He's Got His Daddy's Eyes Page 14

  Sarah half turned to follow his gaze, scanning the crowd to find the high school principal seated in a corner, surrounded by well-wishers. Josh’s hand brushed against her waist to move her gently ahead of him and she jerked involuntarily, stepping hurriedly away from his touch.

  “I don’t see Caitlin, do you?” she asked, refusing to meet his eyes and the questioning frown that darkened his features. “I wanted to introduce her to Mrs. Fitch.”

  “She’s with Aunt Molly,” J.J. said. “Over by the door.”

  “So she is.” Sarah glanced up at Josh. “I’ll collect her and meet you two in the corner.”

  “All right.” Josh stood for a moment, watching Sarah’s slim back as she wound her way through the throng toward Molly and Caitlin. Sarah was a puzzle that baffled him. The more he observed her, the more frustrated and confused he became.

  J.J.’s small hand gently patted his cheek, demanding his attention.

  “Josh? Hey, Josh, are we gonna go see Mrs. Fitch?”

  “Sure, cowboy.” Diverted, Josh tugged on a miniature boot and was rewarded by a giggle from J.J. “Don’t bump your head on the rafters.”

  “I won’t, but I’m high enough to touch the ceiling almost!”

  The two threaded their way down the length of the room and stood on the edges of the crowd surrounding Annabel, patiently waiting their turn.

  Sarah and Caitlin joined them just as they reached Mrs. Fitch.

  “Well, hello, Josh. And who is this young man?”

  ’I’m J.J. and I’m four,” the little boy announced importantly from his lofty perch atop Josh’s broad shoulders.

  Mrs. Fitch’s eyes twinkled and she pushed her glasses higher on her nose, tipping her head back to look up at him. “Hello, J.J. I’m Annabel and I’m sixty.”

  “Wow.” JJ.’s eyes rounded. “That’s really old, huh?”

  Mrs. Fitch laughed while Sarah groaned and shook her head.

  “J.J., it’s not polite to comment on a lady’s age.” Josh winked at Mrs. Fitch and grinned.

  “Nonsense,” Annabel declared with amusement. “I’ve earned every one of these gray hairs and JJ.’s right, sixty is really old. But there are some benefits to being really old,” she said confidingly. “The birthday parties get bigger and better the older you get”.

  “Yeah,” J.J. replied promptly. “You’ve got a really big cake, but Trey said it was as big as Texas and Caitlin said it wasn’t either. Do you know how big Texas is?”

  “Very big,” the principal responded solemnly. “I don’t think the cake is quite as big as Texas— but it’s definitely big.”

  “I think so, too.” J.J. smiled benevolently at her, clearly pleased that she wisely agreed with him.

  “Then we agree.” Mrs. Fitch nodded firmly before turning to hold out her hands. “Sarah, it’s so good to see you.”

  Sarah caught Annabel’s fingers with hers. The older woman’s hands were crippled with arthritis, but her grip was strong and warm. Sarah bent forward and brushed a kiss against her cheek.

  “It’s wonderful to see you, too, Mrs. Fitch. Happy birthday.”

  “Thank you. And who is this young lady?”

  Sarah slipped an arm around Caitlin’s shoulders and drew her forward. “This is my niece, Caitlin, Margaret’s daughter. She lives with her mother in Los Angeles but is spending the summer with us.”

  “Ahh,” Mrs. Fitch’s blue eyes were shrewd but kind as they inspected-the twelveyear-old’s impassive expression. “You look like your mother, child.” She reached out and gently took Caitlin’s hand in both of hers. “I’m delighted that you’re here to help your aunt Sarah while your grandmother is ill.” She glanced at Sarah. “How is Patricia, Sarah?”

  Josh only half heard the conversation as Sarah and Annabel exchanged information and chatted about family and mutual acquaintances. J.J.’s solid little body sitting on his shoulders and Caitlin and Sarah by his side created a picture of a family. He wished he had the right to claim them as his. The need to do so was a bittersweet, piercing pain.

  He moved restlessly, bumping the man behind him.

  “Sorry,” he muttered over his shoulder before turning to Sarah. “Maybe we should move on and give the rest of these folks a chance to say hello.”

