Stonebrook Cottage

by Carla Neggers

  "Henry and Lillian were scared?"

  "Terrified. You know, Wally must have been discreet with everyone while he was in Texas except them."

  "Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

  Sam thought of the kids konked out in their hammocks, their bony legs hanging over the sides, and he remembered his own mother trying to keep him safe in a rough neighborhood, fashion a life of her own through her work as an art teacher, even as she had to be everything to the son she was raising without a father. He didn't want to be too hard on Allyson Lourdes Stock-well.

  The heat and humidity brought out the damp, earthy smells of the woods, as well as more mosquitoes. He started down a long, easy grade, aware of Kara still pondering what he'd said as she walked alongside him. Finally, she took a breath. "Are you thinking Wally deliberately let Henry and Lillian see him? He wanted them scared out of their minds?" She shook her head, obviously not able to accept it even as a hypothesis. "That's cruel. There's no good reason for it. You didn't say anything to Hatch, did you? He's furious with Wally as it is—"

  "Don't get carried away. It was just a thought."

  She scoffed. "You don't just have thoughts, Sergeant Temple. Regular people have thoughts. You think in terms of criminal conspiracies." She frowned up at him. "And your pants are about as stiff as stovepipes. How can you walk?"

  He noticed her legs and hips as she crossed the muddy stream, their footprints still visible from their earlier jaunt through the woods. Nothing stiff about her. He winked. "I can't wait to get out of them."

  Her brother picked that moment to call on Sam's cell phone.

  "Walter Harrison was on a flight that left Austin the same morning my damn sister was stealing my gun and plane in San Antonio," Jack reported. "He dropped off a car rental at the airport."

  "Black sedan?"

  "Four-door Ford Taurus. He had it for a week. You want to tell me what the hell this is about?"

  "At best this guy's a moron," Sam said. "At worst— I don't know."

  "Sam?"

  He could hear Jack's concern, laced with just enough irritation to remind Sam who was the lieutenant and who was the sergeant. "It's not a good situation up here."

  "Get Kara out of there."

  "Easier said than done."

  "No, it isn't. Knock her on the head and tie her up."

  Sam glanced at her and deliberately didn't picture tying her up in case her big brother could read his thoughts.

  "Give me the phone." Kara snatched it out of Sam's hand and put it to her ear. "Jack? Everything's under control. Sergeant Temple here is just in full paranoid, suspicious Texas Ranger mode. I'm being the cool, sensible lawyer who sees all sides." She listened a moment, then scowled. "Who put you in charge? Forget it. You're not my boss." She tossed the phone back to Sam. "What was I thinking? Your turn."

  Jack wasn't finished with Sam, either. "You wouldn't be taking advantage of my sister while she's half out of her head over those kids, would you?"

  Sam didn't hesitate. "No, sir."

  "I left you wiggle room in that question, didn't I? Sam—Kara is one of the smartest people I know and as cool and professional in a courtroom as you'd ever want to see. You have to have your act together when she's the defending counsel. But when it comes to men…"

  Susanna came onto the line. "Jack's done, Sam. I'm going to remind him before we fly up there tomorrow that his sister isn't nine anymore. Who knows, a fling with a Texas Ranger might do Kara good." Jack roared in the background, and Susanna laughed, then told Sam to take care, a note of worry in her voice as she disconnected.

  "How long before he shows up?" Kara asked.

  "Midafternoon tomorrow, the latest. Susanna's coming with him. Kara, it was Harrison in Austin."

  "It was? It just doesn't make sense. Why did he drive off like that? Why didn't he call Hatch?"

  "Maybe he did call."

  "My head's spinning. We need to tell Zoe West, don't we? She can let the state guys in on our pal Wally. They can talk to him."

  Sam nodded. "I'll call her after we get back."

  Kara stopped and gazed up at the sky, low gray clouds moving in from the west, then smiled suddenly and cut her eyes around at Sam. "If my brother and his dear and lovely wife aren't showing up until tomorrow, that at least gives us tonight."

  "I think that counted as a date," Kara said later, after they'd finished dinner and had the dishes cleaned up and were sitting in the cottage living room, the curtains billowing in a warm breeze that brought with it clouds and the smell of rain. She could almost taste it.

