Deadline (Sandra Brown)

for being every kind of fool. He should have heeded his impulse to call Headly and tell him to screw this trial, screw Jeremy Wesson and whoever his parents had been, he was coming home.
    But he’d taken one look at Amelia, and his ennui had turned into razor-sharp awareness. His disinterest became avid curiosity. He wanted to know all there was to know about her.
    No, scratch that. Not all . He could do without knowing about her personal relationship with her ex. Because every time he thought about her in bed with Jeremy Wesson, about Wesson or any man moving on top of her, inside her, he wanted to hit something.
    The hell of it was, Headly expected him to turn Wesson’s life inside out. Pivotal years of his life had been spent with Amelia. If he did this thing for Headly, and did it right, there was no way he could omit the active role she had played.
    He gave her house one last careful study, then walked to the bed and lay down, stretching out on his back. The pills he’d taken earlier were kicking in. He’d caught a pleasant buzz from the combo of them and Kentucky’s elixir, and he was feeling drowsy. Maybe tonight would be the first night that he would sleep through without having the nightmare. Please, God.
    Closing his eyes, he forced back the ghastly images that continually lurked on the borders of his mind. To replace them, he conjured up Amelia’s face. Having finally gotten to see her eyes up close, he knew they were a deep, deep blue. Hooking her hair behind her ear was an absent-minded habit, as he’d suspected when he saw her do it in the courtroom. She also had a tendency to bite her plush lower lip.
    Thinking of that caused a physical response of unequaled lust.
    For weeks, he’d been sleepless during the nights, wound up tight during the days, his nerves flayed by recurring memories and nightmares of war. So, probably, this intense physical reaction was based on nothing more than a critical need for solace. Like any straight guy, one of the first places he would seek it was a woman’s body. It couldn’t cure the malady, but it could provide temporary relief from the symptoms.
    But if it was only comfort he needed, wouldn’t any breasts feel as soft? Couldn’t forgetfulness be found between any pair of thighs? Wasn’t one woman’s hand as effective a magic wand as another’s, one woman’s mouth as mind-numbing as the next?
    He had thought so. He’d lived his adult life believing so. Whether a sexual relationship lasted for a few months or a few hours, he’d got from it what he’d wanted and no more than he’d invested.
    His customary nonchalance didn’t apply here. Not to Amelia Nolan. No, this was something else. This wasn’t a crotch throb that would be easily pacified. This was different. A first and only. This was hell.
    He hoped Jeremy Wesson was frying in one of his own.

Chapter 7
    M om!”
    “Mom! You gotta come see!”
    Amelia was in her office composing an e-mail to George Metcalf when the boys rushed in, tracking in sand and practically stumbling over each other in their haste. Their faces were sweaty and flushed.
    “What in the world?” It had been less than ten minutes since she’d heard them leaving the house on their way to the beach. “Did a spaceship land on the shore?”
    “No, it’s better. You gotta come see.” Hunter took her hand and tried to pull her from the desk chair.
    “Hold on. Where’s Stef?”
    “She’s down there. Come on.”
    “Okay, I’ll come down, I promise. Just let me finish this—”
    “No! You gotta come now .” Grant was bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Come see.”
    “If it’s that stupendous, I guess my e-mail can wait.”
    Laughing, she let each one take a hand and drag her from the room, down the stairs, and out through the front door. Her laughter subsided when she looked beyond the dunes. Stef, looking sleek and bronze and young, was chatting with “hot, hot, hot” Dawson Scott. He had on swim trunks. A ball cap worn backward was keeping his hair out of his face. Something he said caused Stef to tip her head back and laugh.
    “Hurry, Mom!”
    Hunter tugged harder on her hand and together the three of them went down the steps. When they reached the boardwalk, the two boys left her and bolted ahead. She was too miffed to remember to warn them against splinters.
    As she crested the dunes, she saw what all the excitement was about. A dragon had been sculpted into the sand. It had fangs and scales and claws, and