“I’m not,” she assured him. “I hired a driver.”
Of course she had. “Vivian, you are...one of a kind.”
“Something which Carter and David are grateful for every day.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She patted his cheek. “I know, dear. But it’s always easier to fall back on form than let someone know they matter. Less chance of having one’s feelings wounded.” She hooked her handbag more firmly in the crook of her arm, smoothed the back of her hair and picked her way across the rutted dirt to the Rolls-Royce.
A teenager Seth didn’t recognize climbed out of the vehicle before she got there and opened the door.
Seth couldn’t help shaking his head slightly at the odd sight.
Vivian slid into the luxurious car and looked out at him. “I’ve learned sometimes you have to go back before you can truly go forward. Think about that, Seth, would you?” Without waiting for an answer, she pulled the door closed.
The kid driving the car gave Seth a crooked smile. “Some crazy lady, huh?”
“Yeah.” Seth tapped the roof of the car. “Be careful driving her around. She’s valuable.”
“I know.” The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he went back to the driver’s side door. “She is one sweet car,” he said before climbing inside.
“I’m not talking about the car,” Seth murmured as the vehicle rolled smoothly over the rough dirt.
When it was gone, he went to his truck that looked even worse than usual after sitting next to a Rolls-Royce.
How far back would he have to go before he could go forward?
He pinched the bridge of his nose.
He could go back a week and pretend that he’d never lost his mind and let Hayley walk away from him. If she’d take him back.
But she hadn’t been entirely wrong with her accusations. He had wanted to believe McGregor was guilty of killing his partners. He had wanted to make sure he’d pay for it.
Which meant Seth needed to go back a lot further than just a week. He needed to go back half a lifetime.
One more time.
* * *
“How do you know Seth left town?” Sam propped her foot on the park bench beside Hayley and leaned over in a long stretch.
The last thing Hayley wanted to do was go running; instead, she wanted to curl up somewhere and never lift her head again. But she also knew that hiding herself away wouldn’t ease the pain inside her. Only time was going to do that, and time passed more quickly when one was busy.
She didn’t even need her Ph-freaking-D to know that.
“Because I couldn’t stand it anymore and I went to his apartment yesterday,” she admitted, yanking the laces of her running shoe into a messy bow. Silence broadcast Sam’s surprise loud and clear and Hayley dug her chin into her leg before needlessly retying her shoe for about the fifth time. “Mrs. Carson—the lady who lives in the apartment underneath his—told me. Again. He’s been gone for a week.”
“Yes, well, she wasn’t entirely accurate the first time,” Sam pointed out reasonably.
Hayley straightened. She didn’t want Sam to sound reasonable. She wanted her friend to sound as outraged as Hayley felt brokenhearted.
“I think I need therapy,” she muttered.
“Don’t we all?” Sam’s smile was wry. She lowered her foot and grabbed Hayley under the arm, dragging her off the bench. “Come on. You put in three miles with me today and I’ll treat you to a cinnamon roll over at Ruby’s.”
“Bribery.”
“Whatever works.” Sam started jogging in place. “Maybe we can get Jane out this weekend for a girls’ night. I haven’t seen her since she and Casey got back from their honeymoon and that was two whole weeks ago.” She turned and set off on the sidewalk that led around the pavilion.
Hayley fell into place behind her. “I hate jogging,” she said.
“I hate vegetables,” Sam said without looking back. “Still need to eat ’em. So what do you think? Girls’ night out?”
Hayley blew out a noisy breath. “Sure.” Anything was better than spending another night alone, wishing she’d never said the things she’d said to him. Wishing that she would have just climbed with him into the back of her grandmother’s ridiculous car with the starry headliner. Because taking what he’d offered then would have meant being with him now.
Instead, she had nothing but an empty bed at night and a bald-headed Montrose banging pots and pans with displeasure in her kitchen in the morning.
They’d made it twice around the park before Sam broke the silence. “Heard that Homeland Security’s not interested in McGregor anymore.” Her short ponytail bobbed in time to her footsteps.
Hayley sped up enough to draw even with her. “What? How’d you hear that?”
“Went out with Conover last night.” She glanced at Hayley. “You know. Adam,” she added. “Guard out at—” She waved her hand, not finishing.
Hayley caught Sam’s hand and dragged her to a stop. “How much do you know about that?”
“Not as much as you, I’m guessing.” Sam immediately began jogging in place again. “Sheriff filled us in on what we needed to know.”
“And that’s good enough for you?”
Sam lifted her shoulder. “It doesn’t just take a village to raise a kid. It takes one to keep the world safely turning, too. Keep moving, girlfriend.” She slapped Hayley on the hip of her sweatpants and set off again. “Got two more laps before you’re off the hook. Anyway, story is McGregor’s confession has also been tossed by a federal judge. Supposedly, too many inaccuracies.”
“How do you know all of this stuff?”
Sam’s smile flashed. “I haven’t been walking around in a funk for two weeks.” Her feet pounded. “Get the lead out, Templeton. I’m sure Seth knows, but...” Her voice trailed off and she ran in silence for another half a lap before slowing her pace enough to drop back to Hayley’s. “You think he’ll come back?”
