Midnight Promises

Chapter 2

Annie fell back a step. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“What’s so hard to understand? You keep saying our marriage wasn’t real. A wedding night ought to change your mind. And you owe me that much. You didn’t keep your other promises.”

Annie stared at the man she’d thought she knew as well as she knew anyone in this world. She didn’t recognize him.

Oh, she knew the face. Jack had one of those charmingly irregular faces made for crooked smiles and wicked suggestions, a collection of roughly matched features that somehow added up to be a whole that’s more appealing than the static gloss of standard good looks. But the look in his dark chocolate eyes turned that familiar landscape foreign and frightening. She’d never seen them so hard. Even on the terrible night when they’d hurled words at each other like grenades, his eyes had been hot with temper.

Now that anger seemed to have aged and hardened, twisting his thoughts into alien shapes.

“Oh, Jack,” she said sadly. “Is this what we’ve come to?”

“What do you mean? We’re talking, aren’t we? Working things out.” He moved closer. “You ought to be happy. From what I can tell, women are nuts about talking and working things out.”

“What is there to work out? You don’t even like me very much anymore.” And that was her fault. She’d known better than to give in to the attraction she’d always felt for Jack, because she knew Jack. He was a great friend—fun, funny and loyal. But he was hell on any woman foolish enough to care about him.

The alien anger vanished in a flash of surprise. “Of course I like you. You’re Annie.”

“You keep saying that as if my name were some sort of explanation!”

“Well, isn’t it? We’ve been friends for a long time.”

“We should have stayed friends. Only friends.”

“There’s no reason we can’t be friends and be married, too.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand.” Probably he couldn’t understand, and because of that she had hurt him. She had put that calcified anger into his eyes, and that made her ache. “Jack, I want more than friendship from marriage.”

“It’s you who doesn’t understand.” Frustrated, he ran a hand over his hair. It was too short for his gesture to mess it up. “Look, if I’m willing to forgive you for running away, you ought to be willing to meet me halfway.”

His gesture distracted her…or maybe she just wasn’t ready to get into a discussion that she knew was going to hurt.

The last time she’d seen Jack, his hair had been long, shaggy, intriguingly streaked by the blistering sun of Paraguay. She’d touched those pretty streaks, tangling her fingers in his hair. But now it was too short to run her fingers through. Now the best she could do would be to pet it, stroke all that soft brown hair along the curve of his head….

Her lips tightened. She couldn’t afford those kind of thoughts.

“What’s wrong now?”

She said the first thing that came to mind. “You let the barber scalp you again.”

He gave her an irritated glance. “I’m trying to have a serious talk, here, Annie. Do you think we could save the comments on my appearance for later?”

“It’s not just your hair. You’re looking thin, too, and you’re limping. You need to take better care of yourself, Jack.”

He cocked his head to one side. “I know what you’re doing. The question is—do you?”

“I’m not doing anything except offering you a little advice.”

“You’re trying to go back to pretending you’re my sister. It won’t work, Annie. Not anymore. Not when I’ve held you in my arms and felt you turn to fire.”

Her face went hot and tight. She turned away. “I’m not going to go to bed with you.”

“Want to bet?”

Something dark and ominous in his voice made her whirl—but as fast as she moved, he was faster. He seized her shoulders and jerked her up against him, and she almost cried—at the harshness of his face, at the impossibly dear feeling of his body against hers. Her heart pounded. “Let go of me.”

His lip curled. “I don’t think so.”

He was looking at her mouth, and the throb of her pulse alarmed her more than the taunting arousal of his body. She tasted that dark rhythm in her throat. And elsewhere. “I don’t want this.”

“You know, I don’t think you ever lied to me before you married me.”

She’d been wrong. She had seen a hardness like this in Jack’s eyes before—when he was competing. Jack was easygoing most of the time, but there was a buried edge to him that surfaced when he set himself to win, and she had become a challenge to him. Something to be won.

“I’m going to kiss you, Annie.”

