by Karen Harper
“Just shut up. I don’t want any of that to upset him, even though, at this age, he won’t remember it later.”
“Not upset him? That’s laughable—pitiful and criminal. You haul him out here without food. You plan to take him from the only stability he’s known, and you think I’ll upset him? You’re planning to ditch the one he thinks is his m-o-t-h-e-r, his second m-o-t-h-e-r you’ve taken from him, and you’re trying to make me feel guilty for wanting him? I can’t say wanting him back, can I, because I never had him? And now, you’re standing on a precipice, over an abyss that could be the end of him!”
“Then just back off! Take that dog and get out of here!” he shouted with another nervous glance at Beamer. “If you do, I’ll tell my lawyers to work on joint visitation rights, I swear it. You cooperate and, once I arrange things with Jennifer, I’ll see that we share Jordie, you know, alternate weekends or vacations…”
What a story he continued to spin for her. She’d been expecting some sort of salesman’s pitch, but she could play that game. She’d do anything to get Jordie back from the falls and a chopper that could take him away forever. She’d already lost almost three years of his life, and she could not bear to lose more.
“All right, I’ll take that bargain,” she told him. She was lying now for all it was worth. “A child should definitely have both parents, and you and the Lohans can offer him so much over the years.”
She was almost sick when she said that, but it was something he believed, something he would go for. “But on one condition,” she added. “That you let me hold him and feed him now before I go. Laird, please. I’ve never touched my son since he left my body.”
He frowned but nodded. Maybe the boy’s crying and struggling was wearing him down. As she had suspected, Laird seemed to be the sort of father who wanted his son to learn to play golf far too young, to make him proud, compete with his cousins and impress his grandfather, but not one he really wanted to take care of on a daily, boring basis.
Not budging from where she stood, with the candy sack in one hand and the peanut butter jar in the other, she held out her arms. Laird took five steps, stopping about three feet away. With a nervous glance at Beamer, he handed Jordie to her. As he’d approached, she felt Beamer, glued against her left leg, stiffen and growl again. Would the dog protect her if Laird attacked? Frowning down at Beamer, Laird still stayed close.
Jordie weighed more than she’d imagined. He filled her arms and her heart. She told herself she had to be wary of some trap or trick from Laird, but, for one wild moment, she almost didn’t care. Her own son was in her arms, cuddled against her, sheltered from the brisk wind and drifting mist, and not fighting her as he had Laird. It was the promise of candy and peanut butter, of course, but it still warmed her to the depths of her soul.
“Since we’re going to be civil to each other,” she said to Laird, taking a couple of steps away from him when he still hovered, “I would like you to stop dying his hair.”
“Sure. Of course. There’d be no reason to then anyway.”
Too agreeable, the little voice in her head warned, but she felt besotted with Jordie’s expectant expression as she popped a mashed piece of chocolate in his mouth, then dug her index finger into the peanut butter jar to feed him that, too, with Laird watching every move she made. Like a little bird, Jordie opened his mouth, so she scooped up more and put it in. He sucked on her finger, his eyes wide on her.
She would have nursed him, would have had wonderful moments with him like this. Could he feel her love for him, her frantic need to protect him? She hugged him as best she could with the jar in one hand and her other hand poised to feed him more. With his small arm around her neck, he did not protest when she kissed him lightly on one dirty cheek.
“Good p.b.,” he told her.
He called peanut butter p.b., Tara thought. She had so much to learn about him. But the time to act was now or never. She could see a speck behind Laird’s head that she had thought at first was another vulture, but it was growing bigger, bigger. It must be the chopper. With the roar of the falls, Laird couldn’t hear it yet. He’d soon have reinforcements, and then it would be too late to keep Jordie or save herself. She knew too much. Laird’s lies aside, Jordan would insist on getting rid of her. And she could only think of one thing to do, desperate or not. Nick had said once that Beamer had jumped a guy who tried to rob him. But had Beamer done that on his own? What command would he need?
“Beamer, get him!” she shouted. Then she added, “Elk, elk!” since the dog had always been disturbed by them.
