Page 42 of Ace
“You’re lying, Keller Boniface,” she whispered, “and you know it.”
Chapter Twenty
Well, shit. That didn’t go like he’d planned. Not at all. Keller took a full step away from Savannah. It was either that or jerk her back into his arms where he wanted to keep her forever. He should’ve known better than to disguise the truth from this mind-reading wonder. When the hell would he learn?
Yet neither was he ready to declare his love for a woman he’d just met. Not yet, not yet, not yet. Life didn’t work that way, and he wasn’t a dumb kid anymore. He had responsibilities. Duties! Those things didn’t go away just because a guy fell in love.
Not in love,his heart screamed.Can’t give away what’s already given!
Savannah’s pretty head canted to her right, nearly to her shoulder. As much as he tried to resist, the warmth in her chocolate brown eyes drew him back in. “It’s okay,” she told him, her voice caressing the mixed-up feelings in his head. Why did it feel like she thought she needed to gentle him? He was no mad dog, damn it. He was a federal agent and a damned good one. He worked hard, damn it, and—
She touched the center of his chest, his breastbone. One sizzle. One tiny fingertip. And he was what he’d been from the start, lost and found and so damned sad. The dam inside felt ready to burst.
Keller took a step back, not ready. Never ready! He refused the magic this woman held over him. No more, damn it! No more voodoo spells or witchcraft or curses or whatever you wanted to call it. Not now! Not ever!
Yet the tender swell of love in her eyes, the pure love she’d just professed, stopped him short. He knew it then. This emotion he felt wasn’t magic and she wasn’t evil. If anything, Savannah was one of the purest women he’d ever met.
And Keller was tired of the empty life he’d been forced to live. The last time he’d found any comfort had been in Carol Marie’s arms. Never thought he’d find another woman equal to her. Not until Savannah Church jerked her door open and told him,‘I. Said. No.’
Weakened by that sweet enlightenment, Keller dropped to his knees and grabbed Savannah to him, burying his face in her soft, sweet belly like a bastard kid with a gut full of sins to confess. Only these were sins of the heart. Failures. Omission. Shortcomings.
“I killed her,” he cried, so damned ashamed and embarrassed and weary. “She wanted to meet my mother, but I never should’ve taken her home. I should’ve left town and taken her with me. I shouldhave protected her. Hell, I should have killed Ma first! Carol Marie would still be alive then.”
Savannah’s fingers captured his sweaty head, pressing him against her body. “Shush, it’s okay. Everything is okay.”
“No, it’s not. You don’t understand. Elaine killed my wife. I know she did, but God! I didn’t know she was already pregnant.” Tipping his chin to the ceiling, Keller roared as the sin he’d never forgive himself for poured out of his soul like a wicked, writhing serpent. Fanged and vicious, it never let him rest, not once since the morning he’d found Elaine bent over the body of his precious wife. In his witch of a mother’s own home, for the love of God!
Poor, sweet Carol Marie had a baby in her womb then. She’d meant to tell him that day. It was supposed to have been a surprise. Her doctor told him that sad news at her funeral. Keller’d had a son. A tiny son!Elaine took everything!
Full of hatred for his biological witch of a mother, Keller took hold of Savannah’s hips to shove away from her. She had no right to think of him with kindness. To think of him at all! He hadn’t deserved kindness from his wife, and he didn’t deserve it now. She shouldn’t have shared the pleasure of her sweet, pure body with him, either. He could never be good enough. Not with the level of hatred in his heart. Any man who wanted to murder his flesh and blood was no saint.
Yet he couldn’t summon the strength to make Savannah go, not with her holding onto him as if she were suddenly the stronger one. Which she mostcertainly was. She’d never killed a thing in her life, and he’d taken so many lives. So damned many… Except the one he should have taken. How he hated his mother. Every day. In every way. If he could do it over again, he’d still have Carol Marie. Not Elaine and not Savannah.
Somehow that didn’t sit quite right. He’d never missed Elaine, but Savannah... He wasn’t sure he could live another day without the warmth of her all-or-nothing love in it.
“Let me go,” he begged as the first of many sobs wrenched out of him. More of the snake. More of the beast. Migraines and hell. Those were his lot in life. Not this gentle woman. Life just wasn’t that kind.
Yet Savannah’s fingers worked a peculiar kind of magic over his sweating skull. Slow and steady, they massaged and blessed, threading over his skull and through his hair. Until at last, he could breathe again.
Bowing his forehead to her belly and sick of fighting, Keller circled his arms around her slender waist, needing a connection with this woman more than he needed air. There was no keeping anything from Savannah, and for once in his long lonesome life, he didn’t want to be alone. He needed this. He needed her.
The lovely fragrance of lilacs enveloped his ragged soul while she continued massaging her gentle kind of magic into the tense muscles that encased his hard Ranger head. Until slowly… Gradually... Comfort seeped into the deepest crevice of Keller’s locked-up heart. He began to understand. This woman standing with him now had given him every last piece of herself. She’d given freely because that’s who she was. She truly loved him. His denial of that love hurt her. But she was right. She had stood beside him, and even now, she did what she could to soothe the bitter hatred he’d carried for years.
The least he could do was man up and admit that, yes. It might be a betrayal to his dead wife, but he did have powerful feelings for this living woman, this mysterious, mind-reading Savannah Church. It was time she knew, although he was pretty certain she already did. Which meant it was long past time for him to voice those fears—to himself. Savannah didn’t need to hear what she already knew, but Keller did.
“I couldn’t,” he murmured into her warm body. “I couldn’t take the chance. You already believe, and once people believe—”
“They fall prey to those who misuse their power, right? Is that what you believe?”
“Yes,” he declared raggedly. He’d seen more evil than good during his life. Most people were grubbers, content to exist in poverty while they groomed their version of the truth into something it wasn’t. He’d never understood how self-righteous the poor could be, or how entrenched in snobbery the have-nots were. You’d think only the wealthy were stuck up, but the wicked poor were just as bad. Just as small-minded.
They twisted reality until those who had honestly worked for a living and made something of their lives, had only done so because they’d lied, cheated, or slept their way to the top. Ignorance knew no limits. There were as many poor people as rich who lived to lord theirmeasly sense of self-righteous power over others. Elaine was that grubber. Mean. Poor of spirit. Vicious. But never to people’s faces. Only to their backs.
“There are good and bad people, Keller,” Savannah said quietly. “Gran Mere taught me that. Even among those we believe are better or smarter than us, maybe wiser, there is still deceit and evil. It’s the way of this world we live in. To everything there is a season. A time to…”
He nodded, rubbing his cheek against her hip as he inhaled her unique, feminine scent. “Trust me. I know Ecclesiastes. ‘To everything there is a season,and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die,a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill…’”
And there he stopped. The rest of the bible verses were more juxtaposition of goodness balanced against evil, but Keller was spent. Mourning, dying, hating, and war he understood. They were the bedrock of his life. But loving, peace, and heaven? Those concepts were strangers. Damn, he was tired.