No, she thought. But she didn’t move. No, she stood there, stiff and trapped by his hands and the hammer of her pulse. Maybe if I let him kiss me, he can stop trying to win. Maybe then he’d let her go.

His head lowered—but he didn’t kiss her. Instead, the tip of his tongue painted one long, sweet sweep of temptation on her lower lip. She jerked her head back, but his hands on her shoulders tightened, holding her in place. Her breath hitched as he used his tongue to tickle along the line of her throat.

She pushed at his chest. “Dammit, Jack, don’t do this. Don’t play with me.”

“Who said I’m playing?” This time his mouth didn’t tease. It claimed. Hot, hard, ruthless, it asked nothing of her and demanded everything.

Heaven help her, she wanted to give him all that he demanded, and more.

There was heat, a rich current of heat urging her to let go of common sense and heed the clamor of her senses. There was taste, the heady taste of Jack, a shock of familiarity in spite of the time that had passed since she’d learned it on the night he married her. Just before he left her.

She shuddered and managed to wrench her head back. “Jack—” She shoved at his chest. He didn’t move. His body was hard and urgent against hers, his scent filling her nostrils until she wanted to howl with the unfairness of it all. “This isn’t right.”

“It’s right.” His eyes were hard, his voice soft. “Let me show you how right it can be with us, Annie.”

“What the hell is going on here?” a deep, gravelly voice demanded from behind her.

Annie closed her eyes. Great. The only thing worse than having her brother walk in on a clinch between her and Jack would be if Jack—

“Not much, Ben,” Jack said, his eyes never leaving Annie’s face. “I’m just saying hello to my wife.”

Yep. That was it. Now her day was complete.

The storm had passed, leaving the air still and cold, the sky crowded with stars, and the porch swing wet. Annie ignored the dampness seeping through the seat of her jeans and pushed gently with her feet, listening to the creak of the chain and trying not to think. There were no good thoughts to keep her company tonight, none at all.

But she did have company from the one member of her household who wasn’t upset with her. Twenty pounds of cat sprawled warmly across her lap. Samson’s version of offering comfort meant allowing her to minister to his pleasure by lifting his chin so she could scratch underneath. As she did, his inaudible purr vibrated beneath her fingertips.

Ben always said the animal was too blasted lazy to purr out loud.

She sighed. Her oldest brother was barely speaking to her. Charlie had actually yelled at her—an event almost as rare as for Samson to purr out loud—and Jack…well, if Jack didn’t exactly hate her, he sure didn’t like her very much right now. Everyone she cared about was angry and hurt, and she was to blame.

Not that Jack didn’t share some of that blame. He’d dropped his bombshell as casually as if he were talking about the weather, knowing full well what the effect would be. He’d done it that way on purpose, to get back at her, and that hurt. In all the years she’d known him, Jack had never set out to hurt her.

But everything was different now, wasn’t it?

Was taking her to bed supposed to pay her back, too? It would be a tidy sort of revenge, she supposed, to claim the wedding night she’d denied him and then be off to Timbuktu—this time without inviting her along for the ride.

Until that afternoon, Annie would have said Jack wasn’t capable of using sex as a weapon. Now she wasn’t sure.

“So what else is new?” she muttered at Samson. It had been so long since she’d been sure of anything that she’d forgotten what it felt like. Not since she quit her job and married her best friend. Of course, she hadn’t originally intended to marry Jack. At first she’d tried to get away from him. Then she’d decided to go to bed with him.

How had she managed to accomplish what she hadn’t set out to do, and failed at what she thought she wanted?

Jack, she thought. Jack was what had happened to her plans. Of course, they’d been pretty screwy to start with….

Denver, last July

Annie pulled the last of the books down and set Early Childhood Development in the box with the others. She straightened, grimacing. Her ribs were still sore. She wouldn’t be able to carry any of the boxes she was busy filling, but her brothers would be down in a couple of days to help.

