Against The Night Part 39

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Carla hissed. "I hate you! I regret the day I ever let you into my bed!"

Amy flashed him a look.

Johnnie shook his head. "It was a long time ago."

The sound of sirens ended any further discussion, saving him at least for the moment.

Ellie strolled toward them. "I remembered who she was. I saw her go inside your house. Guess your door wasn't locked."

Carla struggled against the cuffs.

"I came over to see what she was up to, and when I looked through the window, I saw her with the gun pointed at you. I had my cell so I dialed 9-1-1, but I knew they wouldn't get here fast enough. I decided to see if I could distract her."

"You were great," Amy said.

As the sirens drew near, Johnnie dragged Carla over and propped her against the wall.

"She must have come up the hill the way Henley did," Ellie said. "Guess it's time I put in that alarm."

"Past time," Johnnie said.

"I'd better go open the gate so they can get in." As she walked toward the door, Johnnie stopped her, leaned over and kissed her cheek. "I guess that keeping an eye on things works both ways. Thanks, Ellie."

"My pleasure." She paused in front of Amy, winked and patted her cheek.

A few minutes later, the police were there, black-and-white units roaring up, uniforms rus.h.i.+ng into the house. They headed straight for Carla, dragged her to her feet.

"There was an APB out on her," a heavyset cop explained. "Whoever called it in mentioned her name so we pretty much knew what was going down." One on each side, the cops hauled Carla out the door.

Kent Wheeler came in behind them. "Heard the call come through, hoped like h.e.l.l you'd be okay. You'll be happy to know Lansky's also been arrested. So has Turner."

Johnnie looked over at Amy. Her face was pale but she seemed oddly calm. He thought of how Carla had come here to kill them and his stomach knotted. "Could have gone the other way."

Wheeler followed his gaze to Amy. "I don't think so. I think you'd have done whatever it took to keep your lady safe." Wheeler smiled, showing the gap between his teeth. "The good news is we've got enough to put them all away for a very long time. We can use Rachael's testimony, of course, but the truth is we've got plenty of evidence without it. As soon as Lansky and Turner realized what was happening, they turned on each other like rabid dogs. And they both rolled over on Meeks."

Johnnie drew Amy against his side. "It's over, baby. Rachael's safe and now..." He forced himself to say it. "Now you can go home."

Amy turned into his arms and just hung on.

Thirty-Five.

Amy was exhausted. The events of the day had drained her. That, and knowing she would be leaving Johnnie.

The police were gone. Ellie was back in her house. It was dark and late and they were finally alone. Standing next to Johnnie in front of the windows in the living room, she stared at the tiny specks of glittering light that seemed to go on forever.

"You okay?"

She just nodded. She wasn't okay at all, which Johnnie seemed to know. His dark eyes found hers and his hands slid into her hair. Tilting her head back, he kissed her long and deep. She could feel the desire pumping through him, feel his hunger, and an answering hunger swept through her.

"You have any idea how much I want you?" He kissed her again, deep, taking kisses, then softly, almost reverently. Lifting her into his arms, he carried her out of the living room, down the hall to his bedroom, and set her on her feet.

"It seems like forever since I've had you. G.o.d, I ache with wanting you."

Amy thought how good it always was between them. She thought of what it would be like when he was gone from her life, and closed her eyes so he wouldn't see how close she was to tears. "Johnnie..."

He kissed her softly, slowly, a kiss that went on and on. Her tongue tangled with his and her body heated, turned soft and liquid.

He took his time undressing her, removing each piece of clothing, kissing the places he bared. Amy reached up and pulled his black T-s.h.i.+rt over his head, then reached for his belt buckle and slid down his zipper. He helped her undress him, didn't try to hurry her as she ran her hands over all his beautiful muscles.

His body was as hard as granite, sculpted in all the right places, his shoulders wide and his chest banded with muscle. She bent and brushed her lips over a flat copper nipple, ran her tongue around the rim and a shudder rolled through him.

Bending his dark head, he took her breast into his mouth and suckled deeply, the sweet pull tugging low in her belly. He ministered to the other breast, returned his attention to her mouth for a slow, deep kiss, lifted her and settled her on the bed, then followed her down.