With a single bark, the dog leaped at Laird and pushed him back. Clutching Jordie to her, Tara tore the way she’d come, down the path that led beneath the falls.
She could heard Beamer barking, but also Laird cursing and running after her, half skidding down the path. Burdened with the boy, she was too slow. Laird spun her around, slammed her into a rock.
“You deceitful bitch!” he shouted.
She actually saw stars, but she held Jordie to her as Laird tried to rip him away. Beamer was at him again, biting his pants, maybe his leg. He swore and tried to kick the dog off, slamming Beamer into the wall.
The sound of the hovering chopper above them vied with the roar of the falls. “Went after Alex when I told you not to get involved with that stupid business of yours. The coma was all your fault! You had a duty to me, to the Lohans!”
Jordie was screaming in her ear. She was dizzy. Laird pried the child from her arms and set him down on the path, sobbing and kicking. “Stay here, Jordie!” Laird shouted, holding her against the rock wall with one arm straight out so she couldn’t scratch or hit him. “Stay right here until Daddy gets you! Grandpa’s here to take us for a plane ride, so you stay here!”
Tara wasn’t sure where Beamer was. Jordie’s screams, the waterfall, the chopper’s rotors roaring…her head. She glimpsed a long, black corridor stretched out before her, but she fought to find the light. Laird was dragging her, partly by her jacket, partly by her hair. Her head hurt so much. Up, up out over jagged rocks where he had first stood, to the edge of a foaming maelstrom below.
He was going to shove her over the falls! Right in front of his father and at least one other witness. They would probably applaud. Finally, the rebel, the family traitor, would be gone.
Tara stared straight down into the swift suction of green-white water as it plunged over the edge to the rocks below. Seething death. Was she already spinning down into it? Which way was up? But she had held her son. She had loved him, if only for the few hours she’d known he was hers, or maybe from the moment she saw a picture of him. And Nick—she’d loved him and he loved her, and Claire…
Her senses came back, her equilibrium righted as he started to roll her off. Then suddenly he screamed and dove over her toward the water. Beamer slammed into her, on top of her. Her breath whooshed out. Where was Laird? Had the dog shoved him over?
Pain chattered at her, but she twisted to look down. He had not fallen to the water. About four feet below her, he was sprawled on a narrow ledge, like her, half on, half off. Despite the fact they both might die, she was furious that he had left Jordie alone where he could wander up or down that path and get hurt.
“Tara, Tara, help me!” Laird demanded, and dared reach a hand up toward her. She shoved the barking dog back from danger and leaned on her belly over the edge, looking down at Laird, silhouetted by raging water. If she stretched out her arm, she could probably grasp his hand, but he could still try to pull her over the ledge. But then, again, for good or ill, this was her son’s father. She should try to save him, but the chopper would land and she’d be trapped. She had to get back to Jordie, get away. Let Laird’s father save him.
“Get my father,” Laird was screaming as if he’d read her mind. “Get him to help me-eee-e!”
The helicopter hovered lower, blocking out the sun. Laird gasped as he looked up, so she did, too. Clearly painted on the belly of the chopper were big, bold
letters that spelled out, U.S. Govt. Nat. Forest Dept. of the Interior.
Unless Jordan had commandeered a government chopper—which she did not put past him—this meant a rescue for her, not Laird. Perhaps he knew it, perhaps he realized that his lies and money and might would not get him out of this. And that he’d cause the Lohans devastating scandal.
Because, although he could have tried to hoist himself up farther onto the ledge, with a dreadful frown and furious cry, he deliberately let go of his single handhold. He rolled off the edge, tumbled once, then the swift current swallowed him.
In shock, Tara lay there only a moment as a metallic voice came from overhead, a megaphone perhaps: “Tara Kinsale, do not move! U.S. Park Rangers. We will rappel a man to help you!”
But she was having none of that. Laird had left her son alone, now in more ways than one. She scooted backward, where Beamer was waiting for her. More than the cut on his paws looked bloodied; the dog had pinkish smears on his face and chest. He whined as she gave him a swift hug, then he followed her down the path.