  Sam was in a wooden rocker across from her. He'd left a message for Zoe West, asking her to call him on his cell phone, and Kara could tell he wanted to get that conversation over with. She sat on the love seat and picked through one of the boxes Billie Corrigan had left, enjoying the baubles and paints and fun things.

  "What?" he said. "Tuna sandwiches for dinner?"

  "Sure, and the walk. That's two dates. Chasing after Henry and Lillian this morning doesn't count, and neither does gathering around the patio to hear you tell their story. That was very well done, by the way. You must make a good witness."

  "Unflappable," he said.

  "Watching you at the pool with the kids almost counts, because I enjoyed it so much, but I think I'd have had to get wet if it was going to count as a date." She felt heat rise to her face. "I mean…"

  He smiled. "Kara, where is this leading?"

  "To bed, I hope." But the humor went out of her, and she swallowed, feeling a little light-headed. "Allyson says I run from men, and I think she might be right— Sam, I don't want to run from you."

  "You can't. I'm a damn good Texas Ranger."

  "I lost my mother, Allyson lost her husband—I wonder if it's easier for us just not to put it all on the line, not to risk that kind of loss again. So I run, and she hides…" She looked up, realizing Sam was on his feet, walking toward her. "What are you doing?"

  "Well, Miss Kara, I believe I am going to sweep you into my arms and carry you to the bedroom and make mad, passionate love to you all through the night." His eyes flashed with a deep, dangerous desire, and he stood tall in front of her and smiled. "How would that be?"

  "That would be fine," she said, and threw back her head, letting him scoop her up and carry her Rhett Butler style down the hall.

  She was reminded of old romantic movies, but the urgency and intensity in him soon eradicated all thought of that. He laid her on the bed and began to undress her slowly, unbuttoning her shirt, smoothing it off her shoulders, saying nothing as he paused to gaze at her breasts before unclasping her bra. She couldn't speak, and he eased the straps over her shoulders the way he had her shirt, then skimmed his palms over her nipples. Sensations poured through her, the breeze cool on her hot, bare skin.

  "You've done enough talking and thinking for one day," he whispered. "So have I." And when she raised her hands to work on the buttons on his shirt, he smiled. "Not yet."

  She stopped, and he moved his palms downward over her stomach, unfastening the button on her shorts, sliding down the zipper. The anticipation shortened her breath, but she could see him pretending not to notice as he drew her shorts down over her hips, leaving her underpants.

  "Sam…" She licked her lips and managed to say his name again, before he had her shorts at her ankles and finally cast them off. She lay before him in just her scrap of underpants, sexy little things she'd picked up on a lunch-hour lark, never imagining this moment…or maybe she had.

  But he left them, coming to her, whispering her name as he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her slowly, deeply, his tongue mingling with hers, probing, and just when she thought she'd melt, he kissed her throat, skimming his mouth down to her breasts.

  He took one nipple between his lips, licking, teasing, then the other, until she threw her arms over her head and moaned softly, and outside the rain came. She smelled its cool wetness as his mouth drifted lower, and he raised up suddenly, casting off his
clothes—and it was as if she'd never seen him naked before, his body dark and hard in the glowing light, his erection thrusting, wanting.

  She paid attention to every nuance of him, what she was experiencing, feeling, at this moment, refusing to avert her eyes or her mind from any of it. She wouldn't run, not any part of her.

  "Kara…I don't want to hurt you…"

  "You won't," she said. "You didn't before."

  He came back to her, easing his body between her legs, helping them to open to him, to relax at the feel of him there. He caught her panties with his thumbs and pulled them slowly down over her thighs, and when she was fully exposed, he stopped, touching her with his fingertips. She jumped with a mix of pleasure and sur-prise—and the newness of it, a man seeing her, touching her most intimate places. He explored her, slipping into her crevices, her slickness, until she was panting, tearing at her underpants. But he pushed her hands away and finished the job himself, and if he wanted her to touch him in the way he had her, he wasn't waiting.

