Chapter 7

“Where is your home?” Julie asked, after McCoy’s friend Jim Preston had taken them from the coffee shop, where she and McCoy had hot chocolate, to McCoy’s car. She’d been somewhat surprised to discover that Jim’s coffee shop was in the central Harpers Ferry area, one of the quaint and rustic eateries that catered to tourists.

She knew Jim Preston herself, if only casually. Like her and McCoy, Preston was a native of the area. He was a handsome man of medium height and build with dark sandy hair and dimples when he smiled.

Julie liked Jim and his two teenage children, and she was impressed with the warmth he and McCoy seemed to share. They were very old friends.

“I wonder why you and I never met before,” Julie mused out loud, not realizing that she hadn’t waited for an answer to her first question.

McCoy grinned, casting her a quick glance. “Well, Madam Curiosity, I imagine that the answers are the same to both questions. My mountain is on the Maryland side of the region.”

She arched a brow. They had dropped his sister off near Charlestown on Sunday, and that was West Virginia, near the sight where Old John Brown had been hanged.

“My sister’s home is new, remember. I still have the old family home in the hills, Miss Hatfield.”

“Oh,” she said, smiling. And then she waited, intrigued.

“Actually, I hadn’t opened it up in years,” he said softly. “My sister and Jim had painters in and got the place cleaned up when they heard that I was coming in from Washington. I hadn’t thought I wanted to go back. But I’ve loved it since I’ve been here.”

“Are your folks—gone?” Julie asked.

He smiled. “Gone to St. Petersburg. I bought this house from them when they moved. They didn’t want to keep it, but they didn’t want to let it out of the family, and at one time …” His voice drifted for a moment.

“At one time?” Julie persisted.

He shrugged. “It’s a big place. Too big for them to keep up anymore. They’ve had it with ice and snow, and the only thing they say they really miss are the kids. That’s not really true, though. They come back every year. Can’t keep old mountaineers away from the mountains once it really turns to spring and summer.”

“That’s nice,” Julie murmured. He hadn’t said what he had been about to say.

He closed off frequently, she realized. There was something there that he didn’t talk about. Or something that he didn’t trust her enough to talk about yet.

She made a mental note to call his sister and see if they couldn’t meet for lunch one afternoon. She had the feeling that McCoy’s sister might be willing to tell her lots of things she wanted to know.

He turned up one of the old dirt mountain trails and the Lincoln began to climb in earnest. They moved through a deep forest area that was richly and heavily treed, and then the clearing with the house on it seemed to burst out in front of them.

It was stunning. Made of a rich dark wood that had been kept to natural shades, the house was as old or older than Julie’s own family home, built big and broad, with wide, embracing porches. Four gables adorned the upstairs windows, while the back porch, enclosed by glass, seemed to jut over the mountain peak and look down on the beauty of the valley.

“Wow!” Julie said softly. She looked at McCoy. “This is some family home.”

He shrugged. “My great-grandfather was a senator from the region, a man with a great dynasty in mind. Life is fickle, though. He had only one son, and that one son had only one son, my dad.”

“Poor man,” Julie said.

“He was probably the one who started the feud with the Hatfields,” McCoy said lightly. “I hear that he was a very cantankerous old man. Maybe he started a feud with my great-grandmother, too. That would explain things.”

“Was there really a feud, do you think?”

“Well, we seem proof of that, don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” Julie said, but she was still smiling.

“I love the house, though. I always have. It was a great place to grow up. Come on in.”

Julie’s smile deepened and she hurried out of the car and ran up the steps to the house. McCoy opened the front door, and they entered a great room with naked oak beams. It was full of overstuffed furniture and bookshelves, a warm, delightful and inviting room.

“This is the best,” McCoy advised her, lifting a hand to indicate that she should pass through an arched opening to the back of the house.

Here was the porch that extended over the back. At one end of it was a massive fireplace that stretched from wall to wall. Before it was a large, thick fur rug, and just beyond the rug, close to where a blaze would flame, was a setting of furniture, an older wicker sofa and matching chairs and occasional tables. A comforter had been tossed over the back of the sofa.

