Shades of Twilight Page 99

"Maybe she did love someone, though. Maybe she loved the man whose baby she carried. I'll never know."

Roanna gasped, shock running through her. She turned to face him.

"You knew about him?" she asked incredulously. Webb straightened away from the railing, his gaze sharpening.

"I found out after she was killed." He caught her shoulders, his grip urgent.

"How did you know?"

"1-I saw them together in the woods." She wished she had controlled her reaction to finding out he knew about Jessie's lover, but it had been such a shock. She had protected that secret all these years, and he'd known anyway. But she hadn't known that Jessie was pregnant when she was killed, and that made her feel sick.

"Who was it?" His tone was hard.

"I don't know, I'd never seen him before."

"Can you describe him?"

"Not really." She bit her lip, remembering that day.

"I only saw him once, the afternoon of the day Jessie was killed, and I didn't get a good look at him. I didn't tell you then because I was afraid .. ." She paused, a look of unutterable sadness crossing her face.

"I was afraid you'd fly off the handle and do something dumb and get in trouble. So I kept quiet."

"And after Jessie was killed, you didn't say anything because you thought I would be arrested, that they'd say I killed her because I'd found out she was cheating on me." He'd kept his silence on the same subject and nearly choked on his bitterness. It made him ache inside to know that Roanna had kept the same secret and for the same reason. She had been so young, already traumatized by finding Jessie's body and briefly being suspected of murder herself, hurt by his own rejection of her, and still she'd kept quiet. 323

Roanna nodded, searching his face. The sunlight was fading fast, and the shades of twilight were veiling them in mysteriously shadowed blues and purples, wrapping them in that brief moment when the earth hovered between day and night, when time seems to stop and everything seems richer, sweeter. His expression was guarded, and she couldn't tell what he was thinking or feeling.

"So you kept it to yourself," he said softly.

"To protect me. I'll bet you nearly choked on it, with Jessie accusing us of sleeping together when you'd just seen her with another man."

"Yes," she said, her voice strained as she remembered that horrible day and night.

"Did she know you'd seen her."

"No, I was quiet. In those days I was good at sneaking around." The glance she gave him was full of wry acknowledgment of what an undisciplined handful she had been.

"I know," he said, his tone as wry as her look.

"Do you remember where they met?"

"It was just a clearing in the woods. I could take you to the area but not to the exact spot. It's been ten years; it's probably grown over by now."

"If it was a clearing, why couldn't you see the man?"

"I didn't say I couldn't see him." Feeling uncomfortable, Roanna moved restlessly under his hands. "I said I couldn't describe him."

Webb frowned.

"But if you saw him, why can't you describe him?"

"Because they were having sex!" she said in stifled exasperation.

"He was naked. I'd never seen a naked man before. Frankly, I didn't look at his face!"

Webb dropped his hands in astonishment, peering at her through the fading twilight. Then he began to laugh. He didn't just chuckle, he roared with mirth, his entire frame shaking. He tried to stop, took one look at her, and started again.

She punched him on the shoulder.

"Hush," she muttered.

"I can just hear you telling Booley about it," he chortled,

almost choking with laughter.

"S-sorry, Sheriff, I didn't notice his f-face because I was looking at his-Woof!" This time she punched him in the belly. The breath rushed out of him and he bent over, clutching his stomach and still laughing.

Roanna lifted her chin.

"I was not," she said with dignity, "looking at his woof" She strode into her room and started to close the veranda doors in his face. He barely slipped through the rapidly shrinking opening. Roanna set the alarm for the doors, then pulled the curtains closed over them.

He slipped his arms around her before she could move away, pulling her snugly back against him.

"I'm sorry," he apologized.

"I know you were upset."

"It made me sick" she said fiercely.

"I hated her for cheating on you."

He bent to rub his cheek against her hair.

"I think she must have been planning to have the baby and pretend it was mine. But first she had to get me to have sex with her, and I hadn't touched her in four months. There was no way in hell she could pass it off as mine as things stood. When she caught us kissing, she probably thought all her plans had gone up in smoke. She knew damn well I wouldn't pretend the baby was mine just to prevent a scandal. I'd have divorced her so fast her head would spin. She was crazy jealous of you anyway. She wouldn't have been nearly as furious if she had caught me with anyone else." "Me?" Roanna asked incredulously, turning her head to stare at him.

"She was jealous of me? Why? She had everything."

"But you were the one I protected-from her, most of the time. I took your side, and she couldn't stand that. She had to be first in everything and with everybody."

"No wonder she was always trying to talk Lucinda into sending me away to college!"

"She wanted you out of the way." He brushed her hair to one side and lightly kissed her neck.