Kitabı oku: «His Partner's Wife», sayfa 4

CHAPTER FOUR

ONE HOOF PAWED and the stallion’s wiry tail snapped viciously across Natalie’s face as she checked the girth. Cross-tied in the barn aisle, Foxfire had been in one of his twitchier moods from the minute she’d slung the saddle blanket across his back.

When she led him outside to the mounting block, however, he followed like a lamb and stood obligingly still for her to swing her leg over his back.

“You’re setting me up, aren’t you?” she muttered. Taking a deep breath, she sprang.

He might have caught her by surprise if he’d been just a tiny bit less docile. As it was, she was forewarned. The wretched animal bucked before her butt even hit the saddle.

She grabbed at the horn and her dignity, slapping his neck with her reins as she inelegantly shoved her toes into the stirrups. All the while he whirled and tossed his head and shivered his skin.

Pam Reynolds, the stable owner, shook her head as she watched. A once-pretty woman with a weathered face and a grip as callused and strong as a construction worker’s, she leaned against the white board fence, hands shoved into the pockets of the down vest she wore over dusty jeans and a denim shirt.

“That horse is going to come back without you one of these days.”

Natalie gave the stallion one more reproving whack on the neck. “Probably,” she admitted.

Pam continued critically, “That horse was not bred for trail riding.”

The stallion flattened his ears and hunched his back.

“No,” Natalie agreed, forcing him to tuck his chin and go into reverse.

He scrambled back so quickly he sank onto his haunches, then danced in place.

“I’d advise you to sell him.”

“I know you would.”

Pam’s grin gave her the look of an aging elf. “Of course, then I’d have to snap him up and risk my own life and limb, so maybe it’s just as well you keep him.”

Natalie laughed. “You know, you’re welcome to ride him anytime.”

The stable owner shook her head. “The damn horse is worth too much. I don’t want him breaking a leg on my watch.”

Foxfire spun in a circle.

Ruefully feeling as if she’d be seeing a chiropractor for whiplash, Natalie said over her shoulder, “I wouldn’t sue you. I’d know he had it coming.”

“You better get before he decides not to wait for you.” Pam jerked her head toward the gate. “But do stick to the trail so someone can find your body if you break your neck.”

Wincing at the idea of a body, even her own, sprawled on the mist-dampened ground, Natalie simply nodded. “I’ll be good.” She eased the reins and sat back only a minute amount, feeling the horse’s eagerness as he bounded forward. “Hey, guy,” she murmured, “this isn’t a race.”

He didn’t want to trot and, to punish her, managed a stiff gait that jarred her teeth as if she were driving a road that was wall-to-wall potholes.

Nonetheless, she held him to it, and as they left the gates of the ranch behind, Foxfire’s ears flicked forward and the ride smoothed. At best, Arabians had a bouncy trot, showy in the ring but not comfortable. They had been bred for endurance, for traveling all day in the arid desert without rest or water.

Once the trail intersected the broader one used by horsemen, runners and bicyclists, Natalie let the stallion stretch into an easy lope. The gray mist clung to treetops and hid the mountains from her, beading on long, autumn-gold grasses in the fields that sloped toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Foxfire’s hooves thudded on the damp earth in a rhythm, a mantra. The cool, moist air cleansed her; the power gathered beneath her gave Natalie an intoxicating sense of control and invincibility.

Illusory, of course, she was reminded when a small bird exploded from the underbrush to chase a hawk above, and the stallion shied, shaking his head and kicking his heels, twisting beneath her in momentary rebellion. She loosed the reins, urged him with tightened legs to go faster and, in his eagerness, he forgot his pique. The adrenaline rush made Natalie feel gloriously alive.

Best of all, she couldn’t afford for even a second to let her mind wander, to picture the body in the study, to wonder when she could go home or if she wanted to. The chestnut stallion demanded that every grain of her attention be on him. She needed to read his every quivering signal and search the glistening Oregon grape and brown fronds of ferns beneath hemlock and cedar for any creature or oddity that might spook him. Her body had to flow with his. Too much tension, and the next time he leaped sideways she’d be flat on her back on the trail, hard packed despite today’s mist, breath knocked out of her.

Oh, yes, her difficult horse and a damp day and the deserted trail had been exactly what she needed.

