by Lily George
Within seconds, she saw him approach her again from the corner of her eye.
“They didn’t have this place when I lived here, but then we never had the money to eat out much when I was growing up.”
She picked up her tray and searched for a table. There was only one empty, and she made her way toward it. She had barely settled with her food when she looked up to see Jerrod coming toward her.
“Look, I’m sorry I was rude to you in the clinic,” he said. “I’m a little touchy about some things, but you seem to be, too. I can explain.”
She hesitated, and though the dining room was crowded, she felt physically vulnerable. Still, if he had something to say to her, better to do it here than when she was alone.
She nodded toward the chair across from her. “Have a seat, then, if you’ll promise me you’re not a reporter looking for an interview about Kemper.” Or something worse.
“I’m no reporter.” He settled awkwardly across from her.
“Why don’t you tell me what you’re really doing in Hideaway?” she asked. “Obviously, your mother felt the need to leave town after your father was convicted of murder.”
“You’ve been talking to your ranger friend?”
“He makes it his business to keep me safe. And while you’re explaining, you might tell me about the gun you purchased recently.” Amazingly, she lost her appetite after the first bite of waffle.
“My girlfriend got mugged a month ago when she was walking out of the mall at night. I wanted her to have protection. You can have the police go through all my things if you want. I don’t carry a gun.”
At this point she wasn’t ready to believe anything he said. “Fine. Tell me your story.”
While Karah Lee sipped coffee and poked at her food, Jerrod quietly told Karah Lee about the tyrant of a man who was given to fits of rage, whom everyone in town hated, and who terrorized Jerrod and his mother. The man went to prison for murder when Jerrod was fifteen.
“Why did your mother stay with him?” Karah Lee asked.
“Why does anyone stay in an abusive relationship? She was more afraid of being on her own with a hard-to-handle kid than she was of him. She divorced him and remarried not long after his sentencing.”
“And then?” Karah Lee prompted, aware that this man could tell a convincing story. Was it just that? A story?
“And then I spent some time at a boys ranch across the lake.”
The boys ranch was a place where incorrigible kids were sent for breaking the law. How incorrigible had Jerrod been? “Were you there long?”
“Only about six months. I had a pretty bad temper as a teenager.”
And how was his temper now? “’Why are you back in Hideaway?”
He met her gaze. “I remember seeing you here all those years ago.”
Anxiety tightened a band around her stomach. Karah Lee and her family had loved to vacation here when she was growing up, before her parents divorced.
“Mom pointed you out to me,” he said.
“Why would she do that?”
“Because you were Kemper MacDonald’s daughter. You and your sister were walking on the square with your father. You had all that curly, bright red hair. Hard to forget that hair.” He paused, a long, thoughtful silence. “Your father was famous even then. My mother was an amateur photographer, and she took a lot of pictures. She kept a photographic record of your father’s career.”
Time to leave, Karah Lee. This is a case of “Like mother, like son.” “Why would she do something like that?”
“I guess when a woman is married to an abusive man, she’s going to look for someone else to admire.”
“Don’t make my father out to be a hero. He’ll let you down, just like your father did.”
“Oh, I’m not doing that,” he said softly. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
Leave now, Karah Lee. He’s unbalanced. “Is there a reason why I should?”
“I spoke to you one day when you were in town. I think you were about twelve at the time. I was eight. You walked out of the general store, and I had been waiting for about thirty minutes for you to come out. You were with Shona and Kemper, and you smiled at me and said hello. Shona didn’t even notice me, and neither did the great Kemper MacDonald.”
She couldn’t miss the sarcasm, the bitterness in his words, but neither could she miss the sadness of a little boy with a horrible home life, standing out on the street, waiting for someone to notice he existed. “You remember that after all this time?”
“Did you know that a picture is worth a thousand words?” He reached back, as if to pull something from the pocket of his jacket, then his gaze shifted to something behind her, and he stiffened. She turned to see Taylor coming toward them. Her rescuer was at it again, and this time she didn’t mind at all.
Taylor was not typically a violent man, but when he found Jerrod seated across the table from Karah Lee, he prepared for battle.
“Hello, Jerrod. Glad I found you here. Could I have a word with you, privately?”
Jerrod blinked up at him, hesitated, then shrugged. “Sure, I guess. Karah Lee, it was good talking to you.” He paused, as if wanting to say more, then got up and walked from the dining room with Taylor.
“I’ve heard some interesting things about you today,” Taylor said as they stepped from the Victorian building and across the flagstone steps toward the street.
“So I understand.” Was that a trace of defeat in the man’s tone? “News travels quickly in this town.”
“Lots of old-timers around here,” Taylor said. “I know a few things about your past, but not much about your present. For instance, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a mainframe system designer for a private company in Kansas.” Jerrod preceded him across the street.
