Stonebrook Cottage

by Carla Neggers

  Hatch smiled at them without reassurance. "You two have led us all on quite the chase this week," he said as they maintained their position on the steps. "What a show. Very clever, I must say, conning the shuttle driver and getting cash with your mother's ATM card."

  Henry and Lillian leaned back on their elbows and said nothing. They'd never had a warm relationship with Hatch, Kara remembered, nor he with them, but they were always polite to each other. This noticeable coolness between uncle and children wasn't something she'd ever witnessed in the past.

  Hatch approached them, Kara on his heels as he crossed the lawn. Sam leaned against his car, observing. She knew he was aware of the awkwardness, that the undertone of animosity emanated more from Henry and Lillian than it did from Hatch.

  "You're very fortunate nothing happened to you," Hatch said to his niece and nephew. "We all are."

  Henry lifted his chin. "I believe you.You and Grandma and Mom don't need anyone else dying on you. That'd be bad publicity. People'd start thinking you're jinxed."

  Lillian licked a finger and absently rubbed at a grass stain on her shirt, focusing on it as she spoke. "Yeah, you'd be really mad at us if we got hurt!"

  Hatch didn't respond openly to their defiance. "None of this is about what other people think." His tone was patient, but Kara sensed his tension and expected Henry and Lillian did, too. And Sam. "We're only concerned with your well-being. We were worried something terrible had happened and that was why you ran off."

  Henry yawned and turned to his sister, cutting off his uncle. "Come on, Lillian. Let's go back inside."

  Hatch sucked in a breath through his teeth, but didn't try to stop them. They jumped up, brazenly dismissing him, and charged back through the front door.

  He made a hissing sound. "Damn it. It wasn't my idea for them to go to Texas. You'd think this was my fault."

  Kara shrugged. "They know you're not happy with them."

  "And should I be? They had no business running away like that. They knew what they were doing was wrong. They knew it'd worry their mother." He made no pretense of his anger, but he didn't raise his voice. He started back to his car, Sam still watching without a word. "Maybe I'd have more sympathy if I hadn't seen how terrified Allyson was and yet still fought tooth and nail to keep everyone from overreacting. She trusted them to be sensible, the little ingrates. Do you know what it was like—" He stopped himself, sighing. "Never mind. I know I'm being too hard on them."

  Kara followed him over to his SUV. "I'm not saying what they did was okay—"

  "I know, I know." He tore open the driver door, then turned back, shaking his head. "I've never known what to say to them. It's even worse now that they're older— I thought it would get better."

  Kara smiled. "Wait until they're sixteen and seventeen."

  He returned a halfhearted smile. "Well, I didn't come here to give them grief. I came to let you know that my mother and I have arranged to hire a private bodyguard for Henry and Lillian. It's as much for Mother's peace of mind as anything else. Allyson refuses to request a security detail for them. She insists that all we'd be doing is asking them to baby-sit."

  Sam frowned thoughtfully. "She doesn't believe there's a security concern?"

  "Correct." Hatch seemed surprised, even put off, that Sam had spoken. "She considers Henry and Lil-lian's actions a family matter. She's probably right, but if they run away again, it'll be a political problem, I can guarantee that. You're a Texas Ranger, Sam. Don't you think it's a wise move to keep these kids under wraps at least until school starts?"

  "Not my call."

  "Of course not," Hatch said thinly, shifting back to Kara. "I don't mind saying these past few weeks have been awful. First the close call at Billie's damn bonfire, then Mike's death. Allyson's handled herself beautifully, I have to say. This bodyguard business is just a wrinkle—"

  Kara saw it now. "She doesn't know, does she?"

  "I'll tell her this evening. He doesn't start until the morning. Mother and I thought everyone could use today to relax—she wants you all to come to lunch. Allyson's finishing up some work this morning, so she'll

  be able to socialize with the children."

  "All right," Kara said. "We'll be there."

  Hatch seemed satisfied, as if he'd at last done something right, but after he left, Sam sat on the front steps, stretched out his legs and shook his head. "'Socialize with the children'? If I had to deal with that horse's ass on a regular basis, I'd think up ways to stick it to him, too."