At the other end was a very modern entertainment center. There was a table and chairs set out, and Julie quickly imagined that this was where McCoy came mornings.

Then she glanced at the thick fur rug and the comforter again, and she smiled. This was his favorite room. It was where he came to sleep. It wasn’t because of the fireplace, it was because of the view of the sloping, forested fall to the valley deep below. A bubbling stream could be seen rushing down the mountain. The trees and bushes waved softly in the spring breeze, so deeply green, alive in shades of forest and kelly and the lightest of limes.

Julie inhaled softly and walked across the room to better see the view. McCoy stepped past her and slid open one of the windows. The soft, cool mountain breeze swept in around her. It touched her cheeks. It gently ruffled her hair.

“Like it?”

“I love it.”

“Want something? Coffee, wine, water, anything? How about an Irish coffee? I think I have a can of whipped spray stuff in the fridge, I had the kids up here last night.”

Julie smiled, feeling him beside her, but still stared at the view. “Irish coffee with whipped spray stuff sounds great.”

“Don’t make fun of my culinary talents,” he warned her sternly.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. You make wonderful coffee,” she assured him as he left for the kitchen.

His view was even more spectacular than her own. She certainly didn’t want to tell a McCoy that his mountain was better than hers, but it was an awfully pretty mountain.

Night was coming now. Here, up high and almost in the clouds, it came very evidently, and with an even greater array of color. She could still see the sun in the western sky, a brilliant orange, emitting streaks of that same shade across the sky. In places, the orange was tempered by a softer yellow, and down by the trees there seemed to be a darkening frame of shadows in shades of violet and purple.

He came gently into the room. She didn’t so much hear him come as she sensed him. But she knew that he was with her.

She still looked out the window, looking at the extravagant colors, the sheer richness of spring. She felt the breeze. It moved through her hair, caressing her throat and her neck, touching her cheeks as gently as the soft movement of invisible fingers.

He was with her. She still hadn’t heard his movement. She just knew. And she knew the scent of him. Subtle, masculine.

A slow, burning warmth began to fill her. Just because he was near.

Because he would touch her.

She knew the touch, and she knew the tenderness. She knew him, knew the man and knew things about him that made her love him. She didn’t need to see him to know the contours of his face, the deep sandy shade of his hair, the compelling steel and silver of his eyes. She didn’t need to see him to know the generous fullness of his mouth, the sensuality.

She knew all the hues within his heart and soul and mind, and those colors were all beautiful, and part of the warmth that touched her.

He could move so silently …

He would be coming across the room to her.

Yes, now.

A smile curved her lip.

He was coming closer and closer. Moving with long strides but silent grace. She felt him, and felt cocooned in the special warmth that he brought, felt a supreme sense of well-being come over her.

He was going to make love to her. Now. Prove that he knew exactly how to warm her.

He stood behind her and swept the fall of her hair from her neck, and she felt the wet, hot caress of his lips against her nape.

The pleasure was startling. So startling. Hot tremors swept instantly along her spine. Danced there. Her knees grew weak as swift-flowing desire came cascading into the depths of her being.

He held her hair, and his kiss skimmed over her shoulder. As he kissed her, he lifted the shoulder of her T-shirt. The soft knit slid from her shoulders. It fell to the floor in a pool of lilac. The feel as it left her flesh was so sensual. Soft, warm, exquisite, leaving her skin bared to his kiss.

The straps of her suit fell from her shoulders. The dampness of it peeled from her body, leaving more skin bared. Sensitive. Waiting.

She felt his hands on the snap of her shorts. She heard the long rasp of the zipper. The flutter of fabric as they fell. Then the coolness of her still-wet suit slid against her, landing discarded at her feet.

His arms encircled her. She could feel the strength of his naked chest as he pulled her against him. He still wore his cutoffs.

She could feel the roughness of the fabric against her tender skin. Even that touch was sensual.