IT’S 11:02 p.m., do you know where your daddy is?

Weary to the bone, John pulled into the detached one-car garage off the alley and headed for the back door. The kids would be long since asleep, he hoped. Hell, even his mother rarely stayed up past ten. Natalie, he didn’t know about. Wondering heightened his senses slightly as he inserted the key in the lock. He didn’t hear voices, real or canned from the TV, and from the street he’d seen no light on in the living room.

He tried to be home for meals and to tuck his children into bed at night. Their mother’s diagnosis of multiple sclerosis was tough enough for them, since it meant losing her as a part of their daily lives, having to visit her in a place where illness couldn’t be forgotten and they were reduced to awkward kisses on her cheek and polite responses to her questions about school and friends. They needed to be able to count on Daddy.

But his job wasn’t nine-to-five, not in the first throes of an investigation. Some of the lowlifes he’d needed to talk to didn’t come out from under their rocks until after dark. He was lucky to be home this early.

His mother’s sporty Chevrolet was parked to one side of the driveway. Even as irritated as he’d been at her this morning, John was grateful that his kids had her and their uncles, that he wasn’t their only close family. But he was damned if he’d let her use chilly judgments and icy disapproval to hammer his son into the avenging angel she’d wanted her own sons to be. Hell, wasn’t that what they were, cleansing the streets of the devil’s spawn?

The house was quiet when he stepped in, one light left on in the kitchen, a note taped to the microwave. He crossed quietly. Even Natalie must be asleep.

Tidy block print read, “Leftover casserole in the refrigerator. Heat for five minutes. I don’t want to find it uneaten in the morning.”

He gave a rusty laugh. That was his mother all over. Caring but stern.

He should be hungry and wasn’t, but he obediently took out the plastic container, noted that it was one his mother made with cashews and Chinese noodles that he liked, and stuck it in the microwave. Five minutes.

Listening to the hum, he thought how idiotic it was at his age to have fleeting, wistful memories of the mother she’d been Before Dad Died. He always thought of it that way, in capital letters. She had changed in one horrific day, bewildering and terrifying her three boys. Instead of progressing through all the stages of grief, emerging at the end as the mother they knew, she’d seemed to get stuck part way, consumed by anger she still carried. More of an optimist then, he’d actually hoped, back when Debbie was pregnant, that in starting over with grandchildren his mother too could begin again. Better than Hugh and Connor, he remembered her as a woman who had patiently bandaged skinned knees and run breathlessly down the sidewalk holding up two-wheelers, and not cared if paint happily slapped onto butcher paper dripped off the edges onto the kitchen floor or table-top. Those memories of laughter and tenderness and easy hugs were fading these days.

But he was still lucky she was here for Maddie and Evan. They loved her, as much as she would allow.

Trouble was, he could foresee her getting harder and harder on Evan. Opening the refrigerator again to look for something to drink, John scowled. He’d been old enough when his father died to have some inner defenses. His brothers, especially Hugh, hadn’t been. His mother had messed with Hugh’s psyche but good, and he couldn’t let her do the same to Evan. He didn’t want to hurt her by cutting her off from the kids, but the day was coming when he’d have to find alternative baby-sitting—and either a tactful explanation of why he had made the change, or the guts to be blunt.

“Is something spoiling in there?”

He jerked and dropped the milk carton. Milk sloshed at his feet. Swearing, he bent to pick it up.

Natalie stayed in the doorway, eyes huge, dark curly hair tousled over her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, no.” He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and poured the milk before it could all leak out the bottom.

“Do you have a pitcher you could put that in?” She came shyly into the kitchen.

“Uh, yeah. Somewhere.” He left the milk carton in the sink and banged cupboard doors until he found a plastic pitcher. He salvaged a pint or so, enough for breakfast cereal, anyway.

Natalie had taken paper towels and was mopping up the mess on the floor.

“I can do that,” he said, frowning again as he looked down at the top of her head and realized she wore a robe. She had probably been in bed when she heard him come in.

“It was my fault.” She didn’t even glance up.

“Besides, the microwave beeped. I think your dinner must be ready.”

John hesitated for a moment, then opted for the casserole. What was he going to do, hand-wrestle Natalie for a soggy paper towel?

“Come sit with me?” he asked.

