by Lisa Jackson
“Neither did I.”
“I didn’t want it.”
“I know.”
“But I just can’t seem to stop. I tell myself to keep my hands off you. I give myself a list of reasons to stay away from you that is completely logical. But I can’t stay away.”
She smiled softly and touched the corner of his mouth. “Neither can I, Counselor,” she said with a giggle. “It’s crazy…I know that as much—maybe more—than you do.”
“What’re we going to do?”
She looked up at him and raised a wicked eyebrow. “For the rest of the night?”
“For the rest of our lives?”
A thick lump formed in the back of her throat. She could barely breathe. “I think we should take it slow.”
“Slower than twelve years?”
She had to laugh then. To her surprise, he rolled off her, picked her up and carried her stark naked into the back bedroom. “I think it’s time we did this properly,” he said, dropping her onto the old double bed.
“You? Proper?” She giggled again, and this time he flung himself down on the bed beside her. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“Actually, I was thinking of making you do a lot of things, lady. But laughing wasn’t near the top of the list.”
“What is?” she asked, a naughty spark lighting her eyes.
“I’ll show you.” And then, throwing the covers over them, he kissed her hard and didn’t stop for a long, long time.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING RACHELLE awoke to the smells of hot coffee and burned toast. She touched the bed where Jackson had lain, but the sheets were cold. Stretching, she smiled to herself. Waking up with Jackson felt right. She threw on her robe and found Jackson seated at the table, sipping coffee and staring at the contents of a file folder. He glanced up at her approach. “‘Morning.”
Spying his work spread out on the table, she said, “Look, before you bury yourself in that, I think you should know that I lied to you.”
He stiffened, his eyes narrowing a fraction. “What about?”
“About the fact that I really do need an interview with you…my editor was insistent. You were so damned arrogant about it, I couldn’t admit that you were right.” She tossed her hair from her face. “Forgive me?”
He tapped a pen to his lips. “I guess,” he said, then grinned.
“What’s this?” she asked, covering her mouth to stifle a yawn as she gazed at the file folder that held his attention.
“Homework.”
“From New York?” She wandered over to the coffee-maker and poured herself a cup of the fresh brew.
“Not exactly.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled up at her. “I’ve had a change of heart. Remember when I asked you to stay out of my business?”
“How could I forget? Subtle isn’t your middle name.”
“All right, all right, so maybe I made a mistake.”
“What? An apology?” She feigned surprise as she shoved her hair from her face.
His eyes narrowed in good-natured anger. “Are you going to hear me out or give me a bad time?”
“Hopefully a little of both.” Cradling her cup, she plopped down in a chair next to his. “What’s this?”
“The information I got from a private investigator.”
“On?” she asked, her stomach dropping. Had he hired a detective to look into her life?
“On everyone who could’ve been involved in Roy’s death.” All the teasing light dimmed in his eyes. “You’re here, as well as your friends.”
Rachelle’s stomach knotted as she began scanning the individual reports. Jackson was right. Her name fairly leapt off the page—along with her phone number, address, Social Security number and California driver’s license number. A credit report and her credit history came next, then a quick résumé of her accomplishments, her education and her current working address and job description.
With the turn of each page, she became more furious; she felt that Jackson had asked a perfect stranger to put together her life, file and label it accurately, then stuff it into a neat envelope for Jackson to dissect as he pleased.
The typewritten biography started with her birth, her parents, her sister, even including how much money her father and mother made. She read about her parents’ divorce, her father’s affair with a younger woman and her own involvement with Jackson. The report mentioned her termination of employment at the Clarion and the fact that she gave up most of her extracurricular activities after the night Roy Fitzpatrick died. The investigation went further, following her through college and her career. David was mentioned, as was her boss, Marcy, and friends she’d made over the years. Attached to the back page were photocopies of newspaper reports, primarily from the Gold Creek Clarion, about her as a witness—the sole witness—who could get Jackson Moore off the hook for Roy Fitzpatrick’s murder.
By the time she’d finished reading, her insides were shredding. “Thorough, isn’t he?” she asked, her lips pressed hard against each other. She felt betrayed by Jackson. He had no right to order out a copy of her life and study it as if it were some new cure for a fatal disease.
“I hope he is. Otherwise I paid him a lot of money for nothing.”
“Except to get your jollies from reading the dirt on everyone in town.”
He looked up sharply. “You’re offended?”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“I’m only trying to get to the bottom of this.”
“By having me investigated? You didn’t trust me—even after I stood up for you.”
He sighed, set his cup down and leaned back in his chair. As if the strain of sitting for hours was beginning to get to him, he rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t want to put any restraint on Timms. I figured I needed a fresh outlook on an old crime. So I told him to look into everyone involved, including myself.”
“That’s crazy.”
He shuffled through a pile of reports and tossed one to her. Sure enough, it was labeled Jackson Moore and listed his address, phone number and place of employment.
“I don’t understand….”