She looked around at the clutter of boxes and clothes filling her formerly tidy apartment. So many dreams were being packed away along with her textbooks. But she was still going to teach, she assured herself. Just because Denver hadn’t worked out didn’t mean she couldn’t still be a teacher. It was all she’d ever wanted.

No, she thought. Be honest. Teaching wasn’t all she’d wanted. But it was an attainable goal, unlike the foolish longing that was sending her away. The doorbell rang. She threaded her way through the boxes to the door, wondering which of her friends from school had dropped by. She’d be glad of some company. Packing was a melancholy business.

But it was an old friend, not a new one, she opened the door to.

His hair was shaggy, his shirt was wrinkled and his jeans were old. He looked wonderful. She wished with all her heart he was still on the other side of the world. “Jack! I—I wasn’t expecting you. I didn’t think you were due back for another few weeks.” She’d been counting on that.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

“Packing.” She turned away, going back inside. “As I’m sure you can see.” She hadn’t expected him to be angry. It disconcerted her.

“Dammit, Annie. Why didn’t you tell me?” He followed her into her apartment that had pleased her so much when she first moved in, the first place of her own she’d ever had. The complex had been brand-new then. After living in an old house all her life, followed by an old dorm while she was at college, she’d thought she would enjoy the newness. That was yet another thing she’d been wrong about. After a while the new apartment had seemed cold and impersonal instead of fresh and exciting.

She moved to an open box, and began wrapping a glass bowl in newspaper. “You weren’t here, Jack. How could I tell you?”

“Your brother managed. He called me the day before yesterday. I chewed him out for not calling me sooner and got here as quickly as I could.”

She stopped, her back to him. “Which brother? Charlie?”

“Of course. Ben doesn’t like me.” He put a hand on her shoulder and turned her around, studying her face intently. “Aw, hell. Annie.” He lifted a gentle hand to her cheek.

She managed not to flinch. The bruising had faded, and the swelling was mostly gone. But it was still tender. “I’m okay.”

“You don’t look it.” He sounded grim. “And if you were really okay, deep inside, you wouldn’t be moving back home. What happened?”

“I thought Charlie told you.” She moved away, unable to bear his scrutiny for long, and tucked the bowl into a box.

“He said you were beaten. Two weeks ago. By a couple of punks at your school.” The words came out flat, staccato. “And you’ve quit your job because of it and plan to move back to Highpoint.”

The attack wasn’t the only reason she’d decided to move home, but it had clarified some things for her. “That’s pretty much what happened, though the attack wasn’t the only reason I quit. I haven’t been happy here.”

“I know you haven’t been crazy about the large classes and all the paperwork, but I hate to see you chuck it all in. After all the years you worked to get your teaching certificate, it doesn’t make sense!”

“I’m not planning to give up teaching. I just don’t want to do it here. Not anymore.”

“Don’t tell me you’re still homesick.” He shook his head. “You’ve been away from that stupid town for years now, what with college and then your job here. You can’t still be pining for Highpoint.”

She felt a familiar pang. Jack would never understand how deep her roots went in the small town where she’d grown up, the town he’d been only too happy to leave after high school. He didn’t understand roots. “That’s part of it, too. But only part. I don’t like the big city, Jack. You know that. And…” She hesitated. But he was her friend. He would understand. “I just don’t feel safe here anymore.”

“I hate what happened to you. I really hate that it happened while I was gone. If I’d been here—”

“It still would have happened. But I’m okay now. A little sore still, but everything is mending. Only…you know how news reports always say, ‘the victim was treated and released from the hospital’? That’s what happened. Nothing broken, just a cracked rib and a lot of bruises. But I always thought that ‘treated and released’ made it sound as if no one was really hurt.” She tried to smile. “Wrong!”

He frowned. “Would you quit trying to be brave and plucky? It’s annoying the hell out of me.”

That surprised a laugh out of her—which she suspected was what he’d intended. They looked at each other for a moment in silence before he spoke again, his voice carefully level.

“Charlie said that the attack wasn’t sexual.”

