Remember My Touch

Remember My Touch

Gayle Wilson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

GAYLE WILSON

is a two-time RITA® Award recipient, winning Best Romantic Suspense Novel in 2000 and Best Romantic Novella in 2004. Gayle has also won a Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Suspense and Mystery and a Dorothy Parker International Reviewer’s Choice Award for Series Romance. Beyond those honors, her books have garnered more than fifty other awards and nominations, including a National Readers’ Choice Award for Best Romantic Suspense, won by Wednesday’s Child, a novel from HQN Books.

Gayle holds a master’s degree in secondary education, with additional certification in the education of the gifted. Although her specialty was honors and gifted, as a former high school history and English teacher, she taught everything from remedial reading to Shakespeare—and loved every minute she spent in the classroom.

Gayle was on the board of directors of Romance Writers of America for four years. In 2006 she served as president of RWA, the largest genre-writers’ organization in the world. Please visit her Web site at www.BooksByGayleWilson.com.

For Huntley Fitzpatrick,

who is both my editor and my friend, with love and gratitude

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

“WHAT’S GOING ON here, Mac?” Jenny McCullar demanded. Her voice was soft, but her dark eyes were flashing. “What kind of game do the two of you think you’re playing?”

Mac knew he probably should have been expecting his wife’s questions, except Jenny had never been one to fret or nag. And he thought she had learned a long time ago to live with the dangers inherent in his job as county sheriff.

But there had been a lot of pressure on both of them lately, unexpected stresses on a marriage that had been rock solid for the past five years. That was the reason he hadn’t told her he’d asked his brother to come home this weekend. At least, he amended, that had been one of the reasons.

“I asked Chase to come down because I wanted his advice. Nothing more than that, Jenny.”

“Just a little advice about somebody running drugs?” she questioned. The muscles in the perfect, olive-toned oval of her face were tight, a small furrow forming between the winged brows.

That would have been a reasonable assumption, since Mac’s brother had spent the last four years working for the DEA. Chase was someone who could certainly provide answers to what was going on and some advice about what Mac should expect. Jenny would have figured out eventually why his brother was here, except she hadn’t had to. Almost as soon as Chase arrived, he had spilled the beans.

His brother’s eyes had been full of contrition and apology when they’d met Mac’s, a matching set of clear McCullar blue. In Chase’s there had also been a trace of surprise. Mac knew his brother couldn’t believe he’d been keeping secrets from Jenny. “Maybe running drugs,” Mac hedged.

“In this county?” Jenny’s voice was full of the same doubts Mac himself had had when he first began to suspect what was going on.

“Better than seventy-five percent of the drugs that enter the States come across this border, and we’re sitting right in the middle of it. Why would you believe we’re immune?”

“Because…that’s never been a problem here,” Jenny said.

She was calmer now, but the fear was still in her eyes. She raised her hand, running small fingers distractedly through the gamine cut of her dark brown hair. “Why do you think…?”

The question faded as her intelligence and her knowledge of the way things worked along the border provided the answer to that unfinished question.

“They made you an offer.” She spoke that sudden realization aloud. “Oh, dear God, Mac, they’ve already approached you.”

Mac McCullar had never outright lied to Jenny, and he wasn’t about to start now. Besides, she had a right to know. If the other hadn’t been going on, he would already have told her.

The bribe he’d been offered had been huge and the warning that had accompanied it subtle, containing little overt threat of violence. That was the way it was done, of course, and not many people held out against the promise of that much money. Not given the salaries of law-enforcement officers. Not in a rural Texas county this size.

Sheriff Mac McCullar had been expecting the overture for months. It had probably been delayed only because of the location of his county, far from the Mexican cities where the drugs from South America were flown in. Or because of its distance from the major U.S. highways that led north into the American heartland.

But law-enforcement efforts were increasing on both sides of the border, squeezing the dealers who had been operating at the major crossing points. Mac had known it was only a matter of time until someone realized that this isolated stretch would be perfect for bringing drugs across.

