“Yes,” she said, extending her own. “Thank you, Chase. We have a deal.”
DOWN BY GREEN FERN POOL, Clayton Creek bubbled out to form a fifteen-foot-deep swimming hole. In this secret spot, only the brightest afternoon sunbeams were strong enough to muscle their way through the canopy of ancient black gums, sugar maples and loblolly pines.
The air here was always cool and green, crisscrossed with golden shafts of light that, on a good day, speared all the way to the bottom of the crystal clear pool. When the wind blew the trees, little fairy-darts of sun skipped over the water’s surface and glimmered on the limestone walls.
Chase rode Captain Kirk slowly along the sandy path beside the creek, partly because the poor old bay wasn’t up to anything more energetic, and partly because Chase wanted to savor the scenery.
He’d been coming here since he was a kid, first with his dad and cousins, then as part of the Fugitive Four. Chase, Trent, Susannah and Paul, a group of friends who had believed they were inseparable.
They’d been wrong, of course. At thirteen, fourteen, even just-turned-twenty, how could they have understood life’s destructive power? They had no idea that fate sometimes picked you up like a cyclone and dropped you down wherever and whenever it saw fit.
Trent and Chase had made it through okay. And obviously Chase hadn’t ever lost Sue. But Trent and Sue, that was a different story. When the cyclone was through, they’d fallen on opposite sides of an ever-widening divide.
And Paul…Paul was gone forever.
Sometimes, all these years later, it was hard to remember exactly what had happened. They’d been so young—only nineteen or so. Chase had just married Lila, a move that was a mistake on many levels. He’d often wondered whether, if he hadn’t been distracted by his demanding, glamorous older-woman bride, he could have stopped things from spiraling out of control.
But maybe that was wishful thinking. The only people who could have stopped this tragedy from happening were Trent and Susannah, and they were too tangled up in their own emotional knots to think straight.
They’d been having problems for months. Girls were crazy for Trent—it was just a fact of his good looks and smooth charm. And he liked the attention a little too much. Though Chase knew Trent really loved Sue, Trent hadn’t been quite ready to settle into complete monogamy.
The night things fell apart, they were all at a bar on the outskirts of town, listening to a local band and coaxing Lila, the only one of the group legally old enough to buy beer, to keep the table supplied.
She agreed, probably because the mood was tense as hell. Just two days before, Sue had discovered Trent’s one-night-stand with one of their friends from high school—a spoiled cheerleader with curly red hair who hadn’t ever taken no as an answer from anybody.
Sue was, understandably, furious. But Sue didn’t get mad like normal people. She got even. This time, she obviously decided to hurt Trent by flirting with other men.
Including Paul.
Paul knew what was going on, of course. The Fugitive Four understood each other completely. He knew, just as Chase did, that Sue and Trent were meant for each other. Eventually she would forgive Trent, and things would revert to normal.
So he played along. Maybe too well. After an hour or so, watching Sue and Paul giggle and dance and whisper and touch, Trent was boiling. Lila thought it was funny, and fed his fury by bringing him beer after beer.
When the tragedy finally happened, it was so fast and strange, Chase could hardly piece it all together later, when they talked to the cops at the hospital. Trent said something to Paul, who said something back, and before anyone realized it wasn’t a joke, Trent had loaded up and punched Paul so hard he fell over, taking the table, five beers and a kerosene lamp with him.
The floor was covered in hay, and the fire sprang up so fast it was like a bad dream. Paul lay there burning and screaming. Or maybe it was Susannah who was screaming. Chase and Trent tore off their shirts, and rolled Paul over and over, until there were no more flames. Just the smell of scorched skin, and the sound of people running and hollering and crying.
The ambulance arrived in record time. God knows, the doctors tried.
Paul hung on for cruel, heartbreaking months. But, in the end, he didn’t make it.
And neither did Susannah and Trent.
As he reached the swimming hole now, Chase squeezed his eyes, trying to make the tough memories go away. He didn’t relive it all that often anymore. He and Trent hadn’t talked about it for years. And Sue never did.