Now she did look up, that same unexpected shyness in her dark eyes. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be alone?”

“Positive.” He hooked a stool at the tiled breakfast bar with one foot and pulled it out. “Are you hungry?”

“Heavens, no! Your mother made me eat every bite at dinner.”

He gave the same rueful chuckle. “That’s my mom.”

Natalie wiped the floor again with a damp, soapy towel and then tossed it into the garbage under the sink. Straightening, she hesitated, pulled her robe more snugly around herself and then came to the bar.

John pushed a second stool out. “Join me.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” She scooted her rump onto the stool, keeping both hands on her robe so that it didn’t gape above or below the belt.

Of course, nothing was so calculated to make him wonder what she wore under it. He hastily turned his attention to his dinner. Damn it, he did not want to have sexual fantasies, however fleeting, about Natalie Reed.

“Did you nap this afternoon?” Maybe not a smart question, as it made him picture that curly hair spread on her pillow, her cheeks flushed like Maddie’s on the rare occasions when she would still lie down during the daytime.

Natalie shook her head. “I never do, you see. Going so against habit would have just made me think.”

He chewed and swallowed, washing the bite down with a slug of milk. “What did you do, then?”

“Rode.” The hand possessively clutching the robe at her bosom began to relax, as if she forgot she had to. “Then, believe it or not, I went shopping at the mall. A woman’s refuge.”

“Ah.” Debbie had shopped, too, whether the credit cards were maxed out or not.

“I wasn’t sure you could let me into my house. I bought some clothes for the next day or so.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said roughly. “I could have gotten what you needed.”

“No, that’s okay.” She bent her head and fingered the shawl collar of the robe, which he realized belatedly was his mother’s. “I hardly ever take the time to shop, and I can use some new jeans and…things.”

Panties? Bras? Another irritating, unsettling image of her lush body in dainty, lacy lingerie flitted through his mind. His brows drew together and he shoved another bite in, although the damn casserole seemed tasteless tonight.

She said quietly, “You looked angry earlier. And now you do again. Did something happen today?”

“What?” He realized he was glowering at her and wiped the expression from his face. “Sorry. No. Nothing happened. In fact, too little happened.”

She didn’t say anything. She never did probe. What he didn’t offer, she didn’t ask. Because she didn’t care enough? Because she didn’t think she had the right?

Had she been the same with Stuart? Or was Stuart the one who had taught her that what he didn’t choose to tell her was none of her damned business?

The speculation felt disloyal. Stuart Reed and he had been partners. Friends. Yeah, there had been moments when John hadn’t much liked him, but that was water under the bridge. Stuart was dead and buried. This was no time to question his character.

“I was thinking about my mother,” John said abruptly, as much because he wasn’t yet ready to admit he hadn’t made an arrest today, that Natalie couldn’t go home, that he didn’t have a damned clue.

“Like I said, she’s too hard on Evan especially. I’m just not sure what to do about it.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“I said something this morning.”

“Did you?” Her voice was soft, uncritical, but he got the point.

Okay. So what he’d really done was snap at his mother.

“Talking to her isn’t going to do any good.”

“I don’t understand.” Tiny crinkles formed in her brow. “I always thought you were close to her.”

John shoved his plate away on a sigh. “Yes and no. I stayed in town, I see her often. I appreciate what she did, somehow keeping us all together when she had no job skills and Dad hadn’t left any life insurance.” He didn’t usually talk like this. What he felt toward Stuart’s memory was nothing when compared to his fierce loyalty to family. But Natalie listened with those wide, compassionate eyes and no hint of judgment. He could use a sounding board.

“What did your mom do?”

“Worked two jobs. Apparently she’d learned to type in high school, and she managed to get a secretarial job even though she had no experience. Nights she cleaned office buildings.”

“But when did she sleep?”

The question took him by surprise. “I don’t know.” He grimaced. “No, that’s not true, of course. Whenever she got home in the middle of the night, maybe three o’clock to seven in the morning. A couple of hours after work in the afternoon.” Somehow he hadn’t thought about how sleep deprived his mother must have been all those years.

“What about you and your brothers? Did somebody take care of you when she was working?”

