Twisted Creek

Chapter 24

2200 hours

Luke ate the last piece of chocolate pie. “That was great.”

“I know.” Nana smiled. “I’m better than Flo at baking, but we all say hers are good because no one wants to hurt poor Flo’s feelings, you know.”

“You said you had two brothers?”

“Frank and Charlie.”

He could almost see her mind moving back to the present. “They were both killed in the War.”

“And Flo?” Luke asked, testing to see if she’d been pulled into the present.

“She died before she had time to marry.” Nana looked up at him. “I still miss her, you know.”

Luke’s big hand covered her wrinkled fingers. “I know. I don’t have a single clear memory of my mother, but sometimes I miss her. Kind of like I know there’s a piece of me that would have been different if she’d lived. I think about what might have been.”

Nana looked younger when she smiled shyly. “I think about what might have been sometimes. It’s like there’s another life I’m living along a road I chose not to travel. When times get hard, I think about that other place and I go there in my mind.”

“I know what you mean,” Luke answered. When he’d been shot he’d thought about every time in his career when the path had split and how each time he’d taken the more dangerous way. He’d told himself it was because, unlike some of his friends, he had no family to mourn him, but maybe it was the other way around. Maybe he had no loved ones because he always took jobs involving the most risk. Even his apartment in Dallas, the address he called home, looked more like a hotel than a home.

When Nana stood and said good night, Luke said he’d wash up his plate before going.

She patted his arm and asked, “Could you lock up tonight? Allie went up to bed early.”

“She had a rough night Friday night with the fire across the lake,” he said. “She must have been beat.”

Nana shook her head. “I think she wanted to draw.” She laughed as if sharing a secret. “She’s drawing again. I’ve always loved her pictures. When she was little I used to put up postcard pictures of all the great artists and she’d spend hours looking at them. I’ll bet she’s drawing every detail of that fire.”

He walked Nana to the foot of the stairs, then watched her climb slowly. She could work all day, but her age crept in when she had to climb.

After locking up, Luke walked out to the dock and watched a storm moving in. The night chilled around him and fog moved like a shadow across the lake. If it rained tonight, there would be little evidence left from the fire. He’d thought of calling a team in to sift through the ashes earlier, but he knew there wouldn’t be much to find. He already knew there had been a drug lab set up in the cabin and he’d bet a month’s pay that the tag on that SUV was stolen. His best chance of catching those three was to stay low and wait until they relocated. If they thought no one was investigating, they’d be more likely to move in faster.

Drug dealers were a strange lot. They always wanted to produce more, faster. The longer they were in the business the sloppier they got. He’d make sure they didn’t get away the next time.

Standing at the far end of the dock, he began stripping off his clothes. In a few more weeks it would be too cold to swim the lake. His grandfather used to swear that he swam across year-round as a boy. He’d say, “Luke, the Navajo blood is too watered down for you to swim all the way across.”

Luke pushed himself for weeks, that summer, before his muscles and stamina developed enough to cross the lake. When he finally made it without stopping to rest, his grandfather hadn’t said a word, but Luke had seen the pride in his eyes.

Even five years ago when Luke returned to recover from a wound he’d taken in the line of duty, he’d known he wouldn’t consider himself well until he was able to cross the lake. Those first few weeks he swam, Jefferson would follow in the boat with a spotlight tied to the front, ready to pick him up when he could push himself no farther. But each time he made a few more yards before he gave up and crawled into the boat. Swimming laps in a gym just didn’t bring him the satisfaction of crossing with the moon and proving his bloodline.

Tonight as he swam, he didn’t enjoy the movement of the water or the night. His thoughts were filled with Allie. She wasn’t like the women he usually met. With her there would be no casual affair. She wasn’t guarded, dishing out feelings in small doses. She led with her heart. If he had any sense, he’d stay away from her.

An hour later, when he climbed back on the dock, he sensed Allie even before he saw her standing in the shadows by the porch watching him.

Pulling on his clothes, he stepped into his boots and walked up the dock.

She didn’t move when he neared.

Maybe it was the night, all dark with rain hesitating just above him. Maybe it was the way his senses always felt stronger when he’d done something he knew the men of his lineage had done for hundreds of years. Maybe need just outweighed reason. But Luke didn’t stop to talk.

He walked up to her, lifted her up, pressed her back against the wall, and kissed her hard with need. To hell with having any sense. For one moment in his life, Luke just wanted to feel.

She almost buckled his knees when she kissed him back.

The need for her was something primal within him. Something he’d felt from the first day. She didn’t fit in the mold of women he occasionally dated. He liked them tall, sophisticated. The kind who played no games and made no hints about a future.

Allie wasn’t like that. She’d want more. Much more.

He could feel every curve of her body. He was half-drunk on her kiss. But he wasn’t ready to turn down a road he’d never traveled.

Without breaking the kiss until the last moment, he lowered her and pulled away.

He was gone before she had time to open her eyes or ask any questions.

Ten minutes later, when he lay in the total blackness of his cabin, he could still feel her body against his…still taste her…still want her.