A Rush of Wings (6 page)

“Your mount is ready.” He nodded toward the mare.

Noelle took Aldebaran's reins and led her out. There was no point arguing. Rick was as implacable as the crag that rose up from his land. But he'd made his position clear. It was his ranch and he ran it with integrity, a value she could respect. Last night's conversation had clarified exactly what sort of place she'd come to. She wondered for a moment what direction the table talk would have taken with Morgan there. Was he the dark horse he appeared, or did he espouse the same beliefs?

Noelle shook her head. It didn't matter. As she rode, she matched her motion to the steady rhythm of the horse. She crossed the stream and climbed the slope, until she saw what she wanted. Then she dismounted, tethered the mare, and unstrapped the wooden box.

The birth of sunlight sent shafts through the trees that illuminated them with gold and glanced off the dew-dropped aspen leaves. Clumps of mountain mahogany and sumac huddled beneath the trunks, while a wild rose rambled above the kinnikinnick. Wild strawberries bloomed with tiny white petals surrounding a raised yellow button.

Noelle assembled her easel and laid the stiff rag paper onto it. She squeezed dabs of paint onto her pallette and unscrewed the lid from the distilled water. She closed her eyes and drew the crisp mountain air into her lungs.
“Someone in love with the beautiful.” Perhaps, Professor. Perhaps
. She dipped her brush and drew it across the white with a swath of beige that would become the crag.

When she returned to the house, Professor Jenkins was once again, or still, at the table on the verandah, papers scattered around him, pipe puffing. “And were we successful?”

“I'm not sure.” Noelle dropped down beside him. “Tell me what you think.” She pulled the watercolor from the case and set it before him. Waiting, she caught her lip between her teeth.

Tipping his glasses down, he gazed at the work, silence stretching. Then, “I'm no artist by any stretch. But it seems to me you could seek a practical avenue for this caliber of work. Have you talked to the gallery?”

Noelle shook her head.

“I would.”

She could tell by his frank expression he didn't flatter. He believed
she had potential. Her spirits soared, but she masked it as she returned the picture to its case. “And you? Is your work progressing?”

“I'm moving on tomorrow.”

“You mean leaving?”

He nodded.

She felt an unexpected disappointment but said, “In the true spirit of expansion.”

He chuckled. “Exactly.”

M
ichael woke in a sweat. The dream had been too real, areenactment of the one thing in his life he'd undo if he could. No, not the one thing. He would undo most of his life if he could. He passed a hand over his eyes, groaning. The dream had drained him, and he couldn't afford that. William needed him sharp.

To the man's credit, nothing had changed between them professionally these last weeks. William compartmentalized his life, and Michael aspired to that deep a focus. Now was a good time to perfect it. They scarcely mentioned Noelle; an unstated understanding that the other would be informed the moment there was any news. But Michael wondered. If he learned from Sebastian where she was, would he tell William?

He looked at the red numbers on the clock. He always woke before the alarm, though not usually so rudely. He shook the dream from his mind. Of course he would tell William. But not until he'd made her see, made her understand. What had happened was not what he'd intended.

He showered, dressed, and took a cab to work. He reported smartly to William's office. The man looked gray. “William?”

William motioned him to a chair without looking up, then set aside the paper he was studying, folded his hands, and at last met his eyes.

“Are you ill, sir?”

William smiled grimly. “That bad, is it?”

“I only meant . . .”

William held up a hand. “Nothing but the truth.”

An attempt at humor. Michael smiled obligingly. What was wrong with the man? His chest seized. “Is it Noelle?” Had they spoken? Had she . . .

“Did you know that she was kidnapped?”

“What!” Michael exploded from his seat.

William shook his head. “Sit down.” He motioned with his hand. “I don't mean now. Obviously. I wouldn't be sitting here if she were in danger.”

Flushing at his foolishness, Michael took his seat, tried to get inside William's head. What was he doing? Did he suspect . . .

“It was years ago. But I spent a terrible night remembering. As you noticed.”

So they'd both been wrung out. Michael felt a surge of pride that he'd overcome it better than William.

“She was five years old, about to turn six.” William pinched the bridge of his nose. “You think you've covered the possibilities, but you never think of some things until they happen. And it did. A parent's worst fear.”

“Who took her? Why?”

William stood up and walked to the window behind the desk. “I was prosecuting a federal case, a defendant with deep connections.”

Michael knew William had started out in prosecution, then switched to defense law. Was this the reason?

“My case against him was tenuous, but I had the reputation, the tenacity to pull it off. So they took Noelle.” He made a sweeping gesture. “Just took her.”

Michael frowned. He hadn't known any of that.