  “Oh, certainly.” Sarah glanced at the lengthening line behind Josh. “Perhaps we’ll have a chance to talk more later.”

  “Absolutely,” Annabel said promptly. “And if not, then call me next week and we’ll have lunch.”

  “It’s a date,” Sarah agreed.

  Josh bent and brushed a kiss against Mrs. Fitch’s cheek, eliciting a shriek of delighted terror from J.J.

  “Happy birthday. Save a dance for me,” Josh told her.

  “I’ll do that”.

  Behind them, the band began to play, the music filling the big hall. Sarah led the way down the length of the room, but veered to the left halfway to the table where Jennifer sat with Lucas.

  Josh caught her elbow and she halted instantly, slipping out from beneath his loose hold immediately.

  “What is it?” she asked, her voice lifting to be heard above the noise of the crowd and the music.

  “You’re going the wrong way.” He gestured toward Lucas. “Our table’s down this way.”

  “I promised Molly and Wes that we’d join them, and they’re over in that corner.”

  Sarah gestured and Josh’s gaze followed, easily finding Wes’s broad bulk. Before he could object, Sarah reached up and plucked J.J. from his grasp.

  “I’m sure we’ll see you later, Josh. Thank you for looking out for JJ.”

  Josh stood still, the crowd ebbing and flowing around him, and once more watched Sarah’s slender back as she walked away from him.

  I’m getting damn tired of seeing her walk away, he thought grimly. He spun on his heel and stalked down the room to join Lucas and Jennifer.

  He sat with the rest of the Hightower clan, including Murphy—his leg encased in a walking cast—and Trey, while speeches were given, food was served from a buffet table groaning under laden platters and bowls, and presents were opened by Annabel. Never did he lose track of Sarah, though. The internal radar that responded only to her kept him always aware of her movements as she supervised J.J. and Caitlin through the buffet line, wiped cake frosting from J.J.’s chin and kept an eye on a group of preteen boys who were ogling Caitlin.

  The evening waned, the sun setting and dusk falling outside. Plates were emptied, coffee cups drained, and couples began to drift onto the impromptu dance floor at the end of the hall nearest to the bandstand.

  Wes lifted a sleepy J.J. to his shoulder and dropped an arm around Caitlin’s shoulders before heading toward the door. Josh’s eyes narrowed, his gaze tracking Sarah as she and Molly wound their way to Annabel’s side. Clearly, the two women were saying good-night.

  “To hell with it,” Josh muttered, and pushed away from the table. He was going to claim a dance with Sarah. Holding her would be sweet torture, but the need was stronger than the pain that would surely follow.

  Sarah was several steps behind her aunt Molly when a man caught her forearm, stopping her. Her heart raced with swift fear and she spun around, nearly tumbling against Josh’s chest.

  “Oh!” She stepped quickly backward, slipping her arm from beneath his grip. Her palm pressed over her thundering heart, she managed a weak smile. “You startled me.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.” He stared down at her. “Dance with me.”

  Her pale brows winged upward in surprise.

  “Just once…for old times’ sake,” he said abruptly, certain that she was going to refuse.

  Her gaze darkened, sorrow and pain clearly visible before she shook her head and stepped back. “I’m sorry, Josh. I can’t I never dance anymore”.

  She turned swiftly and left him.

  Once again Josh found himself staring at her retreating figure.

  Fury roared through him, fueled by hurt and frustration.
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  I’ll be damned if I’ll let her walk away from me again!

  He strode after her, moving across the threshold of the anteroom just as she stepped outside the building. Quickening his steps, with his long strides he overtook her just beyond the entrance.

  “Wait a minute,” he growled.

  Startled, Sarah caught a glimpse of his set, furious expression before his fingers locked around her upper arm and he drew her swiftly around the corner of the building. Away from the entrance lights, this side of the community hall was shadowed and dark.

  “I’m getting tired of watching your cute backside moving away from me,” he snapped. He pushed her up against the wall and lowered his head, unerringly finding her mouth with his.

  Sarah was so stunned by the swift, unexpected events that she didn’t react, her fear of men held at bay by the fact that this was Josh.

