Sweet Talk

by Jackie Merritt

  If possible, Max was even more hopeful than his son. For one thing, he had never set eyes on Old Man Jackson. Sheriff Tanner, who also maintained that he’d never come face-to-face with Mr. Jackson before the fire, was hot on that trail now, as were the lawyers working on Guy Cantrell’s defense strategies. Jinni thought it odd that an old man had lived so close to town and no one had really known him. But then, she realized, she’d never known a hermit herself.

  The problem that had everyone running in circles, of course, was that the elderly man wasn’t quite conscious, nor was he coherent when he was awake. Everyone kept talking about moving him, by ambulance, to the hospital in Whitehorn, where the medical staff might be able to bring him around.

  The doctors at the clinic said he was malnourished and ill from exposure. They could find no broken bones, and his vital signs did not indicate an emergency situation. But if the sheriff wanted him taken to Whitehorn, they would sign the release forms.

  The sheriff, it seemed, was in a bit of a quandary.

  “I don’t think they should move him,” Jinni said quietly, speaking for the first time in at least thirty minutes. She hadn’t wanted to intrude on the extremely serious discussion between her husband and stepson, but they had reached somewhat of an impasse, mostly caused by Michael’s honest admission of not being a hundred percent positive that the man was Mr. Jackson.

  “The doctors at the clinic have said clearly that they’re doing the same things for him that physicians in Whitehorn would do. He’s not really ill, Max, not physically ill. He’s old and he’s hungry and exhausted, and they found him half-frozen. The poor old fellow probably needs exactly what he’s getting—warmth, fluids and food. I have faith in the doctors at the clinic, don’t you?”

  “Well, sure,” Max agreed enthusiastically. “And I’d like him to stay right where he is until his memory returns. What if he saw everything, Jinni? Guy told quite a story about the day the fire got started, and what if Old Man Jackson can verify everything he said?” Max’s exuberance collapsed then and he sat back with a sigh. “If he’s Old Man Jackson.”

  “I think he is, Dad,” Michael said. “I just can’t prove it.”

  “And you’re not a hundred percent positive,” Max added quietly.

  Michael hesitated, then said, almost under his breath, “No sir, I’m not.”

  It occurred to Jinni then that when the elderly man at the clinic did come around, maybe the story he had to tell about that day—if he had one—would be in direct opposition to the one Guy Cantrell had related. Her heart pounded as she pondered the possibility and how it would affect the family. Max, his mother and Michael were so certain of Guy’s innocence. Jinni couldn’t agree or disagree based on personal experience, as she’d never met Guy until after his arrest. But he seemed like such a nice man, and she had a hard time picturing him as a killer.

  Still, other than Guy himself, no one knew what had taken place that day. At least until now. Small wonder Max was so wound up about the old man in bed at the clinic.

  Val walked into her house, immediately spotted Reed’s jacket draped over the back of a kitchen chair and his hat on the table, and inhaled nervously.

  She went to the living room and there he was, seated on the sofa. He was on his feet the second he saw her.

  “No need for that,” she said, and sank into the nearest chair.

  Reed sat again and smiled at her. “You’re through working for the day, right?”

  “I…suppose so. Unless an emergency comes up. Why?”

  “I was thinking that we might drive to Billings and have dinner in a nice restaurant.”

  The time had come to say her piece. She’d known it would happen shortly after they began talking, but she wasn’t prepared for the discomfort of looking him in the eye and telling him to stay away from her.

  She cleared her throat. “I don’t think so.”

  “All right,” Reed said quietly. “Dinner in Rumor then?”

  “No.”

  “You have other plans.”

  “Of course I don’t have other plans! I’m not even supposed to be here! If you would bother to think about it, you would recall that I had planned to spend the weekend at my cabin.”

  Reed drew his eyebrows together in a frown of confusion. “Why are you so angry with me? You were angry with me when you didn’t even know me. I thought that last night would change things between us, but it didn’t, and I’d like to know why it didn’t. You were soft and sweet and loving last night, and—”

  “I was drunk last night!”

