by Debra Webb
A chill slithered over Laney. “Who wouldn’t come inside?”
He scrunched his face and looked up at his mom. “You know, the grandma lady.”
The chill turned to fear. “Where did you see her?”
He pointed to his window. “Right there.”
“When?” The word was brittle with the ice freezing her blood.
He shrugged. “Dark time.”
Stay calm, Laney. If she scared him he might not get all the facts straight. “You woke up and saw her there? In the dark?” Maybe it was just a dream. He couldn’t have seen her in the dark…maybe the moonlight. She couldn’t remember if the moon had been particularly bright last night.
“The light woke me up.” He picked up Mr. Bear and propped him on his pillow. “It shined in my face.”
“What kind of light?” Laney sank to the bed, her knees too weak to keep her standing.
He puckered out his bottom lip and shrugged again. “I dunno. It was in my face and I woke up. Then it was on her face. I could see her there.” He pointed to the window again. “I tried to open the window. It was too hard.”
“Come here.” Laney tried to control the way her body trembled so he wouldn’t notice. She patted the bed. “Let’s talk about the grandma lady a minute.”
Buddy bounced up on the bed. “She’s old.”
Laney tried to smile. “Old to you.”
Buddy smiled and gazed up at her. “Old to you, too.”
She ruffled his hair. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Deep breath. Keep it low-key. “This grandma lady is a stranger, Buddy. It’s not safe to talk to strangers or to let them in our house. We’ve talked about strangers before.”
He nodded emphatically. “But she’s a grandma. Old people are nice.”
Laney hugged her sweet son. “Sometimes they can be bad, too. We can’t be fooled by how nice someone seems.” God knew she had half a lifetime of experience with that one. Her gaze drifted beyond the window to where Hayden worked on the barn. Maybe she hadn’t learned her lesson yet.
“You don’t want me to be nice to her?”
Laney turned his face up to her and looked him in the eyes. He knew this was the listen-good signal. “You be nice to everyone, William Seagers. But you never, ever let yourself be alone with strangers. No matter how nice they look. You don’t go anywhere with them and you don’t let them get too close to you.”
He nodded, his head moving up and down in her hands.
“If anyone, even the grandma lady, comes to your window or to the door again, you come and get me. Promise?”
“Promise. But she didn’t say anything. She was just smiling at me.”
More of that fear crowded into her throat. “And you’re sure this wasn’t a dream?”
He nodded. “After a while she turned off the light and then she was gone.” He moved his shoulders up and down. “Least I couldn’t see her no more.”
“Just remember to come get me next time.”
“I promise.”
“Now.” Laney gave him a hug. “Let’s go see what’s left of breakfast.” She had to talk to Hayden but she didn’t want to upset Buddy.
The woman had come back.
“Bacon,” Buddy called out as they raced to the kitchen. “Biscuits.” He skidded to a stop at the island. “But not your biscuits.”
Laney laughed out loud when she saw the little mound of small, knotty biscuits. The scrambled eggs looked fine and the bacon nice and crisp. But the poor biscuits. She laughed some more. Buddy jumped up and down and laughed with her. Tears streamed from her eyes. Maybe the hysteria was more related to what Buddy had told her than the pitiful biscuits.
“What’s so funny?”
Laney jumped. She’d been laughing so hard she hadn’t heard the screen door. With her lips compressed to stifle the mirth, she attempted to compose herself.
“Mom was laughing at your biscuits!”
“Buddy!” Laney couldn’t help it. She burst into laughter again. This time it sounded more like sobs.
Hayden searched her face as she once again struggled to compose herself.
When she could speak without the words jerking, she said, “Buddy, I’d like you to tidy the living room for me this morning. You know how.”
“Okay.” He lumbered off as if she’d just grounded him for a whole week.
When he was out of earshot, Hayden frowned. “What’s wrong?”
Was the front door locked?
“Just a minute.” Laney rushed to the front door and checked to ensure the screen was latched and the door was locked, dead bolt included.
By the time she returned to the kitchen she had swiped her eyes and caught her breath. Hayden waited, his expression serious. He’d pulled his T-shirt back on and had his hands planted on his hips.
“A light woke Buddy last night.” The idea that she had been asleep in her room just a few feet away and Hayden had been on the sofa stunned her. Did this woman have no fear? “Someone was at his window shining—” She shrugged. “I guess, shining a flashlight in his face to awaken him.”
“Was it her?” Fury simmered in his tone.
Laney nodded, tears welling once more. “She shined the light on her face so he could see that it was her.”
“Did she talk to him?”
“No. He said she just stared at him for a while and then left.” Laney hugged herself. “What does she want?”
Hayden closed in, pulled her into his arms. “I wish I knew. Until we find her, we can’t take any chances. I’ll add motion sensors to the exterior lights. That way she won’t have the cover of darkness.”
Laney closed her eyes and tried to block all the worries with the feel of his strong body and that scent of clean, sun-kissed sweat. As much as she wanted to be strong and take care of Buddy and herself on her own, she knew she could not do this alone.