“I wasn’t raped. I—oh, good grief.” Her eyes irritated her by filling with tears. For days after the attack she’d wanted nothing more than to have Jack there, holding her. But he’d been in Paraguay. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. The doctor said it could have been a lot worse. He said I was l-lucky.”

“The doctor’s an idiot. No one needs that sort of luck. Come here.” He put his arm around her and urged her over to the couch, which was covered with neat piles of clothing she had yet to pack. He dumped one of piles on the floor.

“Jack! My clothes—”

“Never mind your clothes.” He tugged her down onto the couch beside him. “Annie, I’m so sorry. So terribly sorry.”

He just held her then, unspeaking, his body warm and hard and comforting. She rested her head on his shoulder and let his warmth soothe her, let herself cherish this moment. She’d needed this, needed it badly. Too badly. That—although she would never tell anyone—was the main reason she’d decided to leave Denver. She couldn’t afford to need Jack Merriman.

After a moment she made herself straighten. She didn’t pull away entirely, though. He still had one arm around her. His body was still warm and solid along her side. “I really am all right. I had no idea I was such a wimp until this happened.”

“You’re not a wimp.” There was a strange look in his eyes, one she didn’t recognize. “Can you tell me how it happened? What were you doing at the school in the summer?”

“Teaching summer school, of course. I’d stayed late grading papers, but it should have been okay. I mean, I’d done everything right.” That was what kept eating at her. She’d done everything right, and still she hadn’t been safe. “I was parked near the door in a well-lit area, and there were people around. Not a lot, but the kids in the theater group had been rehearsing and were leaving at the same time. The security guard was there. I thought I was okay. Even when the two of them came up to me, I thought I was safe enough.”

His mouth tightened. “There were two of them?”

She nodded. “One grabbed at my purse. I yelled at him. I was so mad…I should have just let him have the purse, but I was mad, not scared. I—I knew him. He was one of my students.”

Jack stroked her hair. “That made it worse, didn’t it?”

“Yes.” She blinked the sting out of her eyes. “He yelled back at me, called me filthy names. Then h-his friend slapped me. I wasn’t expecting that, but I still wasn’t scared, not really. I hit him back. I didn’t think. I just hit him, punched him right in the stomach. I hit him hard, too. But he was high on something. He didn’t feel it. It just made him more angry. And then they…they both started hitting me, and I couldn’t…I couldn’t…”

“Where was the guard?” Jack’s voice was tight. “Where was the damned security guard while all this was happening?”

“He got there as fast as he could. He’d been walking some girls to their cars, but when I yelled he came running. The two of them—my assailants, to put it in police jargon—ran away before he got there. And then it was all over.” Except for the police reports, and the ‘treated and released’ part, and the bad dreams. She shivered, and Jack rubbed her shoulder.

He meant to comfort her. She knew that, but the slow, insidious warmth seeping into her had little to do with comfort, and everything to do with her reasons for leaving. She pulled back. “I really wasn’t badly hurt. I was sore all over and shook up, but that’s all.”

“You were beaten,” he said flatly, “and scared half out of your mind. You’re still scared, or you wouldn’t be running away like this.”

That stung. “I’m not running away. If I had been happy here in Denver, satisfied with my job, I wouldn’t let one unpleasant incident chase me off.”

He looked away. “The thing is, Annie, I’m going to miss you. It’s been nice, knowing you would be around when I was between jobs.”

Nice? She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t.

Jack worked for a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Denver. International Construction Aid built schools and clinics in developing nations all over the world. When Jack was between assignments he was in Denver, too. Though Annie was amazed now at her foolishness, that had actually been one of the reasons she’d chosen to live in the Mile-High City after getting her certification. She had thought it would ease her homesickness to have an old friend around part of the time.

And at first it had helped. Whenever she and Jack had gotten together to eat pizza and argue over what movie to rent, or to drive into the mountains for a day’s hiking, she hadn’t been homesick. But she’d begun to depend on those flying visits too much. Instead of easing her homesickness, the times she’d spent with him had left her feeling more alone than ever after he left.