Hayley swiped her arm over her forehead. She was sweating like a fiend, yet Sam looked as if she could keep running forever. “You’re not even sweating,” Hayley whined.
Sam laughed silently. “Put in more than a couple miles twice a week and you could say the same.”
“No, thanks.”
“So, do you?”
“Do I what? Dislike you intensely right now? Yes.”
“Think he’d come back here if he could?”
What little breath she had seemed to leave her completely. “I don’t know. Mrs. Carson didn’t offer a suitcase count this time.”
“I was talking about McGregor. If his case gets tossed altogether.”
Hayley slowed to a stop, leaned over and rubbed the stitch in her side. “I don’t know why he would. He’s got nothing here to come back to.” She peered at her friend through the sweat stinging her eyes. “Why?”
Sam lifted her shoulders. She was still jogging in place, but she didn’t meet Hayley’s eyes. “Just curious.”
“Jason McGregor isn’t exactly tall, rich and temporary.”
Sam’s lips quirked. “I know.” Her feet finally stopped moving. “I was on duty the night he turned himself in.”
“I remember.”
“I just... I don’t know. Something about the guy is sorta sticking with me. You know what I mean?”
Hayley blew out a long breath. “I know exactly what you mean.” She straightened and tucked her arm through Sam’s. “Cinnamon roll. Please. I beg you. And when we’re sitting, while I indulge myself in a sweet roll drenched in caramel and pecans, you can tell me all about it.”
“Dr. Templeton is in?”
“Dr. Templeton is in.” They waited while a tractor pulling a load of hay lumbered past. Then they crossed the street, heading for Ruby’
s just around the block.
“How’s Vivian’s hunt for the new Templeton estate coming along?”
“How do you think? She hired Beck Ventura as the architect. He’ll probably regret it before the house is built. She keeps changing her mind about what she wants.”
“What does she want?”
“A palace?”
Sam laughed softly. “Where is she going to build?”
“That remains to be seen,” Hayley said. “She wants a piece of land that Squire Clay’s got up for sale but she hasn’t made an offer yet for some reason.” They turned the corner and reached the diner.
“You got new running shoes,” Sam observed. “Just noticed.”
Hayley lifted the drooping leg of her sweatpants to wiggle her hot pink shoe. “Had to. I was careless for thirty seconds and Moose ate my other ones.”
“Bet you’re glad Jane’s back. That house of theirs is to die for, but that puppy? Sounds like he eats everything in sight.”
She immediately thought of Seth. Moose had never tried to chew something he shouldn’t when Seth was around. “I miss him.”
“The dog?”
“Yeah. Him, too.” She followed Sam through the door to the diner and inhaled the heavenly aroma of coffee and cinnamon.
“Well, my friend,” Sam said, “Looks like now’s your chance to tell him.”
“What?”
Sam spread her hands and stepped to one side.
Leaving Hayley standing face-to-face with Seth.
“You shaved,” she breathed and immediately turned hot. She hadn’t seen him in two weeks. Two long, miserably lonely weeks. And those were the words that came out of her mouth?
His lips tilted in a smile and without the usual blur of dark razor stubble, his dimple fully revealed itself. He rubbed his hand down his jaw, looking vaguely self-conscious. “I did.” His eyes ran over her face. “You look—”
“—sweaty,” she offered quickly. “Running. I’ve been running with, um, with Sam.” And why, oh, why couldn’t she be wearing something presentable like Sam’s body-hugging capris and sports bra, instead of her ancient sweats and a faded UCLA T-shirt with a tear on the hem?
“Good,” he corrected her. “I was going to say you look good.”
She lifted her eyebrows, sticking her fingers through the ripped hem. “I look like something that Moose got hold of.” Seth, however, looked as amazing as always in the simplest of blue jeans and an ARMY T-shirt that hugged his shoulders.
“I’m not looking at the clothes.”
Her stomach lurched. “I—” Her brain seemed frozen. She didn’t know what to say. So all she did was smile weakly and choke out a nervous laugh.
Sam jostled her in the ribs with her elbow. “I’m going to finish my run,” she said, widening her eyes at Hayley almost comically. “I’ll catch up to you later.” She looked at Seth. “Nice to see you back.”
Then she trotted out the diner door.
“I came in for cinnamon rolls.” Hayley forced out the words as if they’d been the ones on her lips all along.
He held up a white paper sack. “So did I.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve got enough to share.”
Something inside her chest leapt. “Okay.” She moistened her lips and glanced around the diner. Every booth, table and counter stool was occupied. “I don’t see anywhere to sit.”
“I know a place.”
She swallowed and preceded him out the door.
“This will do,” he said gruffly the second they were outside the restaurant, and he pushed her against the brick wall, fastening his mouth hungrily over hers.
Her hands fisting in his hair, she kissed him back before she realized what she was doing right there in the middle of Main Street, Weaver, USA. She gasped and shoved him away, pressing the back of her hand to her throbbing lips. “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” He was breathing hard. “But at least now you’re not looking at me like you don’t know whether to run and hide or hide and run.” He bent over and scooped up the paper bag that he’d dropped. “How is Vivian?”