William shook his head. “They found the place I was weak.”

The place he was weak. What would he do if he knew the truth now? “What did you do?”

William leaned slowly back in his chair. “Resigned my position as district attorney.”

“Why not just lose the case?”

“And be vulnerable the next time?” William raised his eyes. “Defense law was safer. The feds don't kidnap children.”

“What happened to Noelle?”

“The police found her tucked up next to the lions outside the public library.”

“And the defendant?”

“Not guilty.”

Michael dropped his gaze. If the case was weak, even William might have lost it, but the fact remained he'd capitulated for Noelle, had broken what Michael had up to now considered an unbreakable code. It didn't diminish William. If anything Michael admired his mentor more than ever and felt a keen kinship. They would both do anything to have Noelle back.

“I took precautions after that, thought of every possibility. She was never vulnerable again. I made sure.”

“Did she . . . was she damaged by it?”

William's pause was a moment too long. “Frightened. She was terribly frightened. But the psychiatrist said severe traumas are often forgotten completely. I'm sure she has.”

Michael's head spun. Severe trauma. Was that why she had overreacted, panicked, all but turned catatonic? Could he use that to explain—if it came to it?

William pressed his palms to the desk. “Then, of course, there was Adelle. Her death created a whole new problem.”

Michael switched tracks, glancing at the photograph of William's late wife.

“I could guard my daughter from danger, but . . . What control had I over sickness and disease?” William pushed back from the desk and stood. He walked to the window and looked out. “I screened everyone. Provided tutors instead of schools where illness propagated. But . . .” He dropped his head, shaking it slowly. “Did I push her away? In keeping her safe, did I smother her?” William turned around, as bleak as Michael had ever seen him. It was a measure of their relationship that he showed it now.

Michael frowned. Hadn't those been her words, or very nearly? But it wasn't William she meant. Michael swallowed. The tendons in his neck drew taut. He wanted to tell him it wasn't his fault, but whom did that leave? He said, “You did your best.”

William walked to his desk and perused the folders but seemed unable to make sense of them. “Where are we today?”

Michael slipped naturally into the role being offered. With precision, he delineated the day's work on the two primary cases. William remained pensive as they talked, but Michael sensed his focus returning. A remarkable man, William St. Claire. He would put the night behind him, the past behind him, even Noelle's absence behind him. When they entered the court, William would be honed and ready. Sometimes Michael imagined himself William's son. One day he would be, if only in law.

———

The side streets were growing familiar as Noelle walked, eyeing light and shadow, a quaint house with a rose rambling up its terraced porch, a deserted mine tunnel with juniper across its mouth. Stopping in front of a yellow wood-frame house with a sagging porch and a bicycle against the rail, she studied the scene.

The clump of aspen in the front caught the breeze and scattered tremulous shadows across the window. From the side a dog yapped, dodging as a boy lunged for the leash and skidded across the ground, then gained his feet and continued the chase. She smiled.
The human spirit, Professor
. She missed him.

Shelby's family had been replaced in the cabin by a hard-muscled pair of mountain climbers, the woman as long-limbed and focused as her husband. Today they were tackling the crags on the mountain above the meadow. Noelle could not fathom dangling by a rope attached to a belt, held only by a thin metal hook over a thousand feet of empty space. But those two seemed to thrive on it.

The honeymooners' cabin was now occupied by three potential eagle scouts and their leader, working on some mountaineering badge or award of some sort. The third housed a couple from Denver on a getaway for their tenth anniversary. Rick had spoken truly that his place was booked through the summer, though without the professor, she and Morgan were the only guests in the house.

It was an odd arrangement and different from any living situation she'd had before. But she wouldn't change it. Not even for the spacious and well-appointed bungalow she'd occupied on her father's estate. Looking at the small yellow house before her, Noelle realized just how far from home she was.

She shifted her case to the other hand and walked on. The shadows had lengthened, and she made her way down the rutted dirt road to the paved highway that cut through town, then crossed the gravel lot to the general store. After searching the shelf, she laid a pack of gum with a dollar from her pocket on the counter. Rudy ground out his cigarette and gave her change.

“Thanks.” She scooped it up and turned, smack into Morgan. Her dime and nickel went flying.

He steadied her around the waist, laughing. “Where's the fire?”

She didn't share his amusement. “Excuse me.” She backed out of his grip and retrieved her change from the floor.

“Let's have dinner.” Morgan reached for her case. “I'll take you to the Roaring Boar. A little dinner, a little dancing . . .”

She shook her head.

“Come on, break loose a little.” His smile was contagious; white teeth and eye crinkles made her think once again of a GQ model. Morgan would fit into Daddy's circle on looks alone. “They have barbecue brisket that's to die for.”

