Twilight Man

For a man who had shunned society to live alone in the swamp, he certainly seemed to have enjoyed her company—to a point. Was he a reluctant hermit as well as a reluctant hero? If so, what had driven him to seek a life of isolation? How did he live? Where did he get his money?

You idiot, she thought, berating herself as she reached the small, red dome tent that marked her campsite. Jones could easily be involved in something illegal. Maybe he grew marijuana back there in the swamp. And she was nuts for nursing this curiosity about him. She should just forget about him. Now that she had officially thanked him for saving her life, their business was finished.

Her stomach growled ominously as she unzipped the tent flap. She would cook dinner...but then a roll of distant thunder echoed her stomach’s rumble, changing her mind. She could smell rain in the air. Building a fire to roast hot dogs was out of the question.

She would have to satisfy herself with cheese and crackers in her tent. That decision made, she went to her station wagon and retrieved a few snackables from the cooler. The clouds were moving in quickly, she noticed. The temperature had dropped several degrees in the past few minutes, and the wind had picked up.

She hoped she wasn’t in for a bad storm. Although she knew her tent was sturdy and rainproof, she wouldn’t be able to sleep through a night of loud, blustery thunderstorms. She grabbed her food and scrambled into the tent, then zipped it, making sure all flaps were securely tied down.

She had just changed into her nightshirt and was laying out her modest feast on a paper towel when she thought someone said her name. She tensed and listened, but all she heard was the howl of the strengthening wind.

“Is someone out there?” she called, her heart hammering inside her chest. Although there were other campers around, she felt suddenly vulnerable.

“Faith, it’s Jones Larabee. I wanted to let you know I brought your boat back.”

She broke a fingernail getting the flap unzipped. When she stuck her head out, she found herself looking at his jean-clad knee. At least he was dressed decently, she thought as her gaze traveled upward. But on second thought, he looked just as sexy clothed as he did half-naked. His faded jeans, soft from many washings, clung to his lean thighs and hips with loving familiarity, and his Texas Rangers T-shirt, cut off at the waist, revealed a tanned strip of rock-hard stomach muscles.

“Why?” The single word almost stuck in her dry mouth. “This morning you said it was too much trouble.”

He knelt on one knee, bringing his face close to hers. “I overheard you talking to Hoady, and I didn’t want that skunk keeping your deposit.”

Jones’s change of heart surprised her. But then, he’d made a habit of surprising her from the moment they’d met. “Thank you.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Hoady’s lucky he already went home for the day, or I might have told him what I think of the way he treats his customers.”

The thought made her smile wickedly. “You would have scared the poor man half to death.” Hoady, who was already leery of Jones, would have dissolved into a pool of abject terror if he were actually subjected to another face-to-face meeting with his angry nemesis.

“It’s no more than he deserves, sending a woman out alone into the swamp in that piece of junk he calls a boat. What if you’d gotten lost and the motor had quit in some isolated place where you couldn’t get help? You might have been stuck for days.”

“I had a paddle,” she said, though his concern warmed her.

Lightning flashed, accompanied seconds later by a loud boom. Faith cringed and Jones winced. “Looks like I’d better be on my way,” he said with a wary eye skyward. As he spoke, the first fat drops began to pelt down on them, hitting the tent’s taut nylon with loud splats.

Now it was Faith’s turn to be concerned. The clouds moving in from the southwest were thick and black as cast iron, blanketing the setting sun and bringing on an early dusk.

“You can’t leave now,” she objected. “Even if you don’t get struck by lightning, you’ll get soaked by the rain and you’ll have to navigate in the dark.” She shivered just thinking about how black that swamp would be.

“I can find my way in the dark,” he said. Arguing with him, the sky released a renewed flurry of drops.

“But not when it’s raining buckets,” she insisted. Her hair was getting wet from the downpour. She pulled inside and opened the flap wider. “For heaven’s sake, get in here before you’re soaked through. You can at least wait out the worst of the storm.”

