Then, his attention returning to the two people who sat on the sofa, he resumed his narrative. “Judging by Hayworth’s description, one of the three was undoubtedly Moose, but we still have no more information on him than we had before. Hayworth was certain, however, that neither of the Maxwell brothers was part of the group. Although one man was near Max’s build, the resemblance stopped there. Whoever he was, he communicated by speaking in an irritatingly poor imitation of John Wayne.”
His eyes rested pointedly on his brother. Derek didn’t look up from the turtle.
Kevin’s gaze fixed on Connie. “The most interesting character, however, was the third guy. According to Hayworth this…man…was about five-five or so and was built sparingly, but was exceptionally strong. He’s convinced he was a jockey, a very well-conditioned one. And this guy was the most gutsy and nervy of the trio. At one point, Hayworth was able to get hold of the gun—he wasn’t at all clear on how this came about, but he was quite clear on the fact that the jockey had then manhandled him and wrested it away by force.”
Kristy’s face grew pale. She sipped coffee and stared at the slate blue carpet.
Relentlessly Kevin continued. “However, my dear Connie, unlike the guns the Maxwell brothers used, this one was undoubtedly loaded.”
The following silence was almost deafening. Connie guessed she’d also paled. She was having difficulty believing she’d done what she’d done and was carefully avoiding Derek’s eyes. Everybody’s eyes.
“That’s the one thing that’s going to save you, and I’m going to wonder for the rest of my life how you pulled it off. But because of the gun incident, he’s convinced the short one was male, so the two of you will never be suspected.” Kevin’s expression hardened. “But this evening’s caper could’ve had any number of lasting—and tragic—consequences.” When he spoke next, his voice rose and his words rushed together. “And that makes me so damned mad, and so damned scared, that I’d like to knock your idiotic heads together.”
He took several deep breaths, clearly to rein himself in, and ran his hands down his face. “Right now you’re sitting across from me. And I can vent. But we came close, that close,” he paused and held up thumb and forefinger, no space showing between them, “to all three of you being arrested by me. That would’ve broken my spirit. And my heart. And Kristy’s and Christopher’s.”
He stood and crossed to the fireplace. It appeared he was too tense to sit. The fire screen hung at a slant, and he jerked it to close it. It promptly opened again. “Got to fix that,” he mumbled.
With his gaze remaining on the fireplace, Kevin said, “That loose light bulb bothered me. A lot. But I thought I’d missed you. Maybe only by a hair, but I figured you were already out of there. But then Hayworth said the next time he entered the study, the bulb was gone.”
He looked across at them. “He had something in his safe he didn’t want me to see, so he ushered me out. That saved your necks, and mine. But I have to have your word, right now, that you’re through with this. Under no circumstances will either of you ever go after that comic book again. And you’re not leaving this house tonight until I have that promise.”
This time, Derek was no better than Connie at hiding his surprise. Their heads jerked toward each other.
“What?” Kevin’s eyes narrowed, gaze flitting from one person to the other. “He lied about that, too?”
Connie sneaked a look at him. He’d sounded almost pleased.
“He didn’t want to lose face.” Kevin’s tone took on a musing quality as he stared into space. “Couldn’t admit he’d lost.” Then his eyes and voice sharpened as he looked back at them. “But you got it? You really got it?”
His gaze continued to move between the two people on the sofa, as if seeking confirmation, then he caught himself. “No,” he said quickly. “I didn’t ask that. Don’t answer that.”
He crossed back to the recliner and sat down.
Yes, Connie thought. The man was pleased. But no way was she was going to comment on that.
“So it’s over,” Kevin said, as if test-driving the statement. He glanced at his guests. It appeared the statement passed the test, though evidently some of his ire remained. “But I’d still like to wring both your necks,” he said in an undertone.
Then he looked at his wife. “But I admit I’ve also got this ridiculous, equally strong desire to hug them.”