  "He's under a lot of stress. He's not always that bad."

  "Something between you two?"

  His question caught her off guard. She hadn't noticed anything in Hatch—or herself—that would have betrayed what he'd told her at Big Mike's funeral. "Between Hatch and me? No, never."

  "He wants there to be."

  "Maybe at one time. Not anymore."

  "I don't think so," Sam said, exaggerating his drawl. "Your friend the governor says you attract men who prefer to love you from afar."

  Kara raised her arms and hung on to a thick, low branch of the butternut tree. "Did she tell you that voluntarily or did you drag it out of her?"

  "She seems to think we've been sleeping together. She likes the idea. You know, Miss Kara, I'm glad nobody told me I wasn't supposed to want to touch you."

  She lifted herself chin-up style, but didn't let her feet leave the ground. She could feel the stretch in her arms and her back. "Ask my brother. He'd tell you if he knew it had occurred to you to touch me—"

  "He'd shoot me if he knew it'd occurred to me."

  Sam's eyes stayed on her as she swung a little from her branch, giving herself a better stretch. "He'd find a rope if he knew it was too late."

  "Do you see why I don't have so many men in my life?" She dropped back to the ground and realized her shirt had ridden up to just under her breasts. She quickly adjusted it.

  Sam acted as if he didn't notice. "You don't need many. You just need one. This soul mate of yours."

  "Who is a figment of my romantic and misguided imagination." But she glanced up the dirt road, the dust from Hatch's exit still settling. "I can see now why the kids won't release me from attorney-client privilege."

  "They don't want to have to listen to that officious bastard demean everything he says and believes." Sam got to his feet and grinned at her. "You done swinging from that tree or should I stay out here a little longer? The view was nice."

  She couldn't resist a smile. "You should go soak your head."

  He laughed. "What should I wear to lunch at the Stockwells'? Susanna didn't pack my country club clothes."

  Kara started to answer, then realized he was kidding. Sam Temple was accustomed to going where he wanted, when he wanted, dressed as he chose.

  "What does ‘officious' mean?" Henry asked, his head outlined in the screened living-room window.

  "You can add eavesdropping to your list of crimes," Sam told him, and when he opened the front door, Kara heard Henry grab his sister and run upstairs, laughing, daring Sam to come after them. She felt a tug of emotion she'd never expected, because this wasn't her husband, and these weren't her children, and back in Austin, George Carter had a ton of work for her to do. That was her life. Not this.

  Don't tell me you don't give a damn if I tell the world about your ex-con lover. You won't call my bluff, Governor. You'll keep quiet and wait for your instructions.

  Big Mike knew about your secret ex-con lover, didn't he?

  Do you want people to wonder if you helped him into the deep end?

  Allyson dangled her feet in the pool while she waited for her children to arrive for lunch. She'd played back the caller's words in her head a thousand times since yesterday. What did the son of a bitch want from her?

  And Sam Temple. He must have noticed she was upset yesterday when she received the call.

  She'd gone through the motions last night at dinner with Hatch and Madeleine, then this morning at breakfast. She hadn
't slept. She'd prowled the barn wishing the caller would come then, while Henry and Lillian were safe at Stonebrook Cottage. She could find out what he wanted and give it to him, or sic her bodyguards on him—something, anything, just to end it.

  He hadn't come, and he hadn't called.

  Big Mike knew about your secret ex-con lover, didn't he?

  The caller had to be someone close to her. Someone who knew about her affair with Pete, knew Mike had found out about it—someone who could bide his time not because of patience, but position. But why? What was the point of such harassment?

  Allyson shuddered, feeling watched. She didn't dare make a wrong move, tell the wrong person. She had to know more. She had to find out who her caller was, somehow, or at least tell someone she trusted about the calls—but who? She didn't want to put anyone else in a difficult position or place her trust in the wrong person, perhaps even the caller himself—or herself. Allyson had no idea if it was a man or a woman. She had to be patient, careful.

  She trusted Kara and her Texas Ranger. But she'd entrusted them with her children—that was enough responsibility. Kara and Temple couldn't be expected to stay in Connecticut indefinitely, but this wouldn't go on indefinitely. Allyson knew she had to do something, and soon.

