Baby Dreams. Raye Morgan

He was crazy to let this go on. But it sure did feel nice.

      His hand was in hers and she was studying it closely, noting its clean, hard lines, its strength. He had nice hands with straight nails and hard yet uncallused palms. She liked them. But she wasn’t going to let things go in that direction again, so she sealed off that side of her emotions and got on with it.

      “You’ve got a long life line,” she told him, gazing down thoughtfully. “Look.” She traced it with her finger. “Look how far it goes. I’ve never seen one this long before.”

      “And you probably never will again,” he noted dryly. “That’s an old scar from breaking up a bar fight.” His mouth quirked at the corners. “I didn’t know at the time it would add years to my life, or I would have done it more often.”

      “Oh.” Her gaze met his and they almost laughed together.

      Almost, but not quite. They caught themselves in time. Rafe pulled back his hand.

      “Some fortune-teller. You’d better keep your day job,” he advised her.

      “Wait,” she protested quickly. “I haven’t got to the part about the tall, dark stranger in your future yet.”

      His mouth twisted in a way that might have been a smile, but she wasn’t really sure. “I think a short, ditzy blonde in my present is more like it,” he said gruffly, turning back to the desk. “We’ve got to finish this paperwork if you ever want to get to the call to Santa Fe.”

      She made a face at him, knowing he wouldn’t see it. “I’m not short,” she said softly, but he ignored it.

      She sighed. So it did no good to get friendly with him. Back to square one, and the original plan. When in doubt, tough it out. That was what her father always used to tell her. Funny but she’d never realized his words to live by would come in handy someday. She had to curb her natural inclination to be reasonable and give everyone the benefit of the doubt. She knew what her rights were. Maybe it was about time to see that they were upheld by this country sheriff.

      “When do I get to make my phone call?” she demanded, prepared to fight about it.

      “When I’m good and ready to let you make it.”

      “I have rights,” she reminded him, raising one eyebrow. “Does it usually take this long? Or am I just special?”

      He met her gaze and held it, as though evaluating his options. Finally he picked up the phone and plunked it down in front of her. “Go ahead. Just keep it short.” But as she picked up the receiver and began to dial, he reached out to stop her, adding, “Who are you calling?”

      She held the receiver away from him and frowned at him furiously, sure he was still trying to thwart her. “Do I have to tell you? Is that in the rules?”

      He looked pained. “I’m not trying to figure out your strategy. I just wanted to advise you to be careful who you call and how you do it. By law, you get one call. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

      She frowned suspiciously, not ready to accept that at face value. “But if the first phone call doesn’t work out, surely there’s another one allowed.”

      Squaring his shoulders, he couldn’t keep the gleam of satisfaction out of his voice. “Nope.”

      Her eyes sparked. “The deck is really stacked in your favor, isn’t it?”

      “Of course,” he said simply. Then he almost grinned. “I’m the good guy.”

      “In your dreams.” She shook her head, exasperated. He was enjoying this a little too much. Sadistic beast. She turned away so that her back was to him and began to dial again. But something wasn’t right. Holding the receiver to her ear, she frowned. “There’s no dial tone,” she said, turning back to him. “Listen.” She held it out to him.

      He listened, then tapped down the buttons a few times and gave up. “It’s dead,” he said shortly.

      She stared at him, hoping he didn’t mean what he obviously did mean. This telephone was her only hope, her only lifeline to the outside world that would surely prove, quickly enough once contacted, that she wasn’t any more Billie Joe Calloway than she was Billy the Kid. “Dead? What do you mean, it’s dead?”

      He glanced at her, his eyes as dark as coal. He knew what she was thinking, and he knew more than that. This meant the die was cast. The two of them were going to spend the night together in this room. There was no longer any way out. “It’s dead. The storm’s probably knocked out the lines.”

      The look of horror on her face mirrored her distress. She was feeling more and more isolated here, more and more helpless. Was there no escape from this situation? “But… what about my phone call?”

      He raised that dark eyebrow again, and the look on his face was a cynical one. “Got a cellular phone?”

      Her eyes lit up. “Back in my car.”

      He gestured toward the snowstorm raging outside the window. “Then I guess you’re out of luck.”

      “But that’s not fair!”

      He wasn’t sure why, but he was feeling rather smug at the moment. “No. Neither are lotteries or beauty pageants, but we have them anyway.”

      She shook her head. “There’s got to be something.” A note of desperation was edging her tone.

      He turned from her and gestured toward a dark, old-fashioned-looking machine sitting against the back of the desk. “There’s the old shortwave,” he told her reluctantly. “It’s ancient and it doesn’t work very well. But at least I might be able to get through to the district office in Santa Fe.”

      “Okay.” She spread her arms out. “Let’s do it.”

      She sat down and watched as he fooled with the controls for what seemed like hours, and finally there was a crackling sound of someone on the line.