“No. I have to do this alone, quietly, out of sight. I’m assuming Natalie has no idea I’ve left Chicago to search for her. If you use your police connections to help me, there’s too great a chance that she’ll find out that I’m here, and not where she believes I am.”
And the authorities would know that Dana Bailey was in Whitehorn, Montana, too, she thought frantically. They would come for her, arrest her, and… No!
“Your cover is already blown, Dana.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I’ll be right back.”
Kurt left the room, and Dana pressed her fingertips to her now throbbing temples.
Oh, why did reality have to ruin such a perfect day? she thought. And what did Kurt mean by saying her cover was already blown?
Kurt reentered the kitchen, a deep frown on his face.
“This is one of the evening newspapers from Billings,” he said, handing it to her. “You’d better take a good look at it.” He tapped the center of the paper.
Dana shifted her eyes to the newspaper and began to read the story. Her breath caught and the color drained from her face as black dots danced before her eyes.
“No,” she whispered, sinking back onto the chair. “Dear heaven, no. Who did this? Who told the reporter that I’m here, that I’m…”
She looked up at Kurt, a stricken expression on her pale face.
“This can’t be happening. Tell me I’m asleep, that I’ll wake up and… I have to leave Whitehorn now, tonight. I have to go, because… Yes, I’ll disappear before… Oh, God, I can’t stay here. I…”
Kurt gripped Dana’s upper arms and hauled her to her feet. The newspaper fluttered unnoticed to the floor.
“Stop it,” he said, giving her a small shake. “What’s the matter with you? I didn’t know if you’d be upset by the story in the newspaper or not, but I certainly didn’t expect a reaction as extreme as this. Talk to me, Dana. What in the hell is going on?”
The police will know where I am! Dana’s mind screamed. They’d track her down, arrest her, take her away and put her in jail before she could find Natalie.
“Natalie…Natalie will realize I’m looking for her,” she said, her voice trembling, “if word reaches her about what is in that newspaper. She’ll go even deeper into hiding. I have to leave. I have to find my sister.”
“Would you calm down and think a minute?” Kurt said, still holding her arms. “Natalie isn’t stupid, is she? Wouldn’t she have already figured out you’d be searching for her, if she’s the key to clearing up whatever trouble she has caused for you?”
“Well, yes, I suppose she would realize I wasn’t just throwing up my hands and allowing things to remain as they are.”
“So what difference does it make if she knows you’re in Whitehorn, Montana? It may even help the situation. You have a detective working on this case, remember? If Natalie thinks you’re stuck in Whitehorn until the trial, she may get sloppy, go out in public more, make a mistake, and your guy can nab her…wherever she is.”
“Yes, I see what you’re saying, but it’s not that simple. You just don’t understand, Kurt.”
Kurt dropped his hands from Dana’s arms.
“Then why don’t you explain it to me?” he said, a pulse beating wildly in his temple. “What did Natalie do, Dana? Exactly what kind of trouble are you in? Don’t you think it’s time I knew the whole story, the complete truth?”
Dana shook her head. “No. No, I won’t have you involved in this.”
“Is that a fact?” he said, a rough edge to his voice. “You make love with me, have said you care deeply for me, know I care for you. You trust me with you, the woman, in bed, know I would never harm you. But then you stop, put up that damnable wall of yours and shut me out.”
“I have to!” Dana said, nearly shrieking.
Kurt took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling for a long moment, reining in his building anger and frustration. He blew out a puff of air and looked at Dana again.
“All right,” he said, raising both hands palms out. “We’ll leave it at that for now. So take your pick. Do you want to spend the night here with the odor of paint, or shall we go back to the motel?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight, Dana Bailey,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “In the frame of mind you’re in at the moment, I’m afraid you’re going to take off at the first opportunity. Well, guess what, lady? That isn’t going to happen.”
“But…”
“I’m a member of the police force of Whitehorn. I’m electing to stand guard over you because you’re now a hostile witness of sorts. You will testify at that trial, because Clem deserves to have the scum who shot him put behind bars. Are you getting this? Am I making myself perfectly clear on the subject?”