  “You were not drunk! Relaxed, yes. A whole lot less tense than normal, but not drunk. Hell, do you think I would ply a woman with liquor to get her to say yes?”

  “Seems to me it sort of turned out that way.”

  Reed was thunderstruck. He fell back against the sofa and studied this woman who had the power to crush his spirit, his ego and his confidence with a few words.

  Val knew that she had struck an almost fatal blow, and the regret she felt over wounding him so terribly was like a stab in her own heart.

  “I’m sorry,” she said stiffly, remaining standoffish and guarded despite the remorse in her soul. “You didn’t force me to do anything, least of all drink a little more than I should have. But nothing we did…nothing I did…means anything today. It’s important to me that you understand that.”

  “I don’t, and I never will. How can you sit there and say something like that? You don’t sleep with every guy who comes along, so why wouldn’t I think that last night meant something to you? It sure as hell meant something to me.”

  Val got up, walked in a circle, then stopped and faced him. “Don’t you realize that the cancer could come back?”

  “What?” Reed stared in utter dismay for a moment, then got to his feet. “Would you mind telling me what that has to do with the feelings we showed each other last night?”

  “It has everything to do with everything! My God, you’re not a stupid man, Reed. Step into my shoes for a minute and tell me you wouldn’t worry about a recurrence if you were me.”

  “It’s over with. It’s done. It’s in the past! Val, you’re not going to let it ruin the rest of your life…your healthy life, are you? That makes no sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense. Maybe you are stupid.”

  He moved quickly, closing the gap between them, and grasped her arm. “I’m not stupid and neither are you, so please tell me you’re not backing off from a relationship with me because you might become ill again. Val, you can’t live your life that way.”

  She looked into the dark green depths of his eyes and saw anguish. She was still hurting him, still delivering almost fatal blows, and that hadn’t been her intention. All she’d wanted to do was to make him understand that she—that she… God, what had she wanted him to understand? That she was afraid of a relationship? Afraid of commitment? Afraid of trusting a man?

  She’d said none of those things, although what she had said was true. She would rather die than become a burden to a man of his stature. He wasn’t your everyday Joe, he was somebody, and she couldn’t see him holding her head while she bent over the toilet after a chemo treatment!

  Still looking at him, her eyes became watery. He was so beautifully handsome, so breathtakingly masculine, so real and alive.

  And he didn’t deserve a woman with her past. Hadn’t he heard her last night when she’d bared her soul?

  “Tell me one thing,” she said in a husky, emotion-laden voice. “Why in God’s name do you want anything to do with me?”

  The question nearly floored Reed. His mind spun with confusion as he looked into her teary eyes. “Why in God’s name don’t you want anything to do with me? You’re not immune to the chemistry between us. You proved that last night.”

  “Chemistry? Like that’s really important! Try again.”

  He knew she meant that he should give her a better answer to her question, but he didn’t have a better answer. Feelings of
every description were involved, he knew that much, but nothing else was clear.

  Except for the chemistry. That was so clear and overwhelming he was nearly swallowed up by it. He stopped thinking—and worrying—and acted, pulling her forward at the same time he stepped toward her. She was suddenly against him, in his arms.

  A squeak of protest came from her lips, but even that was silenced when he pressed his mouth to hers. He kissed her until her lips softened under his, until they parted and he felt her tongue.

  Until he heard the sob that welled in her throat. Taken aback, he raised his head and looked at the tears spilling from her eyes.

  “You’re not just fighting me, you’re fighting yourself. Why, Val? Why are you fighting either of us?”

  “B-because the cancer could—could come back,” she stammered brokenly.

