Scent of Roses ; Season of Strangers

by Kat Martin

In the old days, it would have been.

  But Zach wasn’t the same man he had been before. The trick was to convince Liz of that. How could he make her believe, if she agreed to marry him, she would never regret it?

  Tomorrow, he told himself. A little more time was what he needed. In the meantime, he had his father to think of, and so he pushed through the front doors of Willow Glen, into the reception area, signed in with Renee, the young woman on duty at the desk, and headed down the hall.

  He was amazed to see his father sitting in a wheelchair in front of the TV. He was a big man, barrel-chested and thick through the shoulders, yet before the surgery, he had seemed fragile, even frail. Now he sat up straighter in the chair, his impressive shoulders no longer slumped, his entire body appearing stronger. When he turned, Zach saw that his face was clean-shaven, his silver, once-blond hair short and neatly combed.

  “Hey, Dad. It’s good to see you. How are you feeling?”

  His father smiled. “Pretty damn good…considering.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get up here sooner.”

  His father shook his head. “You don’t have a damned thing to apologize for. Doc Marvin says if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have been able to have the surgery. I’m grateful, Zach. You’ll never know how much.”

  He held out one of his hands. It looked steady, not shaky as it had before. “See that?”

  “Yeah. That’s great, Dad.”

  “I’m still pretty weak. Sometimes I get kinda dizzy. At this age, it takes a while for a guy to get back on his feet. I start physical therapy on Monday. The doc thinks in time, I’ll be able to walk on my own.”

  Zach just nodded, fighting the lump in his throat. Dr. Marvin had told him how much progress his father had been making, though they weren’t completely sure how fast the recovery would be. Fletcher had been confused off and on the first few days after surgery, but the doctor had said that was normal.

  “Memory any better?” He hated to ask and it didn’t really matter. As far as Zach was concerned, the operation had been a phenomenal success.

  “Some better. Doc says before the operation I got the past mixed up with the present. I don’t seem to do that now.”

  “That’s good, Dad.”

  “Still can’t remember much for the past couple of years, just flashes here and there. I don’t remember the accident, but Doc says that’s pretty common with such a bad head injury. He says I probably won’t ever remember what happened that night.”

  Zach looked at his father, saw the intelligence in his gold-flecked brown eyes that had seemed so much dimmer before. “I’m glad things are going so well, Dad.”

  “I want to go home, Zach.”

  Zach frowned. He’d figured this moment would come, but not for some time yet. He didn’t want the old man leaving before he was ready.

  “What about your therapy? You’ll need to be here for that. What does Dr. Marvin say about you leaving so soon?”

  “Haven’t asked him yet. I figured maybe I could hire a driver. He could take me down to therapy every day. I could get the house fixed up a little, you know—get some of that handicap stuff in the bathroom. I could hire some of those nurses who work in people’s homes—just till I can get back on my feet.”

  It was exactly what Zach had wanted to do after the accident. He had known his father would hate being in a rest home, no matter how nice it was.

  “That sounds good. I could do the legwork, get it all lined up for you, and God knows you can afford it. Carson’s taken good care of the farm for you. I’m not sure how he’s gonna like being tossed out of the house.”

  The old man frowned. For a moment his mind seemed to wander.

  “What is it?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. Sometimes my brain’s still a little muzzy. I’ll give this place a little more time, but I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to.”

  “I don’t blame you. Have you talked to Carson about moving home? Dr. Marvin says he’s been in to see you every day.”

  “He’s been here. He says he’s sorry he tried to block the surgery. Says he was just worried about the outcome.”

  “I’m sure he was concerned that something might happen to you.”

  “I haven’t mentioned leaving. I figured I’d talk to you first.”

  Zach just nodded. Carson was going to pitch a fit.

  Zach’s jaw tightened. It didn’t matter. Carson wasn’t calling the shots the way he had been before. If Fletcher Harcourt wanted to go home, Zach was going to see that it happened—whether Carson liked it or not.

  In the meantime, Zach was tired. He’d been up since 5:00 a.m., and the nerve-wracking drive through traffic up to the valley always wore him out. He wanted to get back to his room at the Holiday Inn and climb into bed.

  He told himself he’d head there now, go straight to bed and try to get some badly needed sleep. But the car seemed to have a mind all its own and he found himself heading in a different direction.

  * * *

  Elizabeth stood at the sink in the bathroom, her face freshly scrubbed, auburn hair pulled into a ponytail on top of her head, her short blue terry-cloth robe belted around her waist as she prepared herself for bed.

  She almost didn’t hear the doorbell ringing. Grumbling about who could be calling this late at night, she tightened the sash on the robe and headed for the door.

  Her eyes widened as she peered through the peephole and recognized the man standing on the opposite side of the door. After two weeks of crying, two weeks of trying to get over him, for a moment she considered pretending she wasn’t at home.

  Still, she had to face him sooner or later. Ignoring the unwanted clatter of her heart, she blew out a breath, turned the deadbolt and pulled open the door.