“Then you hug them. I’ll strangle them.” Kristy’s feet landed on the floor with a thump, and her empty coffee cup hit the table with a clatter. Her glare nailed Connie. “It’s my turn. He may be done, but I’m just getting started.” Her stare was so brittle, Connie dropped her gaze. It had been easier when Kevin was mad at her.
“So help me, Connie Louise Robertson, you scared me so badly tonight I don’t know if I can ever forgive you.” Her gaze left her friend to sweep the room while she wagged her head. Clearly she’d been holding in a lot of emotion for a long time.
“And to think I used to envy you.” She seemed as disgusted with herself as with Connie. “You set a course and stayed with it, regardless of the consequences, exactly like you did tonight, while I berated myself for being too strait-laced. You had all the fun, and I was little Miss Goody Two-Shoes.”
She looked back, eyes still intent, but Connie saw more concern than anger, and she also saw hurt. “Marriage tempered you,” Kristy went on, “but didn’t tame you, and I was glad. But then divorce left you wounded, and I missed the old Connie. Even though she’d too often had more spirit than common sense.”
Leaning toward the sofa, she placed her hand atop her friend’s. “Looks like you’re back, kid, in no uncertain terms. But, honey, you went too far tonight. You were lucky, incredibly lucky, and even successful. But it so easily could’ve gone the other way. Like Kevin said, you’re sitting here now. But I had visions of visiting you behind bars, in a hospital bed with a bullet in you, even—”
When her voice cracked, she grew quiet and looked at the floor.
For the first time that night, a sense of guilt was born within Connie. Her fingers tightened around Kristy’s. An apology wouldn’t cut it, and she wasn’t sorry for stealing back the comic book anyway. But she was responsible for the strain on her best friend’s face, and that she regretted.
Kristy said softly, without looking up, “I’m afraid, Connie, really afraid that if you ever pull anything like this again, I won’t be able to forgive you.”
Connie swallowed past a lump. Lightly she squeezed her friend’s hand. “I understand. But if you can find it in your heart to forgive me this one last time, I promise in the future to stick to teaching school and leave crime to the criminals.”
“Can I have that in writing?” Derek asked.
“That’s not funny.” In the same instant, she dropped Kristy’s hand and snapped her head around toward her ex-husband. “I’m serious.”
He stared back, unmoved. “So am I.”
“A show of support wouldn’t exactly be amiss here, O’Reilly!”
Hearing Kristy’s laugh, Connie looked back, her eyes squinting with surprise.
“Well, that’s one good note.” Kristy leaned her head back and grinned at the ceiling. “You’re a couple again. Breaking into a house and committing robbery must’ve cemented something somewhere.”
Kevin snorted. “That’s all it took?”
“Yep. Doesn’t make much sense, but that’s them,” she said dryly. “And I love them both.” She stretched her arms above her head, and with the action, she visibly let the tension go. She added, “Oh, what a night this has been. I am so totally looking forward to putting it behind me.”
Then she sat up straight, clasped her hands in her lap, and her gaze swept over each person in turn. It ended on Kevin, stayed there, and she wet her lips. “Goodnight, Connie. Goodnight, Derek,” she said without looking at them.
When there was no immediate movement, she glanced at the people on the sofa. “I just realized how I want to bring thi
s night to a close,” she explained patiently. “But I really shouldn’t go sit in his lap until the two of you are out of here.”
Kevin looked at her, their guests, again at her. “Er, what?”
“You heard me. But if you really don’t understand, I’ll explain in a minute.” She made shooing motions at the couch. “Go.”
Again Connie squinted. She’d held her own against Kevin, but Kristy was throwing more curves than her husband had. “Uh, what?”
Derek grinned. He stood, got Connie’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “It’s that strait-laced manner of yours, Kris. When you step out of it, you throw them both.”
Chapter Twenty-FourAs she drove away from the O’Reilly house, Connie’s heart, mind, and every other part of her was focused on the room with the oversized bed and the Do Not Disturb sign. She figured the same went for Derek. But, although her foot remained steady on the accelerator, the car was slowing. As she frowned and pumped the pedal, she was aware of a familiar, sinking feeling forming in her gut. Anxiously she checked the fuel gauge.