Oh, no! Where was her son? She prayed he hadn’t seen his father fall, or if he’d gone down the path under the falls, that he hadn’t seen Laird’s body go over. Surely he hadn’t fallen in himself.
She tore under the curtain of the falls. There sat Jordie, his hand in the peanut butter jar, which she must have dropped when Laird slammed her into the rock wall.
“Hi!” Jordie said. Tears streaked through the dirt on his face and mingled with peanut butter around his mouth. “Where’s Daddy? He’s mad at me.”
“No, Jordie,” she said, kneeling beside him as Beamer came up, “he’s not mad at you, but he’s gone away.”
“In the plane?”
“No, but I’m going to take you in the plane. Would that be all right? And Beamer?”
He nodded uncertainly but reached out to touch the dog. He grabbed his wagging tail. Beamer, as beat-up as he was, sat close to the boy and let him hold it.
“What’s your name?” he asked her, holding out the nearly empty jar to her.
“For now, you call me Tara. I used to be a friend of your mommy, and I knew your daddy, too.”
“He doesn’t like you. But I do.”
It took every remnant of strength she had to not burst into hysterical sobs. She had to find out how Nick was. He or Veronica must have sent the helicopter. As she stood with Jordie in her arms and limped toward the path that would take them up on top again, she looked around this magic, lit cave where she had finally found her lost child.
Hugging him to her, with Beamer at her heels, she walked out from the cavern under the falls and climbed the path toward the sun. Above her, two men in uniforms hurried toward her, but her real rescuers were at her heels and in her arms.
28
One year later…
Resonating through the clinic chapel, the last notes of Veronica’s organ recital of patriotic songs ended with “This Is My Country.” In the front row, Nick and Tara sat with Claire between them and Danny on Claire’s lap. She was loving being an older sister, and Tara understood her joy. Her marriage to Nick and their mutual decision to stay in Conifer had made her realize the heights and depths of happiness that were possible in this life. Tara joined in the applause from clinic staff and patients, Nick’s Canine Training Academy staff and members of the press who had been invited. On the other side of the center aisle, Thane, Susanne and their three children were clapping, too.
Tara wondered what Jordan was thinking today, incarcerated across the state in the same prison where Clay Whetstone was being held. Jordan was sentenced for accessory to two murders. His lawyers had managed to get him only twenty years, but Tara figured, if he lived that long, he’d be out sooner than that for “good behavior.” The trial had shamed and broken him, as had his loss of Laird. He’d threatened to bring murder charges against Tara, but Laird’s death had been witnessed by government park rangers, who had testified that he had tried to kill Tara but she had not harmed him.
She felt Nick’s gaze, warm on her again. When she turned to smile at him, her foot bumped Beamer’s belly, but the dog didn’t budge and only put his head down on his paws again.
Veronica walked from the organ to the podium and gestured with both hands for quiet. She had told Jordan she would not divorce him or make public the way he had treated her if he treated her better now—namely, give her full oversight of the clinic and control of their family finances. When he’d agreed and she had signed the papers, she had promptly offered Nick and Tara one-fourth of the clinic land for his canine training school. She had also deeded them the cottage closest to that newly built facility, the isolated one where Tara had been cared for in her coma.
“All right, now, we have some other business to attend to,” Veronica said into the microphone. “As I mentioned, that medley was in honor of our servicemen and the trainers here who are preparing tracker dogs for the armed services. Today, we formally dedicate the MacMahon Canine Academy—usually spelled K9,” she added, drawing in the air that letter and number with her index finger. “I know you will want to tour those facilities. The dogs will be trained not only for our far-flung Special Forces but as local search-and-rescue dogs. And, I am happy to announce, that the very presence of these wonderful, bright animals will also benefit those who come to use the clinic’s facilities. I give you Nick MacMahon to explain a bit more about that.”
