Cherokee Stranger

The redhead brought his beer. Guilty, he dropped his hand and let Emily pay for his drink.

“The next round is on me,” he said.

The next round came an hour later, and by that time the lounge was empty. James and Emily were the only customers left.

Stumbling through a conversation, they talked about movies and music and things that hardly mattered. He’d been tempted to ask her to dance again, but decided that remaining at the table, pretending to get to know her, would make their upcoming union seem a bit more proper.

“Are you staying at the motel?” Emily asked.

“Yes. Are you?”

She nodded. “I have a room upstairs.”

He wondered whose bed they would make love in. Hers, he hoped. He didn’t want to alert the man in the room next to him that he’d picked up a woman in the bar. The WITSEC inspector had warned him, albeit jokingly, to stay out of trouble for at least one night.

Then, again, he wasn’t breaking any rules. The Witness Security Program didn’t stop their members from engaging in consensual sex.

James pulled on his beer. Emily would agree to sleep with him, wouldn’t she?

Of course she would. She wasn’t as innocent as she looked.

“When are you leaving?” she asked.

He set the bottle down. “Tomorrow.”

“Me, too.” She finished her second glass of wine. “Are you going home from here?”

He tried not to frown. Home? He hadn’t had a home in ages. He’d spent a year and a half on the run from Beverly’s crime lord father, the following year in a secured unit of a federal prison, testifying against the mob and serving time for his involvement in a hit that still haunted him. From there he’d spent two weeks at a safe-site orientation center, being briefed about his new identity and his relocation to Idaho.

“James?” Emily pressed.

“What? Oh, yeah. I’m going home. First thing in the morning.” To a place he’d never been.

“So am I.”

He didn’t ask where she lived. He didn’t want to know. James Dalton wasn’t comfortable with small talk. And neither was Reed Blackwood. Both men had plenty to hide.

“Where are you from?” she asked before he could change the subject.

He offered up a lie, relying on the background WITSEC had created for him. “I was born in Oklahoma, but I moved a lot.” Refusing to let the conversation go any further, he indicated the redhead, who thumbed through her receipts, then the bartender, who appeared to be stocking his station. “Looks like they’re getting ready to close. We better head out.”

James left a tip and escorted Emily to the door. He could feel the waitress watching them. He wanted to tell her that he would be good to Emily, that she was his salvation, the companion he needed for one lost lonely night, but he couldn’t say something like that out loud. So he glanced over his shoulder and caught the redhead’s eye, letting her know he was aware of her concern.

Outside, the night air sent a cool breeze blowing. James slipped his arm around Emily. They walked in the direction of the motel, then stopped beneath a stairwell.

“Well?” he said.

“Well?” she repeated, gazing up at him, her hair tumbling around her face.

He pressed his mouth to her ear, anxious to get closer. “Are you going to invite me to your room?”

She nodded, then turned to kiss him.

James went hard. Instantly hard.

She sighed, and he imagined licking her like a lemon drop and watching her melt against his tongue. She tasted like desire, his and hers, swirling in warm, wet—

Cursing his stupidity, he stepped back. He didn’t have any condoms.

“I goofed,” he said.

“What?”

“I have to get protection.” He motioned to the convenience store across the street.

Her voice turned shy. “I think I’d prefer to wait in my room.”

“I’ll walk you.” Her room was located at the top of the second set of stairs. They leaned against the door and kissed, almost too aroused to separate.

She bumped his fly, and he had the notion to forget the damn condoms, to take a chance, to have unprotected sex.

But he knew better. He’d already fathered a child he couldn’t keep, a beautiful little boy he missed with all his heart. He wasn’t about to make a baby with a stranger, to leave her swollen with his seed.

He smoothed a strand of hair from her cheek. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I’ll be waiting.” She gave him a sweet smile and unlocked her door, using the key card.

He watched her disappear, then turned to leave, thinking this was a hell of a way for Reed Blackwood to start over, to begin his life in the guise of James Matthew Dalton.

Two

Emily waited in her room, trying not to pace. Suddenly she was nervous, scared out of her inexperienced wits.

Should she tell him?

Tell him what? That she was scheduled for surgery in two weeks?

She sat on the edge of the bed and wrung her hands together. The melanoma would send him packing, that much she was sure. What hot-blooded American male would want to discuss skin cancer before sex?

Surely he wouldn’t notice the mark on the back of her leg, the site where a mole had been removed. Of course not. Why would he notice a small, seemingly insignificant scar? It wouldn’t matter to him.

Okay, fine. Then what about her virginity? Should she broach that subject? Should she admit that she’d never been with anyone before?

Emily had talked to her girlfriends about their first times. They’d sipped sodas, munched on potato chips and discussed indecent details, the way women often did. But at the moment, that didn’t help.

She had expected her first lover to be her only lover, the man she married, the man who would father her children. But waiting for Mr. Right seemed foolish now.

The cancer had changed her perspective. Life was too unpredictable to plan, and James Dalton was too handsome, too stirring, too erotic to ignore.