  Chapter Eight

  The anger that drove Josh to claim Sarah in the most primitive way known to males was quickly swamped by need. Emotionally and physically starved for the scent, feel and warm reality of her, Josh cradled her head in his palms, threading his fingers through her hair to hold her still while his mouth made sweet, heart-stopping love to hers.

  So stunned was Sarah that she didn’t close her eyes; she watched the anger driven from his features and replaced by ardent, tortured tenderness. Fierce absorption drew his brows together in a frown of concentration, his thick lashes lying in feathery black crescents against sun-dark skin. Faint white lines fanned out at the corners of his eyes, mute testimony to long hours spent beneath the prairie’s hot summer sun.

  This was Josh—and she loved him. For one long, hope-filled moment, Sarah dared to believe that this time might be different.

  But then Josh moved closer, pinning her between the wall and the hard, implacable strength of his body. Her eyes slammed shut and she fought the suffocating panic that threatened her. Josh shifted, aligning his body with hers, and the hard proof of arousal pressed against her midsection sent her over the edge. She was no longer able to hold terror at bay, and her fear demanded she focus on survival. She struggled, shoving frantically against his chest.

  Sarah went so abruptly from warm acceptance to violent rejection that Josh didn’t have time to react Once again he found himself watching her run away—this time across the parking lot to her car. Too dazed to chase her, Josh leaned against the wall and stared after her until her car’s taillights disappeared from view.

  The longer he leaned against the wall, the more his head cleared. And the more his certainty grew that she had just given him a missing piece to the puzzle that was Sarah.

  “You didn’t just run from the heat between us, Sarah,”he mused, narrowed eyes staring unseeingly down the now-dark road. The glimpse he’d caught of her face before she ran was etched with sharp clarity in his mind. “You were terrified of something. What was it?”

  He forced himself to go over all the times he’d seen Sarah since she’d returned. Putting aside his own bias, he struggled to remain objective and analytical.

  “She never touches anyone male, except J.J.— not even her uncle Wes.” The memory of her slipping away from her uncleon the porch at the Rocking D was clear, followed swiftly by the knowledge that she’d avoided any contact with him with equal determination. The stark terror on her face when the doctor had touched her shoulder at the hospital was the same deep level of panic he’d seen only moments before when she’d run away from him.

  The picture that was forming wasn’t pretty, but Josh couldn’t avoid the ugly conclusion that he reached.

  “Son of a bitch,” he breathed, his chest lifting painfully as he dragged air into tortured lungs. “Somebody hurt her—really hurt her. She’s afraid of men.”

  But who? Her father had doted on her, as had Josh. It had to have been someone in her life after she’d left Butte Creek five years ago. And the most likely candidate was J.J.’s other possible father.

  I’m tired of guessing, he thought grimly. Only Sarah knows what happened—and tonight she’s going to give me answers.

  He pushed away from the wall and strode across the gravel lot to his truck.

  Sarah hadn’t expected Josh to follow her. Angry with herself for the foolish tears that wouldn’t obey her command to cease, she stomped up the stairs, stripped off her clothes and climbed into the shower. The hot water sluiced away the tears and all but traces of self-disgust, and she dried her hair with brisk strokes before pulling on her favorite, comfortable blue terry-cloth robe.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, she brewed coffee and rummaged in the freezer for a chocolate bar. She was determined not to give in to misery over her failure to control the mindless terror that had destroyed her pleasure and overwhelmed her in Josh’s arms.

  She was muttering and ripping the wrapping off a candy bar when someone knocked at the back door.

  Startled, she stopped tearing paper and stared at the darkened porch off the kitchen.

  “Who in the world…?”

  Knuckles rapped impatiently once again. Sarah hurried to the window, pulled back the curtain and leaned over the sink to peer out at the front of the house. Parked outside her gate was Josh’s truck.

  ’Oh, no,” she whispered. Her nerveless fingers lost their grip, the forgotten curtain dropping back into place.

  Josh knocked again. “Sarah? Sarah! I know you’re in there. Open the door.”

  Reluctantly Sarah crossed the kitchen and the small utility porch, hesitating before she drew a deep breath and pulled the door open.

  The light from the kitchen shafted across the porch and found Josh’s broad-shouldered figure standing on the back step. Grim-faced, he stared at her for a long moment before she gave way, stepping aside to let him into the house.