He drew back, then ushered her to a stool. “Sit. Eat. When you’ve had a minute to relax, we’ll look around outside and I’ll give Lucas an update.”
She poured herself a cup of coffee while he readied her plate. Prepared for the worst, she nibbled on one of the biscuits that looked more like a stubby dinosaur egg. To her surprise it was good.
“Not as bad as you thought, huh?”
She rolled her eyes. “Not as bad as I thought. Actually they’re pretty good.” She concentrated to pinpoint the flavors. “Garlic and cheese. Really nice.”
He slid onto a stool and smiled at her from across the old wooden countertop. “When you’ve been a bachelor as long as me, you have to learn to whip up a few things.”
She realized there was a lot more she didn’t know about him. “How old are you?”
“My thirty-fifth birthday is in December.”
“Wow.” She made a face. “You’re like an old maid except you’re a guy.”
He scowled. “Funny.”
“You always lived in Houston?”
“Grew up in Galveston. Most of my family still lives there.” He plucked a biscuit from the bowl and tore off a bite.
Laney got distracted for a moment by his mouth. She blinked. “I find it hard to believe you’ve never even gotten close to marriage.” A guy this good-looking, nice, great job... He was a catch.
“Let’s just say I went through a long me stage,” he confessed. “I wasn’t interested in complications. I was focused on my career and having a good time.”
“Aha.” She sipped her coffee. Not quite as good as her own, but close. “You were a player. A heartbreaker.”
He grinned. “I guess I was.”
“What changed?” Obviously something had. Since it wasn’t first love or a wedding or a child, it had to be a significant event. Her pulse rate slowly returned to normal. As normal as possible considering just being in the room with him seemed to have some impact on her ability to breathe.
Under normal circumstances she would chastise herself for going off into romantic fantasyland, but right now she desperately needed an escape. Tens
ion started to knot in her belly. Don’t think about it. Not yet. It was all still too painful and overwhelming.
All that mattered was that Buddy was safe. As his mother, whatever was required to keep him that way was her job. But she was only human. Finding a little relief—even if only in a moment of romantic fantasy—was not such a bad thing.
Hayden seemed lost in thought for a moment, as if trying to decide if he wanted to remember whatever had made him take a step back and assess his life.
“My older brother—they’re all married.” He laughed softly. “But he married the one woman for him. High-school sweethearts. Bought the house with the picket fence, two kids and a dog. Life was perfect. Exactly what marriage and family should be. The kids came home from school one day and she was gone.”
Laney felt her eyes widen in dismay. “She left?”
Hayden shook his head. “She had an undiagnosed heart defect. She finished the laundry that day, sat down to fold the towels and she was gone.”
“That’s just awful.”
“Really awful.” He turned to the fridge and helped himself to a bottle of water. One twist of the cap and he chugged down about half of it. “I watched him go through the stages of grief. The kids were devastated. His whole life fell apart for a little while. Then he sucked it up and did what he had to do.”
“Did he eventually find someone else?” Laney decided this was about the saddest story she’d ever heard.
“There’s someone now but it’s a slow go.” He deposited the bottle of water on the counter. “The point is I realized that the relationship between men and women—that kind of relationship—was too precious to treat with such insignificance. Hearts aren’t meant to be broken. And I broke more than my share.”
Now Laney was confused. “So, you avoid relationships altogether?” Exactly why she felt so intensely disappointed at the prospect escaped her at the moment.
“I’m cautious. I don’t lead anyone on and I don’t play games.”
“That’s a good thing,” she offered, hoping that was the right thing to say. “People shouldn’t play games with other people’s lives.” The way Terry was playing with hers and Buddy’s.
Laney couldn’t avoid the subject any longer. The fear was gnawing at her again. “What does this woman want from us?” Surely she didn’t expect herself or the others to see her as their mother. Dear God, the thought was unbearable.
“That’s the problem.” He braced his hands wide apart on the counter and showed with his eyes that he was dead serious. “If Rafe Barker is right, Clare is a killer. If he’s straight-up lying, she falls somewhere between accomplice and victim. Either away, she has an agenda. And until we know what that agenda is, none of you are safe.”
“What about this man who’s with her? The one-armed man?” As much as she hated to prejudge, this whole thing felt like something from a horror flick.
“We haven’t confirmed the suspicion, but we believe Tony Weeden is Clare’s son from her college days. She may have been raped by a professor. We don’t know how the two reunited. Maybe Weeden learned the identities of his biological parents and sought them out. We can’t be sure.”
Laney thought of the two people who had raised her until their untimely deaths. William and Lana Seagers were her parents. Her grandma Seagers had been her most beloved companion. She took care of Laney whenever her parents were away on business. It was her grandma’s heart attack that had her parents rushing home. Her grandmother had died in the hospital that night. Before dawn, her parents had been killed in the crash.
And she had been left all alone.
Laney pushed the memories away. “Do you really believe the Colby Agency can find the truth in time?”
“To save Rafe Barker in the event he’s innocent?”
Laney nodded. That man was her biological father. Was he a monster or a victim? Had he sacrificed his life to save his daughters?
