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She stared up at him and noticed his blue eyes had darkened to the color of midnight as he walked over to her. “You know, I really want to believe you, to trust that you’re on my side.”
“But you don’t?”
“I didn’t say that,” she whispered. He jerked off his gloves and touched the underside of her jaw. In the moonlight her hazel eyes looked silver. “It’s . . . it’s just that I don’t really know what to think. Ever since you’ve come here, nothing has made a lot of sense.”
“Just trust me.”
“Oh, God, Chase, I want to!” she said, her throat tight as his cool lips touched hers. Willingly, she wound her arms around his neck and sighed when he parted her robe to touch her breast. Her thick hair streamed down her back in soft waves of brown and gold.
“I love you, Dani,” Chase admitted against her neck. “Just remember that I love you—”
“Mom!” Cody’s voice, distant but worried, cut through the night.
“Oh, Lord, I told him to call the sheriff, didn’t I?” Pushing Chase aside, she clutched the lapels of her robe in one hand. “I’m coming,” she called before turning back to Chase. “Just don’t lie to me,” she whispered. “For God’s sake, Chase, don’t lie to me.”
And then she was off, running through the rough field and up to the house. She glanced back once. Chase had walked out of the trees and was standing, feet wide apart, shirt billowing in the breeze, and watching her. Her heart squeezed painfully at the sight of him and though she stumbled once, she continued to the house.
By the time she reached the back porch, she was out of breath and shaken.
“Are you okay?” Cody asked, his eyes round with worry.
“Of course I am, sport,” she said, hugging the boy. “I can take care of myself.”
“But that guy works for Johnson.”
“I know, but I think he’s different than most of Johnson’s men—hey, you didn’t call the sheriff, did you?”
“Not yet.”
“Good.” She sighed and hugged her son, but Cody’s expression was puzzled.
“How can you be sure? That he’s different, I mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe intuition.” She planted a kiss on the top of Cody’s head. “Now you go upstairs and go to bed, okay?”
“Okay,” Cody said begrudgingly as they walked through the screen door.
Dani lingered at the door for a minute, staring down toward the creek and squinting into the darkness as a cloud passed over the moon.
Chase was gone, or at least she couldn’t see him. Involuntarily she placed her fingers to her still-swollen lips and wondered if trusting Chase would only cause her heartache.
* * *
She didn’t hear from him for the rest of the week. Deciding that he’d probably come to his senses and had just given her some cock-and-bull story about the drum of dioxin, she tried to ignore the pain in her heart and told herself that it was all for the best that she hadn’t seen him again.
“So why have you thought about him day in and day out for the past week?” she grumbled, driving back from Martinville with a load of seed grain for the October planting of winter wheat.
The pickup bounced as she tried to avoid the most severe potholes in the rutted lane. Before the weather changed, she’d have to buy several yards of gravel and spread it over the rough road.
“Just one more expense,” she told herself. One of a hundred that she couldn’t afford.
Chase’s Jeep was parked near the house. Dani’s pulse jumped at the sight of the dusty vehicle. Why was he here? Did he know that she’d be gone?
She got out of the pickup warily and heard the sound of voices near the barn. Following the
noise, she rounded the corner of the house and saw Chase and Cody playing one-on-one basketball on the far side of the barn where Cody had hung a hoop two years earlier. The netting had all but rotted off the metal rim, but Cody still used the basket for practice. Both Chase and Cody were into the game, to the point that neither one had heard or seen her arrive. In the shade of an ancient apple tree that stood near the back porch, Dani watched as Chase played with Cody, gave the boy pointers, and in the end, let him win.
“Good match,” he said, his low voice drifting up to the house as he clapped Cody on the boy’s bare back.