  Pete leaned over the pool fence. "You look as if you could use a swim, Governor. Why don't you jump in?"

  "I'm in my shorts."

  He grinned. "Be daring."

  She laughed up at him, remembered with a jolt how they'd gone skinny-dipping in the moonlight. They'd done it once in early summer, weeks ago, smothering their laughter with kisses to keep Madeleine from realizing what was happening under her nose. "Are you making fun of me, Mr. Jericho?"

  "You bet."

  Her laughter faltered. "I feel as if I'm over my head even without jumping in."

  He nodded. She thought of all she couldn't say out loud. She missed him. She loved him. She wanted to be with him. But right now there was her evil anonymous caller, her troubled children, her responsibilities and duty—the promise she'd made to Big Mike, to the people of the state. To herself, because she wanted to do this job and do it well. She'd been a damn good lieutenant governor. Before the bonfire explosion and Big Mike's death, before Henry and Lillian ran away in Texas—before this summer, she'd been a different woman, almost another woman altogether, strong, competent, so sure of herself. What had happened to her? Grief, shock, fear and the paralysis that came with too much of all three? Or just stupidity. Just not knowing what to do, how to uncover and face an unknown, unseen enemy.

  "How're the kids?" Pete asked.

  She pictured them, her serious Henry and her big-eyed Lillian, and she knew she'd resign as governor for them. In a heartbeat. But for Pete? Would she do it for him?

  "Great." She managed a smile, twirled one foot in the warm water. "They're on their way up for lunch. I'm inclined to think they got the idea in their heads that they could make a break for Austin and just did it. No rhyme or reason. I've been trying to think like a twelve-year-old, and that's what I keep coming up with." She kicked her feet in the water. "They don't have adult brains."

  "Half the adults I know don't have adult brains, either."

  She loved his irreverence, his wit—and he was so damn sexy when he was dusty and sweaty from working. "Where are you off to?" she asked him.

  "Gravel pit." He came through the gate, his old, cracked, dusty boots leaving muddy footprints on the wet spots on the pool deck. He seemed to want to touch her. "Allyson—are you okay?"

  Her throat caught. "It's been a long two weeks."

  They'd made love the night before Mike drowned. Their last night together. Pete would remember. He squinted out at the sunlit pool. "A hell of a long two weeks. See you around, Governor Stockwell."

  How could she give him up? "Soon, I hope."

  Pete drove along the gravel pit access road, an old logging lane that had been widened and improved for the big equipment required to dig out and haul the sand, rock and gravel. He parked up at his wood yard. After his days of wallowing in self-pity, he felt almost whole again. He'd feel completely whole when he had Allyson back in his arms. He was such a romantic nitwit—a paranoid jackass. She hadn't dumped him at all. He should have had more faith in her. What a lovesick dope he was.

  They all just needed to adjust to Big Mike's death and Allyson being governor. Then he and Allyson could figure out a way to be together, out in the open, not in secret anymore.

  The guys had worked in the pit for a couple of hours that morning, but they were off again, the equipment quiet, the huge piles of sand, stone and rock still in the midday heat. Pete admitted he'd be glad when the work was done and pictured the area planted with white pine, green again with brush and saplings. He walked down into the pit from the access road and stood next to a fif-teen-foot pile of pea stone. He heard his father's tractor up on the hill, out of view, then watched it come around the long way, which was less steep, less treacherous.

  Charlie puttered over to Pete, a fresh cigarette hanging from his mouth, his wooden trailer loaded with scrap wood. These days he did more of what he felt like doing, less of what needed to get done. "I thought you were going to dismantle that damn tree house."

  Pete had hesitated, not sure if he'd get into trouble, if the tree house was evidence of some kind. The investigation into Big Mike's death was ongoing—he didn't need to screw things up. He shrugged at his father. "I haven't gotten around to it."

  "I'd do it, but I can't get up there with my tractor. Did you take a look at it? Hunters or kids?"

  "Kids, I think. Maybe hunters."