The thick down comforter felt cool against her bare skin while his body burned wherever they touched. His erection, hard and pulsing, pressed like a hot iron against her, letting her know how much he wanted her, promising how good it would be.

Wet, hot kisses followed. Deep drugging kisses that had her squirming beneath him.

"Johnnie...please. I need you so much."

"Not yet. I'm not hurrying, baby...not tonight." And the gruffness in his voice told her why.

Their time together was over. Tomorrow, the next day. It wouldn't be long now. He was saying goodbye to her tonight, making memories for both of them.

Her throat closed up. She loved him so much.

His mouth moved over her skin, trailing hot, moist kisses along her neck and shoulders. He took her b.r.e.a.s.t.s again, slowly savored each one, tugged on the diamond hard tips. Moving lower, he laved her navel, settled himself between her legs and made love to her with his mouth and tongue.

Her body pulled taut and a fierce climax shook her, sucked her deeply under. She surfaced sometime later when he started kissing her again, began to ease himself inside. They had never made love this way, with so much emotion seething between them. Johnnie took her with a quiet desperation Amy felt clear to her soul.

She loved this man, loved him in a way she would never love another. And she believed he loved her.

It didn't change things. From the start, it was never meant to be, not for a schoolteacher and a hard man like Johnnie.

She felt him moving inside her, wrapped her arms around his powerful neck and hung on, loving the feel of his heavy weight on top of her, his hardness filling her so completely. She didn't want to leave him, knew that if he asked her to stay she would.

But Johnnie would never do that and she would never press herself on him, force him into a life he didn't want.

She loved him too much for that.

So she blocked her mind to the emptiness ahead and let her body respond to him as it always did, let him carry her higher and higher, until she burst into the sunlight, tasted the pleasure, the sweetness. An instant later, she felt his hard body stiffen as he followed her to release.

Amy clung to him as they spiraled down and hoped he wouldn't see the tears in her eyes she worked so hard to hide.

A week pa.s.sed. A hectic week that brought Rachael and her mother back to Ellie Stiles's house, where Amy was now also staying. After the night she'd spent with Johnnie-s.e.xually amazing but emotionally heartbreaking-she needed some time to herself, time to prepare for the painful separation ahead.

Johnnie must have felt the same.

He didn't argue when she told him she was moving back into Ellie's with her mother and sister until it was time for them to leave. He just nodded and said it was probably for the best.

It was time to go home. She and her mother were leaving, but both of them were worried about Rachael.

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" her mother had asked as they sat in Ellie's kitchen, drinking mugs of chamomile tea. "You have a lot to face, a lot to get through in the next few months. If you need me to stay you know I will."

Rachael leaned over and hugged her. "I'm staying in Ellie's guest wing-what could be nicer than that? I'm seeing a counselor to help me deal with everything that's happened. Mr. Bixler thinks he may have some TV work for me, and Rick...Rick is here."

As for the last, Rick Vega was clearly in love with Rachael.

Though her sister wasn't ready for a relations.h.i.+p, Amy had a feeling Rachael was at least half in love with the handsome detective who had been there when she had needed him so badly.

Yesterday, Ellie had loaned Amy her car so she and Rachael could go down to the Kitty Cat Club for what turned out to be a surprisingly tearful goodbye.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Babs said, hugging Rachael hard, her cheeks wet and glistening. Honeybee had thanked Rachael and Amy for helping with little Jimmy, and Rachael had promised to visit him as often as she could.

Tate Watters had walked them back to the car. "I'm going to miss you both." Leaning over, he kissed Rachael's forehead. "Whatever you end up doing, I know you'll do great. Linda and I wish you the very best."

"Thanks, Tate."

He looked over at Amy. "So you're heading back to Michigan."

She nodded. "Mom and I are flying out in the morning."

"What about you and Johnnie? The way he feels about you, I can't believe he's letting you walk away."

Amy's heart twisted. She forced herself to smile. "It was just a fling for both of us."

Tate scoffed. "Could have fooled me," he said, clearly not believing it. But Amy had known how the relations.h.i.+p would end the first time she had seen John Riggs-sitting in the back of the Kitty Cat Club, looking like a hungry lion who wanted to eat her up.

