Carter

by Joan Johnston

  “Stay here while I check the house to make sure he’s gone,” Carter said.

  Desiree’s eyes rounded again in fear. “You don’t believe he could still be here, do you?”

  “I’m going to find out.” Carter ushered her back to his bedroom door. He turned on the light and drew her inside. “Stay here. Close the door behind me and lock it.”

  Carter had no weapon handy, and wondered what he would do if he encountered the other man armed with a knife. Or a gun.

  But the house had an empty feeling. A quiet, thorough search revealed no signs of an intruder. The broken lock on the front door explained how Burley had gotten in.

  When Carter returned to his room he knocked and said, “It’s me. Let me in.”

  Desiree stood hesitantly across from him until he opened his arms. Then she flew into them once more.

  “Did you find anything?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Except a broken lock on the front door.”

  She gave a shuddering sigh. “Oh, Carter. What am I going to do?”

  “You mean, what are we going to do? First, we’re going to call the police.” Before she could protest, he added, “He might have left some fingerprints or some other evidence.”

  “Do we have to do it now?”

  Carter grimaced. “I suppose tomorrow morning is soon enough.”

  “I’m so sorry I got you involved in all this,” she said, her cheek against his chest. “I thought if he knew I was married again, he would leave me alone.”

  “I guess not,” Carter muttered. “So Burley is the one who mistreated you?”

  She nodded. She tried to talk but couldn’t manage any sound past the knot in her throat.

  Carter put an arm around her shoulders and walked over to the bed with her. He sat down with his back against the headboard and pulled her onto his lap. “I want to hear about it,” he said.

  Desiree realized Carter was almost quivering with fury. But it was all directed at the man who had harmed her.

  “I was too young when I married him, and very naive. I…I put up with…everything…as long as I could. While my parents were alive, it wasn’t so bad. After they were gone, his abuse got worse.”

  “That explains all that flinching around me, I suppose.”

  She nodded, her hair tickling his chin.

  “One night after dinner, I got up the courage to ask him for a divorce. He went crazy. He accused me of seeing another man. He told me he’d make sure no other man would want to have anything to do with me. He told me he’d married me ‘till death do us part,’ and if he couldn’t have me no one could.

  “We were in the kitchen, and he grabbed a butcher knife. He cut my face first.” Her hand protectively covered the scar. “Then he raped me.”

  “Desiree—”

  “Let me finish!” she said. “He laughed while he was carving designs on my breasts. Said he was branding me so any other man I tried to sleep with would know I belonged to him. The wound in the belly came when I told him I would never belong to him, that I was going to leave him if it was the last thing I ever did. He assured me that leaving him would be the end of me.

  “If one of the ranch hands hadn’t heard my screams and come running, Burley would have killed me. As it was, he escaped the house and ran. Before he left, he promised me he would come back some dark night and finish what he had started. It took six weeks before he was caught. During that time I lived in fear for my life. I left the lights on because I was afraid of the dark. I still am,” she admitted in a whisper.

  “Desiree—”

  “Nine months after he raped me, Nicole was born.”

  “Oh, my God,” Carter said. “Does Burley know about the child?”

  Desiree shook her head. “I don’t know if he’ll figure it out. But he has friends who could tell him I’ve been living here alone until recently.” Desiree’s hands snuck up around Carter’s neck, where she clung for support. “I’ve been so afraid he’ll do something to hurt Nicole. I know I’ve been dishonest with you. All I can say is, I’m sorry.”

  In that instant, Carter was tempted to tell her the truth about himself, that he had also married under false pretenses. But he knew now that his money wasn’t what Desiree had been after when she married him. Unfortunately, over the past three weeks he had discovered that he wanted—needed—much more from her than the pleasure to be had from her body. Telling her the truth would only complicate matters right now.

  “He’ll be back,” Desiree said in a whisper.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’ve been through this before,” she said. “I was in the hospital for a short while following Burley’s attack. After I came home, in the six weeks before Burley was caught, he used to leave signs that he had been around—to terrorize me, I think. Or he would call me on the phone and just breathe. He was always careful not to leave anything that could be used as evidence against him in court.”

  “The police can question Burley—”

  “The police have to catch Burley before they can question him,” Desiree said with asperity. “Burley knows this place like the back of his hand, where to hide, all the back roads.”

  “So you’re just going to sit here and wait for him to finish what he’s started?” Carter demanded.

  “What do you suggest?” Desiree retorted.

  “Do you have a gun?”

  “No! And I don’t intend to get one.”

  “Then how do you propose to protect yourself?”

  There was a pause before she replied, “I was counting on you for that.”

  There was another pause before he answered, “What, exactly, did you have in mind?”

  “There’s the chance that your presence here will be enough to deter anything like this from happening again.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “I believe Burley will keep his distance so long as you’re around.” Burley only preyed on things weaker than himself.

  “That’s going to make it a little difficult for things to get done around here—I mean, if we have to do everything in tandem. And what about Nicole?”

  “She would have to be with us, too.”

  Carter shook his head. “It won’t work.”

  Desiree gripped his shoulders. “It could. What other choice do we have?”

  Carter tried to come up with some other solution to the problem. But until Burley made a move, there was nothing he could do. “All right,” he said. “We’ll call the police and report this intrusion tomorrow morning. If they don’t find anything—”

  “They won’t.”

  “I’ll go along with your plan.”

  She hesitated only an instant before she said, “Thanks, Carter. I won’t be a burden, I promise.”

  Nevertheless, Carter felt a tremendous burden of responsibility. She had put her safety, and Nicole’s, in his hands. Once before a woman had asked him to protect her. And he had failed her…and their daughter.

  “You can sleep here,” Carter said. “I’ll be comfortable on the couch.”

  “Or we could sleep here together,” Desiree suggested tentatively.

  “You sure?” Carter asked.

  “As long as I can have the right side of the bed,” she said with a shy smile.

  Carter laughed. “Fine.”

  Desiree settled on her side of the bed as Carter turned out the light. She tossed and turned for several minutes trying to get comfortable. At last, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He put an arm around her waist and dragged her back against him, so her bottom spooned into his groin and his knees were tucked behind hers. Her head fit just under his chin, and her flyaway hair tickled his nose.

  “Go to sleep,” he said gruffly.

  He didn’t know whether it was because he ordered it or because she was comfortable at last, but the sound of her steady breathing told him sometime later that she was asleep.

  Meanwhile, he lay for hours staring into the darkness, confronting the memorie
s he had been running from for six long years.

  He had thought himself the happiest of men when he married Jeanine. He was in love, and they had a child on the way. Only years later had he discovered that things were not as they had seemed. By the time Jeanine had come to him with the truth, a tragedy had already been set in motion.

  Carter had greeted his wife with surprise and pleasure when she appeared at his forty-third-floor corporate office in downtown Denver. “What are you doing here, Jeanine?”

  “We have to talk, Carter.”

  “I was just going out to lunch,” he said. “Join me.”

  “I think it would be best if we spoke here. In private.”

  It was then he had noticed the redness around her eyes and the bruise on her cheek, barely hidden by makeup.

  He led her over to the black leather sofa in the steel-and-glass office. “Sit down,” he said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  She fidgeted with the gold chain on her purse, refusing to meet his gaze. “I have a confession to make.”

  Carter’s heart was in his throat. There was only one kind of confession a woman made to a man. She was having an affair. He felt a murderous rage toward the unknown man who had seduced his wife.

  “I had an affair.”

  Even though he had been expecting it, hearing the words was like getting punched in the gut. All the air whooshed out of his lungs.

  She looked up at him, her gray eyes liquid, as beautiful as she had ever been. “It was while we were engaged.”

  Furrows appeared on his brow. “That was years ago. Why are you telling me about it now?”

  She left her purse on the couch and paced across the plush carpeting. “Because he won’t leave me alone!”

  Carter rose and followed her to the window overlooking the street below. He actually felt the hairs bristling on his neck when he asked, “Is he the one responsible for that bruise on your cheek?”

  She lifted her hand to the revealing mark and winced in pain at even that slight touch. “Yes.”

  His hands fisted. “I’ll take care of it. Tell me where to find him.”

  “It isn’t that simple,” she said. The tears began to fall, leaving tracks across her perfect makeup. “You see, he’s Alisa’s father.”

  Carter’s heart skipped a beat. His face blanched. He couldn’t have heard what he had thought he’d heard. “Some other man is the father of my child?”

  She nodded.

  “Alisa isn’t mine?”

  “No, she’s not.”

  Carter’s stomach churned. His heart was pounding so hard it felt as though he had been running a race. A race he was losing. “Why are you telling me this now?” he asked in a harsh voice.

  “Because I need your help,” she said. “I realized my affair with Jack—”

  “Is that his name?”

  “Yes. Jack Taggert. I realized my affair with him was a mistake, but by then I was pregnant. I told him it was over, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Business took him overseas for five years after you and I were married, but now he’s back. He wants to pick up where we left off. And he wants to see Alisa.”

  “How the hell does he know Alisa is his?” Carter demanded.

  “She has a birthmark. It’s something all the Taggerts have. He saw it, and he knew.”

  “Dammit, Jeanine, why the hell didn’t you tell me about this before we were married?”

  “Because I was afraid you wouldn’t understand.”

  “You’re damn right I don’t!” He paced angrily away from her. “Now what?” he demanded.

  “I love you, Carter.”

  “Sure you do!” he said sarcastically. “That’s why you’ve been passing off some other man’s kid as mine!”

  “Carter, I—”

  “I don’t want to hear any more of your lies, Jeanine. Just get the hell out of here.”

  “Carter, I’m afraid of Jack. He’s—”

  “He’s your problem, not mine,” Carter said ruthlessly. “You deal with him.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I sure as hell don’t! Why did you marry me, Jeanine? Why didn’t you marry the father of your child?”

  “You had more money,” she snapped back at him.

  Carter’s lips flattened. “Thanks for that bit of honesty.”

  “I was being sarcastic!” she cried. “I love you, Carter. I need your help. Please!”

  He went to the door and held it open for her. “I need to think, Jeanine. Go home.”

  “You don’t seem to understand,” she said as she stood on the threshold. “Jack has been stalking me, Carter. He’s threatened to kill me if I don’t come back to him.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” he said with a sneer.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “I’ll call you when I make up my mind what I’m going to do,” he said. “Don’t let that bastard near Alisa until you hear from me.”

  He had closed the door quietly behind her, then sunk down along the wall and dropped his head onto his knees. His whole world had been ripped apart. He was furious with his wife for betraying him, hated her for lying to him. It had been a crushing blow to learn that the woman he had loved, and whom he believed had loved him, had really married him because he had more money than the man who had fathered her child.

  But most of all, he was devastated by the discovery that his daughter was not his daughter. Alisa, the delight of his life, was not even his own flesh and blood!

  Carter thought of the doll he had bought Alisa for Christmas, the one that could talk and drink and wet. Alisa had sat in his lap and played with his tie and told him all about it. He had brushed the blond hair from her eyes and told her she should be sure to write Santa and ask for one. Then he had rushed right out to buy one for her.

  Later that fateful day he had asked his secretary to call his wife and tell her he was going on a business trip that would take him out of town for a week. Maybe by the end of that time he could figure out what he was going to do with his life.

  But he hadn’t been given a week. Three days later, on Christmas Eve, his wife and daughter had been on the way to the Christmas pageant, when they were run off the road in a fiery crash that had completely destroyed both cars. The police had identified the driver of the second vehicle as Jack Taggert.

  It wasn’t until he heard that his wife and daughter were dead that Carter realized the mistake he had made. Biology wasn’t what had made Alisa his daughter. And even if Jeanine had not loved him, he had loved her. As his wife, he had owed her his trust and his protection. He had betrayed her every bit as badly as she had betrayed him. Only he was never going to get the chance to make things right.

  Here in Wyoming he had found another daughter who was not his own, another woman who was threatened by a man from her past.

  This time he wouldn’t fail them.

  Carter tightened his hold on Desiree, which was when he realized she wasn’t asleep, after all.

  “What are you thinking?” she whispered in the dark.

  “How did you know I was thinking?”

  “You kept making little noises in your throat.”

  Carter made a little sound in his throat.

  “Just like that,” she said as she snuggled back into the curve of his hips. “What were you thinking about, Carter?”

  “About my wife and daughter.” He felt her stiffen.

  “About how much you miss them?”

  “My wife was being stalked by an old boyfriend when she was killed along with our daughter,” Carter said. “She asked me to protect her, but I didn’t. I didn’t realize how serious the danger was. And we had fought….”

  Desiree reached for the light on her side of the bed and turned it on. She saw the pain of his loss etched in his blunt features. She reached out a hand to cradle his bristly cheek. “How awful,” she said in a quiet voice. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

  Carter lifted himself up on his elbow
. “It isn’t something I’m very proud about. In fact, I’ve felt guilty about it for years.”

  “And now you have a chance to atone,” Desiree said as she brushed her thumb across his cheek, “by taking care of me and Nicole.”

  “Something like that,” Carter admitted.

  Desiree dropped her hand, then reached over and turned out the light. She lay down on the edge of the bed with her back to him and remained very still.

  After a few minutes, Carter asked, “What are you thinking, Desiree?”

  “How do you know I’m thinking?”

  “Because you’re so quiet.”

  At first he thought she wasn’t going to answer him. Then she said, “I’m not sure marrying you was the right thing to do.”

  “Oh?”

  “I had hoped that if I was married, Burley would accept the fact that I’m not ever going to let him back into my life. What happened tonight proves that either he hasn’t seen you, or he doesn’t care. I’m sorry for using you like that, Carter. But I was desperate.”

  “Why didn’t you just sell the Rimrock and go somewhere Burley would never find you?”

  “This house was built generations ago by my forebears. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes. I think so. You have deep roots that tie you to the land.” Like the roots he was beginning to grow himself.

  “Besides,” she said, “if I had run away, Burley would only have followed me. I’d rather stand and fight.”

  “You didn’t do so well the last time you tangled with Burley.”

  “Last time I didn’t have you on my side.”

  Carter grunted an acknowledgment of her point. Apparently, she thought his presence was going to make a difference. He hoped she was right.

  “I’m glad I found you, Carter.”

  “I’m glad you found me, too. I promise I’ll take care of you, Desiree. You and Nicky both.”

  “Thanks, Carter. I’m kind of tired. I think I’ll go to sleep now.”

  She was curled up on the edge of the bed, as far as she could get from him. He could have left her there. It was clear that after his confession she was having second thoughts about her marriage to him. But Carter didn’t want them to start the new year on opposite sides of the bed.