He shook his head. “I guess we were the original latchkey kids. We were all school age when Dad died. I watched Hugh and Connor after school until I started playing high school sports, and by then Con was old enough. Nighttimes she left us alone.” He frowned, trying to remember. “I’m not sure she had the janitorial job the first year after Dad was killed. I was probably in middle school by the time she started that. Old enough to be in charge.”

Still with puckered brow, Natalie studied his face. “Did you feel old enough?”

No. Hell, no.

The explosive quality of his realization startled him. Perhaps to disguise his quiet shock, John rubbed a hand over his chin, which felt bristly.

“You didn’t, did you?” She was too damned perceptive.

“I went through a stretch when I was scared to death at night. The cops never arrested the guy who shot my dad. Did I ever tell you that? Every night I’d imagine he was breaking into that crummy apartment we rented. The building creaked and whimpered all night long. I was old enough to know the locks were flimsy. If he’d been able to kill my dad, who seemed huge and strong to me, what could I do?” He shook his head. “I never told my mother how scared I was. What could she have done? She had to work. As it was, she went without anything for herself to make sure three boys growing by half-foot leaps had enough on the table, decent clothes and the chance to play sports like our friends.”

Now he felt like a son of a bitch, resenting the way his mother had brought him up. No, what he felt was childish, for forgetting how hard it had been for her.

“I must sound petty,” he said.

“You mean, worrying about how she treats Evan?” She abandoned the collar of the robe, which gaped enough for him to glimpse flowered T-shirt fabric. So much for those visions of satin and lace.

“It’s your job to worry about your son.”

John grunted. “Mom didn’t have time to be soft with us. I think she forgot how to be soft.”

“Was she different? Before?”

“Yeah.” He stretched. “Dad was the one who was too busy to throw the ball or help me learn to ride my two-wheeler. I remember that especially, for some reason. I wasn’t kidding about those half-foot leaps, by the way. I think I must have grown six inches that year. I was incredibly clumsy. My buddies were all racing up and down the sidewalk on their two-wheelers, and me, I was stuck with training wheels and humiliated. Mom would go out with me after dark, when no one would see us, and she’d run up and down the street holding me up. When she said she wouldn’t let me fall, I believed her. One day, I just knew I could do it. I yelled for her to let go.” A bittersweet smile tugged at his mouth. “I rode up to the end of the street, got off and turned the bike around, then got started all by myself. I can still see Mom, clapping and jumping up and down and laughing like crazy.”

When he fell silent, Natalie said softly, “Maybe she could learn again.”

John shook his head. “Mom’s spent plenty of time with the kids since they were born. If she was going to, she would have by now.”

“Hey. Don’t give up on her.”

He shrugged and said nothing for a moment. Time to change the subject.

Probably too abruptly, he said, “Ronald Floyd’s parents didn’t know anything. They saw their son a couple of times a year. He told them he was going straight, working at a marina.”

Tension minutely tightened the muscles in her jaw and around her eyes. Her hand, lying on the counter, knotted. “Was he?”

“He did pilot whale-watching tours. He’d only been out of the joint a month, got the job two weeks ago. Mom and Dad didn’t know why he had come straight back to Port Dare. We found some of his old acquaintances. Some admitted seeing him, some not. Nobody knew anything about him dealing, or taking up a new trade like B and E. He liked boats, they all agreed.”

She thought about that. “Stuart got seasick. He didn’t even like to take the ferry.”

“What about you?”

“Me?” She stiffened slightly, making him realize he’d sounded like a cop. “They’re okay, I guess. I do enjoy taking the ferry to Canada. I haven’t even done that since…oh, in May, I went up to see Butchart Gardens, when the rhododendrons were in bloom.”

“No whale-watching trips?”

She shook her head.

He sighed. “I’m reaching here. I thought he might have seen you, maybe flirted. I don’t know.”

“You mean, that he was looking for me?” The thought obviously horrified her.

Sorry he’d raised it but knowing he’d needed to, John said, “I didn’t really think he was. You work every day. If he’d done any checking, he’d have known that. And we can’t forget that he wasn’t alone. So who was with him and why?”

Tiny, worried lines crimped her forehead. “You really don’t think they were there to burglarize, do you?”

“I can’t say that. I’m eliminating other possibilities.” John spread his hands. “According to Floyd’s parents, the only grudge he harbored was against whoever tipped the cops off the night we arrested him. He never mentioned Stuart to them.”