Too many of the people who had been cooperating with the cartels had gone down in the investigations carried out by federal agencies in both the U.S. and Mexico. Some of those had been respected Texas law officers, men who had given in to the lure of the obscene amounts of money the Mexican cartels offered so freely—enormous sums that were paid them to do nothing besides look the other way when drugs were transported across their jurisdictions.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jenny asked.

“I figured one of us worrying about it was enough.”

“Then you are worried?”

“I guess I’d be a fool not to be.”

“You told them no,” Jenny said, holding his eyes.

Mac thought maybe she was hoping that wasn’t what he had said, but she knew him better than that. “What do you think?” he asked.

Then he smiled at her, his soft brown mustache lifting to reveal a flash of even, white teeth set in the strong angles of his tanned face. She didn’t return his smile and the fear in her eyes hadn’t faded.

“I imagine you told them to go to hell,” she suggested.

“I wasn’t quite that polite,” Mac admitted truthfully, his smile widening. If he had been hoping for a lessening of the tension in her small, squared shoulders, he was disappointed.

“Why is it your responsibility?” Jenny demanded. “Where the hell is the DEA? Why aren’t they doing something?”

“It’s my county, Jenny. My job.”

“And when your job gets you killed, who’s going to look after your precious county? Who do you think cares about any of this besides you?”

“Anybody who lives here ought to care. Anybody with kids, a home, a family.”

“What about your kids, Mac? Our kids.”

“I’m working on that,” he reminded her, his lips tilting again, this time in memory. He’d been working on that with real diligence. Only that kind of pleasure—making love to Jenny—had never before had anything, really, to do with what he considered work.

Her chin quivered suddenly and that movement, quickly controlled, almost broke him. Jenny wasn’t a woman who cried. She had never used tears to get her own way. But her emotions had been on edge lately, and Mac certainly understood all the reasons why.

Once they had decided it was time to add children to the wonder of their marriage, they had pursued that goal with a willingness that had little—on Mac’s part, at least—to do with making babies. Babies were just something he had always believed would happen naturally, given enough opportunities. And those, he had willingly supplied.

Only, it hadn’t happened. Not for three long years, and despite the fact that in the past year they had finally sought professional help, it still hadn’t happened. Their lovemaking, once spontaneous and filled with joy, had taken on a clinical aspect that Mac was a little uncomfortable with. He hadn’t said anything, determinedly holding on to his patience and good humor in the face of his wife’s increasing tension.

He’d walk through fire for Jenny, without any hesitation, and he figured he could survive performing on demand if that was what it took to make her happy.

“And when they bring you home in a box, Mac, what am I supposed to do then?” she asked softly. “What happens to me?”

Her question shocked him. A man didn’t last long in this job if he worried about reprisals or reacted to threats. The thought of him dead and Jenny alone wasn’t one he’d ever considered with any seriousness. If the thought had occasionally brushed through his consciousness, he’d rejected it. He couldn’t do this job constantly looking over his shoulder.

“That’s not going to happen,” he said dismissively.

“Is that a guarantee, Mac? Are you making me a promise?”

“Jenny,” he began, and then his voice faltered. There was nothing he could say that would satisfy her fear or her anger—emotions she had a right to feel, he acknowledged. Whatever he did impacted on them both. He understood that.

“It’s my job, Jenny,” he said again, stubbornly. It was his only defense and one that even he recognized wouldn’t be much comfort to a grieving widow.

Jenny’s lips flattened and she shook her head once, the motion sharp and angry. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

“I’ll never forgive you, Mac. I swear to God I’ll hate you through eternity if you let something happen to you.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” he said softly.

He lifted his hand, fitting the callused palm against the softness of her cheek. His thumb brushed across the tight-set line of her lips. When he felt the minute loosening of the muscle at the corner, encouraged by that response, he lowered his head.

