LITMIR.BIZ

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Jackson levered up on one elbow, his bare muscles tense.

       She was confused. “Wha—”

       Silently he placed a warning finger against her lips, cautioning her not to cry out. His eyes were dark as he slid off the couch and snatched his jeans from the floor.

       The voice thundered again. “We know you’re in there. Sheriff’s department. Open up.”

       Rachelle felt instantly cold all over. The sheriff’s department? Here? Searching for them? Panic and guilt tore through her. Had her mother called the police and hysterically claimed that her child had run away or been kidnapped? But how had the police tracked them down here?

       Noiselessly Jackson tossed her skirt and blouse to her and motioned for her to get dressed.

       She couldn’t move. The thought of the police just outside the door made her feel sick with fright. What would happen to them? She began to panic, but Jackson’s hand, strong and warm, settled over her shoulder.

       “It’ll be all right,” he whispered, though she didn’t believe him. But it was nice to have him try to comfort her, and she flew into action, throwing on her clothes before anyone saw her nakedness.

       Jackson, too, was trying to get dressed. Wincing against the pain ripping down his leg, he struggled into his jeans. His calf and knee had swollen and with the added thickness of his bandage, he had trouble sliding his wounded leg into the tight-fitting Levi’s.

       The pounding on the door resumed, and Jackson, limping visibly, slipped to the back of the house, where he carefully peered through the kitchen windows. Rachelle followed him and watched his handsome face fall.

       “No way out,” he whispered, cursing under his breath.

       “Maybe we should hide.”

       “From the sheriff’s department? They’ve got dogs, Rachelle.”

       The thought of the police terrified her. Sirens, guns, lights, dogs… “But—”

       His face was filled with compassion. “We’ve got no choice.”

       She glanced past him to the window. “You mean they’ve got us surrounded—just like in all those crummy old Westerns?” she asked, following his uneven strides back to the den.

       “That’s about the size of it.” His gaze swung around the room where morning light was piercing through the shades and the smell of warm ashes, tallow and sex still lingered. The quilt had slid to the floor but throw pillows were still piled on the end of the couch that had supported their heads. Rachelle’s throat tightened at the sight of this, their love nest.

       “Moore! Come out with your hands over your head!” the deputy ordered, his voice hard.

       “I hear you!” Jackson replied. “Give me a second.”

       “Now!”

       Jackson swiped his jacket from the screen and tossed Rachelle hers. “Big trouble,” he said, staring into her eyes so deeply that her heart turned over. “I’m sorry.”

       “Not me.” She gulped, but tilted her chin upward. Panic seized her, and her stomach clenched into a hard ball.

       “You will be,” he predicted as he twined his fingers through hers. He sucked on his lower lip for a minute as he stared at her, then, in a gesture she’d remember the rest of her life, he drew her close, fingers still interlaced, and touched his lips to hers in a chaste kiss that melted most of her fears. “I’ll never forget last night.”

       “Me neither.” Tears threatened her eyes as hand in hand they walked to the front door. She felt dead inside, certain that her life—as she’d known it for the past seventeen years—was over, but at least she and Jackson were together, she reminded herself, tossing her tangled hair away from her face and holding her shredded blouse together. What a sight they must make.

       “Comin’ out,” Jackson yelled as he opened the door with a decisive turn of his wrist. He and Rachelle stepped onto the front porch. It was early, just after dawn, and there was still a thick mist rising off the lake.

       Three cars from the sheriff’s department were parked in the drive. Six officers, weapons drawn, were staring grim-faced at them, sighting their guns as if Rachelle and Jackson were dangerous fugitives who had escaped the law.

       Rachelle thought she might faint.

       “Let her go,” one deputy ordered, and Jackson released her hand as if it had suddenly seared him.

       “No—“ she whispered, but was cut off.

       “You’re Rachelle Tremont?” another officer demanded.

       She nodded dully. What was this all about? They were trespassing, true, but the somber faces and loaded weapons of the officers reeked of much more heinous crimes than even a possible kidnapping charge. “Jackson?” she whispered.

       “Move away from him,” a voice barked.

       “But—”

       “Move away from him. Now!”

       Her spine stiffened in silent rebellion though she was scared to her very soul. With her throat dry as a desert wind, she moved on wooden legs, feeling the distance between Jackson and herself becoming more than physical; as if by walking away from him, she was creating an emotional chasm that might never be bridged again. His expression turned harsh and defensive, and he only glanced at her once, without a glimmer of the kindness or even the cynical humor she’d seen the night before.

       Slowly Jackson raised his hands, palms forward into the air, and the officers rushed him. Two grabbed his arms, while another threw him up against the side of the house and quickly frisked him. Rachelle looked on in horror.

       “Hey, man, I’m not carrying—”

       “Shut up!”

       Jackson snapped his mouth closed while another deputy read him his rights.

       Rachelle was nearly dragged by yet another to one of the deputies, down the steps and to the cruiser.

       “What’s going on?” she demanded, shaking and pulling back, her head craned to look over her shoulder so that she could keep Jackson in view. Her blouse gaped, and she caught it with cold fingers.

       “Just get inside, Miss Tremont.”

       “But why are you doing this?”

       Jackson was being stuffed into another car from the sheriff’s department, and once the deputies had slammed the cruiser’s heavy door shut, they slid into the front seat and flicked on the engine. With red and blue lights flashing, the car roared down the puddle-strewn drive.

       “We’re taking you to the department to ask you a few questions,” a short deputy with a bushy red mustache explained. His name tag read Daniel Springer.

       “Why?”

       “We want to know what you were up to last night.”

       She swallowed hard and her cheeks began to burn. “I was here.”

       “All night?”

       “Y-yes—after we, um, left the party—the party at the Fitzpatrick place on the lake.”

       “We know about the party.”

       “Jackson and Roy got into a fight. Roy almost killed him… .”

       “So you were here alone all night with Jackson Moore,” Deputy Springer clarified.

       “That’s right.”

       “You’d swear to it?”

       “Slow down, Dan,” the other deputy, Paul Zalinski, insisted. He lit a cigarette, took a long drag and snapped his lighter closed. Smoke streamed from his nostrils. “We don’t want to screw this up. She’s a minor, for God’s sake. We’ve got

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