“Pull over,” Derek said, but she was already guiding the car into the right lane. Then she pulled onto the shoulder, barely making it before the sputtering started, and then abruptly ceased. She turned the key off, wondering why she bothered. The car wasn’t going anywhere.
She rested her forehead on the steering wheel. Traffic whizzed by. “No,” she muttered. “I don’t believe this.” All she needed now was for the redheaded cop to come by and ask her passenger what the problem was.
“You don’t even have a stuck gauge to blame it on,” her passenger said. “What’s the matter, don’t you ever check on how much gas you’ve got? It’s that little window, right there.”
“Don’t start with me,” she warned. She didn’t lift her head from the steering wheel.
“Oh, I want to start with you, all right, but it’s not an argument I’ve got in mind.” The seat creaked as he changed position. “Talk about frustration. Are we ever going to get around to starting something, anything, besides an argument?”
She felt a slow grin crease her face. Well, it had been his idea in the first place. She looked sideways without lifting her head. When his eyes met hers, she raised her head, twisted around and looked pointedly into the back seat.
His response started out as a light chuckle, then developed into a full-throated belly laugh. “I’d love to call your bluff—if it is a bluff—but since I’ve waited this long, I can wait a little longer. And I can guarantee it’s going to take more than a back seat tumble to satisfy me anyway.”
Their gazes held. “But you tempt me, Mrs. O’Reilly. You really tempt me.”
“It’s Robertson.”
“For now, maybe. But not for much longer.”
“Oh, yeah? You sound pretty sure of yoursel—”
“Now’s not the best time to get into it—out of gas and parked on the shoulder of the freeway in the middle of the night. I promise you, however, without doubt, that we will pick this up later. But right now we need a can of gas.” He opened his car door. “And I’m wasting no more breath trying to talk you into a cell phone. You’re getting one at my first opportunity. Period.”
She didn’t bother telling him that was also at the top of her agenda. She opened her door.
“Uh, Connie.” Half in and half out of the car, he looked across at her. “If I asked you to lock the doors and wait here, you’d want to go with me. But if I asked you to go, you’d wait. Right?”
“I’m going.” She withdrew the keys from the ignition and got out of the car.
He directed a shrug toward the chain fence lining the freeway. “She’s going.”
An exit was less than a quarter mile away, and from there it was a block to a gas station. Neither of them minded the walk. Connie felt like she was still on an adventure, an unending one that had started two weeks ago. She enjoyed her ex-husband’s company, their banter, and her hand in his. And she still had that marvelous, euphoric sense of a job well done.
Once they arrived back at the car, he poured a small amount of gas into the carburetor, and then emptied the can into the tank. They drove to the station and filled the tank, but when Connie exited the station’s lot, she pulled off onto the side of the road instead of heading back to the freeway.
Derek gave her a questioning look. She stared at the road sign at the corner of the intersection. “If I’m not mistaken, a couple of miles in from here there’s a small farmhouse where we recently spent some time.” She looked across at him. “Right? Or do I have my directions mixed up again?”
“Nope.” He chuckled. “You’re right on that one.”
Her gaze returned to the sign. “We started something there one morning we never got to finish. Somehow, it only seems fitting we return there tonight.” She gave him another sideways glance. “What do you think?”
“I think the owner would have us arrested for trespassing.”
“He’s just jealous because he can’t do John Wayne like you can. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“You haven’t had enough adventure for one night? After the risks we’ve already taken, you want to take one more?”
She grinned. “Uh-huh. And tomorrow morning, we could walk out to the stream. I’ve even got a blanket in the trunk we could take with us.”
He continued to watch her. He was tempted, she could tell.
“I know where there’s a key,” she coaxed.
“So do I. Under a pink flower in the back yard.”
