Beverly Barton - This Side of Heaven

She turned to face him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes overly bright. "My husband was stabbed to death." She took in a deep breath, then let out a long sigh, willing herself not to cry.

So, Nate thought, she hates my knives because some bas­tard used one to kill her husband. He was finding out just how different he and Cynthia Porter really were—oppo-sites in every way. The more she found out about him, the more she was bound to dislike him. "I'm sorry about your husband."

"I apologize for overreacting." She forced herself to glance around the room. Knives, swords, sabers and dag­gers filled her line of vision.

"I've been collecting knives all my life. I'll bet you col­lect something. Most people do." He wanted to make her understand that his knife collection wasn't some deadly monster any more than he was. He wanted her to see past the superficial, past the obvious, for her to take a chance and reach his soul. He didn't know why it was so important that this woman accept him. He just knew that it was.

"I collect records from the fifties. I've got an extensive collection, and I've put most on cassette tapes." Her body's outward trembling subsided, but tremors still churned in her stomach. She knew he was trying to help her relax and ad­just to the unfamiliarity of her surroundings. Somewhere beneath all that burly macho hardness, a touch of compas­sion existed in him.

He studied her intently, memorizing every line of her smooth, flawless face, every golden glimmer in her rich brown eyes.

He turned from her, uncertain what to say or do. How could he make a gentle woman understand the brutal life he'd led? How could he ask her to give his bitter existence her sweetness, to turn his anger into joy, to accept the man he was? He couldn't, even if he wanted to. If she was a part of his life, Ryker would find out and use her against him. Nate Hodges had no weaknesses. And God only knew he didn't need any now.

Seeing such an anguished look of desperation cross his face broke Cyn's heart. She didn't want to hurt him, for on some instinctive level, she knew he had already been hurt enough. What he needed, what he wanted, what his heart craved, was solace, compassion and... love. She had never turned from a fellow human being in need. But was it her motherly instinct that longed to comfort Nate Hodges, or her womanly instinct that longed to know him and care for him? She wasn't certain. All she knew was that, despite her better judgment, she couldn't desert this man.

Cyn reached out and placed her hand on his arm. He flinched. She squeezed his hard, smooth flesh. "I want to thank you for last night... for stepping in and... and sub­duing Lazarus Jones."

"I thought you were angry because I scared off your runaway boys." Nate looked down to where her small hand gripped his arm. He liked her touch—strong, yet gentle.

"I never should have gone to the Brazen Hussy. I acted irresponsibly." She squeezed his arm again, then released it. Reaching out, she retrieved her coffee mug from the trunk. "I wanted to help Bobby... and Casey, too. I did what I thought Evan would have done."

"Evan?"

"My husband." She held the mug in both hands, en­twining her fingers.

"What happened to him?" Nate felt a twinge of some­thing alien, an emotion he'd never known. It was foolish, but he couldn't help but think of Cyn's dead husband as a rival.

Cyn took several quick sips of coffee, thankful that it was still relatively hot. "Evan was a minister. After our mar­riage, he asked the church to assign him to Tomorrow House. The place had just opened, and we both knew we could make a contribution."

"Your husband was a minister?" Nate hadn't even real­ized he'd spoken the words aloud until he saw her nod her head. Nate wondered how he, a man waiting to kill or be killed, could compete with the memory of a saint?

"Evan was devoted to the kids, to trying to help them. It was his whole life, and it became mine, too." She didn't want to admit to Nate that there had been times when she had, selfishly, envied those kids to whom her husband had given all his time and most of his love. "Four years ago, a young boy named Darren Kilbrew came to us. He was a drug addict."

Nate saw the torment in her eyes, could hear her quick­ened breathing. "If this is too painful—"

"I thought I had come to terms with what happened. I...I thought..."

"You don't have to tell me."

"Perhaps if I tell you, you'll understand why I feel the way I do."

Nate nodded his head, his gaze attentive, never once leaving her face.

"Darren stabbed Evan to death, then robbed him." Cyn bit her bottom lip, tightened her hold on her mug and turned to face Nate. "The last thing Evan said to me before he died was that he wanted me to continue his work at Tomorrow House."

Taking her mug from her, Nate placed it back on top of the trunk. He put his arms around her and pulled her into his embrace, the action as natural to him as breathing. As if he'd done it countless times.

She went to him, allowed him to enfold her within the strength of his big body. It felt so right, as if the place was familiar, as if he'd held and comforted her often.

Cyn could never remember feeling so safe, so protected. Relaxing against him, she absorbed his strength, somehow knowing that he understood how desperately she needed him. She waited for the tears, but they didn't come. Had she given all there was to give to Evan's memory? she won­dered. Had the pain finally subsided enough where she could truly accept his death and the death of his killer?

"Darren, the boy who killed Evan, eluded the police and wasn't captured until last year," she told Nate, still safe within his arms. "He... he was killed in jail. By... by an­other inmate. Stabbed to death." The last words escaped her lips on a tortured sigh.

Nate hugged her to him, feeling fiercely protective, prim­itively possessive. He stroked her hair, letting his fingers lace through the long blond strands as he loosened the bun. "Scream if you want to, rant and rave and cry at the injus­tice. You don't have to be strong right now. Nothing's go­ing to hurt you. I'm here. I'll take care of you."

The sobs that clogged her throat, almost choking her, erupted then, and tears filled her eyes. And for the first time since she'd been a small child, Cyn accepted comfort and strength from another, instead of giving it. They sat there on the tan leather sofa in Nate's brutally male den while Cyn cleansed her heart of a pain she'd been unable to wash away with four years of crying. Gradually, her breathing re­turned to normal, her ragged little cries silenced. She eased out of his arms, not allowing herself to look at him. If she saw his eyes, she would be lost—forever.

Wiping the remnants of moisture from her eyes and cheeks with the tips of her fingers, Cyn tried to smile. "You must think I'm a real crybaby. I'm usually in much better control."

"Maybe you keep too tight a control over your emo­tions," he said, reaching out to take her chin in his big hand.

"Normally, I'm a tower of strength." Even when he tilted her face upward, she refused to look at him, cutting her eyes sideways, glancing over to the windows.

"Cyn?" He wanted her to look at him so that he could see what she was thinking. Her brown eyes were like windows to her soul, so expressive, so transparent.

She jerked away from him, stood up and began pacing around the room. "I haven't been down here to the cottage since last summer. I just came for a minivacation. I'll prob­ably be returning to my apartment in Jacksonville in an­other week or so."

"Were you running away? Is that why you came to Sweet Haven?" he asked, then cursed himself.

Why was he taunting her about running away when that was the very thing he wanted her to do? He wanted her to run back to Jacksonville. And the sooner, the better. He didn't need the complications she could create in his life. If he had to worry about her safety, he wouldn't be as alert to protecting himself, and Ryker would use any advantage he could to win the upcoming battle.