Dangerous

by Lee Magner

  Case stood. “That’s about enough trimming, don’t you think?” he said in a voice that would tolerate no argument.

  Seamus lifted his gray eyebrows cherubically. “If you think that’s enough, I guess it’ll have to be,” Seamus said philosophically.

  Ivan finished up and let him get down from the chair.

  No one spoke as Case led his father out of the shop.

  But word got around.

  By late Saturday morning, just about half the men in town had heard the tale of Seamus’s returning memory, and the details that were almost on the tip of his tongue.

  Case knew what that meant.

  “I wish you hadn’t done that, Da,” he said as he sat at his father’s bedside Saturday afternoon.

  Seamus nodded. He could feel his strength leaving him.

  “Well, like I said. I have nothing more to lose.” He patted Case’s hand. “Take me outside, boyo. I’d like to lie in the sunlight for a while. My bones are cold. And I always did like to be warm.”

  “It’s safer in here,” Case said.

  “I know. I know.” Seamus rolled his head from side to side. “Life isn’t for those who want safety. It’s dangerous.” He laughed, and the laughter ended in coughing.

  Case helped him sit up.

  “Please, Case? I want the sun in my face. One last time. Don’t make me beg ye. Let me go out in dignity. Like a man.”

  Case closed his eyes. “Damn it, you’re a manipulative old coot,” he swore.

  Seamus managed a lopsided grin. “That I am. But with all my sins, I love ye, my boy. And while there’s much in my life I’m ashamed of, you are the one thing that gives me pride… and makes me think that of all the pain and struggle and hurt, it was worth it.”

  Case swallowed hard and blinked his eyes. If the man wanted to die in the sun, he’d have, his last wish. Case pulled back the covers, lifted his father in his arms and carried him down the stairs and out onto the back patio. He settled him on a chair that Luther kept out there year-round. It was a heavy Adirondack-style chair. Solid and weathered and roomy.

  Seamus smiled and closed his eyes.

  “Take care of that pretty woman, boy. And my blessing on you… on both of you…”

  Case grimly knelt beside his father, struggling to maintain his composure.

  “Get me a blanket, boyo,” Seamus whispered. “Even in the sun, I feel a chill.”

  Case didn’t want to leave him.

  “Go on. I’ll be here awhile yet. Never fear.”

  Reluctantly, Case started back into the house.

  He’d made it as far as the bottom of the staircase when he heard the deadly, whistling ping.

  He ran back out onto the patio, adrenaline pumping through him, fear racing in his veins.

  But by the time he got there, it was too late.

  Seamus lay slumped in the chair. A round spot of blood marked the place between his eyes where an expert marksman with a rifle and a scope had put a permanent end to all of his tangled memories.

  “No!” Case cried out. His voice was filled with pain and with rage and with the agony of losing one that in the end he had come to know that he dearly loved.

  He knelt down and lifted his father in his arms, checking for a pulse in his neck. He had known that there would not be one. The flesh beneath his fingers lay flaccid and unmoved. He rocked the dead man in his arms as tears rolled slowly down his face.

  “Da…” he whispered. “I will avenge you. I swear it.”

  The funeral was held a few days later. The Reverend Roland Lightman sat in the front pew as the priest said the mass. Martha, Peter and Paula sat beside him, although the women were unsure why they had come. But Peter seemed to know.

  Mayor Grissom Bonney, who swore that the murderer would be found, sat in the first row also, although he was not a Catholic and had never been inside Saint Mary’s church before. Honoria accompanied him, although she was very uncomfortable, and, for once, it showed. Franklin trailed along, but insisted on sitting in the back of the church. He said he didn’t want to make himself look foolish by kneeling at the wrong time.

  Clare and her mother sat next to Case. Logan flew down for the day in a privately chartered plane equipped to carry the casket back to Illinois for burial.

  It was an inspiring service, Clare thought.

  The priest had managed to find a few kind things to say about Seamus. Where he’d gone to grade school. What he’d enjoyed studying in high school, before he’d dropped out and joined the stevedores’ union. How he’d met and fallen in love with beautiful Mairi Reilly Malloy. And how their son, Case, had become a successful man in Chicago.

  The only mention he made of the murder was brief. Something to the effect that in this life, we all have a cross to bear. And in Seamus’s case, part of that cross was fifteen years spent in prison.

  Chaplain Douderbeck had come down for the service, having heard the news in a personal call from Roland Lightman. He told the priest what a wonderful chess player Seamus had become.

  Luther had snorted at that, even in church. But then, Luther had always been a little irreverent about formal religion.

  A number of other townspeople came to pay their respects, much to Case’s surprise.

  Word had indeed gotten around that maybe, just maybe, Seamus had not murdered Lexie Clayton. Now that someone had murdered him, those who had begun to doubt had their doubts strengthened even more.

  Case shook hands with the people as they filed out of the church.

  “Thank you…”

  “Yes. I hope we’ll be able to find the truth…”

  “There are some things to follow up…”

  Clare stood on one side of him and Logan stood next to her. Lavinia had by default ended up next to Logan in the small receiving line.