Hayley’s legs were trembling and she wished she could blame it on the aborted jog with Sam, but lying to herself had been losing its appeal for a good fourteen days now. “She’s decided to build a house. She’s bringing her old housekeeper out from Pittsburgh, which has Montrose in a tizzy because they don’t get along at all. And why did Mrs. Carson tell me again that you left town?”
In the bright morning sun, Seth’s eyes were a blue gleam between his narrowed lashes. “Because I did.” He pulled her around to the back of Ruby’s, where a table and bench were set up beneath a tree. “Vivian visited me a week ago.”
Hayley started.
“Said a few things that got under my skin.”
“She has a way of doing that,” Hayley said faintly.
“Most importantly, about sometimes needing to go back before you could forward.” His gaze bore into hers. “So I did.” He pulled a folded envelope out of his pocket and handed it to her.
“What’s this?”
“Proof that Marcus killed my father. The original autopsy report was lost a long time ago, but that’s a statement from the medical examiner who signed off on it. He’s retired now but he kept meticulous records. My father didn’t drown. He was dead before he hit the water. The ME confirms there’s no way that the injury was accidental.”
She gaped and sat on the bench with a plop.
He straddled the bench and sat beside her. “I wasn’t wrong. Marcus paid off the DA to avoid prosecution and took the rest of the money he’d gotten for the sale of the business and booked a flight to Mexico.”
“How do you know?”
“With a little help from Hollins-Winword, the DA—he’s retired, too—admitted he’d taken the payoff. He decided confessing to that was less painful in the long run than having us dig through every single one of the cases he didn’t prosecute over his short, uncelebrated career.”
“Seth.” She squeezed his hands. “That’s wonderful. You were right all along.”
“And there’s no statute of limitation on murder. Marcus has already been picked up in Mexico. He’ll be extradited back here to the United States to face charges.”
Hayley’s eyes burned. She twined her arms around his neck. “I’m so glad for you,” she whispered huskily. “You finished your mission.” Before she clung too hard for too long, she sat back.
“I did,” he murmured. “Only because Vivian stuck her nose in where it didn’t belong. She’s not all bad.”
Hayley nodded. “She’s not all good, either.”
“Isn’t that human nature, Dr. Templeton?”
Her lips curved upward in a smile but not for long. She swallowed the knot in her throat. “So what are you going to do now? Go back to Texas?”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing for me in Texas.”
“Won’t you want to be there to see Marcus’s trial?” She thought about Sam’s claim that Jason’s trial might never come to pass. “Surely there will be one, won’t there?”
“Chances are he’ll take a lesser manslaughter plea before it ever gets that far. He’s not going to want to take his chances on a murder conviction in Texas, when there are too many witnesses still around to confirm he was the only one on the boat with my father.” He turned her hand over and pressed his palm against hers. “What I want is here.”
She sank her teeth into the tip of her tongue. “You don’t have to say that. I overreacted about Vivian’s will and...and all that. I was—”
“—panicking.” He cut her off. “I know.” His eyes searched hers. “And I do have to say it. What I want is here. Everything I want is here. Because you are here.” He curled his finger
s through hers. “I am never going to feel like I’m good enough for you. That’s a fact, Doc, and not one I’m capable of changing. But I’m also not capable of changing the fact that I love you.” His fingers tightened.
The tears in her eyes leaked out. “I shouldn’t have said what I did. It was...cruel.”
He cupped her cheek and brushed his thumb over her tears. “You don’t have what it takes to be cruel, Doc. It’s not in your DNA.” His dimple flashed, quick as lightning in a summer storm and gone just as fast. “But you can fire as straight a verbal shot as anyone I’ve ever known. And I wouldn’t want you any other way.”
“So you’re going to stay in Weaver?”
“I’m going to stay with you.” His eyes searched hers. “Surrender is not a Ranger word.” He took her hand and placed it against his heart. “But I’m surrendering everything I have to you. If you’ll take me.”
Her chest felt as if it would crack. Her lips parted but no words would come.
His thumb brushed down her cheek. “But we’re not gonna live with Vivian. I draw the line at some things, and that’s one of them. And our kids aren’t gonna drive around in Rolls-Royce Phantoms. Not unless they earn ’em themselves.”
“Kids?”
His eyes softened, suddenly filled with that unexpected sweetness that had entranced her from the very beginning. “Do you ever think about it?”
She nodded because her throat was too tight for anything else. “I do,” she managed to croak.
He brushed her mouth with his. “Keep practicing those words, Doc. You can use them when you marry me. If you want to, that is.”
She suddenly laughed through her tears and pulled him close. “I do. I do, I do, I do!”
Epilogue
Two months later to the day, they did.
They were married under the round pavilion in the Weaver Community Park.
The same park where she had first seen him.
Hayley wore a white embroidered satin halter dress that hit just above her ankles. Isabella Clay had miraculously produced it in record time, claiming that it had been easy since she still had Hayley’s measurements from the dress she’d worn for Jane’s wedding so recently and the style of the dress was similar. Hayley had a hard time believing the task had been all that easy.
One Night in Weaver... Page 18
