Noah started to leave, then turned. “Michelle?”

“Yes?”

“Monday’s a lifetime away.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

As soon as Monk was back in his motel room, he called New Orleans.

Waking from a deep sleep, Dallas answered the phone, “What?”

“The surprises just keep on coming,” Monk said.

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s an FBI agent here with Buchanan.”

“Oh my God. Give me the name.”

“I don’t have it yet. I heard some guys talking about him when they came out of the bar.”

“So do you know what he’s doing there?”

“Not yet, but it looks like they were talking about fishing.”

Apprehensive, Dallas said, “Just hang tight, and I’ll get back to you.”

“Oh, by the way,” Monk said, “I have some other information that may come in handy.”

“It better be good,” Dallas answered.

Monk gave an account of the Carson brothers and the two bone breakers who had gone into the bar.

“I heard one of the men tell the policeman that he wasn’t going to kill Buchanan. He just wanted to hurt him. With a little planning, we might be able to use the Carsons as a scapegoat if necessary.”

“Yes. Thanks.”

“My pleasure,” he answered sarcastically.

Monk hung up the phone, set his alarm clock, and then closed his eyes. He fell asleep thinking about the money.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

For the first time in her life, Michelle couldn’t sleep, and it was all Theo Buchanan’s fault. Everything, including the national debt, was his fault when it was the middle of the night and she was sleep-deprived because she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

She tossed and turned, beat her pillows, then tossed and turned some more. Her bed looked as though a cyclone had hit. To take her mind off her lustful thoughts, she changed the sheets, then took a long, hot shower. Neither chore made her sleepy. She went downstairs then and drank warm milk — she could barely get the vile stuff down and wondered how anyone could drink milk warm when it tasted so much better cold.

Theo hadn’t made a sound since he’d closed his bedroom door. He was probably sound asleep and dreaming the dreams of the innocent. The big jerk.

Michelle crept back upstairs so she wouldn’t disturb him, brushed her teeth again, then opened one of her bedroom windows so she could hear the sounds of the approaching thunderstorm.

She put on a pink silk nightgown — the green cotton one felt scratchy against her shoulders — then slipped between the sheets and vowed she wasn’t going to get up again. Her nightgown was bunched up around her hips. She smoothed it down, adjusted the spaghetti straps so they wouldn’t droop down over her arms. There, everything was perfect. Folding her hands together over her stomach, she closed her eyes and took deep, calming breaths. She stopped when she got dizzy.

She felt a wrinkle in the bottom sheet under her ankle. Don’t think about it, she told herself. It’s time to sleep. Relax, damn it.

Another fifteen minutes passed and she was still wide awake. Her skin was hot, the sheets felt damp from the humidity, and she was so tired she wanted to cry.

Desperate, she started counting sheep but stopped that game as soon as she realized she was racing to get them all accounted for. Counting sheep was like chewing gum. She never chewed gum because, in a subconscious attempt to get finished, she would chew faster and faster, which of course defeated the whole notion of chewing gum in the first place.

Lord, the things a person will think about when that person is losing her ever-loving mind. She should have specialized in psychiatry, she decided. Then maybe she could figure out why she was turning looney tunes.

Television. That was it. She’d watch television. There was never anything good on TV in the middle of the night. Surely someone was selling something on one of the channels. An infomercial was just what she needed. It was better than a sleeping pill.

She threw the sheet off, grabbed the afghan from the bottom of her bed, and dragged it across the room. The door squeaked when she opened it. Why hadn’t she noticed that noise before? she wondered. Tossing the afghan onto the chair, she went out into the hallway, got down on her knees, and slowly pulled the door closed. She thought the bottom hinge was making the groaning sound and leaned close to listen as she moved the door back and forth.

That was the one, all right. She decided then to check the top hinge. She stood, grabbed the doorknob again, and moved the door back and forth while leaning in on tiptoes to listen. Sure enough, it was making a little squeaking sound too. Now where had she put that can of WD-40? She could fix this problem right this minute if she could just remember where she’d last seen that can. Wait a minute . . . the garage. That’s where it was. She’d put it up on the shelf in the garage.