  When everyone had left, Logan turned to Case. “It was a nice service.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you going to come up to Chicago for the burial with me?”

  “Yeah.”

  Logan glanced at Clare and smiled. “Is Clare here coming with us?”

  Clare looked at Case. He looked at her.“

  “It’s not a good idea,” Case said, speaking to her. “I’d rather you stayed here.”

  “You’d prefer I drop out of your life for a while?” she supplied, raising her eyebrows skeptically.

  “Basically,” he said, gritting his teeth. He knew she wasn’t going to go along with that. They’d already argued it to a standstill last night. She was as stubborn as an Irishwoman, damn it.

  “Yes,” she said, turning to Logan with a warm, sparkling smile. “I’m going. And thank you for the ride.”

  “Certainly,” Logan said. He looked surprised, and not a little astonished that Clare could write her own ticket in the face of Case’s dislike of the plan. He looked her over carefully. And smiled.

  He turned toward Lavinia, who was standing at his left elbow, modestly staying out of the conversation.

  “Mrs. Browne…”

  “Call me Lavinia, please!”

  “Lavinia, would you perhaps be able to join us also? I know a trip to a burial service isn’t exactly a pleasure, but perhaps I could show you around Chicago a little. And I imagine Case and Clare will be willing to excuse us and entertain themselves.”

  Lavinia nodded and tried not to smile. “Oh, yes. I think they know how to do that.”

  Clare looked at her mother in consternation.

  Lavinia beamed at Logan. “I’d love to come along, Logan. I’m sure we have a lot in common.”

  He chuckled and nodded.

  Case sighed. Well, he hadn’t exactly been discreet about his feelings on the front porch swing, so what could he expect?

  Logan checked his watch.

  “The limousines are pulling around for us and for the casket now,” he observed. He looked at Lavinia. “How much time will you need before you can leave?”

  “Not long. And I believe Clare is already packed.�
��

  Logan gave Clare an admiring look. “I like organization and preparedness in a person,” he said. He grinned at Case. “Comes in handy.”

  “Yeah,” Case said irritatedly.

  “Do you think Seamus would mind?” Clare asked him a little while later as they drove toward the airport in Jefferson.

  “Being buried in Illinois, you mean?” Case asked.

  “Yes.”

  “No. I think that’s where his heart has been for a very long time. Besides, he never said he wouldn’t lie down and be buried there. He just said he’d never step foot on the soil.”

  Case smiled, hearing his old man’s stubborn voice in his memory, saying those very words.

  It was strange how things ultimately had worked out between them, Case thought. For years he’d felt frustration, anger, shame and humiliation with anything involving his father. And then, for these past few weeks, fate had given him a second look at the old man he’d so long despised. To his amazement, that intense dislike and frustration and sense of disgrace had faded into a distant backdrop.

  He and Seamus had come to terms with one another as father and son, and as men. He was grateful they’d had that rare chance. He knew it was easing a part of the hurt deep inside him that he’d always carried with him about his parents. And in the healing, he now could see some of Seamus’s strengths. Hell, six months ago, he’d have laughed at anyone who suggested that his old man had a sense of decency or family devotion or integrity. But now… Well, now was different.

  Case swallowed and frowned to keep the pain from slicing into his heart again. Seamus was gone. Case accepted that. He hoped that he’d gone to a kinder, friendlier place than he’d lived in for his brutal earthly years.

  Earthly years. That was the hard part. Case’s brow furrowed pensively. It was like losing a part of himself to lose someone he loved. He’d lost a piece of himself when his mother had left them. He’d felt slices go whenever they’d packed up and moved on, leaving the occasional friend that Case had made during his childhood. And now his father was gone.

  Case’s thoughts drifted to Clare and he immediately tried to push away the image. He didn’t want her associated with death and loss and sadness. No. Clare was going to be young and healthy forever, he told himself, even though he knew the probability of that was exactly zero. The thought of having Clare and then losing her was so abhorrent to him. He wanted to rage at the universe for the cruelty of creating her only to let her someday die.

  Maybe his father had hit on something, Case thought in bitter amusement. Maybe it was easier to live the life of a drifter. It involved no investment in anyone. No love. No happiness, of course. But no pain, either.

  Not a damn thing to lose. Except the years, or days, or the brief precious seconds of sheer ecstasy and contentment that came from loving and being loved. Those thoughts kept twisting around him like a rope, tightening its inescapable hold on him. Clare. Sweet, fiery, mortal Clare. She was temptation embodied. He was succumbing to her pull like a mesmerized sailor following the siren’s song.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  He tried to focus his thoughts. He looked into her worried face.

  “Yeah. I’m okay.”

  “You had such an expression of… I don’t know how to describe it. Worse than hurt. Like when you see a tragedy unfolding in front of you and can’t do anything to stop it. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed comfortingly.

  “I’m here if you need me, Case,” she said softly.

  “I know. Thanks, Clare.” But she was now part of the pain, he realized. He wasn’t sure how much to let her help him. It would only wind them tighter together and trap him forever in this sweet honeyed agony. Was this what people called love? He gave a brief, bitter laugh. Hell, who needed it if it hurt that bad? he wondered angrily.

  Clare looked at him questioningly.