  He broke away from her and practically shouted an obscenity. “Stop saying that! Serious relationships are for better or worse. What do you think I would do if you happened to get ill again—leave you flat? Ask yourself if that’s what you would do if the man you loved became ill. Damn, Val, it happens every day. Do you think people like Jim and Estelle Worth would—”

  “Just stop it!” she shouted. “You haven’t ever been ill! You don’t know what it’s like, so don’t act all noble and giving and…and pretentious about something that’s horrid and humiliating and destroys every vestige of human dignity.”

  “You don’t need to yell at me.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake! You yelled first, but then it’s all right for you to do anything you please because you’re a Kingsley!”

  “Now you’re sniping at my family? Come on, Val. I don’t deserve that and neither do they.”

  She could not have felt more miserable than she did at that moment. “You’re right,” she said wearily. “This is ridiculous, and it’s not going to get any better. Please go.”

  “Not until you tell me what changed between the middle of last night and this morning.”

  “You irritating man, I wasn’t drunk this morning!”

  “That’s an excuse, not an explanation!”

  “Reed, I told you all about myself last night. I hit the highlights…or, rather, the low points…and after hearing my perfectly dreadful life story, why in hell do you still want to know me?” She had started that little speech in an almost normal voice, but she was shouting again by the time she got to the final word.

  “Because I live in the present, not the past! I hope to hell you’re not determined to punish yourself for ancient events that were beyond your control, even when they took place.”

  “Punish myself?” she whispered, struck hard by those two words. Years ago her therapist had worked diligently to make her believe she deserved no punishment for anything she’d done during her short lifetime, and certainly not for being the victim of a deranged rapist. Maybe the therapist hadn’t worked quite diligently enough.

  Still, she hadn’t believed that her lifestyle of closely guarded privacy and very little social interaction with men was a form of self-punishment.

  Nor did she believe it now! She lifted her chin. “I don’t need or want your psychoanalysis. You’re not qualified for the job, believe me. I would like you to leave now and not bother me again. I do ask one thing of you, however. I have no idea why I told you so many sordid details of my past, but I did, and if you spread what I said around town, I wouldn’t be able to look anyone in the eye again. So I’m asking—”

  Wounded to his core that she would even think such a thing about him, Reed broke in. “You don’t know me at all.” His lips curled in an unnatural sneer. “Let me put this as crudely as you seem to prefer conversations between us to be. I never talk about the women I sleep with. So long, babe, see you around.”

  Val watched him walk out of her living room, her mouth open, her eyes wide and startled. He could be cruel, after all. That was the one thing that had never entered her mind; she had never pictured him as a hard, cruel human being.

  Maybe she should have.

  Sick to his stomach, Reed drove home. It was over between Val and him, and it had barely gotten started. Maybe last night had been a dream and hadn’t really happened at all. Thinking of it that way somehow made it a little more bearable.

  Still, when he got to his house, he went inside and locked the door behind him. Almost praying that no one would call or come by, he ran a tub of water, got undressed and climbed into the bath. Leaning his head back against the lip of the tub, he released the tight hold he’d had on his emotions, and when a few tears dribbled down his temples, he didn’t wipe them away.

  What difference did a few tears make? His heart was broken, and the worst of it was he didn’t know why he felt so shattered. Last night Val had been all woman in his arms. Today she couldn’t stand the sight of him. Why, for God’s sake. Why?

  Would he ever know?

  Jinni walked into Val’s house via the kitchen door around seven that evening and found her sister sitting in the dark in the living room.

  “For Pete’s sake!” Jinni exclaimed. “What’s going on? What happened to the lights?”

  “I didn’t turn them on, and believe me, nothing is going on.”

  Jinni snapped on a lamp and immediately took a long look at her sister. “You’re down in the dumps. How come? Aren’t you feeling well?”

  “Jinni, I am feeling as well as you are. Honestly, why does everyone constantly question my health?”

  Frowning a bit, Jinni sank into a chair. “Probably because you’ve been wearing a last-rose-of-summer face for a good two weeks now. Is there something you’re not telling me? Have you been talking to your Billings doctors?”

  “I haven’t been near Billings for at least a month.”