“Having trouble sleeping?”

He nearly scared her to death. She jumped, inadvertently pulled the door, and hit her head against it. “Ouch,” she whispered as she let go of the handle and reached up to feel if her scalp was bleeding.

Then she turned around. She couldn’t have gotten another word out if her life had depended on it. Theo stood in his doorway, casually leaning against the frame with his arms folded across his bare chest and one bare foot crossed over the other. His hair was tousled, his face needed a shave, and he looked as though he’d just been awakened from a deep sleep. He had pulled on a pair of Levi’s, but hadn’t bothered to zip them.

He was simply irresistible.

She stared at the narrow opening between the zipper, then realized she was staring and forced herself to look away. She settled on his chest, realized that was a mistake, and ended up staring at his feet. He had great feet.

Oh, boy, did she need help. Now his feet were turning her on. She needed therapy, intense therapy, to help her figure out how any man could make her so nuts.

He wasn’t just any man, though. All along she’d known how dangerous the attraction was. It was the damned fence, she decided. If he hadn’t bought the damned fence for little John Patrick, she might have been able to continue to resist him. Too late now. She let out a little groan. Theo was still a big jerk, but she’d fallen for him anyway.

She swallowed hard. He looked good enough to . . . don’t go there. Then she looked into his eyes. She wanted him to scoop her up into his muscular arms, kiss her senseless, and carry her to bed. She wanted him to take her nightgown off and caress every inch of her body. Maybe she would toss him on the bed, take his Levi’s off, and caress every inch of his body. She wanted to —

“Michelle, what are you doing? It’s two-thirty in the morning.”

Her fantasy came to a screeching halt. “Your door doesn’t squeak.”

“What?” he asked.

She shrugged, then pushed a strand of hair away from her face. “I didn’t hear you because your door didn’t make any noise when you opened it. How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to watch you play with your door.”

“It squeaks.”

“Yes, I know, the door squeaks.”

“I’m sorry, Theo. I didn’t mean to disturb you, but since you’re awake . . .”

“Yes?”

“You want to play cards?”

He blinked. Then that slow, easy smile appeared, and she started feeling light-headed.

“No, I don’t want to play cards. Do you?”

“Not really.”

“Then why did you ask?”

The way he was staring at her with that penetrating gaze of his made her extremely nervous, but it was the good kind of nervous she’d felt just before he’d kissed her the night before, which meant that it was bad, because she’d never wanted the kiss to end, and what kind of convoluted sense did that make? She was losing her mind, all right. She wondered if she could schedule her patient appointments from the psychiatric ward.

“Please stop looking at me like that.” Her toes curled into the carpet, and she felt her stomach doing back flips.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” she muttered. “I can’t sleep. So do you want to do something until I get sleepy?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Besides cards?” she asked nervously.

“Uh-huh.”

“I could fix you a sandwich.”

“No thanks.”

“Pancakes,” she said then. “I could fix you pancakes.”

On a scale of one to ten, her anxiety was climbing past nine. Did he have any idea how much she wanted him? Just don’t think about it. Keep busy. “I make great pancakes.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“What do you mean, you’re not hungry? You’re always hungry.”

“Not tonight.”

I’m drowning here, babe. Work with me. She caught her lower lip between her teeth while she frantically tried to come up with another idea.

“Television,” she suddenly blurted, acting as though she’d just correctly answered the million-dollar question and Regis was handing her the check.

“What?”

“Would you like to watch television?”

“No.” She felt as if he’d just snatched the lifeline out of her hands.

She sighed. “Then you think of something.”

“Something we could do together? Until you get sleepy.”

“Yes.”

“I want to go to bed.”

She didn’t try to mask her disappointment. She guessed she was going to go back to counting those damn smelly sheep. “Okay. Good night, then.”

He didn’t go back into his bedroom, though. Pulling away from the doorway with the agility of a big, lazy, well-fed cat, he closed the distance between them in two long strides. His toes touched hers as he reached behind her and opened her bedroom door. He smelled faintly of aftershave, Dial soap, and man, and she found the combination extremely arousing. Who was she kidding? At this point, a sneeze would turn her on.