And so the week pa.s.sed. She and her mother were packed and ready to leave in the morning. She hadn't seen Johnnie in days, had tried not to listen for the sound of his Harley roaring up the drive. She tried not to wish he would come for her, carry her off and never let her go. She tried not to ache for him.

How much worse would it be, she thought, when he was thousands of miles away instead of right next door?

Seated in the chaise lounge out on the deck, the floppy straw hat she had bought in Belize perched on her head to keep out the sun, Amy tried to block him from her mind. She had to get over him, had to look toward the future. It was a summer fling, nothing more. It had to be.

Still her heart ached with the need to see him, to feel his arms around her. But Johnnie was a loner, a man who needed no one and would never allow that to change.

She wiped away a stray tear and looked up as her mother approached.

"h.e.l.lo, sweetheart. Can we talk a minute?"

Amy pasted on a smile. "Sure, Mom."

In a pair of navy shorts and a red knit top, her mother sat down in the chaise next to hers.

"So...are you looking forward to going back home? You've got a good job waiting for you. And I'm sure you've missed your friends."

Amy glanced away. "It'll be nice to see them again."

"But it would be far nicer if you could stay right here in Los Angeles with Johnnie. Isn't that right, honey? Isn't that what you're thinking?"

Her throat tightened. "I love him. That hasn't changed. But we both know it wouldn't work."

Her mother reached over and caught her hand. "That's what I thought, too...in the beginning. But after seeing the two of you together, after knowing what the two of you have faced together, I don't see it that way anymore."

"Why not?"

"From the day you met John Riggs, you've stood shoulder-to-shoulder with that man. You convinced him to help you find your sister. You went all the way to Belize to bring her home. You carried your own weight with the toughest sort of men, and I would bet that you won their respect. I know you think you'd be a liability to Johnnie, that you would somehow be in his way. But that just isn't true. John Riggs would be the luckiest man on earth to have you by his side. And I think you should tell him so."

Fighting to hold back tears, Amy shook her head. "I couldn't, Mom. He's never even said he loves me."

"I've seen the way he looks at you. That man would lay down his life for you. He loves you. I know it." Her mother pressed a fist over her heart. "I know it right here."

Amy wiped a tear from her cheek. "What if you're wrong? What if that isn't the way he feels about me at all?"

"Then you'll finally know the truth, and you'll deal with it." Hannah stood up, and Amy stood and went into her arms. "I tried to stop your sister from doing what was right for her. I won't do that to you. Think about what I've said."

Amy nodded. She'd think about it. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about Johnnie Riggs since she had seen him in the back of the Kitty Cat Club.

Johnnie heard a knock at his door. A key grated in the lock and the door swung open. Ellie. He looked up from where he sat on the sofa staring out the windows, seeing nothing but the haze that hung over the city like the pall hanging over his heart.

Sitting there with a beer in his hand he hadn't even started to drink.

"So here you are, home at last." Ellie walked toward him, sat down in the chair beside the sofa.

"I had some work to do in my office."

"Really? I've heard that Harley of yours racing off early every morning. You've been staying out half the night and from the looks of you, you aren't getting any sleep."

He rubbed the three-day growth of beard along his jaw. "So I've been busy."

"Rubbish. You've been pining away, running around on your Harley trying to escape your own foolish self, hanging out in the bars so you don't have to think about the woman next door."

"Fine, if that's what you want to believe."

"Oh, that's what I believe, all right. I think you're crazy in love with Amy and too d.a.m.n stubborn to do anything about it."

He sat up a little straighter, raked a hand through his disheveled hair. "I know you're trying to help, Ellie, but the truth is it wouldn't work out. Both of us knew that from the start."

Ellie stiffened. She had a way of looking down her nose at him though she was shorter than he was. "Why ever not? In case you haven't noticed, that woman is perfect for you. She marched through the jungle with you and your soldier buddies, didn't she? And I'll bet she never once complained. She helped you save Rachael from that no-good Wes Henley. She loves your car and riding with you on your Harley. I'd venture to say the two of you are matched just as well in bed. Am I wrong?"

The tips of his ears burned. "None of your d.a.m.n business."

"No, but your happiness is my business. I love you, Johnnie. You're the son I never had and I know you better than you know yourself. Why are you so afraid to take a chance?"