He hesitated. Clearly he felt uncomfortable accepting her hospitality, humble though it was. Then another flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, louder than the last one, seemed to convince him. He dived into the shelter she offered, leaving his feet outside just long enough that he could take off his battered tennis shoes. The moment he zipped up the flap, a torrential rainfall began in earnest.

Big mistake, Faith thought as she tucked her sleeping bag securely around her bare legs. She should never have invited him in. Here in this confined space, Jones’s blatant masculinity was overwhelming. His wide shoulders and long legs seemed to fill the tent, and the scent of him—the smell of damp hair and cotton and clean skin—wrapped its tendrils around her like one of the jungle vines she’d seen in the swamp. The enforced closeness between them was potently arousing and a little scary.

He pulled his long legs under him to sit Indian-style on her extra blanket, then took note of his surroundings. “I’ve interrupted your dinner, I see,” he said, nodding toward her crackers and cheese.

“And quite a feast it is, too. Want some?”

“I’ve already eaten.” He appeared antsy as he looked around for something to occupy his hands. Finally he picked up her portable radio. “Mind if I turn this on?”

“No, go ahead. Maybe we can get a weather report.”

He fiddled with the dial until he found a station with a signal strong enough to be heard over the crackles of static. The news wasn’t good. The line of thunderstorms moving through the area was substantial, expected to bring strong winds and possibly hail. The county was under a tornado watch.

Faith sighed. “I wish I hadn’t heard that.”

“Do storms bother you?” Jones asked.

She jumped a good two inches at the next deafening boom of thunder. “Does that answer your question? Really I’m no more frightened than the next person when I have a roof over my head. But when nothing separates me from the raging elements except a thin sheet of nylon, I tend to get...nervous.”

She was more than nervous, Jones decided. Although it was growing dark enough that he couldn’t see her well, he knew she was shivering—not only from the temperature drop, but with fear. He could almost smell it. He could definitely smell the electricity in the air, and not all of it came from the storm.

“We’ll be okay,” he said. “I’m glad you talked me into staying, though. It would have been a rough trip home.”

The wind challenged his words, roaring around the tent, snapping the nylon and causing nearby trees to creak and groan. The rain fell with the force of a waterfall cascading over the tent.

By the time Faith finished her cheese and crackers, the darkness was thick. Yet Jones knew exactly where she was. Her case of nerves had grown into an almost tangible terror, which rolled off her in waves.

“Is it ever going to stop?” she demanded in a shaking voice.

Jones recognized the warning signs of a full-blown anxiety attack. Mary-Lynn had experienced them often enough, although it wasn’t thunderstorms that had frightened her.

“It’ll be okay,” he soothed, reaching for her hand. When he found it, it was icy cold. He slowly moved closer until he sat next to her on her air mattress. His arm stole around her trembling shoulders.

Rather than object, as he thought she might, she snuggled closer to him, burrowing her head in the hollow of his shoulder. He held her close, warming her body with his until the shivering stopped.

In his head he knew she accepted simple comfort from him and no more. But his body disagreed. Although he was unable to see her, there were plenty of other physical signals for his senses to collect—the skin of her midriff, shielded only by her thin nightshirt, soft and warm against his palm; her silky hair tickling his face; and the sweet, womanly smell of her that seemed to permeate his very pores. Even her breathing turned him on.

“I feel ridiculous,” she said into his chest. “I mean, I hardly even know you, and...”

“Shh,” he said. No, she didn’t know him, and she never would. He would make sure of that. He was so tempted to tell her everything and satisfy her curiosity, but he dared not. If he did, he might well end up in exactly the same kind of untenable situation that had forced him to leave his hometown, his friends, his family, his fiancée.

“I think it’s letting up, isn’t it?” Faith asked hopefully.

Jones didn’t have the heart to answer her. If anything, the storm had intensified. Between the almost constant claps of thunder, car doors slammed and engines started, evidence that many of their fellow campers had opted for higher ground.