His smile was cynical. He motioned to the report. “Read it if you want. It paints a pretty grim picture. For years I thought the police just had it in for me, that they were somehow on Fitzpatrick’s payroll, but if you read the facts objectively, you can see why I was the prime suspect. However,” he added, before draining his cup, “I’m not giving up on the bribe theory. Fitzpatrick hates my guts.”
She looked over the reports, reading familiar names: Thomas Fitzpatrick, Brian Fitzpatrick, June Fitzpatrick, Laura Chandler Fitzpatrick, Carlie Surrett, Erik Patton, Scott McDonald, Melanie Patton and on and on. It was an incredible compilation of history.
She finished her coffee and walked into the kitchen to grab the glass pot and return with it. As she poured coffee into Jackson’s empty cup, she glanced at him. “Does all of this help?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve discovered some interesting facts.” He grabbed her wrist as she finished pouring. His fingers caught on the tie of her robe and he gently tugged, helping the knot to loosen. “By the way, you look great.”
She rolled her eyes and clutched her robe closed. Without makeup, her hair a tangled mess, she thought “great” was a tad overdoing it. Nonetheless his hasty compliment brought a small smile to her lips. She finished pouring and took the coffeepot back to the kitchen to heat. “What interesting facts?” she asked as she returned to her chair.
“Erik Patton and Roy weren’t that crazy for each other. His sister, Melanie, was supposedly engaged to Roy when he took up with Laura. Melanie even tried to trap him and claim she was pregnant, but she was lying apparently.”
Rachelle thought back to that ni
ght and Erik’s sullenness; he had seemed preoccupied, but he’d still definitely been in the Fitzpatrick corner. She remembered him laughing when Jackson, trying to flee, couldn’t start his motorcycle. Well, look what you found—Roy’s little piece…. You’re not gonna get far, he’d predicted before calling to Roy.
“Erik thought I was Roy’s girl,” she said with a shudder.
“Erik probably knew that Roy was using Laura to get to you. It doesn’t change the fact that there was bad blood between the two supposed best friends.” He glanced up at her and shoved his hair from his eyes impatiently. “Puts a different slant on things, doesn’t it?”
“I’d say so.”
They then spent the next hour going through the files, scrutinizing the secrets of Gold Creek. Melanie Patton was hired by Fitzpatrick right out of high school as a receptionist and with each passing year, she was promoted until, at the age of twenty-nine, she had become Thomas’s private secretary and administrative assistant.
Her brother Erik, too, had been employed by the Fitzpatricks, or their relatives, the Monroes, ever since he’d dropped out of college, two months after Roy’s death.
Rachelle took a shower, dressed, then read the private investigator’s reports until her head swam. What she read only confirmed what she already knew: Gold Creek was a small town and most of the local families had roots that went back for generations. People married, had children and watched those children grow up to marry someone in town only to start the cycle over again.
Jackson scraped back his chair in frustration.
“Restless?”
“A little.”
“Come on, let’s go for a ride.”
He grinned. “On the motorcycle?”
“Why not?”
He didn’t need any more encouragement. They rode through the hills, the wind pressing hard against their faces and tangling their hair. The sun was bright, casting shadows through the limbs of trees that hung over the country roads as they raced through the valleys and towns surrounding Gold Creek.
At a small general store a few miles from the lake, they purchased sandwiches and a bottle of wine, which they took to a strip of beach on the south side of the lake. Seated on a stump near the water’s edge, they ate their lunch and watched the ducks swim on the lake. A few fishermen cast their lines into the still waters of Whitefire Lake and chipmunks, looking for a handout, scampered nervously along the shore.
“You believe in the old Indian legend?” he asked, sitting behind her as she half lay against him.
“I don’t know.” She remembered the first morning she’d come to the lake, how the mist was rising and how she, feeling adventurous as well as silly, had drunk from the lake. But then good fortune had come to her, hadn’t it? Just days later Jackson had returned to Gold Creek. “I’m not really superstitious.”
“Neither am I.” He kissed the side of her head and nuzzled her neck. “I thought coming back here would be the end of my life here in Gold Creek—that I would resolve the parts of my life that were still unsettled.”
“And have you?”
“Not until I find Roy’s murderer and clear my name.” He climbed off the stump and kicked at a stone on the shore. “But that might not be enough, either.”
“No?” She hopped from the stump and joined him at the edge of the lake.
He smiled sadly and his gaze drilled into hers. “Because I didn’t count on you,” he said, frowning. “I knew you were here, of course. Hell, I planned to breeze into town, land on your doorstep and convince myself once and for all that you were nothing but a nice part of a bad memory.”
She remembered their first meeting when he’d shown up on her doorstep and within minutes antagonized her and kissed her with a hunger that had stolen the very breath from her lungs. “But you came back.”
“My motives weren’t very pure,” he admitted.
“Are they ever?” she teased, her heart drumming at his confession.