“You can’t treat me like a prisoner!”
“You’re not giving me any choice but to do exactly that.”
They glared at each other, the tension between them a nearly palpable entity, crackling through the air.
“What about your reputation?” Dana said finally. “Word will get around town very quickly that we’re spending the nights together. You plan to stay on in Whitehorn permanently. Do you want people gossiping about you like that?”
“I don’t give a rip, but to keep my sister from being embarrassed, or put in an uncomfortable position of trying to defend my actions, I’ll nip the speculation in the bud.”
“Oh, really? How? Take out an ad in the Whitehorn newspaper stating that you’re not my lover, you’re my jailer?”
“No, I’ll simply tell Lily Mae Wheeler that you decided to leave town before testifying on Clem’s behalf, and I decided you really shouldn’t do that. Lily Mae gets the message out better than any newspaper that has been printed anywhere.”
“Oh, you just think of everything, don’t you, Detective Noble?” Dana said, planting her hands on her hips. “You have all the answers.”
Kurt dragged one hand through his hair.
“No,” he said quietly, “I don’t. I have a lot more questions than I do answers. Question—what did your twin sister do? Question—what kind of trouble are you in?
“Question—why do you only trust me up to a point, then shut me out? Question—what am I going to do about the fact that you mean so damn much to me and I don’t seem to be able to do anything about those emotions? No, Dana, I don’t have all the answers. Not by a long shot.”
“Oh, Kurt, I’m sorry,” she said softly. “You’ll never know how badly I feel about all this. It truly is a nightmare, and I’m terrified about the way it might end. Why can’t you trust me? Why can’t you believe me when I say I just can’t tell you everything now?”
“Because it doesn’t work that way,” Kurt said wearily. “It just doesn’t.” He paused. “Let’s get out of here. The smell of paint is giving me a headache. We’re spending the night at the motel.”
It was a long, seemingly endless night.
They drove into Whitehorn in total, stony silence. At the motel, they prepared for bed, still not speaking, then moved as far to the opposite sides of the bed as possible.
Sleep was elusive, each of them acutely aware of the stiff, tense person across the space between them. Each of them remembering the exquisite love they’d made in that bed in the past.
Dana finally dozed in a restless slumber, only to be awakened by the hungry, squeaking kittens. She carried the box into the bathroom and shut the door so that the light wouldn’t disturb Kurt.
But Kurt wasn’t sleeping. He was so tense his muscles ached and his injured shoulder throbbed in a painful cadence. Thoughts tumbled through his mind, one after another, faster and faster, creating a tangled maze of confusion.
And all the questions were there, taunting him, beating against his brain, shouting the depressing message that he had no answers.
All the questions that were focused on Dana.
At dawn’s light, Kurt r
ose and dressed. Dana watched him from beneath her lashes, then made no pretense of being asleep when Kurt picked up the receiver to the telephone and punched in some numbers.
“Yeah, this is Kurt,” he said into the receiver. “I want a patrol car stationed outside Dana Bailey’s room at the Whitehorn Motel right away. It’s the last room in the row. Ms. Bailey is not to leave. I’ll clear it with Judd later.” He replaced the receiver.
“You can’t do that,” Dana said, sitting bolt upright in bed. She wore a T-shirt and panties, but still clutched the sheet beneath her chin.
“I just did,” Kurt said, heading for the door.
“How could I go anywhere? My car is still out at your house.”
Kurt stopped, his hand on the doorknob, and turned halfway to look at her.
“Travel buses come through Whitehorn. There are also truckers who sometimes come off the highway to have a meal. I imagine you could bat your big blue eyes and come up with a sad enough story to convince one of them to take you with them.”
“You honestly believe I’d do something like that?” Dana said incredulously.
“Dana, I’m so dead tired I don’t know what to believe right now. All I do know for certain is that you are nearly frantic about wanting to leave Whitehorn, and I’m not going to allow that to happen.” He turned and yanked open the door. “Have a nice day.”