  “I don’t suppose this is a social call?” Resignation colored her voice.

  “No,” he said briefly. This time it was Josh who stepped aside, waiting silently for her to move past him and into the kitchen.

  “I’m having coffee,” she said, her back to him as she stood at the counter. She glanced over her shoulder. “Would you like some?”

  “Sure.” Josh’s gaze moved assessingly over her features. She wasn’t wearing makeup, and her eyes were dark pools of shadowed, stormy blue in her pale face. Her mouth was bare of lipstick, her lips and the arch of her cheekbones soft pink against barely tanned skin. There was a fragile vulnerability about her, oddly reinforced by the determination evident in the tilt of her chin and the proud set of her shoulders. He suspected that the soft blue robe was all she wore; he shoved the instant mental picture of Sarah’s naked body out of his mind and grimly ignored the leap of his pulse. “What I really want are some straight answers.”

  Sarah expelled her held breath in a deep sigh. “I was afraid of that,” she said, not even bothering to pretend she didn’t understand what he meant. She reached for a mug from the cupboard and poured coffee before looking up at him again. “Would it make any difference if I told you that you won’t want to hear the answers—that you’ll wish you’d never asked?”

  “No.” He bit out the word. “And I can’t say I appreciate your treating me as if I were J.J.’s age. Whatever you have to tell me, it can’t be worse than not knowing.”

  The look Sarah gave him was laden with weary resignation. She handed him the mug and cradled her own cup between her palms.

  “Oh, yes, it can, Josh. I’d hoped that we would never have to have this conversation, but it seems I asked for too much.”

  “Maybe so.” Too angry and frustrated to be put off yet again, Josh set the hot mug down on the tabletop and ignored the reluctance that gripped her. “I still want answers. Why did you run away from me tonight? What happened to you in the years you were gone from Butte Creek that makes you run from me and avoid your uncle?”

  “I was raped the night I left Butte Creek.”

  Her blunt words chased the anger from Josh’s face and replaced it with stunned shock. Instinctively
, he moved toward her, his arms lifting to hold her, but she shifted closer to the counter at her back and he halted immediately, his hands slowly falling to curl into fists at his side. Her fragile shell of calm composure protected a deep well of emotion behind its thin walls. He was afraid of what it might do to her if he shattered that defense.

  Shock and compassion were swiftly replaced by a surge of anger. Why didn’t she tell me?

  Of all the possible scenarios that Josh’s imagination had considered in the past half hour, none of them had come even close to her response. Shaken by a wave of emotions that ranged from shock to rage and grief that someone had hurt her, his first instinct was to hold her close. He ached to give her comfort, but her flinching away told him clearly that she couldn’t accept it

  “Ah, sweetheart.” His voice sounded thick and rusty to his own ears, clogged with emotion. “Can you talk about it?”

  Sarah nodded jerkily. She’d never wanted to have this conversation, but now that she’d started, she wanted it finished. The fact that Josh hadn’t exploded and demanded to know why she’d let the attack happen, nor accused her of lying, nor any of the other all-too-common negative responses was encouraging.

  “Let’s sit down.” Josh pulled out a chair at the table. She seemed calm and composed, but he hadn’t missed the tremor that shook her fingers nor the dark, haunted look in her eyes. Unwilling to crowd her, he stepped back, waiting for her to slip into a seat before taking a chair across from her. He waited for her to begin, sipping coffee that he didn’t want and didn’t really taste, while he forcibly held back the barrage of questions that trembled on his tongue.

  “I tried to call you before I left Butte Creek that afternoon,” Sarah began. She sat stiffly upright in her chair, forearms resting on the tabletop, her Angers clasped around the comforting warmth of her coffee mug. “Great-Aunt Prudence fell and strained her back and Mother asked me to go to Missoula to stay with her. The hospital wouldn’t let her go home alone.” Sarah flicked a glance upward at Josh. “She’s my favorite relative. I was more than willing to take care of her. But I couldn’t get you on the phone. I asked Mother to try to reach you, but knowing Mother, I doubted that she would. I planned to stay overnight in Great Falls and drive on to Missoula the following morning, and I knew I could call you from the hotel, so I wasn’t terribly worried about reaching you.”