Matchmaking with a Mission
Page 18
MCKENNA WATCHED NATE, afraid to do more than breathe. Flynn still had the blade to her throat. She knew he planned to kill her—just as he’d killed before.
It was Nate she didn’t have a clue about. She’d seen that cold, calculated look on his face before, after he shot Dennis Jones. It frightened her even more now because she didn’t have any idea what he was going to do faced with what he now knew.
“See, that’s what’s so crazy, Nate,” Flynn was saying. “All of us spending years looking over our shoulders, worried about this bogeyman that no longer existed. It’s whacked, man. Don’t you see? It wasn’t Roy we had to fear. It was the bogeyman inside us all. We took it with us when we left this house.”
“No,” Nate said.
“Bull. You came back here to kill Roy. What makes you any different from me? I tracked him down for you, man. I saved you from having to kill him.”
“Only it turns out Roy wasn’t responsible for Johnny’s death. You were.”
“How can you say that? I told you—Roy made me do it. You think I wanted to hurt Johnny? I knew how close you two were. I would have killed Dennis too, but he got away. I wasn’t worried, though. I knew you could handle him.”
“You got Dennis out,” Nate said.
Flynn nodded. “I thought I was going to need some help with Roy. But as it turned out…”
“It’s over,” Nate said. “The cops know everything. You can’t run far or fast enough. You need to turn yourself in,” Nate said.
Flynn shook his head. McKenna could feel his agitation. “You know what would happen,” he said, a whine to his voice. “Prison would be like Harper House. There would be another Roy Vaughn. That’s why it has to end here, in this house. I knew before I came back to Whitehorse that it would end like this. It’s the only way I will ever find my peace. It’s fate. My fate.”
Something moved off to McKenna’s left. Flynn didn’t seem to notice as the black cat she’d seen before slipped into the room.
“Then let it end with just the two of us, like it was when we were boys,” Nate said and took a step toward them.
“The two of us,” Flynn repeated. “Just like old times, huh?” He shook his head and drew McKenna closer. The knife bit into her neck. She felt the sting and saw in Nate’s eyes that Flynn had drawn blood.
“Sorry, Nate, but McKenna’s the only one besides you and me who knows the truth. I can’t let her go.”
McKenna caught something in Nate’s expression. He’d seen the black cat. She recalled how Flynn had reacted when he’d broken the mirror and met Nate’s gaze. Did Nate know how superstitious Flynn was?
Suddenly the black cat came into view. It stopped in the middle of the room only feet from her and Flynn. She heard the sound that came out of Flynn when he saw the cat and knew this might be her only chance.
With both hands she shoved his arm away from her throat as she threw her body into him—and they both began to fall forward. Flynn let go of her hair as he fought to regain his balance, his gaze seemingly locked on the cat as they both went down. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nate spring toward them.
The cat let out a shriek, which was nearly drowned out by Flynn’s cry of pain as the switchblade was twisted from his fingers.
She scrambled out of Flynn’s grasp. As she turned she saw Flynn get to his feet. Nate was holding the switchblade. Time seemed to stop. The two men were staring across time at each other when the cat leaped up on the windowsill off to their right, drawing Nate’s attention for just a second too long.
“Nate!” McKenna screamed as Flynn lunged for the knife.
But she saw at once that it had never been Flynn’s intention to try to take the knife back. Flynn threw himself onto the blade, driving it deep into himself before Nate could move.
Flynn stumbled back. Blood bloomed across his shirt and over his fingers splayed over the wound. He glanced down at the blood, then up at Nate.
“I loved you like a brother, Nate. I could never have hurt you.” Flynn started to fall forward.
Nate caught him and lowered him to the floor, and McKenna watched as Flynn died in Nate’s arms.
Epilogue
A few days before her sister Eve’s wedding, McKenna saddled her horse and rode out toward the Breaks. She hadn’t ridden her horse since that day with Nate Dempsey.
It seemed a lifetime ago.
Nor had she been back to Harper House. Eve had insisted she stay at the ranch for a while, not make any big decisions until she’d given herself some time.
Nate had gone back to Paradise. Back to the police department. He’d called a few times. Just to see how she was. She always told him she was fine.
They didn’t talk about Harper House. Or Flynn.
Carter had told her Flynn’s history, about him being left at seven in a gas station bathroom on the edge of Whitehorse, and warned her that kids like that often couldn’t get past their childhoods.
She knew what he was saying. Forget Nate Dempsey.
If only it was that easy.
She rode toward the wild country of the Breaks. It felt good to be back in a saddle. She’d missed riding. She told herself that she wouldn’t think about Nate or Harper House, but of course that was impossible.
She hadn’t gone far when she turned her horse and rode east. The barn came into view first, the horse weather vane on top moaning in the breeze. She slowed her horse as the house appeared out of the horizon.
She’d had a lot of time to think about the house—and why it had always called to her. While she wasn’t superstitious, she wasn’t so sure she didn’t believe in fate. She’d seen Nate the first time in that house. And it had drawn her back years later.
If she hadn’t bought the house, she knew her path and Nate’s never would have crossed. She’d believed it was meant to be that she got the old Harper place. She still did.
But what about her happy ending? she asked herself as she rode up to the fence and sat staring at the house. She would never have it in Harper House.
While Eve had made her promise not to make any decisions until she’d given herself time, McKenna had made one she hadn’t told anyone about.
Tomorrow the house would be razed. Eventually the land would heal—and maybe Nate would, too. By next spring the wild grasses would come back and all sign of Harper House would be gone.
No matter what she decided to do with the land, she couldn’t let another unsuspecting soul move into that house.
She took one last look at the house and rode to the south until she reached the gate. Opening it, she rode across the pasture. Her pasture. How she had wanted to raise paint horses here. That dream was the hardest one to let go of. As Eve said, she could raise horses anywhere.
But that dream had always been connected to this place, McKenna realized. She didn’t understand it, just knew it to be true. If she’d learned anything in all this, it was to trust and not question. Some things just were.
She reined in her horse at the top of the mountain, just as she and Nate had done. From this spot she couldn’t see Harper House. From here the land stretched as far as the eye could see.
Her horse whinnied and moved under her. She hadn’t heard the other rider. Blinded by the sun, she couldn’t see him. But she recognized the horse. An Appaloosa.
Her heart leaped to her throat as Nate Dempsey rode up to join her. She stared at him, unable to utter more than a word. “How…?”
“Eve told me where to find you,” he said as he looked out across the land as she had been doing only moments before.
She followed his gaze, her heart racing. For weeks she’d been trying to accept that Nate was gone. That he would never be back here. That the connection she’d felt between them hadn’t existed.
“It’s beautiful here,” Nate said. “I never saw how beautiful until I saw it through your eyes. It would be a shame not to raise horses on this land, McKenna.”
Tears welled in her eyes as she met his gaze.
�
��I think I mentioned that I thought here would be a great place for a house,” he said. “I’m pretty good with a hammer, and you have a way with horses. I love you, McKenna. I loved you from the first time I saw you. So what do you say?”
What could she say as he dismounted and lifted her from her horse and into his arms?
His kiss was an early Fourth of July. The summer day was brighter than any she’d ever seen. And as he held her and they gazed out over the land, the future stretched before them, she knew that one day this place would be called “the old Dempsey place” and people would talk of all the paint horses that had been raised here.
McKenna knew as Nate bent to kiss her again that it would be their children and all the generations that would follow that would ultimately heal this place.
And it would be their love that would heal Nate Dempsey.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1541-6
MATCHMAKING WITH A MISSION
Copyright © 2008 by Barbara Heinlein
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