Page 53 of Ace
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Savannah stretched lazily beneath a cozy warm blanket, her body sore in the most delicious places. Relaxed and at peace, she listened to soft snoring from the pillow behind her. Keller. How sweet of him to sleep with her. Her heart fluttered. That was Keller to his core, always looking out for her. Rolling over, she reached for that handsome chest, intending to wake him with a long, wet kiss, then jump his bones until—
Her fingers landed on a furry hound instead. “Red? What are you doing in here?”
Pushing all four legs straight, the handsome setter yawned, while of all things, Galahad climbed up from the foot of the bed where he’d been sleeping. Wide awake now, Savannah sat up and pointed at the floor. “Off the bed, boys. Right this instant. Move it.” So much for a leisurely morning of steamy sex with her favorite Secret Agent Man. Where was he?
Guiltily, Red melted over the edge in a scarlet ooze. Galahad, still on the bed, now faced the door. His stubby, scarred ears twitched as a menacing growl rumbled from his throat. What could he hear that she hadn’t?
Anxiously, Savannah shoved back the covers. She wasn’t ready for company, and if the maid had come into the room—yikes! She wasn’t even dressed!
“Coming!” she called out just in case some unlucky maid was out there to change the linens. Switching to her sternest voice, she told the dogs, “Stay.” The last thing she needed was them to charge after some helpless woman.
Hurrying now, Savannah scooped her dirty duds from beside the bed, then ran for the bathroom. With her heart pounding, she took care of her business, finger-combed the bedhead out of her hair, then used the guest toothbrush and paste to freshen her mouth. She desperately needed fresh clothes, but figured she’d shower after she knew why Keller hadn’t been in bed with her, and why Galahad and Red were now both growling at her bedroom door.
Yikes again! Every hair on Red’s back was lifted. Not a good sign.
Because of the dogs, she cracked the door open just enough to see a guy dragging two large portable dog crates through the door. A pair of sturdy nylon leashes draped his neck, but who the heck was he and where was Keller? If not for the hotel logo on this guy’s trim black jacket, she would’ve locked herself in her room.
Instead she called out, “Excuse me. Are you room service and is this a special delivery or something?”
“Oh, hi,” the guy replied easily as he toed the door closed behind him and let the dismantled plastic crates drop to the carpet. He snagged a couple shopping bags off the outside doorknob and set them inside. “Looks like these are for you, ma’am. I’m Roger Tanner. I told your friend last night I’d walk your dogs this morning.” His gaze drifted to the other bedroom door. “I didn’t wake you, did I? Is Agent Boniface around?”
Roger stood around six feet with a smile as wide as the sky over the Gulf of Mexico at daybreak. More brown than black, he cut an impressive sight in that hotel uniform. Straight spine. Lean as a whip. Square shouldered. Clean-cut and clean-shaven. What was more, both Red and Galahad were now wriggling with excitement to get at him. And he’d brought kibble!
“I think my dogs like you.”
Roger grinned. “’Course they do. Hey, Red! Hey, Galahad! How’s my good boys?”
Savannah pulled up her gumption and stepped into the light. “You loaned Keller these crates for my dogs?” she asked as Galahad and Red charged around her, tails wagging. Quickly, she closed her bedroom door behind her.
Roger tugged the leashes off his neck. “Yes, ma’am. I could see he was in a bind last night, so I told him I’d be by this morning to walk your dogs. But I’ve got to tell you…” He nodded at the handsome setter wagging his tail like a flag. “You’ve got to come up with a better name for that fella. He ain’t no Crayola.” Roger said that with enough Southern twang to make Savannah smile. “And don’t you go calling him Scarlet. He ain’t no Southern belle, neither.”
This friendly guy was too much. “What would you suggest?” she asked, thoroughly at ease now that her dogs had obviously accepted Roger into their pack.
“Anything’s got to be better than Red,” Roger said as he stroked the happy boy from the tip of his pointed head to his fluffy rump. “Hey there. How ya doing, big fellow? You guys been quiet all night like I told ya?”
