had loved her. Peter, Lydia's young half- Choctaw brother, had teased her, exasperated her, antagonized her on occasion as he grew toward adolescence, but he had given her great joy.

Granny Rogers, who lived near them, had taken Lydia under her wing, teaching her quilting and preserving and physically doing the things that made a house a home, things Daniel Tanner thought beneath his daughter and so refused his wife permission to teach.

And Sam. Sam who had been raised by his white father in Texas, who had been a Texas Ranger, who had come to the Nation in search of his mother and stayed to marry Granny Rogers's daughter. Sam, who had fought with his newly discovered Choctaw kinsmen in the Civil War in an effort to help preserve their Nation from the already greedy depredations of northern politicians. Sam, who had come home to find his wife and child murdered by outlaws, his Nation in shambles, his farm overgrown, with nothing remaining for him but an aged mother-in-law and the ruined remains of the sawmill with which he had once made his living. Sam, who could not return to being a ranger, because there were no more rangers, who could not return to being a soldier unless he fought on the side of his former enemy in the western Indian wars, who at last found his expertise needed by the Choctaw national police as a member of the Lighthorsemen.

Sam, who had lost everything, including his dreams, and whom Lydia loved with all her young and innocent heart.

Lydia had her warrior, too.

With a wordless moan, Megan slumped in her chair.

Had she really built this life? If so, when had she started? And was there any way, ever, to know the truth?

She sat there for a moment thinking. She had first seen Lydia at Jake's house, and again at Waterfall Canyon. She had felt Sam's presence here, in this house, as well as that of the unknown woman for whom she'd cried in her sleep. From the journal, she knew that Daniel Tanner lived so close to the Rogers's home place that Lydia frequently visited. Where? The present road ended at Jake's house, and she suspected that if she followed the old trail she'd find that it did, too.

Had Lydia lived here? Megan discarded that thought almost instantly. This house was old, but not over eighty years or so and therefore much too new to have been the Tanner home. And she suspected from Lydia's words that it was not anywhere grand enough for Daniel Tanner.

That mess of bramble to the south of the house.

Megan sat up with a jerk and dropped her feet to the porch. Could it be? She'd been working at clearing out that mess only the day before yesterday and had found—what?

She left the notebook in the chair but carried her tea with her, down the steps, around the corner of the house, then south to the spot where she had been working. She dropped to one knee and ran a hand over the age-smoothed stone just barely showing above ground in the first row. She'd called them borders, had thought they must once have enclosed a formal garden of some sort; now that she looked more closely, she wasn't sure.

She stood and followed this one until it lost itself in still more bramble, then retraced her steps and followed it in the other direction. It cornered, and so did she, following it again in a straight line until it again cornered, encompassing an area the size of a large room, and then continued on until it, too, lost itself in under growth. Could it be the foundations of a house? A substantial house suitable for the prestige and position Daniel Tanner seemed to think he had earned?

How long had she known these stones were here? Long enough to have built them into a scenario?

Wake up, Jake. Oh, please wake up. I need you!

Her unvoiced plea stunned her with its intensity.

"No, I don't," she said shakily. "Not because of this. I need me. I need to find out what is happening to me."

When she returned to the porch, she picked up the notebook. How innocent it looked, she thought, to be so devastating. But no matter how much she needed to learn, she knew she couldn't go back into Lydia's life. Not now.

She looked in on Jake again and found him still sleeping, a little more restfully, she thought. Rather than risk disturbing him, she put the notebook away in a box filled with books and papers in another room, refilled her glass, and went back out onto the porch.

The house and yard seemed to close in on her. She considered going for a walk but for reasons she didn't explore she knew she couldn't go off and leave Jake defenseless in sleep, not even with Deacon here to guard him.

Instead, she settled back into the canvas chair, propped her feet on the rail, and waited as the late-morning air grew warmer, as the sunlight grew brighter, as the creatures in and about her yard forgot her presence and grew more active.

There was a sense of rightness to her waiting, as though guarding Jake in his sleep was something she was meant to do. Maybe it was. And maybe it was just her turn. He'd certainly guarded her enough in the last three days. Although what either of them was guarding against was a big mystery to her in this peaceful moment.

She heard Deacon's low whine at the screen door, and then he bumped it open and came out on the porch.

"Hi, boy," she said softly. "Did you come to keep me company?"

He came to her side, but instead of relaxing to her touch he stood stiffly at attention, watching the drive.

Megan saw two men on foot turn into her drive at about the same time they must have seen Jake's Jeep parked beside the house. They hesitated, but after a moment's conversation they continued toward her.

Megan tightened her hand on Deacon's ruff, but other than that she didn't move; she couldn't move.

A big man, his huge belly hanging over his belt . . .

She blinked and the image disappeared, leaving her watching one slightly overweight man in the uniform of the Pitchlyn County Sheriff's office and the other, a man she had seen in reality and too recently, the deputy who had led the raid on her house.

 

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