  “Hello, Liz.” He looked unbelievably handsome, even with his hair a little mussed and his slacks slightly wrinkled.

  “Hi.” She didn’t invite him in. She wasn’t about to do that. He wasn’t going to con her into the same routine he’d had with Lisa Doyle, sleeping with her whenever he needed a little sexual relief then heading back to a life without her. “Listen, Zach, I was just about to go to bed. Was there something you wanted?”

  His gaze ran over her, searching her face, trying to read her thoughts, just as she tried to read his. “I need to talk to you. Can I come in?”

  Her fingers tightened around the doorknob. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I think we both know what’s going on here and I’m not about to continue where we left off. Now, if there’s something you want—”

  “Actually there is. It would be better if you would let me in.”

  She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to see him. She had been hurting for the past two weeks. She didn’t want any more heartache and she knew if he walked through that door there would be.

  “Please, Zach…”

  “It’s important, Liz.”

  She took a deep breath and stepped back from the door, pressing her hands against her robe so he wouldn’t notice that they trembled. He walked past her into the living room, his legs looking longer, his shoulders broader, even more attractive than she had first thought. God, Gwen was right. She was a sucker for tall, dark and handsome.

  “So what is it?” She told herself to ignore the way he kept looking at her, as if he simply could not stop.

  “You aren’t going to make this easy, are you?”

  “Why should I? I know why you’re here.”

  “Do you?”

  “All right, fine I’ll say it, then you won’t have to. ‘I’m sorry I left the way I did. I’d still like to see you on weekends—you know, whenever I’m in town.’ The answer is I’m not interested. Now I’d like to get some sleep.”

  He looked at her and simply shook his head. “Th
at’s not what I came to say. I came to tell you that I love you. I want to know if you love me.”

  The words sent her reeling. It was the last thing she had expected him to say. “Wh-what?”

  “I said I love you. The question is, do you love me?”

  He loved her? He had said those words before, and once she had even believed them. But even if they were true, it hadn’t kept him from leaving. What amazed her was that he didn’t seem to know that she loved him.

  Elizabeth felt the unwanted sting of tears. “I love you, Zach. I love you very much. It doesn’t change anything.”

  “Maybe it does. Maybe it changes everything.” He led her over to the sofa and both of them sat down. “I screwed up, leaving the way I did. I couldn’t think straight. Everything just seemed so confused. To tell you the truth, I was flat-out scared. But those two weeks I was gone gave me time to figure things out.”

  Her heart was pounding. She could see how nervous he was, how important this was to him. Maybe he really did love her in his own way. It wasn’t enough for her. Not anymore.

  “Please, Zach. Don’t do this to me again.”

  “I’m in love with you, Liz. Crazy in love. The forever kind of love. I want to marry you. I want to have kids with you. I want us to be together for the rest of our lives.”

  Her throat closed up. She had imagined him saying those words but never really believed it would happen. The tears she’d been holding back welled in her eyes. “Zach…”

  He reached out and cupped her cheek. “You said that you loved me. What I need to know is if you love me enough to forgive me. I know I hurt you. I need to know if you love me enough to look inside my heart and know with absolute certainty that you can trust me never to hurt you again.”

  Her chest was aching. The tears in her eyes spilled onto her cheeks. Did she love him enough? She loved him so much she would die for him. But trusting him so completely…that was a far different thing.

  Zach moved off the sofa, went down on one knee, caught her hand in both of his. “Marry me, Liz. If you say yes, I promise you’ll never be sorry.”

  Elizabeth shook her head and more tears ran down her cheeks. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”

  A huge smile broke over her face. “Then I’ll marry you. You must have thought this through or you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t ask if you had the slightest doubt. I’ll marry you, Zachary Harcourt—and I promise you’ll never be sorry.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Elizabeth decided to play hooky from work and she and Zach spent the day in bed. They were in love. At last, their feelings were out in the open and the knowledge set them free.

  “I can’t wait to tell my father,” Zach said. He glanced at the clock. “It’s only five. Let’s go over to Willow Glen and tell him the news.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Damned sure.” He cast her a glance. “Today’s Friday. If we stop at the store for groceries, we won’t have to leave the house all weekend.”

  She smiled at the warmth in his eyes, the desire mixed with love. She thought that sometime during the past two weeks, he had discovered what he really wanted in life and apparently he wanted her.

  She felt like the luckiest woman on earth.

  It was nearly six o’clock by the time they reached Willow Glen. Walking along the corridor holding hands, they paused outside Fletcher Harcourt’s room. The door was open and Zach went in to announce their arrival. When Elizabeth joined them, she found the older man sitting in his wheelchair watching TV, a different man than he had been before.

  “Dad, do you remember Liz?”

  He studied her a moment, looking thoughtful. Then he smiled. “You were at the courthouse.” He was a handsome man, as she had noticed the first time she met him, but now she sensed the powerful presence he had once been.

  “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Harcourt.”

  Zach reached down and took hold of her hand, and his father’s silver eyebrows went up.

  “I take it you two have known each other for a while.”