  "Well, it's dangerous." Charlie grunted, coughed. "Your mother wants you home for dinner. She's making a pot roast and thinks if you're not there I'll eat too much and end up dying of a heart attack watching the evening news."

  Pete grinned at him. "Is this a dinner invitation?"

  "Best you're going to get, seeing how you live with us. Come early enough so you can shuck the corn."

  After Charlie left, Pete headed up the steep route to the kids' tree house, along the edge of the woods above the gravel pit. Maybe he should have said something about it to Allyson when he saw her at the pool, but she'd seemed so distracted—and he'd been thinking of himself, looking for signs she still wanted him in her life. But she needed to know about the tree house. He could just let her come see it and draw her own conclusions.

  Better, he supposed, the news came from him than his father. Charlie Jericho had a near-legendary lack of tact.

  He was out of breath, almost to the top of the ridge. He'd started work early this morning, diving into it to keep his mind off Allyson. His legs were tired. He grabbed a thin poplar, bracing himself, and gazed straight down into the pit, agreeing with Madeleine Stockwell—who'd never actually seen it—that it was an ugly gash to the land. He hoped to plant at least a thousand white pine, and his mother wanted a small pond, a wetland for the wildlife, she said. Charlie complained that was a waste of energy.

  Something rustled in the woods behind him, fairly big, probably a deer or a woodchuck. Pete started to turn, but his work boot slipped on the edge of the near-verti-cal embankment, sending loose gravel and stones straight down. He heard a grunt—the forceful expelling of air from lungs—and knew immediately it wasn't a deer.

  But he was too late, and before he could react, he felt the wallop to the small of his back. A stick, a pole, the toe of a boot. He lost his footing and fell onto his side, kicking out for something to latch on to, reaching up at a tuft of field grass, a tree root. But he was moving too fast, and the drop was too steep. He slid down the dirt embankment, hit a jutting rock with his ribs. He groaned at the pain, kept fighting to find his footing, but he picked up more speed, rolling, flailing. Then, free-fall-ing.

  He hit more rock, and he screamed out in pain, still falling.

  Fifteen

  Henry interrogated Sam on all matters Texas Ranger as the four of them walked through the woods for lunch
with the Stockwells. Kara listened with amusement, Henry's ideas about Texas's elite investigative unit rooted in television, old movies and his limited understanding of Texas. Sam, however, was patient, prompting her one contribution to the conversation. "The Ranger motto is ‘Courtesy, Service, Protection.'"

  Sam glanced at her sideways, as if he wasn't sure she was being sarcastic. But she wasn't. Henry seemed slightly disappointed in such a polite motto. "Didn't the Texas Rangers used to hang horse thieves?"

  "There's a Texas Ranger museum in Waco," Sam said. "I'll take you over there next time you come to visit."

  Lillian skipped across rocks in a low, muddy stream. "Not me. I'm never going to Texas again. People eat frogs and snakes and alligators there."

  Sam sputtered into laughter. "Lillian, I think you and I need to have another talk. You're getting some peculiar ideas about Texas." He glanced at Kara. "Did you put up with this kind of talk when you lived up here?"

  Kara smiled. "You should have heard Big Mike."

  Henry followed his sister across the stream, but was still clearly entertaining his fantasy. "Do I have to go to college to be a Ranger?"

  "It helps," Sam said.

  "Maybe I'll join the FBI or the CIA, instead, since I don't have a Texas accent."

  Sam let that one go. "You don't want to go into politics?"

  "No way. I can't now, anyway, after I ran away and forged a letter from my mom—"

  "You didn't forge the letter," Lillian said. "I did. You just helped me with spelling. It was your idea to say Mom knew we were in danger—"

  "Lillian! Shut up!" Henry, white-faced, splashed the rest of the way across the stream. "You're going to get us arrested."

  Kara recognized at once Lillian's mistake in mentioning the word danger. So, of course, did Sam. He took the stream in one long, easy stride and offered Kara his hand, but she refused it. He was being cocky now that the kids had slipped up. She'd changed into a decent pair of pants and a fresh top for lunch at the Stockwells' and had on slides, but she made it to the other side of the stream on her own. Sam was right there, anyway, placing a hand on the small of her back, steadying her as she regained her balance.