He wondered if it might be better, if Sue and Trent could talk about it. But it didn’t seem likely now. She’d devoted her life to raising money for a local burn center, and to blaming Trent. Trent had devoted his life to showing Sue he didn’t give a damn.
What a mess people could make of things!
Still, the swimming hole was a beautiful place, where the best of nature could soothe your soul—and even vanquish your ghosts. Chase had stored up about a million happy memories here.
He should come more often.
Today he was looking for Trent. He’d gone by the manager’s office, only to discover that Trent was out getting a water sample from the hole.
Chase saw him now, squatting on one of the big, flat silver rocks on the east side of the hole. The boat launch, they’d called it, though of course it was too small even for a canoe.
Trent held a plastic bottle in one hand, its screw-on cap in the other. He spotted Chase and waved. “Come on down,” he said. “I’m almost done.”
Then he dipped his arm in up to the elbow and let the water bubble noisily into the container.
Chase tied up Captain Kirk, who seemed ready for a nap. He’d been tempted to bring one of his younger, spryer horses, but the poor old horse had given him such a longing look he couldn’t resist. Besides, the old guy needed the exercise.
He stroked the horse’s nose, and Captain Kirk responded with a soft snort and a nudge into his palm. “No treats, buddy.” Chase patted his pockets to prove they were empty. “Maybe when we get back.”
He made his way carefully down to the swimming hole. The sloping ground around the pool was mossy and covered in ferns, and if you missed your footing you could slide right in.
“Looks pretty good,” he said as he got close enough to see the clear water. You could pick out every rainbow-colored rock.
“Yeah,” Trent said, still squatting, still staring out into the water. “I think it’s okay. You can still see the bottom, and no sign that the vegetation’s struggling.”
They’d been monitoring the water each week, ever since a developer just upstream from the east branch of the creek had begun grading the site for his new subdivision. A month ago, the man had been cited for a silt containment failure, and Chase was watching him like a hawk. He didn’t intend to let anybody degrade his creek.
“Yeah, the water looks good enough to drink. Guess he’s worked the kinks out of his containment system?”
Trent stood, shaking the water from his hand. “So far, so good. But I’m going to keep an eye on it anyhow. We’re going to send someone out to measure those greenbelts, too. If he doesn’t live up to his promises…”
He seemed to register, suddenly, that Chase had come a long way just to stare at a bottle of water. “What’re you doing down here, corporal? As I recall, you took in a stray kitten yesterday. Shouldn’t you be home giving it milk or something?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t mind the tone. He’d filled Trent in about his plan over the telephone this morning, and he already knew Trent thought it was a dumb move. “But she’s asleep. She’s always tired. Marchant says she’s anemic, on top of the diabetes. God knows she’s as skinny as a rope. The kid must not have been eating right for months.”
Trent gave him a straight look. “She’s not a kid, Chase. She’s grown-up enough to be making babies with somebody.”
“I know. That’s why I came down here. I need to figure out who that somebody might b
e. I thought it might be better to do it somewhere we weren’t likely to be overheard.”
“Imogene listening at keyholes again?”
Chase chuckled, looking around for a dry spot flat enough to sit on. “She doesn’t have to. She has supernatural powers. But it’s not just Imogene. It’s—”
“It’s the kitten?” Trent dropped the water sample into a satchel, then arranged himself on a nearby rock. “You don’t want her to hear you naming candidates for the World’s Biggest Sleazeball award?”
“I don’t want anybody to hear me.”
Trent nodded slowly. “Fair enough. So, where do you want to start?”
That, of course, was the question. And now that they were out here in this peaceful place, Chase found that he didn’t want to start anywhere. How was it possible that he knew—and knew intimately—anyone who would do such a thing?
He rested his elbows on his knees and stared out at the glimmering pool of glassy blue water. It was gorgeous in the spring. A patch of buttercups at the edge looked like a honey spill in the sunlight. All around the water hole, trees were beginning to flower.