His mouth found the smooth expanse of her forehead under the disordered silk of her hair, and he pressed a small kiss there. His other hand moved to her back, between her shoulder blades. With the heel of his hand, he pushed into the tension he found there, kneading gently.

“Want to make a baby?” he whispered.

“It’s not the right time.” Jenny’s voice was as tight as the muscles in her back and shoulders.

His lips skimmed down the slender line of her nose and settled with familiar expertise over her mouth. Despite her anger, she didn’t avoid their touch. She automatically tilted her head to allow the accustomed alignment of his mouth over hers.

He wondered how many times he’d kissed her, how many times she’d stood on tiptoe, her small frame stretching to accommodate his height, how often her body had arched to match the uncontrollable thrusts of his. Suddenly he wished he’d written them all down. Kept a record somewhere. Today I made love to Jenny. Each time carefully recorded so these memories could never be lost, never destroyed.

She put her hands on his shoulders. He loved Jenny’s hands. They weren’t manicured or particularly well cared for. They were working hands, a little rough and reddened from washing dishes and grubbing in the yard. Her nails were short and usually unpolished. The small, slender fingers were often scratched or stained with paint or the medicines she used in treating the animals.

But to Mac they looked exactly as a woman’s hands should look. Felt as they should feel. Whether gentling an injured horse or moving seductively over his own body in the darkness. And it seemed to Mac he had always known how they would look cradling the rounded, darkly-fuzzed head of an infant. His son or daughter.

That was all Jenny had ever asked him for. A baby. And not to get himself killed. And he couldn’t guarantee either, it seemed.

No promises, Jenny-Wren. I can’t make you any promises. Except to love you. And even if I end up dead, while you’re hating me through eternity for dying and leaving you, I’ll still be loving you. To the grave and beyond.

Mac bent slightly, slipping his left arm under Jenny’s knees. He gathered up his wife and carried her easily, cradled like a child against the solid strength of his chest, into the dark bedroom they had shared for the past five years.

Usually when he did something like this, Jenny laughingly protested, pounding on his chest or pushing against his shoulder, demanding that he let her down to get back to whatever she had been doing. Tonight she did neither.

He deposited her on the wide bed and stepped back to take off his shirt, not bothering to unbutton it, but simply tugging it out of his uniform pants and stripping it off over his head in one fluid motion, his undershirt along with it. He threw the garments toward the foot the bed. He stood balanced awkwardly on one foot and then on the other to tug off his boots. When he turned around, he realized Jenny hadn’t moved. She had simply been watching him, and whatever was in her face made him hesitate, his hand at the waistband of his uniform pants.

Her eyes slid downward, moving over the broad, muscled expanse of his chest and then to the ridged stomach. She looked up finally, her eyes too dark and wide, straining to deny the tears that he knew were still close to the surface. Tears that were silently pleading for a promise he couldn’t give. Not with any honesty.

“Don’t be mad, Jenny-Wren,” he said softly, lowering his big body onto the bed beside her. His lips nuzzled along the skin under her jawline. He could feel the lifeblood pumping steadily beneath its satin surface. He caressed that small, pulsing movement with his tongue, for the first time forced to think about the precious stability of their lives, to think about how lucky they were.

He had never worried about anything happening to either of them. He supposed men didn’t think that way, never anticipating, as women apparently did, some terrible thing happening to the ones they loved. He had just accepted that this was their life and that they would go on this way forever, loving each other.

Loving each other. Until finally they would be old and beyond these needs, beyond the endless desire that sometimes woke him, his body hard and achingly lonely for the feel of Jenny’s, even if he had made love to her only a few hours before.

Jenny’s hand found his chin, and she pushed his head away from hers so she could look into his eyes. “Anything but that, Mac,” she whispered, and the truth of it was in her eyes. “I could bear anything but losing you.”