  Once her legs were free, he drove into her, knowing she was ready, wanting him. She pulled him deeper into her, no tentativeness this time, no pain, just searing need—she felt the climax upon her, couldn't slow it or control it. He did nothing to help her, thrusting fast and deep as she dug her fingers into his arms, quaking, crying out. His eyes locked with hers as if he knew this would happen, planned it, and he didn't let up, his own climax coming now, mixing with hers, endless.

  She threw her hands above her head, and he held them, raising up off her, but still inside her, still moving, as the rain beat against the window and filled the room with dark, unsettled shadows.

  Twenty-One

  Charlie Jericho sat at the cluttered kitchen table with a fresh mug of coffee and shook his head. "You and Allyson Stockwell. Christ, Pete. She's the goddamn governor."

  Pete got to his feet to look for his truck keys in the black hole that was his mother's kitchen. "That doesn't faze me."

  "It fazes everyone else."

  Pete couldn't see straight. He lifted a stained, ragged flour towel on the counter and found his keys. A cold front had moved through overnight, leaving the morning bright and cool, the air drier. He hoped it'd clear his head.

  "You don't want a relationship you have to keep secret," his father said. "Nothing good can come of that."

  "You're right about that. Wish I'd seen it sooner." He stuffed his keys in his pants pocket. The damn cast on his wrist was a nuisance. His mother had offered to help him get dressed, but Pete had refused. She was out in the yard measuring for her goat pen. "I'm thirty-four years old, Pop. Time I moved out of the house."

  "Where you moving to, the governor's mansion?

  Maybe Stockwell Farm?" Charlie crushed a half-smoked cigarette in an ashtray. "You can pour Madeleine tea while you wait for an audience with the governor."

  Pete pulled out a chair and sat across from his father, pushed aside a stack of magazines. "You need to quit smoking. You've got a bad cough. You're going to kill yourself one day."

  He shrugged. "We all have to die of something."

  "Pop…" Pete sighed, wondering how he could explain himself to this crusty old man, why he even bothered. "I don't want to lose Allyson. I've loved her for as long as I can remember. It's not a schoolboy crush. I've had time to think since I took that fall—"

  "You've been doped up."

  "I need to do this."

  Charlie took a sip of his coffee. "You look like a banged-up kid to me. What if someone pushed you into the gravel pit? What if someone doesn't want you carousing with the governor?"

  "I don't remember what happened, how I fell. It won't change anything."

  "Zoe West has been up there scouring around for clues. Nothing so far. But Pete—"

  He got back to his feet. "I have to go. You going to wish me luck?"

  "What kind of luck?" Charlie looked up from his coffee, his gray hair sticking out, his age and years of smoking showing in his eyes. "The luck that's good for you or the luck you think is good for you?"

  Pete didn't answer, and when he went out to his truck, he could feel the pain in his broken ribs. If he didn't move the wrong way, the collarbone wasn't too bad. He wanted to get off pain medication as soon as he could. Maybe his father was right—maybe it was affecting his thinking. But it didn't matter, he knew what he had to do. He knew it before he fell.

  He sat behind the wheel of his truck and realized he couldn't drive standard one-armed. Hell. He'd have to borrow his mother's car. She'd plastered it with goat and herb bumper stickers.

  Sam would have liked to lock the doors to Stone-brook Cottage and make love to Kara all day, but her brother was on his way north and she wanted to go back out to the gravel pit. "I'm not taking that as a compliment," he told her over coffee. "Choosing a pile of dirt over me."

  She smiled, a hint of the intimacy they'd shared last night in her dark eyes. "I'm thinking of all the rock out there. Then it's not such a big difference." She took her coffee to the sink and stared out at the cool, bright air. He could feel her seriousness, the weight of what the people up here were into affecting her. "Zoe West hasn't found evidence that someone pushed Pete?"

  "Not yet." The detective had returned Sam's call a little while ago. "She says everyone in Bluefield knows about the tree house now. Charlie Jericho's not keeping it a secret. Allyson's talking with a state detective this morning."

  "Then they're on the case. That's good." Kara continued to stare out the window, the morning air refreshing after yesterday's humidity. "You told Zoe about

  Wally Harrison turning up at my place?"

  "Yes."

  "I still want to go out to the gravel pit."