  But he just shook off her silent curiosity.

  “Just thinking about how short life is,” Case said. “It’s too bad you don’t get a road map with it. It might save some wrong turns along the way.”

  Clare looked at him in confusion. She heard the bitterness and the pain and the frustration in his voice. And something that sounded a little like… desperation. But she didn’t know what to say to comfort him. So she just let it go for the moment. And hoped that was the right thing to da Maybe some other time he would want her comfort. She could wait. Forever, if need be.

  Because she loved him. With all her heart.

  They were well into June and the hot, sultry summer weather was beginning to roll over the countryside.

  But it was cool at Boone’s Falls, and that’s where Clare took Case when things had finally begun to settle down after they returned from burying Seamus.

  “I used to believe all the old legends about that waterfall,” she said, lying on the moss next to Case.

  He looked at the long white ribbon of water cascading down the mountainside. He slipped his fingers through her hair and smiled.

  “You mean the one about the Iroquois woman who saved her lover from a marauding party only to discover that he had been unfaithful to her, and those are her tears?”

  Clare laughed. “That’s the one.”

  A deer delicately stepped out of the forest glen a hundred feet below them in the valley. Case pointed to it and Clare leaned up on her elbows to look down. She shivered and snuggled back against him.

  “What’s the matter?” he whispered.

  “I’m kind of afraid of heights.”

  He grinned and wrapped his arms around her. “That better?”

  “Umm-hmm.”

  They were in a small indenture in the mountain. Trees overhung it, and only a small ledge led into it. It was a small natural penthouse overlooking a beautiful view.

  “How’d you get the nerve to come across that ledge with me?” he asked.

  “I thought it might be the best chance I had to seduce you,” she teased. “Since you’re not flying to any other distant cities this week and taking me along, and my front porch swing is not exactly the most private place in the world, and my bedroom is-”

  “Off-limits,” he supplied with a laugh. He sighed and pulled her back into the shadows. He’d brought along a Native American print blanket and spread it out on the soft mossy floor.

  “Come here, then, you hussy.”

  “Hussy, am I?”

  His mouth dosed over hers before she could say anything else indignant. And her arms slid around his neck as she gave herself up to the tenderness of the kiss.

  She loosened his shirt and caressed his warm skin, running her fingers over the firm muscle and bone. The more she touched him, the more she found that she enjoyed it. The more easily she discovered how to drive him wild.

  He moaned as she kissed his lips and worked her way down across his chin and his throat and the hard collarbone.

  “We can’t really get carried away here,” he warned her hoarsely.

  “Worried about your reputation, are you, Case?” she teased him. She slid her hand over his lean belly and slowly over his thigh.

  His sigh of pleasure made her bold and soon he caught her hand and held it still.

  “My reputation,” he rasped.

  She brought his hand over her breast and swung up to sit on him like a conqueror. The heat in his eyes as he gazed up at her made her feel as if she was the most desirable woman in the universe.

  She moved slowly against the straining flesh, separated by clothes.

  “You don’t have to strip off your clothes,” she said huskily.

  He closed his eyes and a look of pain crossed his face.

  “This is torture,” he muttered.

  Clare lay down against him and kissed his lips, over and over, soothing him with her love. Sliding her hand gently over his face and his shoulders. Telling him with her body how much she cared.

  He pulled the b
lanket around his shoulder and covered her with it.

  In the shelter of the blanket, he caressed her. Intimately, warmly, thoroughly. Until she was slick and trembling and couldn’t bear it anymore. She helped him pull down her jeans, and as he pulled her thigh over his hip, he impaled her to the hilt. He groaned and thrust and ground his pelvis against hers.

  It was fast and hard and sweaty this time.

  Their feelings were too strong for them to take it slow.

  There had been too little time together, too much keeping them apart.

  He pounded against her and sent her soaring into the brilliance of climax. And caught her cries with a kiss as he poured his life into hers.

  Wrapped in her arms, he began to cry.

  She smoothed his damp hair and held him close, soothing him with wordless sounds of reassurance.

  “It’ll be all right, Case,” she whispered. “It’ll be all right.”

  “You’re going to do what?” Clare stared at Case. He was standing on her front porch and she’d thought they were going to talk, but she hadn’t expected this.

  He didn’t sit down on the swing. He was frowning. And restless.

  “I’m going to buy the old glass-and-ceramics factory. I talked it over with Logan. We’re going to handle it as a business investment. With me doing the preliminary investigation and troubleshooting. And then we’re going to fix the old place up and…”

  “And?” she prompted him. “Make glass and ceramic items for hearth and home? Is there a market for that? Didn’t they go out of business because they couldn’t compete?”

  She sat down on the porch swing and gaped at him.

  He leaned against the post and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do with it,” he growled. “But I know that it’s a way to have a reason to hang around Crawfordsville and…” He looked away from her and frowned.

  “And try to flush the murderer out into the open?” she guessed. “And why would he come out? I suppose you’re going to use bait.” She pondered that by herself, since he obviously didn’t relish telling her what he had in mind. She held up her hand. “That’s okay, Case. Let me guess. Don’t tell me…” She chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip.