Jake was torn. Kylie knew that freeing Charley, clearing his name, meant everything to him. But selling out to do it, letting the guilty parties continue to live unpunished…
The sudden cessation of movement in the dimly lit hallway caught her attention—a flash of flowers, a glint of light. Therese, returned from the bathroom, had stopped abruptly upon hearing the senator’s voice and now retreated out of sight. Kylie was sorry the younger woman had to hear any part of this conversation, sorry she had to see for herself the kind of man who might have fathered her. But she would have found out soon enough.
Kylie moved a few steps closer to Jake, her arms folded across her middle, the recorder’s microphone aimed at the senator. “Can you guarantee the outcome of this reopened case?”
“I guaranteed a conviction twenty-two years ago. I can guarantee he’ll walk this time.”
“Will you put it in writing?”
He scowled. “You can’t possibly be that naive, Kylie.”
That was okay. She had it on tape.
“You knew he was innocent, didn’t you?” Jake asked quietly.
The senator chose his words with care. “I had my doubts about his guilt.”
“You knew who really killed the Franklins.”
He made a show of straightening his cuffs, then adjusting his tie. “I had my suspicions. Truthfully I didn’t want to know.”
“One of your friends killed two more of your friends,” she protested, “and you didn’t want to know which one?”
“I live with these people. I go to church with them, play golf with them, sit down to dinner with them. No, I didn’t want to know.”
Even after everything, he still managed to surprise her. How could he bear to look at his friends and know that one of them was a killer, that he had helped him get away with murder?
“They’re good people,” the senator went on. “One of them made a mistake. It was a one-time thing—a crime of passion. It’s not as if we’re talking about a career criminal here. It never happened again. It never will happen again. Riverview is a better place because of these men. They have families, friends, people who rely on them. Why upset all that because of one twenty-two-year-old mistake?”
“You all made mistakes!” she said heatedly. “They’re called felonies! You don’t get to just say, ‘Oh, I screwed up,’ and walk away from this!”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do, Kylie. Just like I intend to walk away from you.”
No. This time she was doing the walking. He’d given her a twelve-hour ultimatum to return his papers; she would give him a thirty-day ultimatum to get those papers and everything else he owned out of her house, her office building and her life.
The relief that accompanied that spur-of-the-moment decision was comforting.
“Clock’s ticking, Norris,” the senator said. “Take the offer and you can have her, too. I have no further use for her.”
The barb didn’t even twinge. Relieved by that, too, she gazed at Jake. Her lungs tightened at the anger that smoldered in his eyes—anger for her, offense taken on her behalf. His mouth thinned, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “You just don’t get it, do you, Riordan? People aren’t yours to control. You can’t play God with their lives and get away with it. You can’t sacrifice them for the good of your reputation or for your ambition.”
“Of course I can. I’m Senator James Riordan, soon to be Governor Riordan.”
There was that sense of entitlement. When she’d thought he was a good man, it had been an acceptable flaw. Now that she knew the truth, it made her sick to witness it.
“Kylie’s your daughter. That should mean something to you. You should love and appreciate her and you should be grateful every damn day to have her. Just once you should put her ahead of your career. Just once you should act like her father.” Jake’s gaze shifted to her and his voice softened. “And when you screw up, you should hope like hell that she’ll understand and forgive you and love you anyway.”
She understood. The more she saw of her father, the more she agreed with Jake’s decision to remove her from his investigation. She would have done the same in his place.
Easing to stand next to him, she slipped her hand into his, then turned her attention to the senator. “You’re wrong, sir. You can’t play God…and you’re not going to be governor.” Opening her other hand, she displayed the tape recorder for him to see. “We have enough evidence to clear Charley without your help. We have enough evidence to get you investigated—to prove that you knowingly presented a false case against Charley, that you, Markham, Jenkins and Roberts are guilty of criminal collusion and that one of you is guilty of murder. Our money’s on Coy Roberts, but who knows what the authorities will find when we notify them?”
The senator’s face paled, and he swayed unsteadily. “You can’t— It’ll destroy me, Kylie. It’ll destroy everything your mother and I worked for—everything you and I worked for!”
Stubbornly she shook her head. She wouldn’t let him blame her or anyone else. For once he had to be held accountable. “You destroyed it, sir, when you chose to have an affair. When you chose to prosecute an innocent man for murder. When you lied and twisted the law to protect yourself and your friends.”
“You can’t do this to me! I’m your father!”
“And I can’t change that. Believe me, if I could, I would.”
Drawing himself up to his full height, the senator shook his finger at her. “I forbid you—”
“What was the last thing you forbade me to do, sir?” Without giving him a chance, she answered. “To see Jake. And look how that turned out. I not only saw him, I fell in love with him, and one of these days I’m going to marry him. Don’t think you have the right to tell me what I can and cannot do. You forfeited any say in my life the first time you lied to me.”
Jake’s fingers tightened around hers, and she looked up to see him watching her intently. If he was happy to hear her say she loved him, it didn’t show, not with the worry there. But it was in his voice when he murmured, “Name the date. I’ll be there.”
“You’ll be sorry,” the senator threatened wildly. “I’ll ruin both of you!”
“Make that your life’s goal,” Kylie said. “It will give you something to occupy your time while you’re in prison.” Releasing Jake’s hand, she went to her desk, picked up the phone and pressed nine on the auto dial. The number was the home number of state Attorney General Frank Buchanan, an old friend on the Colby side. He liked the senator and considered him a friend—but he considered her family.
“Uncle Frank,” she said when he answered, and the senator crumpled into a chair in front of her. “I’ve got something to tell you.”
Epilogue
The sound of voices outside drew Jake’s attention to the courtyard, where Kylie was talking with the construction crew. Their English was better than her Spanish, but they were less willing to use it, so she’d resorted to gestures. He watched her animated movements, then smiled when her laughter rang out, clear and happy. The men might not always understand what she wanted, but they made her laugh. That was worth a hundred times what he was paying them.
Leaving the foreman with a pat on the arm, she crossed the terra-cotta tile to join Charley on a wrought-iron glider near the fountain. He made her laugh, too, and she made him feel welcome in their home.
She made Jake feel welcome in her life.
After saving his file, he left the computer and walked through their new old house. It was in the mountains outside Albuquerque, nearly a hundred years old and in bad need of renovation. He’d been in favor of tearing it down and building new, but she’d seen the potential in it. He’d bought it and she was making it a home.
It had been an eventful year since they’d met. Charley’s conviction had been overturned. The senator, along with his partners in crime, had been indicted. Always looking out for himself, Riordan had made a deal with the state; Markham and Jenkins had soon followed suit, and all three ha
d testified against Coy Roberts. Though their sentences were light—five to eight years each—compared to Roberts’s life sentence, they had all paid with more than freedom. The scandal alone was almost punishment enough.
Almost.
As for the book, he’d sent it off to his agent the week before. She’d been happy to get it. He’d been happy to finish it. She had finally deleted the massive files he’d sent that Sunday night for backup, and he’d packed everything away in boxes in his storeroom. Case closed.
He let himself out the French doors and touched his father lightly on the shoulder as he passed. Charley gave him a distant smile—it was going to take a long time to bring him all the way home—then Jake scooped up Kylie, slid in beneath her and settled her onto his lap. “What are you two doing out here?”
“Planning,” Charley said at the same time she replied, “Nothing.”
“Hmm. You want a minute to figure out the right answer?”
They exchanged looks, then Charley said, “Nothing,” at the same time she said, “Planning.”
It hardly seemed worth trying to pin them down. It was a warm afternoon, the sky was bluer than it had any right to be, the clouds fatter and whiter. The horses were nickering in the corral, his work was done for the day and he had Kylie in his arms. Life was good.
But she was grinning, and Charley was looking more like his old self with a faint memory of a gleam in his eye—too good an enticement to ignore. “What kind of nothing are you planning?” Jake asked, setting the glider in motion.
They exchanged looks again, then Charley said, “A wedding kind of nothing.”
Jake looked at him blankly. “You been sneaking out at night to meet that pretty redhead you sit beside in church?”
After twenty-two years in prison, Charley still managed to blush. “No,” he denied, then added, “Well, not that often.”
“Then what—” Jake shifted his attention to Kylie, resting her head against his shoulder as if there was no place else she’d rather be. Even with her eyes closed, she knew he was looking at her and responded with a sweet smile before her lashes fluttered open.
“I’m naming a date,” she said quietly.
One of these days I’m going to marry him, she’d told Riordan the last time they’d spoken. Name the date, Jake had replied. I’ll be there.
Since then, she’d refused to set a date. She loved him, but she’d needed time, and he had understood. Those five days last October had led to huge changes in both their lives. He could give her all the time in the world as long as she spent it with him.
It took him several tries to get the question out, but he managed. “When?”
“How about Saturday? Right here by the fountain. Eleven o’clock.”
He stared at her. “Can you put a wedding together that quick?”
“My groom is already here. My father-in-law is here, and my mother-and stepfather-in-law are only an hour away. My sister has her airline reservations. She’ll be here Friday afternoon.” She shrugged. “Those are the people I love. What more do I need?”
“Nothing at all, darlin’.” He held her closer, resting his chin against her hair. If they hadn’t met, her eventual wedding would have been a major event for a thousand or two of Oklahoma’s political, financial and business elite. It would have taken longer to plan than they’d even known each other and would have cost more than this house where they would spend the next sixty years of their lives.
And it wouldn’t have mattered, because any man other than him would have been the wrong man. Their being together was fate. Destiny.
Which, he’d figured out, was just another name for love.
“Will you be there?” she asked, her voice soft and sure. She knew the answer, but he gave it anyway.
“Absolutely.”
With a soft, satisfied sigh, she relaxed against him. “I love you.”
She knew his next words, too—knew what he thought, what he wanted, how he felt. Knew him because she was a part of him. Destiny. But he said them anyway. “I love you, too, Kylie.”
Life was damned good.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7399-7
MORE THAN A HERO
Copyright © 2007 by Marilyn Pappano
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Visit Silhouette Books at www.eHarlequin.com
*Southern Knights
*Southern Knights
*Southern Knights
*Southern Knights
*Southern Knights
*Southern Knights
**Heartbreak Canyon
**Heartbreak Canyon
**Heartbreak Canyon
**Heartbreak Canyon
**Heartbreak Canyon
**Heartbreak Canyon
**Heartbreak Canyon
More Than a Hero Page 21