“Beamer, heel,” Nick said, and went up the steps to the podium with Beamer right behind. Sometimes Tara wondered if the dog knew he’d been hailed as a hero in both the Seattle and Denver newspapers. Even Thane and Susanne had been supportive lately and, through Nick, had bought a Labrador for their kids to play with.
As Nick took Veronica’s place on the low stage, she came to sit in his chair. Danny crawled onto her lap. Veronica had become a great grandmother, not only for Jordie in his transition to becoming Danny MacMahon in Tara and Nick’s home, but she’d been wonderful to Claire. This summer Veronica had taken her and her friend Charlee to New York to see two Broadway musicals that smacked of fairy tales; last spring, she’d taken Nick, Tara, Claire and Danny to Disney World in Orlando. As Claire had said more than once since they’d been back, “Like Jiminy Cricket says, ‘A dream is a wish your heart makes.’” Blessedly, there had been no more nightmares for Claire.
“I’m honored to be a part of this beautiful Lohan Clinic facility and grounds,” Nick began. Tears blurred Tara’s vision of her big, rugged man. He still kept his hair short. After months of physical therapy, he’d finally quit limping from his severe leg fracture. She had never been so proud of him, of the way he’d become a father not only to Claire but to Danny, who adored him.
“Our work here on the clinic grounds is really a two-way street,” Nick went on. “The generosity of Veronica Lohan and her family trust will be repayed, at least in a small way, by our tracker dogs visiting the patients here. I’m sure you know that the mere presence of an animal can calm stress and fears. Also, if patients opt to do so, they can apply to help care for and/or adopt our dogs when they are retired. Another debt my wife and I owe to Veronica and her fine staff is that clients released from the clinic can choose to rear our young puppies until they are ready to be trained on these grounds.
“Many of you have seen pictures of or read about Beamer,” Nick went on, stooping to pet the dog’s head. Beamer sat erect and still, as if he were about to receive a medal. “He’s pretty much in retirement now, but he recently contributed to the future of the academy by becoming the sire for four new pups.”
People smiled, some clapped. Beamer had seen his job at the academy as guarding the “new recruits,” including one female dog he’d obviously gotten to know quite well. Like master, like Beamer, Tara had kidded Nick.
She bit back a big grin, not thinking of Beamer’s or Nick’s conquest but of hers. Nick’s willingness and passion to make what he called “mutual love” to and with her was all she had ever desired in a marriage. H
er mind darted to last night, in the cabin where she had once slept a year of her life away. They’d made a little getaway from their home in Conifer there, a hiding place, where Nick could relax from his duties, and she could even take her laptop when she worked on her current cases for Finders Keepers. It had bunk beds in the living space for Claire and Danny and a huge bed in the master bedroom. And there, last night, after the children were finally asleep…
“So,” Nick had said, pulling her to him in the middle of their king-size bed, “this is the room where you were Sleeping Beauty and bore your son.”
“I’m glad Veronica gave it to us so we can change it all around. And take the curse off it,” she said, cuddling against his strength and warmth. “I feel it’s a good place now.”
“Maybe a good place for conceiving another child,” he had murmured, nuzzling her ear and gently pressing a knee between her bare thighs. She wrapped her arms around him. They traded hot kisses, wilder caresses. As ever with this man, she lost track of where she ended and he began, especially when he moved over her to press…
“…express my thanks to my wonderful wife for her support of this project,” Nick was saying.
Everyone turned her way, applauding again. Her face pink from where her thoughts had been, rather than from being thrust into the limelight—heaven knows, she’d had enough of that for one lifetime—she popped out of her seat briefly and waved. Nick then introduced Claire and Danny, and gave Veronica back the podium.
Veronica shifted Danny into Tara’s arms, and she hugged him to her, still amazed at the reality of her redheaded little boy. Tara had offered to let Jen fly in from Seattle to see him and had suggested she enter the Lohan clinic to be sure she’d stay sober, but she’d turned her down. They hadn’t prosecuted Jen, but the scandal of what she’d done had deep-sixed her high-level medical career. The last Tara had heard, she was working at a free clinic in downtown Seattle.