“Look at the old redbud. It’s about twice as big now, isn’t it?”
Obediently, Trent glanced at the tree, which was covered in rose-purple flowers. “Yeah. But the swamp willow is dead, did you notice? Must have been last year’s freeze.”
Chase looked across to the south, where the bare willow was standing. “Yeah. Too bad.”
With a sigh, Trent scraped his boot across the rock, adjusting his position. “Tell you what, though. If we’re going to have a nice long chat about trees, I might need to find a more comfortable rock.”
Chase laughed. “Okay, I know, I’m dodging. So here we go. Here’s how I see it. Whoever did this has to meet two qualifications. He has to know me well, or know someone who does. And he has to have a serious grudge against me.”
Trent smiled. “Not necessarily. He might just think it would be cool to be you for a while. For all you know, it’s his form of flattery.”
“You don’t really believe that. If a guy doesn’t want to do something under his own name, he just makes one up. He doesn’t stage a charade this elaborate, this risky. He was with her for a month, for God’s sake. She might have seen my picture in the paper, or on TV. I’m not exactly invisible. Any day, she might have decided to check him out.”
“But she didn’t. Maybe he reads people well. I saw her ten seconds, tops, and even I could read gullible all over her pretty face.”
“Still, it’s a risk he didn’t have to take. He wanted to take it. He wanted to use my name, my life. Can’t you feel the hostility in that? He wanted to prove he was as good as I was—or maybe, in a weird way, that I was as bad as he was.”
Trent whistled. “You put it like that, it does sound pretty creepy. Okay, here’s a third option. He’s certifiably, barking nuts.”
“Maybe. But still functioning. Still pretty damn plausible. I’ve spent a little more time with her than you have, and I know she’s not all that gullible. She’s more like—” He tried to think of the right word for that look in her eyes. That proud, determined desperation. “More like vulnerable.”
If Chase hadn’t known Trent so well, he might have missed the slight flicker of pulse in his jaw.
“She’s a nice kid, Trent. That’s all I’m saying.”
“And all I’m saying is that you’ve got a Sir Galahad complex. You can’t save every stray kitten that mews at the door, Chase. I think you’ve got your hands full already, don’t you? Trying to save Sue and all?”
Chase laughed. “Point taken. Although Sue would scratch your eyes out if she heard you say that.”
“Sue would scratch my eyes out just for fun. But let’s start naming some specific names here before my butt freezes on this rock.” He tilted his head. “I assume we both thought of Alexander first?”
“Of course.” Alexander was Chase’s second cousin, and about ten years ago he’d been caught in Vegas, registered at an expensive hotel as Chase Clayton, drawing money out with Chase’s ATM card like water from a tap. They looked a little alike, although Alexander was shorter, his build more boyish.
He was also quite a playboy. When they’d caught him the second night, the two cocktail waitresses with him in the hotel room had burst into tears.
“Let’s see if we can find a recent picture to show Josie,” Chase said. “And we should find out where he’s living these days.”
Trent rubbed his chin. “I’m not sure, but I think he’s between wives right now, living in San Antonio. Nowhere near Riverfork, but that would make sense. Wouldn’t want to foul his own nest. Maybe I’ll see if anyone knows where he was a couple of months ago.”
“Good. Now, who else? I considered that guy you fired last year, the one who kept harassing the maids. Charming Billy, they called him. But he was too tall, wasn’t he? And his grudge would be against you, not me.”
“Well, you’ve fired plenty of people, too, boss.”
“Yeah, but I can’t remember any who fit this description, can you? About five ten, 180 pounds, blond, slick as hell?”
“Not offhand. But I’ll scan the employment records, see if anything jumps out.”
“What about people in town?” Chase mentally ran through the vendors, vets, trainers, gardeners, feed stores and cowboys he dealt with every day. A ridiculous number of them seemed to be thirty-something five-tenish blondes.
“How about people I’ve outbid for horses? And what about that guy who wanted to buy the Hillman land? He seemed to think there was something shady going on, a secret deal or something between me and Hillman. Didn’t he make noise about suing?”