  “Liz is a family counselor. We met out at Teen Vision several months ago, but I think I’ve been waiting for her all my life.”

  “That sounds promising. Don’t tell me the Lone Wolf is finally thinking of settling down?”

  Zach raised their linked hands to his lips. “We’re getting married, Dad. Liz was crazy enough to say yes and I’m not letting her out of it.”

  His father’s smile was wide and sincere. “Congratulations. When’s the wedding?”

  “Tomorrow isn’t soon enough for me, but Liz wants something a little more personal than a trip to the courthouse.”

  “Just something small and private,” she said. “And we want you to be there.”

  Fletcher reached out a steady hand and Zach clasped it. “I couldn’t be happier for you, son.”

  “We’re still talking about where we’re going to live. I’m not one of those guys who believes in long-distance marriages. I was thinking maybe I’d take Jon Noble up on his offer and accept that job running our new branch in San Francisco. I don’t think Liz would have much of a problem finding work up there, either. At least until we start raising kids.”

  His father nodded, looked absurdly pleased. “You couldn’t have brought me better news. Now I’ve got something to look forward to. An even better reason to get well enough to get out of here.”

  A shadow appeared in the doorway. “What’s that? You’re not thinking of leaving Willow Glen, are you? It’s far too soon for you to consider something like that.”

  Zach looked over at his brother. “Hello, Carson. You’re just in time to hear the news.”

  “Really? And what news is that?”

  “Liz and I are getting married.”

  Carson’s lips flattened out. “Now that is news.” He flashed Elizabeth a cool, knowing smile. “Exactly how long do you expect him to stick around after the wedding? Surely you don’t think this is going to last more than a year.”

  Instead of the uncertainty Carson had hoped for, Elizabeth felt a shot of anger. “You don’t know your brother, Carson. You never have.”

  Listening to his oldest son, Fletcher Harcourt’s face turned red. “You’ve been jealous of your brother all your life. I kept hoping you’d grow out of it, but you never did.” He glared at Carson and began to frown. Something shifted in his dark eyes, moved over his strong features.

  “What is it, Dad?” Zach asked.

  “I don’t know. There’s something in the back of my mind… It’s right there but I can’t seem to…” He shook his head as if he were trying to clear it, to catch hold of a distant memory. “I think it’s something important but I can’t quite latch on to it.”

  “It’s okay, Dad,” Zach said. “Eventually, it’ll come back to you.”

  Fletcher continued to struggle, to wrestle with some hidden thought that refused to surface.

  “Take it easy,” Carson said. “What’s happened in the past isn’t important. Better you think about the future.”

  Fletcher looked up at his fair-haired son and his eyes widened in shock. “My God—I remember! I remember what happened the night of the accident!” He came half out of his chair, staring at Carson as if he were seeing a ghost. “I heard you—that night on the phone. We were both upstairs in our rooms. I didn’t know the line was busy. When I picked up the receiver, I heard Jake Benson’s voice coming over the wire.”

  Carson glared. “You can’t possibly remember that. The doctor said with the kind of head trauma you suffered, the odds would be a thousand to one that you would recall anything at all about the incident.”

  “That so? Well, I remember Jake asking you for money, saying if you didn
’t pay him, he’d tell me the truth about the car wreck that sent Zach to prison. He said if you didn’t come up with another fifty grand, he’d tell me what really happened—that it was you who was driving the car that night. You who swerved into the oncoming lane. You who killed that man, Carson. You! Not Zach!”

  Zach’s gaze swung to his brother, whose face had gone bone-white. “You were driving that night? You were the one who killed that guy?”

  “You can’t listen to him. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. H-he’s still recovering from the surgery.”

  “Bullshit! He knows exactly what he’s saying.”

  “That’s right,” Fletcher said. “You told Benson to come over to the house and you’d give him the money.” Fletcher rose completely out of his chair, his legs shaking as he pointed wildly at Carson. “He had just walked through the front door when I confronted you about what I’d heard. Jake was standing in the entry when you pushed me down the stairs!”

  * * *

  In an instant, all of the pieces rolling around in Zach’s head came together. Why Carson hadn’t wanted their father to have the surgery—he was afraid Fletcher might remember what had happened the night he had nearly died.

  Zach looked at Carson and another piece of the puzzle fell into place. “Son of a bitch—you killed him! You murdered Jake Benson and buried him under that house!”

  “You’re insane! You’re as crazy as that old man.”

  “You lied all those years ago, and you’re lying now. The night of the car wreck, you hadn’t even been drinking. The law would have seen it as an accident and that would have been the end of it, but you would rather send an innocent man to jail than see your spotless reputation tarnished.”

  “None of that is true!”

  “Isn’t it? You sent me off to prison, but it wasn’t over, was it? Jake knew what happened that night and he started milking you for money. I wonder how much you paid him before you finally killed him four years ago.”

  “I didn’t pay him anything! You’re talking nonsense.”

  “That’s the reason you didn’t want us hanging around the Santiago house. You were afraid someone might stumble onto Jake’s corpse and that’s exactly what happened.”