By then Savannah had seen the note. Her heart clamored at the three little words Keller had written. ‘Wait for me.’Could he have said anything better?
“Keller will be back soon,” she told Roger. “Now about that walk...”
Dr. John wasn’t hard to find. He lived where he worked, in a small, but tidy white clapboard home on a country road, east of New Orleans and not far from Savannah’s great grandmother’s place. Patients entered through the front door of the house, where a simple sign marked ‘Patients’ had been nailed, while the rear exit was clearly marked ‘Private Residence’. Another sign staked in the front lawn declared: Dr. Rudy John, MD.
Okay then. Keller scrunched as low as he could in the rental he’d acquired after he’d left the hotel. He’d wanted to rent a nondescript, four-door sedan, but the only vehicle left on the lot until noon was this truck. Sohere he sat, sweating the morning away in a brand new, bright shiny and white step-side GMC pickup. Talk about ostentatious. Which was probably just as well. No one in their right mind would suspect a guy in this kind of a truck.
He’d taken time and stopped at the nearest big box store for a change of clothes. Now wearing jeans, a faded-blue, sleeveless t-shirt tucked into his pants with a loose, long-sleeved cotton shirt to cover his holster on top, he fit right in instead of standing out. Black Converse running shoes finished his hometown boy look.
The smallest smile breached his lips. He’d also shopped for Savannah, and that made him uncharacteristically happy. He’d only bought a few simple things. A couple pairs of jeans in different sizes. A couple colorful tees that would complement her exotic skin tone. A travel cosmetic bag of basic feminine cosmetics. Purple running shoes. A few sets of delicate intimates...
Keller took a slow breath at the deep-down contentment spreading through his soul like a sultry Louisiana breeze sifts over the rippling surface of the bayou. Sex did that to a man, especially one who’d practiced abstinence like a cloistered monk for years. But this calm was different than simple after-sex glow. He could tell. This was more of a saturating kind of calm that filled him with inner clarity, and all because it came from doing something so ordinary as shopping for a woman. Of selecting comfortable clothes for her that would breathe in Southern humidity. Of estimating hersize and shape. Of imagining pleasing her, of making her smile when she saw what he’d had delivered to her room. Of wanting nothing more than to make her happy, especially when he took those same new clothes off her.
It came from wondering if she needed a moisturizer for that cocoa-cream complexion of hers or one for her silky straight hair. Because she liked lilacs, he’d selected purple running shoes. Would she notice? Would she read anything into it, like maybe that he was a man of detail, a guy who paid attention? That he’d thought about her and what she liked? Would she understand how much it meant to provide even the most humdrum items that most people took for granted? And there it was. Keller had spent time on Savannah as if she were his and as if he had a right to shop for her.
But it also came from thinking of Carol Marie with every selection he’d made for Savannah. This morning, the hollow pain in his chest where he used to carry Carol Marie’s death like a buried, hoarded treasure, didn’t hurt. There didn’t seem as big a void in the chambers of his heart. Everything had changed, as if a bone-deep abscess had been lanced and the poison was at last released. Colors were brighter. Sparrows in the trees chirped louder. Even the mockingbird’s trill sounded cheerier. The world was a kinder place today, and all because of Savannah.
Until she came along, he’d been that perfectly constructed, masted ship in a dusty bottle on some forgotten shelf, its glue cracked and dry, its mainsail untested, its rudder a poor excuse for a decent captain’sgrip. Sure, he’d been to war, and he knew the bloody, awful cost of it. Keller had enough glitter, ribbons and awards in a junk drawer back home to show for it. But he’d lost—or run from—his personal battles, and he knew that now. All those things he hadn’t allowed himself to think of in years, like dealing with Elaine, tending to Carol Marie’s grave, and moving on, he thought of now.
Bottom line, Savannah wasn’t Carol Marie. At all. She was ordinary plastic dishes, the kind families used every day, not fancy china or crystal. She knew how to take care of herself as well as anyone else who got in her way: abused dogs, cats, and closed-off, stodgy warriors.