“More precisely, under a rock next to a pink flower. An azalea.”
Obviously he was still thinking and still tempted, so she gave him time.
“Okay,” he said finally. “But there’s a condition.”
“A condition?”
He laughed, probably because her surprise showed on her face. She hadn’t gotten instant surrender, but, as he’d pointed out, the farmhouse was an off-the-wall destination and riskier than the Holiday Inn. But she hadn’t expected him to attach strings.
She watched his expression smooth out and slowly grow sober. Then he reached over, put his hand on her knee and squeezed. “Yes. A condition. You have to promise we’ll talk about when—not if—you’ll be changing your name from Robertson back to O’Reilly.”
It wasn’t going to be all or nothing with him this time, she could tell. No more push from him other than that slight pressure on her knee. She could pull away from the curb and drive straight ahead, get back on the freeway and proceed to the Holiday Inn. Safe, no risk. Or she could turn around, go back and take another shot at something that had been started—and interrupted—a long time ago.
* * *
The second wedding of television’s most eligible bachelor—to his first wife—drew more media attention than either of the principals was comfortable with. The simple ceremony they’d envisioned quickly mushroomed into a small extravaganza.
They found a way around it, however.
The ballroom at a prestigious downtown hotel was booked for the reception, and the penthouse bridal suite had also been reserved. But, known to only a select few, it was the best man and matron of honor who would be using it.
After the ceremony, the bride and groom dutifully sipped champagne, partook of their wedding feast, led the first dance, and cut the huge wedding cake. Then a friend of Derek’s, a celebrity in his own right, appeared and drew a sizable amount of attention.
Mr. and Mrs. Derek O’Reilly were there—and then they weren’t.
They changed clothing in back bathrooms, near housekeeping. With the kids in their grandparents’ care, Kevin and Kristy stood guard in the hallway outside the respective restrooms. Dressed in jeans, t-shirts, sneakers and baseball caps, the bride and groom met in the corridor, feeling and looking like runaways.
Derek’s headgear swore his allegiance to his beloved San Diego Padres, but Connie’s expensive hairdo was now tucked inside a cap bearing the San Francisco Giants logo. Derek took a double take.
/> “Huh?”
“Never mind. I wasn’t paying attention. I just bought the first one I saw.”
“You need helmets instead of those caps,” Kevin said with a grin. “And boots. And you could escape on motorcycles.”
Kristy tried to swallow a giggle, but it got away from her. She quickly looked around, as though fearing that one laugh might alert the whole reception to their whereabouts. “Whatever your mode of transportation is, you best get to it,” she warned.
She looked exquisite in a mint-green gown that left her shoulders bare, emphasized her waist, and flowed to her feet. Her hair was stacked on top of her head, curling tendrils teased her forehead and neck, and tiny gold buttons adorned her ears. Kevin had seldom taken his eyes off her. When she spoke, he looked her way, and the look of a man smitten once more appeared on his face.
“I don’t know how much longer your luck is going to hold,” she added, and the four people exchanged quick goodbyes. “I can understand your not wanting to tell anyone where you’re going,” Kristy told Connie with her hug. “But I hope you’ll at least tell us where you’ve been when you get back.”
Connie and Derek exchanged secretive smiles.
Derek and Kevin traded car keys. Derek looked dubious when relinquishing his. “Don’t worry about it,” his brother said airily. “You take care of my van; I’ll take care of your convertible.”
The snazzy red convertible was a sharper-looking honeymoon vehicle, but the nondescript green sedan was a better getaway car and had won hands down. It was packed and waiting three miles away in a supermarket’s parking lot. The van would get them to it, and its owners could then pick up their vehicle at their leisure.
Kevin walked with them to the service door leading into the parking lot, then clasped an arm around each of them and drew them close. The hug was a tight one. “It better take this time,” he whispered, sounding both gruff and choked. “I’ve gotten dressed up twice for you guys, and I don’t intend to do it again.”
Second Thoughts Page 20