His whisper touched her ear. The words, each breath of air, brought aching new sensation. “You are … exquisite. You do things to me that I hadn’t imagined could be done …”

A smile curved her lips. She turned in the circle of his arms.

She stared up into his eyes and felt the driving passion in their silver depths.

And then he kissed her.

And she felt an explosion deep within her. She felt the hungry pressure of his lips, forming over her own, firmly, demandingly, causing them to part for the exotic presence of his tongue.

He’d kissed her before …

Never quite like this.

And when his lips left her mouth, they touched her throat. Touched the length of it. The soft, slow, sensual stroke of his tongue just brushing her flesh. With ripples of silken, liquid fire. She could see his hands, broad, so darkly tanned, upon the paleness of her skin. His fingers were long, handsomely tapered, callused, but with neatly clipped nails. Masculine hands. Hands that touched with an exciting expertise. Fingers that stroked with confidence and pleasure.

She allowed her head to fall back, her eyes to close. The sensations to surround her.

The breeze … it was so cool against her naked body. So soft. So unerringly sensual. Perhaps because her body was so hot. Growing fevered. But the air … it touched her where his kiss left off, and both fire and ice seemed to come to her and dance through her.

She spun in his arms. It was no longer daytime. Shadows were falling, and the breeze was growing cooler.

And his kiss went lower.

And where his lips touched her, she burned.

And where his lips had lingered earlier, the cool air stroked her with a sensuality all its own.

And still his kiss lowered. And lowered until he teased the base of her spine. And his hand caressed her naked buttocks and hips, and she was turning in his arms.

Her hand rested on his head, her breath quickened, and caught, and quickened again. She cried out, amazed at the tempest that rose within her, startled by the sheer sensual pleasure that ripped through her.

She cried out again, and again, and then discovered that she was sinking, sinking into his arms …

Night had come. The moon remained in the sky, but she could not see clearly.

Darkness was falling over the mountains. She reached out and touched his face, stroked the contours of his cheek. She pressed her lips against his, then against his forehead, then against each cheek. She groaned softly, kissing his throat, just teasing it with the barest brush of her teeth.

It was incredible to touch him. She was in his arms, and she was barely aware that they moved. Then they were sinking once again, down, deep, deep down into the fur before the fireplace.

She touched him then, again and again. Touched him, knowing the living warmth and fire of him. Feeling the ripple of muscle in his chest. Feeling his hands. Feeling the pulse of his body. Feeling … him.

It was so good to be with him. Life, feeling, sensation, all were so wonderfully vivid.

In the shadows he rose above her for a moment. Once again, she found that even sound could be scintillating as the quick rasp of his zipper tore against the silence of the darkened night.

She stretched out her arms, and he came down with her. He came down silently, gracefully. He braced himself over her, and then she cried out softly, wanting him so badly.

And finally having him.

She could feel him entering her …

The fur touched her back. She felt the softness, and the roughness. Her hands splayed over his chest, and she felt the rigor of his muscle, the exciting, slick feel of his bronze chest. In the near darkness, she could see his eyes, nearly a pure silver now, all sizzle and passion.

She could feel …

Movement. Slow, sure, then subtle, the pace quickening. Each stroke, faster, the rhythm growing. The wonder inside of her growing as his body touched hers, and touched it … inside and out.

She watched his eyes. Watched his tension, and watched his smile.

His lips touched down on hers. Took them hungrily, passionately, while his body filled hers.

She closed her eyes, but even in the darkness it seemed that stars suddenly burst in the middle of the heavens, like the births of a thousand suns. She quivered like a bow strung too tight, and then she catapulted into a sweet recess where wonder and magic all seemed to crash down upon her.

His arms were suddenly laced around her, tight. Great shudders racked the whole of his body, and the length of him came against her tautly. Then his arms eased, and he whispered something erotic in her ear and fell by her side. He lay there a second before sweeping her into his arms, his kiss brushing her forehead.