She glanced at Rudy behind the counter.

Rudy nodded. “Good stuff.”

With the two of them coaxing, how could she decline? “We'd have to let Marta know.”

“Absolutely.” He motioned her out, then sent Rudy the raised eyebrows. Had they plotted it? Impossible. Neither knew she'd be there buying gum. Morgan simply found accomplices everywhere he went. And she'd fallen for it.

He put her art case into the Corvette's trunk, drove her back to the ranch, but caught her as she reached for the door handle. “Sit tight. I'll tell Marta I've got you.”

I've got you
. A chill passed through her as he got out and went inside. What was she doing? She bit her lip and clenched her fists. He'd asked her to dinner, nothing sinister. So why were her palms sweating and her heart racing? Thoughts threatened to surface, but she forced them back, staring up into a thin, sappy pine, catching her breaths sharply.

She was answerable to no one but herself. She could go with Morgan or not. Even now she could change her mind—go inside the house, her haven. She could . . . and call herself a coward. Sooner or later she had to stop avoiding life. She raised her chin. Sooner. A rush of confidence filled her.

She released her clenched fists and managed to smile when Morgan returned, strutting like the handsome peacock he was. Let him strut. He might think he'd won, but the victory was hers. She had chosen. Her mind, her decisions, her life was hers.

The Roaring Boar, true to its name, was boisterously noisy as they walked in. The high ceiling was heavily timbered with colorful heat ducts throughout. Above the long polished bar hung a boar's head, looking as though it had charged through the wall.

She grimaced. “I wouldn't want to meet that in a dark alley.”

Morgan held her chair. “Looks like the nun who taught me third grade.”

She laughed, recalling a quote by Gelett Burgess:
“To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.”
Was Morgan ever serious? Or did he specialize in nonsense?

He eased her chair in. “What are you drinking?”

“Club soda . . . with lime.”

He hung his head to the side. “Don't tell me you're underage.”

“I'm not.”

“On the wagon?”

“I prefer club soda.” Nothing to dull her senses and leave her vulnerable. Nothing to weaken her control. Never again.

Morgan sighed. “At least it's not a sanctimonious reason. I'm past my Boy Scout days.”

“Did you have any?”

“Very briefly in the hazy past.”

Morgan ordered drinks and a Texas brisket on a bun for each of them. “It's the house specialty. They'll serve it in less than a minute with fries to boot.”

“Less than a minute?”

“No one orders anything else. If they did, the cooks would personally come out and flog them.”

Again she smiled. She wasn't sure how to take Morgan Spencer, but he did amuse her, and his words proved nearly true. She eyed the monstrous sandwich dubiously when it came.

Morgan made a show of spreading his napkin on his lap. “Two hands; dive in. And no raising your pinkie.”

Her glare only made him laugh. He was in rare spirits, though she didn't take all the credit. He seemed to feed on the gathering crowd and rowdy atmosphere and the many people who came by their table to chat. He introduced her to more of her neighbors than she had yet met. Was there anyone in the room he didn't know by name?

As they finished eating, the band assembled and tuned, tested the microphones, and practiced riffs on their instruments. Noelle watched them, keenly aware of Morgan watching her. When the band began to play, the room erupted with hoots and cheers. They did a classic bluegrass tune, “Wabash Cannonball,” and she felt its fervor grow just like the powerful train it bespoke.

Morgan rubbed his hands. “It's warming up now.”

“They're good.”

“Come on.” Morgan stood and held out his hand. “I'm guessing you dance like an angel.”

“Why?”

“The truth?” He led her to the dance floor. “You have the legs for it.” He took her hands and broke into a country swing. He was smooth and swift and sure, with an almost liquid motion.

Noelle laughed when he spun her out and back. “I don't know this step.”

“You follow like a dream.”

“I'm trained in ballroom, ballet, and jazz. But I've never learned country swing.”

He spun away and clapped, then grabbed her two hands and pulled them wide, coming chest to chest with her, then back out. “You may not know the moves, but you sure have a natural rhythm.”

“Tell my jazz instructor that. She gave up on me. But then, she worked with Broadway hopefuls, and I was not in that league.”

“I'd put you in a league all your own, Noelle. At the top of the class.”

“I could swear that's a line.”

He laughed. “It's true. I have an eye for quality, and you're . . . prime.” He caught her down into a dip, and she noted the sharp cut of his Adam's apple and the five o'clock shadow beneath his chin and along his throat. He held her there as the song ended; then the crowd applauded the band and he raised her gently.

She shrugged out of the crook of his arm. “They don't need much warming up.”