“Could that person have killed him?”

“Apparently he died a couple of years ago, while Floyd was still locked up. Or so he told his parents.” John’s mouth twisted. “Unless he lied. And why would he have?”

Natalie brushed her hair back from her face, pulling it into a ponytail with one hand and twisting it into a sort of rough chignon. The movement parted the collar of the robe, and he saw both the swell of her breasts and the cartoon cats on her T-shirt nightgown. She left the heavy knot at her nape and tugged her robe together. Hell, had she seen him staring?

If so, she didn’t show it. “What will you do now?” she asked.

“Search your house more carefully. Focus on fingerprints, trace evidence. Keep hoping we can find a neighbor, a delivery truck driver—somebody—who saw a vehicle parked in front of your house or in the driveway. In other words, boring police work.”

She nodded. The knot slipped and tendrils curled against her neck. “When can I go home again?”

His gut instincts rebelled violently at the idea. Logic didn’t support his unhappiness, however. Whatever had happened in Stuart’s study had nothing to do with Natalie. The killer had had time to do whatever he’d gone there to do. Why would he come back?

“A couple of days, maybe,” he said reluctantly.

“Then, if you’re comfortable going home, I don’t see why you can’t.”

She nodded. “What else can I do? Drift around town taking turns being a guest at all my friends’ houses? Put the house on the market? Even if I were going to do that, I’d have to go through Stuart’s things first, have a garage sale—” she made a face “—probably a huge bonfire. Of course I have to go home.”

His brows drew together.

Natalie laughed. “You don’t like admitting I’m right, do you?”

“You know you can stay here as long as you need to.”

“Yeah.” She smiled. “But you know I can’t.”

He did. A few days here would be okay in the court of public opinion; people would figure he was helping her out for Stuart’s sake. Any longer than that, whispers would start. John remembered his own brief discomfiture when he’d had to admit that his fingerprints would be all over Natalie’s house. For her sake, he didn’t want any whispers or lewd jokes.

“We’ll get done with the house in the next couple of days,” he promised. “In the meantime, I can take you over tomorrow to get clothes and anything else you need.”

She nodded.

A moment of silence developed. John became newly conscious of the quiet and darkness beyond the lighted kitchen. Knowing everyone else was asleep made this conversation feel more intimate, as if they were married or something. If he moved his leg, his knee would bump hers. Their shoulders almost touched. Her hair was loose, her face scrubbed clean, the toes curled around the rungs of the stool bare. She was wearing a nightgown and robe, for Pete’s sake. Here he was, smelling of beer and tobacco smoke from the bars he’d prowled, his jaw scratchy from a day’s growth, his eyes likely bloodshot and his tiredness acute enough to have him swaying as he abruptly swiveled and stood.

He grabbed the edge of the counter. “Time to hit the sack.”

She did just what he was hoping to avoid. She slid from the bar stool and touched him. “Are you all right?”

Her hand felt good on his bare forearm, below his rolled-up shirtsleeve. Warm, soft and, in some indefinable way, womanly. He despised himself for the shot of heat that steadying touch sent through him.

He couldn’t insult her by backing away. All he could do was wait until her hand dropped to her side. He sounded a little hoarse to his own ears when he said, “Just light-headed for a minute. A good night’s sleep will cure me.”

Natalie’s fingers curled into fists at her side. “Yes.” This smile looked forced and her gaze slipped from his. “Of course. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kept you up talking.”

“No apologies. I’m the one who dumped my troubles on you. Actually, talking helped me unwind.” He managed a crooked imitation of a smile. “Maybe that’s why I’m so tired now. I talked so damn much.”

To his relief, her expression relaxed. “I’ll have to try it sometime. But not,” she said with a breath of laughter, when he started to open his mouth, “tonight. I’ll see you in the morning, John. Thank you for…well, everything.” Startling him, she rose on tiptoe and brushed the lightest of kisses on his cheek. Then, with a whisk of the robe, she passed him and left the kitchen, her bare feet silent on the tiled floor.

He stood frozen in her wake, conscious of the faint scent she’d left behind, something flowery that suited her.

Voice harsh and low, he said, “Damn, damn, damn.”