Silently, she curled against him. She wasn’t going home. Not tonight. They both knew it. She let her fingers play over the crisp hairs on his chest. A wonderful warmth came slowly sweeping over her again. It was so damned good to lie with him. There was such a sense of comfort and security here.

“Hey,” he said softly.

“Hmm?”

“You’re falling asleep.”

“Am I? I’m just so comfortable.”

“What about the coffee?”

“Um,” she murmured. She didn’t want any coffee. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t even want McCoy talking.

She felt too relaxed, too happy. And so wonderfully drowsy.

She didn’t want to feud.

Neither did McCoy, it seemed. He wasn’t moving.

“Will we burn the house down if we don’t go for the coffee?” she whispered.

“No. It has an automatic turnoff.”

“Good,” Julie breathed softly. She closed her eyes. It had been a long day. Tubing … and now.

She must have drifted off to sleep, because she was quickly dreaming.

And it was so strange, for in her dream, she saw all that had just been. She saw herself coming into McCoy’s house. She saw the glassed-in porch and the blue-green beauty of the mountains beyond.

She saw him open the window, and saw herself lift her face to the breeze.

And then she realized that the reality that had just passed had been her dream before. She had known that McCoy was her dream lover …

And now the lovemaking in the dream had come to pass …

Darkness seemed suddenly to descend, and with it a sense of absolute and acute terror.

Yes, the time had come.

He was out there.

The kidnapper. The murderer.

He was staring at the house. Staring, as if he could see her. As if he watched her, with McCoy.

As if he knew …

Julie awoke abruptly, a scream tearing from her lips.

He could be out there. Anywhere. Close. He could be lurking in the darkness. He could be any one of the shadows.

“Julie!”

She didn’t hear McCoy call her name. She screamed again, shaking furiously, blinded by the darkness, by her fear.

“Julie!” He called her name again, pulling her into his arms, shaking her.

She didn’t recognize him, McCoy thought at first. She stared straight at him, but she didn’t see him. He shook her again, gently, then more fiercely. “Julie—”

“He’s out there!” she cried.

“Julie, you were dreaming.”

“No, no!” She fought his hold, trying to pull away from him. “You don’t understand. He’s out there! He’s watching us, he knows us!”

“Julie, it’s all right—”

“You don’t believe me!” she cried frantically.

What was he supposed to believe? McCoy wondered. Her eyes were frantic. Wide, gleaming, beautiful—but frantic. He couldn’t doubt the fear within them. Nor the quivering that tore at her body.

“Julie, Julie, it’s all right. I’m with you.” He pulled her into his arms. She was still trembling. No, shaking. Hard. He rocked with her.

A sharp unease snaked its way up his spine. She believed. No matter what, he knew that she believed. And try as he might to deny her, the creeping feeling sinking into his system seemed to say that what she told him was true.

She did know things. Julie Hatfield knew things. She had seen the black snake …

No, God! I do not believe in psychics! I believed once, I was willing to hope and pray and believe, and look what happened! I will not believe. I will never believe again.

But I love her, he thought.

And once I said I would never love again …

“He’s there!” she cried more softly, her face buried against him. “The man with the scar on his shoulder.”

McCoy was suddenly convinced that they were being watched.

She moaned softly. He sifted his fingers through the beautiful, tousled silkiness of her hair. It was like spun gold in the night.

“Julie, I’m with you. I won’t let anything happen to you,” he promised her.

She was silent. He kissed her forehead, then he rose. She started as he released her, swallowing hard, afraid for him to leave her in the darkness.

“It’s all right!” he promised.

His cutoffs had dried and he slipped them on, then found the light switch. Bright light dazzled throughout the porch.

“The light!” Julie cried.

“Julie, no one can see in this room—not unless they are hovering outside in a helicopter. Look, sweetheart, you can see for yourself.”

She had pulled the comforter to her chest. Wide-eyed, incredibly feminine and vulnerable with her pool of pale hair a fascinating mane around her, she turned as he directed her. And she knew that he was right. The porch did jut out to the edge of the mountain. It was a totally private retreat.

