Shades of Twilight (Page 42)

In the silence afterward, Roanna lay limply beneath him. She was exhausted, her body so heavy and weak that all she could do was breathe. She lapsed into a doze, barely aware of when he carefully separated their bodies and moved to lie beside her. Sometime later the light blinked off, and she was aware of cool darkness, of him stripping the bedspread down and positioning her between the sheets.

She turned instinctively into his arms, and felt them close around her. Her head settled into the hollow of his shoulder, and her hand rested on his chest, feeling the crisp hair beneath her fingers. For the first time in ten years she felt a small measure of peace, of rightness.

She had no idea how long it was before she became aware of his hands moving on her with increasing purpose.

"Can you do it again?" he asked, the words low and intense.

"Yes, please," she said politely, and heard a low chuckle as he rolled atop her.

Roanna. Webb lay in the darkness, feeling her slight weight nestled against his left side. She was asleep, her head on his shoulder, her breath sighing across his chest. Her breasts, small and perfectly shaped, pressed firmly against his ribs. Gently, unable to resist, he rubbed the back of one finger over the satiny outer curve of the breast he could reach. Oh, God, Roanna.

He hadn’t recognized her at first. Though ten years had

Chapter 8

passed and logically he knew she had grown up, in his mind’s eye she had still been the skinny, underdeveloped, immature teenager with the urchin’s grin. He hadn’t seen any trace of her in the woman who had approached him in the grubby little bar. Instead he’d seen a woman who looked so buttoned-down he’d been surprised that she’d spoken to him. Women like her might go to a bar if they were looking for revenge against a straying husband, but that was about the only reason he could think of.

But there she’d been, too thin for his taste, but severely stylish in an expensive silk camp shirt and tailored slacks. Her thick hair, dark in the uncertain light, was cut in a stylish bob that swung just below chin length. Her mouth, though … he’d liked her mouth, wide and full, and had the thought that it would feel good to kiss her and feel the softness of those lips.

She’d looked totally out of place, a country-club woman lost in a low-rent district. But she’d been reaching out to touch him, and when he’d turned, she had dropped her hand and looked at him, her face still and strangely sad, her wide mouth unsmiling, and her brown eyes so solemn he wondered if she ever smiled.

And then she’d said, "Hello, Webb. May I talk to you?" and the shock had nearly felled him. For a split second he wondered if he’d had more to drink than he’d thought, because not only had she called him by name when he would have sworn he’d never seen her before, but she had used Roanna’s voice, and the brown eyes were suddenly Roanna’s whiskey-colored eyes.

Reality had shifted and adjusted, and he’d seen the girl in the woman.

Odd. He hadn’t spent the past ten years sulking about what had happened. When he’d walked out of Davencourt that day, he’d intended it to be forever, and he’d gotten on with his life. He’d chosen southern Arizona because it was starkly beautiful, not because it was about as far as it could get from lush, green, northwestern Alabama and still be inhabitable. Ranching was hard, but he enjoyed the physical work as much as he’d enjoyed the cutthroat world of business and finance. Always a horseman, he’d made the transition easily. His family had narrowed to include only his mother and Aunt Sandra, but he was content with that.

At first he’d felt dead inside. Despite the imminent breakup, despite the fact that she’d cheated on him, he’d mourned Jessie with surprising depth. She’d been a part of his life for so long that he woke up mornings feeling strangely incomplete. Then, gradually, he had surprised himself by remembering what a bitch she had been and laughing fondly.

He could have let the uncertainty eat him alive, knowing that her killer was still out there and wasn’t likely to be discovered, but in the end he’d accepted that there was nothing he could do about it. Her affair had been so secret that there had been no hints, no leads. It was a dead end. He could let it destroy his life or he could go on. Webb was a survivor. He’d gone on.

There had been days, even weeks, when he hadn’t thought about his old life at all. He’d put Lucinda and the others behind him … all except for Roanna. Sometimes he’d hear something that sounded like her laugh, and instinctively turn to see what mischief she was in before he remembered she was no longer there. Or he’d be doctoring a cut on a horse’s leg, and he’d remember the concern that had darkened her thin face whenever she’d tended a hurt mount, Somehow she had wormed her way deeper into his heart than the others had, and it was harder to forget her. He’d catch himself worrying about her, wondering what latest trouble she had managed to get herself into. And over the years, it was the memory of her that still had the power to make him angry.

He couldn’t forget Jessie’s accusation that Roanna had deliberately made trouble between them that last night. Had Jessie lied? She certainly hadn’t been above it, but Roanna’s transparent face had clearly revealed her guilt. Over the years, given Jessie’s pregnancy by another man, he’d come to the conclusion that Roanna hadn’t had anything to do with Jessie’s death and the murderer had instead been Jessie’s unknown lover, but he still couldn’t shake his anger. Somehow Roanna’s behavior, though it paled in importance when compared with the other events of that night, retained the power to make him furious.

Maybe it was because he’d always been so dead certain of her love. Maybe it had stroked his ego to be worshipped so openly, so unconditionally. No one else on earth had loved him that way. Yvonne’s mother-love was unyielding, but she was the woman who had spanked him when he misbehaved as a child, so she saw his flaws. In Roanna’s eyes, he’d been perfect, or so he had thought until she had deliberately caused trouble just so she could get one up on Jessie. He wondered now if he’d ever been anything other than a symbol to her, a possession that Jessie had and she wanted.