  Sam drank some of his coffee. It was hot, strong, but it didn't cut his mood, his certainty that this woman had penetrated all his defenses. He'd watched her sleep in the midst of the thunder and lightning, her dark lashes against her creamy skin, a strand of hair on her cheek. Soul mates. In the light of morning, in a rich woman's cottage kitchen, he knew it was crazy and there was no such thing.

  "You want to look for Lillian's binoculars," he said.

  Kara nodded, her back still to him. "Maybe she dropped them farther down the hill than she remembers. Sam—" She swung around, arms folded tightly on her chest. She was in khakis and a little blue V-neck top that outlined her breasts, reminded Sam of making love to her. But her mind was a million miles away from their night together. "Something's not right with Allyson. Really not right. I think she wanted to tell me yesterday at the barn, but she just couldn't."

  "Do you think it involves the kids?"

  "It must."

  "Zoe West is talking to Harrison this morning. Maybe his story will unravel and we'll get to the bottom of this thing."

  "I hope so." Kara dropped her arms to her sides. "I can run out to the gravel pit and then meet you back here, or at the Stockwells' if you want to go on and see the kids." She smiled suddenly. "Don't worry, I'll be careful."

  Sam slid to his feet. "You won't just be careful— you'll have me with you."

  She nodded absently, as if she'd expected his response. "Well, you won't want to trip out there." She dumped her coffee in the sink and headed out back, adding as the screen door shut behind her, "Your gun might go off and you'll end up shooting yourself in the ass."

  "Not my gun." He followed her outside, down the steps, still wet from last night's rain. "Jack's gun. Don't think he's forgotten."

  "Jack never forgets anything. None of you Texas Rangers do." Her irreverent mood, he knew, was a cover for her darker thoughts. She ran a foot over the top of the grass. "It's soaking wet out here. We should drive. We can take your car. That way, if we wreck the suspension bouncing over rocks and ruts, it'll be on your tab."

  "No, ma'am. Yours. You're paying my expenses for coming up here after you, remember?"

  "I said that?" She smiled, walking past him and back up the steps. "Good thing I'm a well-paid criminal defense attorney." She emp
hasized criminal, as if there wasn't much difference between him and her clients.

  Sam followed her into the kitchen, got his keys and beat her into the driver's seat. "I think maybe you didn't get enough sleep last night."

  She slid into the seat next to him, cut a glance over at him, a wicked gleam in her eyes. "Maybe I got too much."

  He grinned. "Be careful what you wish for, Miss Kara."

  He'd sensed no hesitancy in her last night. There was no question of her inexperience, but also none of her passion and openness—and that had rocked him to his core. It made him feel vulnerable, shaken, this need mixed with desire, this heart-stopping yearning not to possess or protect but to give himself entirely to her, empty himself into her and become one with her.

  Scared the hell out of him.

  When they reached the access road, he negotiated the pits and ruts as best he could and drove into the gravel pit itself, pulling in behind an idle dump trunk. A crew was working today, the sifting machine running loud.

  Kara winced. "I wouldn't be surprised if Madeleine can hear that up at her place." She climbed out of the car and met Sam around front. "I suppose somebody could have tossed Lillian's binoculars into one of these piles of sand and rock. We'd never know it."

  Sam looked at her. "What else is on your mind, Miss Kara?" he asked quietly.

  "When you and Zoe West were talking this morning, it occurred to me that Wally Harrison could be playing both sides of this thing—looking out for the kids for Hatch and at the same time making sure they kept quiet for whoever killed Big Mike." She tilted her head back, squinting at Sam. "But you've already thought of all this, haven't you?"

  "Not as soon as I should have."

  Kara balled her hands into fists. "I hate crooked cops—I don't care if they're ex-cops."

  The loud rattle of the machinery made conversation difficult. She started past the pile of tiny, polished, smooth pea stone, toward the spot where they'd found Pete Jericho. Sam watched his footing in the slick dirt, wet from the overnight rains. Huge puddles had formed in the various holes and ruts, rippling in a stiff, dry breeze. Kara sank almost to her shoelaces in the light-colored mud, but she pressed on at an angle toward the woods.