Trent nodded. “Yeah. Marx. I dealt mostly with his lawyer, but I saw Marx a few times. He’s probably a close-enough fit, so I’ll put him on the list. I don’t know about the horses, but I can ask around.”
He chuckled softly as he picked up a pebble and tossed it into the pond. “Man. Rich guys sure do piss off a lot of people.”
“It feels weird, doesn’t it, looking at everybody and wondering…do you go around pretending to be me?” Chase shook his head. “Could make you paranoid if you weren’t careful.”
“Maybe you should ask Sue for ideas, too.” Trent stiffened slightly, as he did every time he mentioned her name. “She’s been around forever, and she might have the female perspective. I mean, this guy has clearly got some sex appeal, right? You and I might not even see it. Remember how she used to drool over Bucky Sizemore? I thought the guy was a total dweeb, but she said he was hot as a forest fire.”
Chase laughed. “She was just pulling your chain, and you know it. Sue never had eyes for anybody but you. If I had a nickel for every hour I spent out here, listening to the two of you talk dirty about the trees…”
In spite of himself, Trent laughed. They both knew it was true. Sue had fallen in love with Trent when she was only about twelve, something that horrified her snobby grandfather. Trent, whose dad had been a science teacher, was the only one of the Fugitive Four who hadn’t been a rancher’s child. He didn’t have his own horse or housekeeper. His family property was marked off in feet, not acres.
But out here, he was king. He was probably the only teenager who had ever wooed a girl with botany. Sue had been hypnotized when Trent told her about the two-winged silverbell with its delicate white flowers and erect stamens that looked like Christmas candles.
She could lie for hours, with her head in Trent’s lap, while he told her about the devil’s walking stick, the snowflower tree, the ebony blackbeard, the inch plum, the tickletongue.
Chase chuckled, remembering. “You made some of that crap up, didn’t you? There’s no such thing as the tickletongue.”
“Sure there is. Just not necessarily here, in this exact spot.” Trent raised one eyebrow. “If I were making it up, do you think I’d call it the inch plum?”
Chase grinned. “Guess not. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“Nothing new about that.” Trent got to his feet. “Come on. This trip down memory lane is officially over. Some of us have work to do.”
He picked up his satchel of water samples. Then he paused, squinting. “Hey. How about Bucky Sizemore? He lives over near Big Bend these days. He’s blond, isn’t he? Not quite six feet.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t hate me.” When Trent didn’t answer right away, Chase frowned. “Does he?”
“Sorry, boss.” Trent grinned. “I have a feeling this list is going to be a lot longer than you thought.”
CHAPTER SIX
“NO, NO…put the tallest ones in the center.” Imogene nudged Josie out of the way and began shifting the long spikes of larkspur in the silver vase. “See? Like this. And be sure to let them breathe. Not too crowded. See?”
“Yes, I see.” Josie nodded. “Got it.”
That sounded more confident than she actually felt. But since she had begged Imogene for something to do, and this was the chore she’d been given, she didn’t want to let the housekeeper down.
When Josie woke up from her nap, she’d come downstairs looking for Chase. But Imogene said he was gone…no one knew exactly where, or when he’d be back. Imogene’s hands were busy kneading dough, and she suggested that Josie sit on the front porch and read, in much the same tone she had probably shooed away an annoying little Chase and his collie years ago.
Josie had tried to obey. She’d sat on the wide, white front porch, comfortably ensconced in a wicker settee and watched the wind blow through the bluebonnets.
For about half an hour.
Then she began to fidget. She wasn’t a woman of leisure. She was accustomed to working hard all morning, going to school all afternoon, then cramming her homework, housework and errands into evenings that never held enough hours to get it all done.
So, though she hated to be a nuisance, she’d appealed to Imogene. Surely, there must be something she could do. Dishes? Dusting? She’d be glad to take out the trash.
“I think we can find something,” Imogene had said finally, slowly nodding, as if she approved of people who wanted to be useful. “There’s always work on a ranch.”
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