Midnight Secrets

chapter

EIGHTEEN


“Hello.”

Savannah’s groggy, sleep-filled voice made him smile. Zach knew he’d woken her up. After all, it was only a little after five in the morning. The sun was just coming up and most sane people were still asleep. He’d return to his sanity tomorrow. Today he felt like a thousand-pound weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He’d finally shared the truth with Savannah and she hadn’t slapped his face or told him to go to hell. He’d deserved both reactions. Having her forgiveness was much more than he could have dreamed of, but dammit, he wanted more. He wanted everything.

But all of that could wait until tomorrow. Today he wanted to play. And the only person he wanted to play with yawned into his ear and said, “Huh?”

“I said, do you want to go blackberry picking with me?”

“At night?”

Swallowing a chuckle, he explained, “It’s almost dawn. The blackberries are ripe and the best time to pick them is in the morning before it gets too hot. Let’s pick blackberries, have a picnic, make pies, and—”

“Whoa, wait a minute.”

He tensed. Had he read her wrong last night? Holding his breath, he said, “What’s wrong?”

“Separate buckets?”

Relieved, he chuckled. When they were dating, they had gone blackberry picking once but had only had one bucket. For every berry she had picked, he’d eaten three. They’d walked out of the woods with barely enough fruit for a tart, much less a pie. “Yes, separate buckets.”

“I’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”

Zach grabbed his keys. “I’ll bring coffee.”

Exactly fifteen minutes later, Zach arrived on Savannah’s doorstep. The instant she opened the door, he handed her a cup of steaming coffee, doused liberally with cream, just the way she liked it.

Her smile brighter than the sunshine coming up behind him, she accepted the cup and took an appreciative sip. “Hmm, perfect.”

Zach ground his teeth and ignored his body’s response. Only Savannah could make those kinds of noises sound erotic. He had no plans to do more than hold her hand and maybe steal a kiss or two. And as disappointed as his body was going to be, he refused to try to take their relationship any further yet. They had ten years to catch up on.

He examined her attire—jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. She was definitely dressed for the occasion. Amazing how sexy a woman could look in cotton. Her golden-blond hair was neatly fixed in a long braid, making her look more like the young woman he’d fallen for years ago than a sophisticated law professional. “You ready?”

“Yes. You have the buckets?”

He nodded. “And I picked up a dozen doughnuts on the way. They’re in the car.”

Her grin cheeky, she asked, “How many are left?”

She knew him too well. Laughing, he pulled her to the car. “Eight.”

* * *

Lying back on a blanket that covered a soft bed of grass, Savannah dozed happily in the shade. In the distance, a whip-poor-will competed with a bobwhite for the loneliest-sounding song. A bumblebee buzzed close by, and if she held her breath and listened closely, she could hear the train that ran once a day through downtown Midnight. Savannah sighed her contentment. Supposedly Zach was somewhere fashioning what he called a sun-bonnet for her. She couldn’t wait to see his creation.

What a spectacularly wonderful day this had been. When he’d woken her at what her sister Bri would refer to as “the butt crack of dawn,” she had been stunned. The last thing she expected to be doing today was picking blackberries and giggling like a teenager. But this was exactly what they’d both needed. Yesterday’s sorrow and tomorrow’s worry had been completely obliterated. Today was to be enjoyed and savored.

The blackberries, at least what was left of them, were nestled beneath the shadiest part of the tree. Though her stomach was filled with berries now, she looked forward to making a cobbler out of what remained.

“Okay, it’s not as fashionable as I’d planned, but it should work.”

She sat up and then swallowed her laughter. Zach had taken off his white T-shirt, cut it up to the neck, and then weaved sticks into it. Lopsided and quite ugly, the bonnet looked more like a sheik’s headdress.

“Did you make that for me or for you?”

He grinned as he placed it on her head. “It’s my new line of genderless attire.”

Feeling silly and goofy, she stood and posed in several different positions. Before she realized what he was doing, Zach had pulled his cellphone from his pocket and was clicking pictures.

“You’d better not put these on the Internet. I’ll never live it down in Nashville.”

He took one more shot and then pocketed the phone. “These are for my private collection.”

Though she knew she looked ridiculous with the T-shirt hat still on her head, she had to admit she did feel cooler. Scooting over, she made a place for Zach to sit on the blanket. As he lay beside her, it was all she could do not to lean over and kiss his smiling mouth. He had done nothing more intimate than hold her hand since he’d picked her up that morning. Though she longed for his kiss, she was loath to change the lighthearted atmosphere.

Lying beside him, she gazed up through the tree branches at the intensely azure-blue sky and blazing sun. A perfect summer day. And a great chance to get to know him again. “Did you like being in the army?”

“Don’t think I can say I liked it, but I didn’t hate it, either. Everything—the training, the friends I made, the places I went—all helped build me into the kind of person I wanted to be. I left Midnight a kid; the army made me a man.”

“You saw a lot of combat, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. More than I wanted. But there were days when we weren’t being shot at or hunting down terrorists. Those weren’t too bad.”

“Lamont said you were awarded a Purple Heart.” She rose up on an elbow to look at him. “You were injured?”

“Got some shrapnel in my right side and leg. I was lucky. So many weren’t. So many never came home.”

Breaking her pledge not to touch him, Savannah ran her hand down his arm in a comforting caress. “I’m glad you made it home.”

Smiling, he rolled over and propped himself up on his elbow to face her. “Tell me about being an assistant district attorney. You want to be the DA someday?”

Two weeks ago her answer would have been a definitive “Of course.” But right here, right now, she hesitated giving a definite answer to anything about the future.

“Maybe … I don’t know. I like the challenge of what I do, and when we win, it’s a great feeling.”

“But?”

She shook her head. How could she articulate what she wasn’t sure of herself? She only knew that, for whatever reason, she hadn’t missed work the way she had thought she would. “That seems like a million miles away from the here and now. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Like what?”

“What’s your plan to catch Henson and Dayton in the act?”

He shrugged. “I’ll just be waiting for them. As soon as they enter, I’ll walk in.”

“Without backup?”

“Their weapons are spray paint and misspelled swearwords. I think I’ll survive it.”

Savannah sat up and glared at him. “You don’t know that, Zach. Just because they only write bad graffiti doesn’t mean they don’t come armed.”

“You’re right. Point taken. But I’ll be fine.”

She wanted to argue more but could see she would get nowhere. When he changed the subject to something less controversial, she went along with it, but that didn’t stop her from being concerned. Ralph Henson had almost beat Zach to death once before. If given the chance, would he try again or do something worse?

Damned if she would let that happen.