“If anyone can,” Hayden promised her, “the Colby Agency can.”
The implications of how this changed her life were only just now setting in. But then again, once Clare was stopped was there any reason for anything to change?
“Let’s have a look outside Buddy’s window.”
Laney followed him outside. Despite the sun, she felt cold. She wrapped her arms around herself.
The window was certainly low enough to the ground for someone to be able to climb in were it open. She prayed her talk with Buddy would prevent him from viewing this woman with curiosity. He needed to be afraid of her.
Hayden examined the window carefully. Then he surveyed the ground nearby. Laney followed as he walked all the way around the house. He made a call to Lucas and told him about the incident. Lucas had no news.
The search for Clare was getting nowhere.
Hayden found nothing in the yard. It hadn’t rained recently so there were no footprints. And no forgotten evidence.
Buddy’s description had been far too vivid to have been a dream. Of that she felt confident. The woman had been here.
At the back door, he hesitated. “Maybe it would be better if Buddy slept in the room with you until this is done.”
Laney had been thinking the same thing. “He won’t like it. He’s a big boy now, you know.”
“Maybe we can convince him of how lumpy that sofa is and that I really need a bed to sleep in. Or that you’re afraid to sleep alone.”
Hayden and bed in the same thought gave her another little shiver but it had nothing to do with fear. “He’d probably go for that.”
He hesitated again before opening the door. There was something in his eyes that held her still. Warmed her through and through.
“I’d rather be in your bed,” he said, his voice thick with desire. “But your safety comes first.”
As if he’d just told her the sky was blue, he turned and walked into the house.
Laney stayed back a minute. She needed a moment to compose herself. For a guy who had given up the player lifestyle, he sure knew how to reel a woman in.
Careful, Laney, don’t get in over your head. A few days or weeks from now and he’ll be long gone.
She’d had her heart broken too many times already.
When she wandered through the house in search of the man who had somehow banished her discipline in a short enough period to be measured more accurately in hours than days, he unknowingly delivered another blow to her defenses.
Hayden had sprawled on the floor to play Legos with Buddy. Maybe the sight wouldn’t have disarmed her so had Hayden not been having a blast with her son.
She’d made a mistake letting him so close. Now she and Buddy would both pay.
Chapter Thirteen
Thursday, May 30th, 1:40 a.m.
Joel lifted Buddy from the car seat in the backseat of his Jeep. He’d checked the perimeter of the yard, then the house to ensure there were no surprises. With the security system in place he wasn’t anticipating any surprises inside.
Laney gathered the kid’s toys and bear and followed. She was exhausted. The meeting had gone well at the bank that morning and the crowd had been heavy and happy at the saloon tonight—both good things. But she was beat, emotionally and physically.
Two nights in a row without an appearance by Kingston was another good thing. Unless the jerk was up to something that would open a whole new can of worms for Laney. Joel didn’t want any more trouble with the guy but if he showed up intending to give Laney a hard time, trouble was what he would get.
In the house, Laney drew the covers back on her bed and Joel settled Buddy there. Once the covers and his stuffed bear were tucked in, Laney gave her boy a kiss and moved quietly out of the room.
Joel almost hated to go. Her scent permeated the air of her private space. That sweet lotion she wore and that natural, womanly scent drove him mad with desire. From the old iron headboard to the whitewashed wood nightstand, the whole room was her. She had a distinctive flare and he liked that about her. He honestly could not recall
ever having paid attention to a woman’s taste in decorating.
He hadn’t meant for this to happen. This insatiable need to be close to her, to touch and taste her all over, was a strategic error but he couldn’t change that now. She was so deep under his skin he wasn’t sure there was any hope of backing up now.
Four days being this close and a few before that watching from a distance and he was hooked on the lady.
She was the first woman he’d bared his soul to when it came to his brother’s tragedy and his own mistakes. Oddly, he didn’t regret going there. He felt good about sharing that with her. It was his job to know everything about her, and somehow giving her something in return felt right.
On all other levels, however, they barely knew each other. The prospects of a relationship were fifty-fifty at best. But he couldn’t not want her. She made him wish for those simple things he’d overlooked before.
He joined her in the kitchen. “Would you like a beer?” She stood next to the fridge, that old butcher’s table between them.
Laney was nervous. He suspected she had a similar war going on inside. She was attracted to him, too. Occasionally he caught her watching him. He heard the way her breath hitched when he got too close. The idea that she wanted him made him want her all the more.
But he also recognized that she was terrified of getting hurt again. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.
She’d suffered too much of that already.
He held up a hand and declined her offer of a beer. “I’m good.”
“Coffee?”
If she hadn’t looked so hopeful he would have passed. “Your coffee? Anytime.”
The smile that lit her face turned him inside out. He loved her smile. Tonight, behind that bar, she had been relaxed and in her element. The folks loved her. She made the High Noon a fun and welcoming place to be.
With the loan worries lifted a little and her ex staying away, she didn’t just serve her patrons, she performed a well-choreographed production of smooth moves and snappy dialogue. It was no wonder the High Noon was such a success.
The lady had a gift.
And his full attention.