He smiled at her, the slow movement of his lips an invitation, and reassurance, he hoped. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’ll ask Chase for advice. I’ll call in the feds, I swear. Will that make you happy?”

“It would make me happy if you just got out. We could run cows again. Or sheep. Raise spinach if we have to.”

He laughed, but he knew from the quick pain in her eyes that it had been a mistake. She hadn’t been joking. Jenny was scared, and he hated himself for making her afraid. This was why he hadn’t told her before. She didn’t need this to worry about.

“At least it’s safe,” she argued.

“This isn’t the movies, Jenny. Or TV. You know nothing ever happens here. It’s not going to now. They’re just putting out feelers. Somebody will bite, and they’ll pass this county up like they always have before. They’re not going to try anything where the law has bowed its back against them. There’s no need. There are too many folks more than willing to cooperate with them for the kind of money they’re offering. I’ll put out the word that the feds are moving in and nothing will happen.”

“You swear you’ll get some help?” she asked. “You’re not just saying that to pacify me?”

“I promise, Jenny. First thing tomorrow. Chase can tell me exactly who to call.”

Again she held his eyes, trying to read what was in them, he guessed. He had nothing to hide. He would do what he’d said. He would never break his word to Jenny.

Finally, she nodded. Her hand moved, following the line of his jaw. Her fingers touched the softness of his mustache and then traced up the high cheekbone, thumb brushing across the long, dark lashes, feeling them move as his blue eyes closed in response to her touch.

Her fingers spread, threading into the slightly curling, sun-touched hair at his temple. They cupped the back of his head, pulling his mouth downward to hers, which opened to the caress of his tongue.

His mouth was warm and sweet. So dearly familiar. His tongue teased across her lips and then invaded them, suddenly demanding. Hot and hard. Evoking memories of his body moving above hers in the darkness.

Waking her from sleep. Or coming up behind her to cup his hands under her breasts and trail wet, pulling kisses down her throat as she stood at the kitchen sink, up to her elbows in dirty dishwater. Pushing his arousal into the softness of her bottom. Once Mac had pulled her panties off and simply unzipped his jeans, thrusting into her as she lay where he had placed her on his grandmother’s kitchen table.

Making love to her because that was what he wanted to do. Whenever he wanted to do it. Unthinking. Unplanned and unstudied. Sometimes quick and sometimes endlessly, heartbreakingly slow. This was what their lovemaking had once been. And in her demands for a baby, they had lost this gift.

Perhaps sensing her stillness, Mac lifted his head. His blue eyes were luminous in the darkness. Questioning.

“Make love to me,” she invited softly.

“What the hell do you think I’m doin’, Jenny-Wren?” Mac asked. The soft humor she loved was back in his deep voice.

Please, dear God, she prayed. Don’t let anything happen to Mac. Please, God, keep him safe.

Her eyes burned again, but she blinked, determined not to let him see her cry. He was right. It was his job, and he wouldn’t be the man she had married, the man she loved, if he didn’t do it. At least he had promised to let someone know what was happening. And Chase was home. Chase wouldn’t let anything happen to his brother.

Mac’s big hand found the elastic band of her slacks and began pushing inside, moving awkwardly because of the restriction.

“I can take them off,” she offered without moving. Her face was in the hollow between his shoulder and the strong brown column of his neck, her breath moving against the man-fragranced warmth of his skin. “I can take them off,” Mac said. “I’ve about forgotten what it feels like to undress you.”

“It feels slow,” she said, suddenly inclined to giggle at the unromantic discomfort of her slacks, their waistband rolled and twisted, canted to one side as he struggled to pull them down.

“Damn it,” he breathed, his big hands tangled in the offending garment.

“You used to be better at this,” she teased.

“Your butt used to be smaller,” he parried.

“I can’t believe you said that.”

But she pushed her heels into the mattress, obligingly lifting her bottom off the bed, and felt the slacks and her panties slide downward, guided by his hands. Then his hands deserted her for a moment, and she used her bare feet to push her clothing the rest of the way off her legs.