He took hold of her hand, but his grip was light. She could have easily pulled away if she’d wanted to, but she didn’t. In fact, she held tight.

Then he tugged her into her bedroom. He shut the door, backed her against it, and pinned her there with his arms on either side of her face and his pelvis pressed snugly against her thighs.

The wood was cool against her back, his skin hot against her belly.

Burying his face in her hair, he whispered, “God, you smell good.”

“I thought you wanted to sleep.”

He kissed the base of her neck. “I never said that.”

“Yes . . . yes, you did.”

“No,” he corrected. He was kissing that wonderfully sensitive spot below her ear now, driving her to distraction. Her breath caught in her throat when his teeth gently closed on her earlobe.

“No?” she whispered.

“I said I wanted to go to bed. And you said . . .” His hands moved to cup the sides of her face. He looked into her eyes for several long seconds, and then said, “. . . okay.”

She was a goner and she knew it. His mouth covered hers in a long, hot, passionate kiss that let her know how much he wanted her. Her lips parted, and she felt a jolt of pleasure all the way down to her toes when his tongue went in search of hers. Her arms went around his waist, and then her hands began to stroke and caress him. She could feel the hard muscles under her fingertips, and when her h*ps began to move restlessly against him, she felt him tremble.

The kiss went on and on until she was gripping his shoulders and shaking with desire. It was decadent the way he made her feel, and frightening too, because she had never experienced such passion before, never felt this kind of desperation to hold tight and never let go. Oh, how she loved him.

They were both panting when he lifted his head. He saw the tears glistening in her eyes and went completely still.

“Michelle. Do you want me to stop?”

She frantically shook her head. “I’ll die if you do.”

“We can’t have that,” he said gruffly.

She tugged on his jeans, trying unsuccessfully to get them past his hips.

“Slow down, sweetheart. We’ve got all night.”

And that was the problem. She wanted more than one night. She wanted forever, but she knew that wasn’t possible, and so she decided to take what he offered and cherish the moments they did have. She would love him in a way no other woman could, with her heart, her body, and her soul. And when he left her, he would never be able to forget.

They shared another long, hot, open-mouth, tongue-thrusting kiss that only made them want more. He pulled away, stepped back, and stripped out of his jeans. Her breath caught in the back of her throat. He was beautiful. And fully aroused. The sight of him overwhelmed her because he was so perfectly sculpted.

In the moonlight, his skin seemed to glisten like gold. She reached for the straps of her gown, but he stilled her hands. “Let me.”

He slowly pulled her nightgown up over her head and tossed it on the floor.

“I’ve had such fantasies about you,” he whispered. “Your body is much better than I imagined. The way you feel pressed against me . . . that’s much better too.”

“Tell me what we were doing in your fantasy, and I’ll tell you mine.”

“No,” he whispered. “I’d rather show than tell.”

His chest hair was tickling her breasts. She liked it so much, she moved against him. She could feel his arousal against her and shifted so that her h*ps cuddled him. It felt so good, so right to be held like this.

“In one of my fantasies, I do this.”

He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. He followed her down on the sheets, nudged her thighs apart, and settled between them. Then he kissed her again, lingering over the task, until she was moving restlessly against him again.

Then he rolled onto his side and touched her stomach. “And I do this.” His fingers circled her belly button, then moved lower. She sucked in her breath. “Don’t,” she whispered.

“You don’t like it?”

His fingers were magical. “Yes . . . yes, but if you don’t stop, I’ll . . .”

She couldn’t go on. He was driving her crazy, teasing, probing, preparing her for him. His head dipped and he began to kiss the fragrant valley between her breasts.

“In my favorite fantasy, you really love this.”

He kissed each breast, his tongue stroking each nipple until she was arched half off the bed. Her nails dug into his shoulders, and she kept trying to get him to move so that she could drive him out of his mind with her mouth and her tongue, but Theo wouldn’t budge.