Nora Roberts - High Noon

When she was finished, she pocketed her phone and stayed where she was another moment, looking up at those persistent stars. "You're an awfully patient man, Duncan."

"Most things are worth waiting for."

"In an awful way, that's what Walken thinks, too, and he's been waiting a long time for this. The man in there? That was his closest friend. In fact, reading between the lines, I'd say he was Walken's only friend. A loner who got along, hot-tempered off the job, liked to drink, didn't much care for it when his friend got engaged. But he hasn't once gotten in touch with his only friend in going on three years. He has no friends now. That's the way it is for him. That's the way he wants it now. "We have to dig him out, because he's somewhere in this city. This isn't what I do, not what I know how to do best." She pushed her hands through her hair. "So I have to be the patient one, and wait for others to do the real digging."

"I liked to play baseball when I was a kid." Confused, she looked over. "Sorry?"

"I liked to play, and I could wing a ball out of far right and pinpoint it to the cutoff man, even right into second. And I could run like the wind. But I had a bat as green and limp as old celery. So I had to depend on somebody else to hit in the runs. We do what we do, Phoebe."

"I love him more than I did my own father." She rubbed damp and tired eyes. "I hardly remember my daddy. Horsie-back rides and tickling and how he smelled of Dial soap. But I can't hear his voice in my head, and I have to look at his picture now and again to keep his face in there. When I think of fathers, I think of Dave first."

"Come on, baby." He took her hand. "Let's get you home."

"There's nothing more I can do tonight. Just nothing."

"You'll get some sleep, then you'll figure out what to do tomorrow."

"You're going to stay with me." She got in the car, looked up at him. "You said you would."

"Sure, I can do that."

He expected to bunk in Ava's son's room again, so Duncan was surprised when after peeking in on Carly, Phoebe took him by the hand and drew him into her bedroom.

She pressed a finger to her lips as she closed and locked the door behind them. "You're going to have to be very quiet while you make love with me."

"You're the noisy one." He backed her toward the bed. "But if you get too carried away, I'll just gag you."

"Try this instead." She rose on her toes, found his mouth with hers. "God." She let out the word on a sigh. "God, God, I want you all over me. Inside me, around me, on me and under me. I want to be surrounded, Duncan. Surrounded so I can't think of anything else."

He eased her down on the bed, brushed the hair back from her face.

His lips brushed her brow, her cheeks, her jaw. Then they sank into hers. He could feel her relax, inch by inch. A little tremor in the shoulders, then a melting. Her arms lifted so he could slip her shirt off and away. And his hands ran down her sides. Bumped into her gun. "Ah, I think you're armed and dangerous."

"Crap. I forgot." She tapped him back so she could roll, unhook her weapon. She set it, in its holster, on the nightstand.

"You don't just leave it out like that, with Carly around?"

One more little flutter to the heart, she thought, and cupped his face. "No. I have a lockbox, top shelf of my closet. But I think, as the door's locked, it'll be fine there for a little while."

"Okay. Let's see, I think I was just a b o u't… " He pulled her back. "Here," he said before his lips took hers again.

They spoke in whispers as they undressed each other. Then didn't speak at all.

He surrounded her, just as she'd asked, with touch and taste, with heat and motion. In the dark, her hands and lips slid over his skin, and she found what she needed.

Little thrills rising to gnawing aches, aches soothed back to silky pleasures. Time ticked away, and maybe those stars were burning nowbut she didn't need their light. All the terror and tension of the endless day drained.

She lifted to him, and he could hear her sigh and sigh as he filled her. Then it was she who surrounded him, took him in, trapping him in that glorious heat until he was swamped.

He could see her eyes gleaming in the dark, watching him watching her through that exquisite merging of bodies. The thrill of skin to skin, though the rhythm stayed slow and easy, rise and fall. And lips met with a quick and fresh hunger to muffle moans, to swallow gasps. When the rising peaked and the fall was a dive in the dark, he pressed his face into her hair, to draw in its scent like breath.

She should get up, stow her weapon so she could unlock the door. But, God, it felt so good to just lie there naked, body to body with her mind all fuzzy and her heart still thudding.

How had she done without this for so long? The intimacy and pleasure, the contact? How had she done without him? The conversation and support, the humor and understanding. Wasn't it amazing that at this point in her life she would find someone who fit? Just fit-body, mind, heart.

Maybe she was feeling sentimental and shaky, under siege and out of control. But she'd found someone who helped keep the ground steady under her feet. Someone else who could answer the questions or point the way-because, oh Jesus, she hadn't realized how tired she'd been of carrying the whole load alone.

"You make me feel sturdier, Duncan."

"Good. I think."

"It's very good, for me." She ran her hands down his back all the way to his ass and back again. "Very good. Maybe it's just postcoital euphoria, but right now I feel like I can handle what's happening, and what has to happen. It's going to be all right because it has to be."

He said nothing for a moment, then trailed a finger over her shoulder. "I rehired Suicide Joe."

"You… Hmm."

"Phin's going to be pissed, but it's just part-time. A few hours a week. He's not so crazy, and he's getting therapy." Duncan lifted his head, looked down at her. "You save lives, Phoebe-you saved his.

That's what you do. How many people can say that? That saving lives is what they do. Yeah, it's going to be all right."

"I don't know if I want to save his. Walken's. I've never felt that way before, as if-even for a moment-I wouldn't regret someone's death.

All these years, I've never drawn my weapon on anyone. I've never discharged it outside the range. But I know I could, I know I wouldn't hesitate, if I walked out the door and he was there. It doesn't even weigh on me, Duncan, the knowing that."

"Why should it?"

"Because it's not what I do. All those years ago, when Reuben had us, I thought if I could get a knife from the kitchen, or somehow get the gun away, I'd hurt him. Kill him if I could, for what he was doing to us. Keeping us scared and trapped, that blood on Mama's face, and the fear on Carter's. That's the only other time in my life I felt like this. But when it was over, when it was done, I was so relieved he wasn't dead. He'd go to prison, and that was good, that was just fine, but he wasn't dead. No one died in that house. I don't know, when this is over, if I'll feel the same."

"I haven't picked a fight in… well, that little scuffle with Jake's stupid cousin doesn't count, so in fifteen years or so. Haven't cracked my fist into anyone's face or gotten that rush of whipping someone good and proper. But if I had the chance, if I could get my hands on Walken, I'd beat him bloody. And when he was done, his eyes rolling back, I'd beat him some more.

"It's not what I do, Phoebe, but knowing I would doesn't weigh on me, either."

She stared at him because however calm and easy his tone, she knew he meant it. He had that in him. "Well. Well. We're just a couple of violent individuals, aren't we?"

"Somewhere in there. The difference is we don't set out to be. Tell you what, if you get the chance, you draw on him, and you hold the gun on him till I get there. I'll beat hell out of him, and when he's down, you can give him a couple of good kicks."