and at this precise moment she looked like an angel, her long, wavy brown hair cascading down her back like a waterfall of dusty beige silk.
'I only remember bits and pieces about that night. I was unconscious most of the time.' Sam sat in the chair beside the sofa 'I'll never forget your gentle brown eyes and your soothing voice. Or the enormous dark-skinned man who carried me to the boat.'
'Manton,' Jeannie said. 'His name is Manton.'
She had thought Sam Dundee remembered practically nothing about that night. After his release from the hospital, he had found her and thanked her for saving his life. He'd told her then that he remembered very little of what had happened after he was shot.
Did he know that, for one brief instant when she had borne his pain and cried his tears, their souls had been united? No, of course he didn't.
'Manton, huh?' Spreading his legs apart, Sam leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees. 'When I came to in the hospital, after surgery, I was told that some huge bald man had carried me into the emergency room and then disappeared. If it hadn't been for that report from the emergency room staff, I would have thought I'd dreamed the whole thing. The island. The woman. The man.
'Lucky for me one of the emergency room nurses had a child enrolled in the Howell School, or I would have had a tough time finding you. Why didn't you and Manton stick around after he carried me into the emergency room?'
'We had done all we could do for you. There was no need for us to stay.'
'Where is Manton now?' Sam asked.
'Manton lives on Le Bijou Bleu. He never leaves the island unless there's an emergency.' Jeannie rested her trembling hands in her lap. 'When my mother and Randy bought the island, Manton was the caretaker, so they kept him on. Manton is a deaf-mute, but he can read lips.'
'Then Le Bijou Bleu belongs to you?'
'Yes, it's mine. I go there whenever I want to escape from the world.'
'Why did you protest so strongly when Dr. Howell suggested you go there now, until things settle down?'
'Because I will not be run off. I will not allow others to dictate my actions.' Jeannie lifted her cane from the side of the sofa where she had placed it. 'For years, Randy Foley controlled every moment of my life. Once I was no longer at his mercy, I swore that no one would ever again force me to do anything I didn't want to do.'
Jeannie stood and walked to the windows. Noticing the way her shoulders quivered, Sam knew she was crying. He couldn't bear to see her hurting. Hell, why did he let her get to him this way? Women's tears usually had little, if any, effect on him.
Walking over to her, Sam placed his hand on her shoulder. She tensed. He draped his arm around her, then turned her slowly to face him, gripping her shoulders in his big hands.
'You saved my life that night.'
She did not try to hide her tears from him, but she ignored them, allowing them to fill her eyes and fall onto her cheeks. 'I did all that I could to keep you alive until we arrived at the hospital.'
Sam let out a deep breath. 'For six years I've wondered about you. Wondered if you were as pure and sweet and caring as I'd thought you were. Wondered if you really did take away my pain, or if I'd been delusional and just imagined the whole experience.'
'You didn't imagine any of it. What happened between us was real.'
'Tell me something.'
'What?' Did he remember the moment when they had become one, the moment when she had prayed for his life and for her own, and the tears she had shed were the tears of two?
'Do you have the power to heal?' he asked, taking her chin in his hand and tilting her face.
She shook her head. 'No, I'm not a true healer. I can't make the sick well again. Randy passed me off as a faith healer, but I've never had that kind of power.'
'But you can take away pain? You draw physical and mental pain out of a person, and bear that pain yourself?'
'Yes. Julian and Miriam said that I was an empath, that I could experience another's pain. Somehow I reach inside people's minds, inside their hearts and their bodies, and feel what they're feeling. I can heal temporarily, but the pain returns, as does the injury or the illness. It usually returns in a few hours. Sometimes the results last for a few days. But that's rare.'
He wiped the tears away from her face, their moisture coating his fingertips. 'That's what you did for me six years ago on the beach, isn't it? You drew the pain out of me and experienced it for me? Is that why I felt practically no pain, although I was suffering from gunshot wounds and exposure?'
'You were almost dead,' Jeannie said. 'And you didn't want to live. You felt a tremendous guilt for someone else's death.'
'You absorbed that guilt, too, didn't you? You took it away for a while.'
'I had no choice. Otherwise you might not have willed yourself to live.'
Releasing her abruptly, Sam backed away, his gaze riveted to her gentle face, her warm eyes, her caring smile. She lifted her hand, extending it toward him.
This woman had saved his life. There was no doubt about that fact. He remembered how the pain had left him, not only the physical pain from his wounds, but also the mental and emotional torment he'd suffered. Had she taken the burden of his pain, his guilt and his unspoken wish to die, and suffered for him, freeing him, saving him?
Did he dare believe her? Could he trust his own feverish memories?
Taking a tentative step toward her, Sam accepted her welcoming hand and pulled her into his arms. She gasped when their bodies touched. He released her, then cupped her face in his big hands.
'Jeannie.' He said her name with reverence.
'Sam.' The man she had dreamed of for six years, the stranger she had been unable to forget, was looking at her with a passionate, possessive hunger he could not disguise.
'I'll take good care of you, Jeannie.' Lowering his head, he kissed her tenderly. A gentle, undemanding kiss. A kiss of gratitude. A kiss filled with promise.
Jeannie felt that sweet kiss in every nerve of her body, and for one tiny instant, she was tempted to ask for more. But now was not the time. Sam Dundee was confused about his feelings, about what was happening. She sensed his frustration, his doubts, his fears and the guilt that never left him.
Sam grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her gently. 'Don't misunderstand the reason I'm here. I'm not looking for healing and salvation. So don't go probing into my past. Maybe you really can take away pain. Maybe you took mine away. Hell, I don't know. But I do know I owe you my life. And I always pay my debts. Do we understand each other?'
He rushed out of the room, leaving her standing there staring at his broad back. Leaning on her cane, she made her way to the bed, removed her robe, folded it and draped it around the bedpost. She lay down, drawing the sheet up to her waist.
She willed herself to relax, to erase everything from her mind. Tomorrow she would have to face reality again. Tonight she needed rest, and if she didn't stop thinking about Sam Dundee, she wouldn't get any sleep.
* * *
Sam didn't even try to sleep. He had far too much on his mind. The past, the present and the future. He could never escape from the past. Where Jeannie Alverson was concerned, the present kept getting all mixed up with the past. She was a part of that horrible night when everything had exploded in his face and two people had died because of his stupidity.
Sam checked his watch. Almost midnight. He pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. Everything had been quiet for hours. The local authorities had patrolled the street for several hours after dark, and once the few stragglers still hanging around outside saw the police car, they had disappeared.
Sam entwined his fingers, then laid his hands on top of the table. He had no idea how long he'd have to stay in Biloxi. He knew he'd be here until Jeannie was no longer in any kind of danger. That could be weeks or even months, depending on how long the press continued making her front-page news, and if and when Maynard Reeves