“Interesting,” Taylor said. “Computer system designer. So you must really know your way around computers. I spoke with our deputy sheriff, who also knows a few things. He’s been complaining for quite some time that our clinic computer system is so ancient we’re susceptible to any good hacker who might want to find information about a patient.”
“Hacking into patient files is against the law.” Jerrod’s steps quickened as he reached the sidewalk that encircled the town square. “I take it there’s a point to this conversation.”
“I noticed last night that you had a neat little gadget in your shirt pocket. At first I mistook it for an ink pen, but now that I think about it, I’ve decided that could well have been a tiny video camera.”
Jerrod stared.
“In fact, if someone needed a password and user name of a doctor, all he’d have to do is make a doctor come in after hours for an emergency, then possibly use a small video camera to record the doctor’s fingers as they strike the keys. Later, since the computer system remains on all night, our hacker can simply use his laptop in the privacy of his own hotel room to break into the system.”
“That person would have to be pretty stupid to intentionally eat something he knew could kill him on the off chance he would have the opportunity to do that.”
“Maybe. I’m trying to figure out why a complete stranger would want to hack into our clinic computer just to pull up Dr. Fletcher’s personnel file.”
Jerrod stopped in front of an antique shop on the square—Vintage Treasures—and reached for the door handle. “I’m sorry I can’t help you. Maybe you should ask the friendly people of Hideaway a few more questions.”
Chapter Seven
Later that afternoon, Taylor found Karah Lee sitting on her favorite bench on the lakeshore, watching the sun as it slipped past the horizon. A blaze of red and gold rimmed the trees on the far shore and reflected from the surface of the water.
Taylor sank down beside her
on the bench. “Security has now been tripled for your father’s arrival, and you will also have a bodyguard when your father arrives.”
Karah Lee shrugged. “Why am I not surprised? Taylor, I think Jerrod is a second-generation stalker. His mother took pictures of Dad, though I don’t know to what extent. Jerrod mentioned photos of our family, and I’m wondering if he was issuing a veiled threat.”
“Could his mother have been a blackmailer?”
“Possibly. If so, there’s no telling what she could have caught on camera.”
“I had a talk with Jerrod,” Taylor said. “I think he was the one who looked up your information on the clinic computer. He didn’t deny it.”
“I think he was just trying to find out if I was really Kemper’s daughter,” she said. “How I wish I weren’t.”
Taylor picked up a flat stone and skipped it across the water, shattering the smooth surface into a cauldron of sparkling color. “Not all men are like Kemper MacDonald.”
“Of course they aren’t. Some are worse.”
He suppressed a sharp retort. “Some are better.”
She sighed. “I know that, Taylor. I have no doubts about you.”
“I thought both of us had managed to get beyond the bitterness of our pasts.”
“It’s hard to get over the past when you don’t know everything about your past. My father has lied to so many people, pulled so many strings to suit his own desires that I can’t help wondering what he’s done to attract a blackmailer.”
“Why should that affect us? We’re still who we are. You know I’m not going to hurt you as your father has. And I know you are stubborn enough to make a marriage work no matter what it takes.”
She sat quietly as they watched the sparkles of color smooth and deepen across the lake once more. Then she chuckled softly. “You make marriage sound like a lifelong wrestling match.”
He put a hand on her shoulder and gently turned her toward him. “I love you, Karah Lee. I don’t want you to forget that. I never thought I’d be as happy as I have been since I met you.”
“And I have never in my life been as lonely as I am now when I’m not with you,” she said dryly. “I’m not sure that’s such a good development.”
“It’s a great development. It means we need to spend more time together, not less.” He gently touched her cheek, and lowered his lips to hers. For just that moment, she gave him hope.
Karah Lee had almost reached her cottage Saturday evening when Jerrod Houston stepped from the shadows like a silent wraith. Then he spoke.
“The man who lived with my mother and me wasn’t my father.”
She stopped, too startled to feel fear immediately. “Jerrod, what are you—”
“And the reason I remember the day I saw you was because it was the only time my own sister ever voluntarily spoke to me.”
Karah Lee’s lungs failed her for a brief few seconds. “Your mother told you that?” This can’t be happening. This man needs to be locked up in a psych ward.
“She never told your father about me,” he continued, “but she never wanted me to think I belonged to that jerk she was married to.”
“You can’t expect me to believe you.” She turned from him, suddenly desperate to escape.
He reached for her hand.
She jerked away. “What I think you’ve been telling me today is that you’ve stalked me ever since I was twelve, and that your mother stalked my father. Look, I don’t know who you really are, or what you’re up to, but I want you to stay away from me!”
“Please, just listen to me for a minute.”