“I wanted to make love to you—as often as possible—as long as I could and I thought if I did, that I would quit fantasizing about you, that I would quit falling into the nostalgia trap of thinking something long ago was better than today. But I was wrong.” He stared deep into her eyes and drew in on his lower lip. “I didn’t know I was capable of being so wrong.”
She couldn’t stop the elation that thundered through her blood. He was standing only inches from her, not touching her, claiming that he cared.
“I don’t know if I can leave you,” he said, a small, self-deprecating smile tugging at one side of his mouth. “I came here to conquer, to prove my innocence and all I’ve proven is that I’m stupid enough to fall in love.”
There it was—the confession hanging on the air. Tears touched the back of her eyes and she couldn’t smile because her chin was wobbling.
“I love you, Rachelle. I think I always have.”
With a startled cry, she flung herself into his arms and let the tears of joy flow down her cheeks. Her fingers clenched in the soft folds of his leather jacket and she sobbed openly. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear you say those three words,” she said. “I’ve loved you forever!”
His arms were around her and he swung her off her feet. Her sobs gave way to laughter as the world spun around them. The lake shimmered like glass and the air was fresh with the scent of pine and musk. He kissed her face, her neck, her hair, tasting her tears and holding her so fiercely that she could barely breathe. But she didn’t care. All her worries seemed to float away and she knew that no matter what the future held, she would love Jackson forever.
When at last he let her go, she dashed away from him and he chased after her. Startled birds flew from their path and a squirrel scolded from the upper branches of a pine tree.
“You can’t hide from me,” Jackson warned, laughing as he bore down on her.
“You haven’t caught me yet,” she teased, scrambling over a rock to hide in the shadows. He saw her and she started running again, but he caught up with her easily and grabbed hold of her.
She laughed and tossed back her hair.
“So what’re we going to do about this?” he asked, breathing as hard as she was.
Her gaze lingered in his and her heart melted. “Do we have to do anything?”
“I think it’s proper to propose.”
“And we know that above all else, Jackson, you’re proper. Right?”
“Absolutely.” He slapped her rear playfully. “Always the gentleman.”
“Save me,” she whispered, and he shook his head.
“No, you save me.” He gathered her into his arms again, and in the shifting shadows of the fragrant pines, he kissed her forehead. “Marry me, Rachelle,” he whispered, and her throat clogged all over again.
“You’re serious?” She couldn’t believe her ears.
“Marry me and have my children and grow old beside me.”
Her world tilted and joy coursed through her blood. “In a heartbeat,” she whispered, pressing her anxious lips to his as his knees gave way and they dropped onto a bed of pine needles.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MRS. JACKSON MOORE. The name sounded right. She pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, even though she’d spent another night in Jackson’s arms and had spent hours planning their future. They hoped after a few months’ separation to be married and then she would join him in New York, where she could still write her columns.
Things were looking up, she told herself, as she walked into the Rexall Drug Store in search of a toy for Adam. The store was as she remembered it. Paddle fans circled the air lazily overhead and a bell tinkled when the front door was opened. More than a pharmacy, the store offered everything from cookbooks to baby clothes, from cosmetics to Band-Aids, from
hair dye to costume jewelry. In the toy section, Rachelle eyed several games before deciding upon a model dinosaur. After purchasing her gift at the cash register, she walked to the back of the store where an old-fashioned soda fountain offered lunch.
Carlie’s mother, Thelma, was “tending bar” as she used to call it by whipping up a gooey concoction of chocolate, marshmallow crème, milk and ice cream in the blender. She poured the frothy mixture into a tall waxed paper cup and slid it into the eager hands of a boy of about ten or eleven who was seated on the end stool. “There ya go, Zach,” Thelma said with a wink.
Rachelle eyed the boy, a handsome child with pale blond hair and blue eyes. He reminded her of someone she’d known in grade school, but she couldn’t remember whom until she spied the boy’s mother walking quickly through the store. “Ready to go?” Laura asked her son.
“Sure.”
Laura’s gaze met Rachelle’s in the mirror behind the counter. For a second, fear registered in Laura’s eyes, then she offered a cool smile. “So you’re still here,” she said, flipping a lock of blond hair over her shoulder. “I thought by now you would have had more than enough material for your articles.”
“It takes a while,” Rachelle admitted. “I’m working on a couple of pieces, one about people who’ve moved out of Gold Creek and then come back and another about the people who’ve stayed for most of their lives.”
“Would any of your readers really care?”
“I hope so.”
Laura was tugging on her son’s arm. “It’s time, Zach. Daddy’ll be home soon.”
“I thought maybe I could talk to you,” Rachelle said, and Laura visibly started.
“Me? I don’t think—”
“Come on, Laura. We were friends once,” Rachelle said, and a sadness stole across Laura’s features. For a second she looked as if she might break down and cry.
“That was a long time ago, Rachelle. We don’t even know each other anymore. Let’s go, Zach.” She tugged on the boy’s arm and he yanked it quickly away.
