Sanctuary

deal more formal that had been, Sam mused, sipping his coffee, than the meeting just now with Giff. There’d been no sneaking out of Annabelle’s bedroom at dawn either. Though there had been stolen afternoons in the forest.
    Even when a man’s blood had been cool for years, he remembered what it was like to have it run hot. For the first few years that Annabelle was gone, his blood had heated from time to time. He’d taken care of that in Savannah.
    It hadn’t shamed him to pay for sex. A professional woman didn’t require conversation or wooing. She simply transacted business. It had been some time since he’d required that particular service, though. And since AIDS and other potential horrors of impersonal sex scared him, Sam was relieved to have weaned himself away from it.
    Everything he needed was on the island. He’d found the peace that young Giff claimed not to want.
    Sam sat back to enjoy the rest of his coffee in the quiet. He had to struggle with a hard twinge of irritation when the door opened and Jo walked in. The fact that she hesitated when she saw him and a slight flicker of annoyance moved over her face both shamed and amused him.
    Peas in a pod, he decided, who don’t much care to share the pod.
    “Good morning.” Damn it, all she’d wanted was a quick slug of coffee before she went out to work. Not just wander or brood, but work. She’d awakened for the first time in weeks refreshed and focused, and she didn’t want to waste it.
    “Clear morning,” Sam said. “Thunderstorms and strong winds by evening, though.”
    “I suppose.” She opened a cupboard.
    Silence stretched between them, long and complete. The trickle of coffee as Jo poured it from pot to cup was loud as a waterfall. Sam shifted, his khakis hissing against the polished wood of the bench.
    “Kate told me ... she told me.”
    “I imagined she would.”
    “Um. You’re feeling some better now.”
    “I’m feeling a great deal better.”
    “And the police, they’re doing what they can do.”
    “Yes, what they can.”
    “I was thinking about it. It seems to me you should stay here for the next little while. Until it’s settled and done, you shouldn’t plan on going back to Charlotte and traveling like you do.”
    “I’d planned to stay, work here, for the next few weeks anyway.”
    “You should stay here, Jo Ellen, until it’s settled and done.”
    Surprised at the firm tone, as close to an order as she could remember receiving from him since childhood, she turned, lifted her brows. “I don’t live here. I live in Charlotte.”
    “You don’t live in Charlotte,” Sam said slowly, “until this is settled and done.”
    Her back went up, an automatic response. “I’m not having some wacko dictate my life. When I’m ready to go back, I’ll go back.”
    “You won’t leave Sanctuary until I say you can leave.”
    This time her mouth dropped open. “I beg your pardon?”
    “You heard me right enough, Jo Ellen. Your ears have always been sharp and your understanding keen. You’ll stay here until you’re well enough, and it’s safe enough for you to leave and go about your business.”
    “If I want to go tomorrow—”
    “You won’t,” Sam interrupted. “I’ve got my mind set on it.”
    “You’ve got your mind set?” Stunned, she strode over to the table and scowled down at him. “You think you can just set your mind on something that has to do with me after all this time, and I’ll just fall in line?”
    “No. I reckon you’ll have to be planted in line and held there, like always. That’s all I have to say.” He wanted to escape, he wanted the quiet, but when he started to slide down the bench to get up, Jo slapped a hand onto the table to block him.
    “It’s not all I have to say. Apparently you’ve lost track of some time here. I’m twenty-seven years old.”
    “You’ll be twenty-eight come November,” he said mildly. “I know the ages of my children.”
    “And that makes you a sterling example of fatherhood?”
    “No.” His eyes stayed level with hers. “But there’s no changing the fact that I’m yours just the same. You’ve done well enough for yourself, by yourself, up to now. But things have taken a turn. So you’ll stay here, where there are those who can look out for you, for the next little while.”
    “Really?” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Well, let me tell you just what I’m going to continue to do for myself, by myself.”
    “Good morning.” Kate