A weather bulletin on the radio informed them that funnel clouds had been sighted in Marshall and Kildare, both within twenty miles of Caddo Lake. The tornado watch was upgraded to a warning.

“I don’t want to alarm you, but I think we should get out of here,” Jones said.

“And go where?” The panic had edged back into her voice as she pulled away from him.

“The shower building,” he replied, picturing a sturdy brick structure. “Isn’t there one just up the road?”

“Yes. Good, that’s a good idea. Just let me put some clothes on...” She sounded calmer, now that she had something to occupy her.

Jones waited in the darkness as she slipped on a pair of jeans under her nightshirt just inches from him, driving his imagination wild. He guessed that ordinarily she wouldn’t have been so uninhibited, but speed was of the essence.

“You drive,” Faith said, handing him the keys.

When they both had their shoes on, they made a dash for the car, but they might as well have saved the effort. Their clothes were soaked to the skin. Jones turned on the heater, flipped the windshield wipers to high speed, then crept cautiously onto the narrow road that meandered through the small campgrounds. One wrong turn, he thought, and they could end up fender-deep in swamp muck.

Somehow, though he couldn’t see an inch in front of the car, he made it to the main road and then the public shower building without mishap. He parked close to the door. Then he and Faith made a break for shelter.

“Whew!” Faith exclaimed, visibly relaxing now that she had a roof over her head. “I never thought I’d be so happy to see this nasty building. I feel much safer.”

Jones wasn’t so sure they were safe. The small building had only a corrugated fiberglass roof, which a high wind could easily whip away. He was also bothered by the fact that no one else had taken shelter here. He tried not to reveal his uneasiness, however. Unless he wanted Faith’s anxiety to return, he needed to make her believe he had everything completely under control.

At least the place had lights.

Faith sat down on the wooden bench between the doors leading to the men’s and women’s sides of the building, leaned her head against the brick wall and closed her eyes.

Jones took the opportunity to study her. She looked like a half-drowned cat, with her hair plastered to her head and her clothes dripping wet, and yet she managed to maintain an air of fragile beauty. His gaze was drawn to her pink nightshirt. The wet, nearly transparent fabric clung to the bare skin beneath it, revealing firm, rounded breasts with nipples that pebbled against the cool night air.

He tore his gaze away and sat down next to her, close but not touching. His libido had taken enough of a beating for one night. “You okay now?” he asked.

“Yes, I feel much better.” She opened her eyes and fixed him with her clear blue gaze. “I’m sorry I was such a baby.”

“It was understandable.”

“You’re not living up to your reputation, you know. Offering comfort, that is. The folks around here are scared to death of you. Hoady says you tried to kill him.”

“That’s a gross exaggeration.”

“Then what really happened?”

That damn curiosity of hers was going to lead to trouble, Jones thought. But he didn’t see any harm in telling her this particular story. “He was setting trotlines in my lagoon. I didn’t want to have to deal with him coming around every day to check them, and I didn’t want to look at those ugly floats all the time. I told him to take his lines elsewhere. And when he ignored me, I got out a shotgun and—”

Faith gasped. “You didn’t!”

“I shot into the air.” Jones laughed. “I didn’t think fat little Hoady could move so fast.”

Faith shared his laughter for a moment, but then she sobered. “Hoady’s not the only one. The man at Jasper’s Grocery, Bill Something, I think his name was, thinks you’re a fugitive from the law, probably a murderer. He says he saw your picture in a post office.”

Bill Holt. Jones never had liked the man, or his nosy questions. “Bill can think what he likes.”

“It seems everyone has a different opinion as to what you’re doing all alone in the swamp, but everyone agrees about one thing. They all say you’re meaner than a snake, and they advised me to keep my distance.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Because I knew you weren’t mean. I remembered how you talked to me after the accident, how you coaxed me to unbuckle my seat belt. And I remembered how kind you were when you wiped the blood off my face and bandaged my leg.”

Now they were in uncomfortable territory. Jones shrugged. “Yeah, well, you needed help and I happened to be there.”