She was just in time. Mac’s hips and thighs lowered between hers, spreading them. His hand had found her breast, thumb flicking over the cotton-covered nipple that hardened into an tight, aching bud with the first stroke.

She could feel the cloth of his pants against her bare legs and the roughness of that texture was sensuous. Sensual. Teasing and tantalizing her as were his long fingers, which had caught the pearled nipple and were rolling it between them. Rolling it with hard, demanding pressure. Almost to the edge of pain.

The sound that feeling evoked came from deep within her throat, aching with want. With need. He responded immediately, pushing into her so strongly that it literally took her breath. She was a little surprised to realize how ready she had been for his entrance. Wet. So wet for him.

Her heels pressed again into the mattress, lifting her body upward to meet the hard downward thrusts of his. It hadn’t been like this between them in a long time. Almost primitive. Need-driven. No whispered endearments. No laughter or “old married” teasing. Just need. Desire. Hot and hard and aching for each other.

She was so empty. Only Mac could fill her. Only Mac could satisfy the aloneness that she hadn’t even been aware of. The awful black aloneness of even thinking about having to try to exist without him.

She blocked the horror of that thought, denying it, and arched upward again. The sound she made this time was guttural, a response to her desperation to enclose him. To hold him to her. To keep him with her forever.

She locked her legs around his waist, her bare ankles twined, and then closed her mind to everything but the sensations that grew and expanded in her body as his strained above her in their familiar darkness. When she felt the beginnings of his release, she thought it was too soon, and she tightened her hold on him, trying subconsciously to slow him, to slow what was happening.

There was no need. Her own response was again a surprise, its force exploding in shivering torrents throughout her lower body, sensations spreading upward through veins and nerves and muscles like warmed honey. She could hear her own gasping breath above the harsh panting of his. Could feel, despite the chill of the December night, the sweat on his face, its masculine roughness tight-pressed against her cheek.

Slowly, slowly, the sensations faded, retreated, his body stilled, and the world shifted back to its familiar focus. The room was dark and slightly chilled. She shivered involuntarily, either from the temperature or from the aftereffects of their lovemaking. Mac rolled onto his back, muscled arms locked around her body to carry her with him. She lay on top of him, half clothed and totally relaxed, and listened to his heart beat just beneath her ear.

“I love you, Jenny-Wren,” he said softly.

She heard the words, not in the night air that surrounded them, but the sound of them rumbling through their very skins, slick with commingled sweat and still joined. Always joined.

“I love you, too,” she whispered. Her fingers moved across the hair-roughened contours of his chest.

She lay and listened to his breathing, slow and even as his body gradually relaxed under hers. His arms loosened their hold, and she knew finally that he slept.

Still she didn’t move away, and it was a long time before she closed her eyes. She stared instead into the darkness, thinking about what he had promised. Thankful the hot tears that seeped onto the broad, dark chest pillowing her cheek didn’t wake him.

JENNY DIDN’T HAVE ANY idea what time it was when the phone rang. It wasn’t all that unusual for them to get a call in the middle of the night, and Mac’s voice when he answered was calm and official, if not yet fully awake.

She lay and listened to his monosyllables and soft questions without really hearing them. He’d tell her what was going on when he hung up. She closed her eyes and snuggled her bare bottom against his hip. She realized Mac was still wearing his pants, and it wasn’t until the incongruity of that attire penetrated her sleep-fogged consciousness, that she remembered last night.

She sat up, but Mac was already moving out of bed. He stood and put the phone he had been holding back into the cradle on the nightstand. He reached out and grabbed the shirt he’d discarded last night from the foot of the bed and, turning it inside out, began to pull it on over his head.

“Who was it?” she asked.

“Somebody who’s got folks on his property who aren’t supposed to be there.” Mac’s deep voice was muffled momentarily by the shirt.