No one could see in.

But still …

“McCoy,” she said softly, moistening her lips with her tongue, “he was out there. He was close. Watching. I know that he was watching the house.”

He didn’t say anything, but looked at his toes for a moment.

“How about that Irish coffee now? It’s decaf, so we won’t be up the rest of the night because of it. And we’re not driving anywhere for awhile, so I can pile it high with Irish whiskey.”

She almost smiled. “And add that whipped stuff, too.”

He walked across the room to a closet and found her one of his terry robes. He tossed it to her. “The fit might be a bit large, but it will do in a pinch.”

She slipped it on. The fit was huge, but she seemed warm and happier.

In the kitchen, they heated the coffee. Julie poured the coffee into cups, and McCoy added the whiskey.

As he had promised, he was generous. He was certain, though, that she was going to need help going back to sleep.

But even as they worked in the kitchen, he could see that she was beginning to relax again. He suggested raisin toast, and she agreed, glad to be doing something.

Their food all prepared, he suggested they take it to the porch. She tensed for a moment, then nodded and followed him as he carried the coffee and toast on a tray to the porch.

“Maybe there’s a good movie on cable,” he said, setting down the food tray and reaching for the remote control.

He sat cross-legged beside her before turning on the TV and cable box and flicking through the channels.

“You’re going awfully fast!” she said with a laugh. “How are you going to know if you find something you want to see?”

“Oh, I always know what I want right away,” he told her.

She smiled. He didn’t try to pretend anymore. He took her into his arms.

“Are you okay now?”

She nodded. Then she hesitated. “He’s gone.”

“What?”

Her lower lip trembled just a little. “He’s gone now. He was here, but he’s gone now.”

The feeling of unease went snaking through McCoy again.

Damned if he didn’t believe her …

No. She couldn’t really know things like that.

But Julie did.

Where others had failed …

He didn’t want to think about it. He picked up his coffee cup with the whipped cream piled high. He touched it to hers. “Julie, I’m here. I’m with you.”

“I know,” she said. She leaned against him. He hadn’t found a movie he wanted to see, so they watched an I Love Lucy rerun, an exceptionally funny one.

When they had finished the coffee and the toast, she crawled sweetly into his arms, and he made love to her again.

Afterward, he held her, smoothing her hair while she slept. No dreams marred her sleep again.

But hell, the night was shot for him.

With a sigh, he sat up and watched her. After awhile, he lay down and simply held her.

It was a long night.

In the morning, he drove her to her house before reporting in to the office.

He sat at Patty’s desk, his head held morosely between his hands.

He had no leads. No damned leads at all.

“McCoy!”

He looked up. Patty gave him a friendly freckle-faced smile from over by Joe Silver’s desk. She held Joe’s phone receiver in her hands.

“Yeah?”

“A call for you.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know.”

McCoy pushed the blinking button on the phone and picked up the receiver.

“McCoy here.”

“Is that you, McCoy?”

The voice was a raspy one. Faint, almost like a whisper. It sent chills up his spine, just like nails against a blackboard.

“I just said my name.” He was careful to be irritable and slow.

“She’s a real looker, McCoy.”

“Who are you, and what are you talking about?”

“You took her home with you last night, McCoy. And she stayed. All night.”

The chills turned brutally icy. They stole his breath while fear and fury streaked through him.

“Who the hell are you—”

“Oh, no. I can’t tell you that.”

McCoy motioned wildly to Patty to get a trace going on the call. “Well, what can you tell me at the moment?”

Soft, husky, rasping laughter came his way. His fingers tightened around the receiver.

“You’re not going to trace me, McCoy. We’ll talk later.”

“Wait! When? I don’t know who—”

“Ah, but I know who you are. You kept my money, McCoy. Yes, I know you well. And I know her.”

“What the hell—”

The phone clicked dead.

He stared across the room at Patty. She shook her head sadly.

Not enough time for a trace.

She had known! Julie had known!

Someone had been watching them on that mountaintop!