  “Well, you’ve been acting awfully down in the mouth, kiddo, so something’s going on.” Jinni paused a moment. “Does your blue mood have something to do with Reed Kingsley?” she asked quietly.

  Val gave it all away by sucking in a sharp breath. Just hearing his name had stolen her breath, and her unexpected reaction was as much a shock to her as it was to Jinni. “This is about Reed! Val, I swear that if he’s done something to break your heart, I’ll find him and give him the dressing down of his life!”

  Val gasped. “You will do nothing of the kind! There is nothing between Reed and me, nor will there be in the future. I set him straight on that today.”

  “Today? This morning before we all left the cabin?”

  “No, this afternoon.”

  “He came by this afternoon? And you set him straight. As in what?”

  “As in I don’t want him hanging around.”

  Jinni’s jaw dropped. “You told him that? Val, what do you want to do, live alone for the rest of your life?”

  “Yes,” she said dully. “Change the subject, Jinni. You must have come over here for a reason. Isn’t Max at home?”

  “Max is home, but he’s holed up in the study with his lawyers. I ran over for a minute to tell you what’s happening. Everyone at my house is practically drooling because of the elderly man at the clinic. If he’s the Logan’s Hill hermit, then he might have seen what took place the day the fire started. Michael thinks he is Mr. Jackson, but the poor old guy is so emaciated and weather-beaten that he can’t be sure. The sheriff is trying to find someone in the area that knows Jackson better than Michael does, someone who can identify him unequivocally.”

  “I see,” Val murmured, truly unable to work up any enthusiasm for this latest chapter in the life and adventures of the Cantrell family. She felt guilty about it, but only because of Jinni’s connection. Not that she wanted an innocent man to be convicted of murder, but her brain was already so overcrowded with her own problems it was hard to find space for Guy Cantrell’s.

  Jinni was worried about her sister, and even the drama playing out in her own house couldn’t quell the concern she felt for Val.

  “I…wish you would give Reed a chance,” she said softly, although if she h
ad stood up and shouted the words they would not have had a greater impact on Val.

  “And I wish people would let me decide for myself who I should or should not like!”

  “Are you telling me to mind my own business? Val, you are my business.”

  Val choked on a sob. She’d been crying on and off since Reed walked out, and trying not to show it since Jinni walked in. Leaning forward now, Val covered her face with her hands.

  “Please, Jinni, let me figure this one out for myself,” she whispered. This was one thing Jinni couldn’t do for her.

  Jinni jumped up and hurried over to kneel by her sister. “You’re in such terrible pain. Sweetie, if you like Reed so much, why are you shutting him out?”

  Val touched her sister’s beautiful face with gentle fingertips and winced when she saw the mist in Jinni’s big blue eyes.

  “I’ve been leaning on you far too much, Jinni. I want you to believe what I’m going to say about Reed. He and I are fine. We will never be more than friends, but I think he’s accepted that, as I have. I also apologize for not being more sympathetic to your problems. I’ve become so obsessed with my own that I’ve forgotten how to be nice to you. Can you forgive me?”

  Jinni threw her arms around Val and hugged her. “Of course I forgive you.” She leaned back and grinned then, and Val saw a devilish twinkle in her eyes. “But I still wish you would give Reed a chance.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Even through her restless dreams, Val heard the wind. She opened her eyes and listened to the unmistakable sounds of another winter storm. Getting out of bed, she padded barefoot to a window at the front of her house. She moved the drape aside to look out, and saw snowflakes dancing in the glowing balls of light surrounding every streetlight. A car slowly passed by—a sheriff’s car. It turned south on Logan Street and parked near the building housing the sheriff’s office.

  Val’s gaze moved from that building to the one directly on the corner of Logan and Main—the volunteer fire station. She could make out one lighted window on the second floor and wondered if someone was there. Reed, maybe? Did he sometimes spend a night at the station? She thought it odd that she had never noticed how clearly—even during a snowstorm—she could see the place from her house.