Kurt slammed the door closed behind him, and Dana jerked at the loud noise. She flopped down onto the pillow and sighed, her utter fatigue, both physical and emotional, seeming to crush her.
She had to telephone Pete Parker, she thought frantically, and tell the detective about the story in the Billings newspaper. No, it was too early in the morning. Pete wouldn’t be in his office yet.
Dana looked over at the pillow where Kurt’s head had rested beside her own through the long night.
Just when she’d been convinced that her life couldn’t be in a worse mess, she thought miserably, it was actually in a worse mess. Now Kurt, her Kurt, was so furious, so hurt, because she was continuing to keep secrets from him.
On top of everything else she had to deal with, was she also to lose the last precious days, hours, minutes she had left with Kurt Noble? Would he remain so angry, cold and distant?
Dana, please, get in touch with reality, she admonished herself. Kurt’s frame of mind was not the priority-one issue she should be concentrating on. She had to figure out a way to leave this town before the Chicago police were informed that fugitive Dana Bailey was hiding out in Whitehorn, Montana.
“Ohhh,” she said, covering her face with her hands.
She was so tired. Maybe if she slept until she was able to telephone Pete, things would look a bit brighter, wouldn’t seem so completely overwhelming and hopeless.
She dropped her arms heavily onto the bed.
Yes, some sleep, she thought foggily. Some sleep.
Dana slept, one hand resting on Kurt’s pillow.
After waiting outside for the patrol car to arrive at the motel and repeating his instructions to the uniformed officer behind the wheel, Kurt drove home to shower, shave and change clothes.
When he entered his living room, he stopped, his gaze sweeping over the painting supplies and the fresh, clean ceiling and walls.
The odor of paint was gone. Kurt told himself that it was impossible that he could smell the delicate aroma of Dana’s cologne.
Dana had done a fine job, he thought, especially considering that she’d never attempted the chore before. If this house was spruced up room by room, it would be a pretty decent place to live.
But would it ever really be a home?
“Noble, shut up,” he said aloud, as he stepped over the painting supplies. “Don’t think. Just clean up your decrepit body. Oh, yeah, and feed the blasted cats.”
The shower and shave helped him discover a reservoir of energy that had been hidden beneath his mental and physical fatigue. Three cups of coffee and six slices of toast and peanut butter helped him find some more.
Kurt cleaned the kitchen, the clutter including the dishes from the dinner he’d shared with Dana the previous night. He then folded the tarps and took them, along with the other sundry painting supplies, to the shed beyond the back door.
The front room looked really good, he thought, viewing it minus the working materials. Add new carpeting and furniture, and it would be a comfortable place to settle in for the evening.
But would this house ever be a home?
“Here I go again,” he said, throwing up his hands. “I can’t stay sane for five minutes at a stretch. I’m outa here.”
Behind the wheel of his vehicle, he turned the key in the ignition, but didn’t back out of the driveway. He glanced over at Dana’s car and frowned.
He was in no rush to go to the police station and see Judd, he admitted. It was still early, but Judd often was the first one in. There was a very good chance that the sheriff would be sitting behind his desk, waiting to hear Kurt’s explanation for assigning an officer to make certain that Dana Bailey didn’t leave her motel room.
Kurt muttered an earthy expletive.
He didn’t want to divulge Dana’s personal business to Judd Hensley, then have to confess that he, detective extraordinaire Kurt Noble, had more questions than answers regarding Dana Bailey.
Nor did he wish for the very savvy and perceptive sheriff to pick up on the fact that Kurt was up to his tired eyes in emotional-involvement problems with the secretive woman.
No, he could go all week without having that conversation with Judd. He couldn’t put it off that long, but he sure could postpone it for a couple of hours.
Kurt backed out of the driveway and headed for Winona Cobbs’s Stop ‘N’ Swap, knowing she would have risen very early to feed her chickens.