“But you’re not mean,” she insisted. “Why do you let everyone believe you are?”

“So they’ll keep their distance. Of course, that doesn’t deter some people.” He gave her a pointed look.

“Why do you want them to keep their distance?”

“Faith, will you stop with the questions?” He did his best to bark at her, but it came out sounding like a plea instead. “I can’t answer them.”

“Is it something illegal?”

“No, dammit.” Not unless disappearing was a felony. It was if you did it to get out of paying your debts, but he didn’t fall into that category. Practicing law had netted him more money than he knew what to do with.

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

“Why do you need to know?” he shot back.

“Because...” She took a deep breath, then placed her hand over his where it rested on his knee. “Because I like you, and I want to know you better.”

Her message was unmistakable. For him to respond to it was unthinkable. He jumped up from the bench as if he’d been scalded and took two long strides away from her. Even if he could allow someone to get close to him—which he couldn’t—there was Mary-Lynn.

He read the hurt plainly in Faith’s eyes and felt like an absolute heel. This was all his fault. Maybe she’d been the one to seek him out, but he had allowed her to pull him from his shell. He had let her get too close.

“It’s nothing personal, Faith,” he said.

“Well, it feels personal.”

“It’s not—please believe me. You’re an attractive, interesting woman, and under normal circumstances, I would jump at the chance to know you better.” A lot better. “But I can’t. I’m...committed elsewhere.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Fiancée.”

“Who is she?”

“Her name’s Mary-Lynn.”

“What’s her last name?” Faith asked with a skeptical tilt to her head.

“Hoffman,” he blurted out because he wanted to convince her he wasn’t making this up. Immediately he regretted his impulsive admission. There was little chance Faith could or would locate Mary-Lynn, even given her last name. After all, she didn’t know where he was from. But it worried him anyway.

“When are you getting married?”

“We’re not, I guess.”

“Then she’s not your fiancée.”

“She still has my ring.” Maybe. He’d left her a note, telling her to sell the ring and find someone new, but he doubted she’d done it. Mary-Lynn was a sentimental soul.

“Then why—”

“Faith!” He was getting truly angry now. Her curiosity was understandable, but she was invading his privacy. “No more questions.” In a quieter tone he added, “Listen, the rain is letting up. I’m going to turn on the car radio and see if I can get an updated weather report.”

She watched him walk away, feeling utterly wretched. She’d made a fool of herself. Even if Jones were attracted to her, he wouldn’t give in to temptation. His loyalty to the mysterious Mary-Lynn Hoffman made him that much more appealing.

She stepped into the ladies’ room to have a look at her hair. What she saw made her groan. Jones wasn’t attracted to her. How could he be? She looked about as appealing as a wet log.

She pulled a comb out of her purse and tried to make sense of her damp, curly mane.

What had happened to Mary-Lynn? Faith found herself wondering. Had the woman jilted him? Had she died?

Damn, she had to stop this endless speculation about Jones Larabee’s life. He didn’t welcome her curiosity, and he had a right to his privacy—much as that irked her.

“Faith?” His voice through the bathroom door sounded a bit anxious.

“Be out in a minute,” she called back. She gave herself one final appraisal in the streaked mirror, making sure she carried a confident expression. It wouldn’t do to let him know how thoroughly humiliated she was. She would give the impression that his rejection had made barely a ripple in her psyche.

When she emerged, he was pacing the concrete floor, his thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets. “There you are.”

Had he suspected her of being so distraught that she’d thrown herself in the lake and drowned? “Here I am, all right.”

“The weather bureau has given the all-clear. Seems the worst of the storm has moved on into Louisiana and Arkansas.”

“That’s good to know. Let’s get out of here.” She was anxious to send Jones home, dark or no dark. Maybe then things could get back to normal.

But normal simply wasn’t to be. As she turned her station wagon onto the narrow road that led to her campsite, Faith spotted flashing red and blue lights ahead of her and a general state of chaos that hadn’t existed when they’d left.

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