“Get away!” She scrambled to keep an arm’s length between them.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Karah Lee! Please, all I ask is that you look at a couple of pictures. I’ve tried to find the courage to show them to you sooner, but I couldn’t do it. I’m doing it now. If you don’t believe me after you’ve seen them, then I’ll never bother you again.”
She glanced toward the door of the cottage. She couldn’t go in there and possibly lead him to Fawn. “You promise you’ll leave me alone?”
“I promise.” There was no threat in his expression, only sadness that looked weathered into his face. In his hands he held a billfold, and from it he slid a photo of a beautiful, dark haired woman who appeared to be in her late twenties. “Does this person look familiar to you?”
It’s a trick, Karah Lee. People can do anything to photographs these days. “That looks like Dad’s second wife, Irene. Anyone could have taken this picture.”
“Look closer,” he said handing her the photo. “That woman’s name was Margaret. She was my mother. She died three months ago. She always wanted me to get to know my father and sisters, and I don’t have any other relatives on her side. Except for you and Shona and Kemper, I don’t have any family. You can’t possibly understand how that feels.”
“Look, you can’t just go claiming family ties because of a resemblance in a picture.”
“I’ve seen a photo of your mother with you when you were little. Our father apparently had very specific tastes.” He pulled another snapshot from the billfold and handed it to her, as well. “That’s my mother and me when I was ten.”
Karah Lee took it, then caught her breath. Despite the gender difference, this could be a photo of Shona as a child, with the dark hair, the dark gray eyes, even the same tilt of the eyebrows. No wonder she’d thought he looked familiar.
“I’m not the son of a murderer,” Jerrod said. “I’m the illegitimate son of a philandering politician, which is almost as bad. I dare you to confront our father with that picture.”
State Senator Kemper MacDonald was a tall, broad-shouldered lion of a man with a thick mane of auburn hair liberally streaked with silver. He had piercing, golden brown eyes and could usually undermine Karah Lee’s confidence with a few well-chosen words.
Early Sunday evening, however, he sat in the executive suite above the Lakeside Bed and Breakfast lodge as he stared at the two photographs on the coffee table in front of him. His typically ruddy complexion paled.
“Where did you get these?” he asked.
“From him.” She pointed to the little boy in the picture. “He’s four years younger than me.”
Kemper looked up at her sharply, his eyes narrowing.
“The worst thing about this is that I can’t help wondering how many other people might approach me in the next few years claiming to be a sibling of mine,” she said.
Kemper closed his eyes and slumped back in the club chair. “Where is he now?”
“I don’t know if he’s even still in town.”
“Trust me, he didn’t come all the way here just to give you a couple of pictures. He’s somewhere in Hideaway, and he’ll be sure to show up sometime during my speech tomorrow. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see his mother here, as well.”
“His mother is dead.”
Pain flashed briefly across Kemper’s expression.
“Did you love her?”
He rubbed his face wearily, sighed, shook his head. “I barely knew the woman.”
She could tell he was lying. “You slept with a woman you barely knew?”
He glared at her. “How many others has he told about this?”
“Jerrod didn’t say.”
“Haven’t you learned by now that people come out of the woodwork when they think you have something they want? It would take more than a couple of snapshots to convince me of any paternal responsibility. Those things could be doctored.”
“Haven’t you seen how much he looked like Shona at that age? The family resemblance is still there, Dad. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think he’s telling the truth.”
Kemper stood up and strode into th
e kitchenette.
Karah Lee followed him. “You haven’t denied having an affair with Margaret.”
He reached into the cabinet for a couple of mugs. “Coffee?”
“This isn’t something you can ignore or dismiss.”
He put the mugs down on the counter. “If you hadn’t gone into medicine, you would have made a good prosecuting attorney.”
“You haven’t denied the possibility that Jerrod could be your son.”
“No, Your Honor, I have not,” Kemper drawled with that Missouri twang for which he was well known. “And if I’m going to keep my reputation, it would behoove me to keep my mouth shut about it.”
“So you’re telling me your political career is more important to you than your family.”
“I didn’t say that.”
She collected the photographs from the coffee table and left the suite without another word.
Chapter Eight
Karah Lee stood beside her sister, Shona Tremaine, slightly apart from the crowd Monday morning at the park. It seemed as if all of Hideaway and perhaps half of Branson had congregated to hear their father endorse Hideaway Clinic to be designated in the future as a hospital.
His voice boomed from all the strategically placed speakers, and he looked polished, as usual.
“Did you select his suit for him?” Karah Lee asked Shona under the cover of his words. “And write his speech and arrange for lodging and prompt him on the ride down?”
“Watch it,” Shona said, reaching up to tame several strands of black hair that blew in the breeze. “Your claws are showing again.”
“Why do you still let him dominate your life the way he does?”
“You should talk. You seldom even see him, but your resentment of him affects everything you do.”
“He broke up your marriage,” Karah Lee said.