He needed some of Winona’s homemade honey, Kurt told himself. He had no other reason to drive all the way out there. It was a simple fact that peanut butter toast just wasn’t what it should be without Winona’s honey dribbled on top.
Eleven
When Kurt arrived at Winona’s, she was sitting outside of her mobile home, drinking hot tea laced with honey made by the bees she kept. The ceramic mug was decorated with perky bumblebees wearing top hats.
Kurt waved, then began to make his way through the clutter. Winona’s treasures consisted of everything a person might want, or would never consider owning, or didn’t know even existed.
Kurt stepped around a dented tuba, over a long wooden window box containing cracked, dry dirt and dead geraniums, and through a short aisle edged with various sizes of metal milk cans.
His glance fell on a small round table covered in a selection of china figurines. He stopped and picked up one that had two kittens curled next to each other as they slept. One kitten was white, the other was white with black ears. The figurine was tiny and delicate, fitting into the palm of his hand with room to spare.
He was going to buy this for Dana, Kurt decided. It would be a peace offering of sorts. He was angry and hurt that Dana still refused to totally confide in him. He guessed that Dana felt angry and hurt because he was having her guarded twenty-four hours a day so that she wouldn’t leave town before testifying at the trial.
Heaven knew that a china figurine of sleeping kittens wouldn’t mend all the fences between them, but maybe it would pave the way to enabling them to call some kind of truce. It was worth a try.
When Kurt reached Winona, she waved him into the lawn chair next to hers and asked if he’d like some tea.
“No thanks,” he said. “I just finished breakfast. I’m going to buy this little figurine, and I also need a quart of honey.”
“You must be having peanut butter toast for breakfast, if you want a jar of my honey,” Winona said, smiling. “You’ve liked that combination since you were a sassy little tyke. Oh, I heard you’re staying on for good in Whitehorn. I think that’s fine, Kurt, mighty fine. Welcome home.”
“Mmm,” Kurt said, nodding.
“You look tired.”
“Yeah, well, I haven’t had much sleep in the last couple of nights.” Kurt paused. “By the way, Winona, the vision you had of Dana Bailey having two faces was because she has an identical twin sister.”
“Is that a fact? Well, that certainly does explain why I saw the faces side by side, not layered. Twins. Well, isn’t that something? So, tell me, Kurt, what brings you all the way out here so early in the morning?”
Kurt frowned. “I just told you. I need a quart of honey.”
“Being out of honey doesn’t explain why you’re troubled. And you are troubled, dear. I can feel it coming from you in waves of tension, stress.”
“I fooled myself into believing I came only for honey,” Kurt said, “but there’s no putting anything past you, Winona.” He stared up at the blue Montana sky for a long moment, then looked at Winona again. “It’s Dana.”
“She’s a pretty thing, isn’t she?” Winona said. “I can’t remember when I’ve seen such big blue eyes as she has. I imagine her feelings show in those eyes.”
“Yes, they do,” Kurt said. Desire. Merriment. Anger. Pain. Yes, Dana’s emotions were clearly reflected in her gorgeous, expressive eyes. “And, yes, I agree that she’s very pretty.”
“Are you in love with Dana Bailey, dear?” Winona said gently.
“I don’t know, Winona. Love is just so damn complicated. I’m not certain that I’d recognize it if it hit me with a brick.”
“Yes, you would, if you weren’t fighting not to see it for what it was. People do that, you know, when they’re skittish about falling in love.”
“Try scared out of my shorts,” Kurt said dryly. “I’ve made some heavy-duty mistakes in that arena in the past.”
“The past is gone. The future is what’s important. The day we’re living, and the future days to come, are what count.”
“It’s not always easy to forget the past.”
“No,” Winona said, “but if you allow it to own a part of you, you won’t be able to fully savor the present and future.” She reached over and grasped Kurt’s hand, where it rested on the arm of his chair. “You think about that, dear. You’re coming home to Whitehorn, starting fresh and…”
Wife Most Wanted Page 13
