Cover of Night Read online

  Turned out he had a hairline fracture—like Cal hadn’t already told him that—and they put him in a soft cast instead of a plaster one. He was to wear the cast until he came back in two weeks for more X-rays, but the doctor thought the fracture would be healed by then. All in all, good news. They gave him a pair of crutches; the doc ordered him to use them and give his leg as much rest as possible, and said that if he did what he was supposed to, in two weeks he’d be walking on his own two feet again.

  Neenah smiled in relief when she heard Creed’s prognosis. “I was afraid you’d done some sort of permanent damage, hobbling around the way you did,” she said as he got into her rental car. How she’d gotten a car so fast, he didn’t know. Maybe someone in the sheriff’s department had helped. She had driven up to the clinic steps to pick him up, to keep his walking to a minimum.

  “That’s the only way I know how to hobble,” he retorted, making her laugh. He loved her laugh, loved the way she tilted her head back and her eyes sparkled. The tension and strain of the past few days had left dark circles under her eyes and occasionally he’d seen grief etched in her face, but for a moment all that was gone. He’d like to keep it that way, keep the pain away from her. He knew he couldn’t, knew everyone who had been in Trail Stop would have to deal with what had happened, each in his own way. He hadn’t escaped unscathed himself, and he wasn’t thinking about his leg. Old memories had resurfaced, brought back by the violence that had touched their lives. He’d dealt with them before and he would this time, too, the memories shared by all men who had been to war. The details differed, but friends had been lost.

  The Trail Stop Massacre, as it was already being called by the bloodsucker press, was big news right now. A steady stream of reporters was flowing into town, which created an instant motel-room shortage because the Trail Stop inhabitants were already here and needed places to stay.

  Eventually everything would settle down, but now the sheriff’s department was taking statements from everyone and scrambling to find accommodations for so many people until the electricity and phone service could be restored to the community, which some people were saying could take until the bridge was rebuilt. Bridges weren’t thrown up overnight, not even small bridges. The word was they might not be back in their houses by Christmas. Creed knew better. He’d already made some phone calls to some people who knew some people, and red tape was being sliced through, the Trail Stop bridge shoved to the front of a list of projects. Creed expected the new bridge would be ready within a month.

  Things would still be a mess in Trail Stop, though. Food in refrigerators and freezers would be spoiled, rain would have blown in through broken windows and damaged floors and walls, plus there was the little matter of all the bullet holes, damaged or destroyed possessions, vehicles that had been damaged…the insurance adjusters would be busy for a while.

  At least the cops seemed to be leaning toward the scenario that there had been trouble in the bad-guy ranks, and one of them had turned on the rest. Unless Cal spoke up and said otherwise, that was the theory Creed was publicly buying.

  Privately, Creed knew otherwise. He’d been on too many missions with the cunning bastard not to recognize his handiwork. Cal had always gotten the job done. No matter what that job was, he’d been Creed’s go-to guy in tougher situations than this. He was never the biggest guy around, never the fastest or the strongest, but by God, he’d always been the toughest.

  “You’re smiling like a wolf,” Neenah observed, which might have been a caution that people could be watching.

  The comparison startled him. “Wolves smile?”

  “Not really. It’s more a baring of teeth.”

  Okay, so the comparison was an apt one.

  “I was just thinking about Cate and Cal. It’s nice to see them together.” It was only half a lie. He’d been thinking about Cal. But, damn, it was nice the way he’d seen Cate three years ago and hung in there all this time, waiting for her to notice him—and while he was waiting, quietly bonding with her kids and inserting himself into her life so completely she wouldn’t know what to do without him. That was Cal. He decided what he wanted, then he made it happen. Creed was suddenly glad Cal hadn’t wanted Neenah, or he’d have had to kill the best friend he had in the world.

  Creed directed Neenah to his house, and for the first time in his life he suddenly wondered if he’d left underwear lying on the floor. He knew he hadn’t—his military training was too deeply ingrained—but if ever he had, it would probably be when Neenah would see the house for the first time.

  He made it to the front door and started to unlock it, then noticed where Cal had knocked out a window. He laughed, reached inside, and unlocked the door, then maneuvered his crutches to the side so she could precede him inside.

  He liked his place. It was rustic, small enough for him, but not too small, since there were two bedrooms. The kitchen was modern, not that he used it a lot, the furniture sized to fit him and comfortable enough to sleep on. The decorating was plain Jane, if you could call it decorating. The furniture was put where he wanted it, and the bed was made up. That was the extent of his domestic abilities, or inclinations.

  She didn’t have a place to live, he realized. Her house had taken a lot of hits, plus she couldn’t even get to it right now. The sheriff’s department had brought in a helicopter to airlift the stranded inhabitants to town, because that was deemed the fastest, easiest way.

  “It looks like you,” she said with her serene smile. “No nonsense. I like it.”

  He touched her cheek with one finger, lightly stroking her smooth skin. “You could stay here with me,” he offered, going straight to the heart of what he wanted.

  “Would you want me to have sex with you?”

  He almost fell, the crutches suddenly becoming unmanageable, but he found he was incapable of lying to this woman, incapable of looking into those blue eyes and uttering anything except the absolute truth. “Hell, yes, but I want to do that regardless of where you live.”

  “You know I was a nun?”

  How could she be so calm when his heart was suddenly beating so fast he thought he’d pass out. “I heard. Are you a virgin?”

  She smiled, a tiny curve of her mouth. “No, I’m not. Does it matter?”

  “It matters in that I’m relieved as hell. I’m fifty years old; I can’t take that kind of stress.”

  “Don’t you want to know why I’m not a nun anymore?”

  He bit the bullet and hazarded a guess. “Because you liked sex too much to give it up?”

  She burst out laughing. She seemed to think that was so hilarious, in fact, that she ended up sitting on his couch laughing so hard she cried. He began to get the idea she hadn’t liked sex that much. He bet he could change her mind. He was slower now, and he knew a hell of a lot, and when it came to sex that was a good thing.

  “I became a nun because I was too afraid of life, too afraid to live,” she finally said. “I left the convent because those were the wrong reasons for being there.”

  He eased down beside her and put his crutches aside. With one arm around her he tilted her face up. “Do you remember where we left off right before the bridge exploded and your house got shot up?”

  “Vaguely,” she said, the twinkle in her eye telling him she was teasing.

  “Do you want to pick up there, or do you want to go to bed and make love?”

  Her cheeks turned pink and she regarded him with absolute seriousness. “Bed.”

  Thank you, Jesus. “Okay, but first there are two things I want to get clear.”

  She nodded, her clear blue gaze locked with his.

  “I’ve had the serious hots for you for years, I love you, and I want to marry you.”

  Her mouth fell open. She turned white, then pink again, he hoped with pleasure. She said, “That’s three things.”

  He thought about it for a split second then shrugged before scooping her onto his lap to kiss her. “Actually, I think it’s just separate