After Dark (17 page)

    Before the housekeeper could
reply, the dark devil burst into the room. As rude and crude and devastatingly
handsome as he'd ever been. A man like no other. Now in his prime at
thirty-six. And sexier than any man had a right to be.

    "Your housekeeper is mistaken,"
Johnny Mack Cahill said. "We both know that I'm no gentleman."

    "What are you doing here, Cahill?"
Buddy demanded.

    "I've come to pay a visit on
old friends."

    Johnny Mack grinned, and for a
split second Edith felt that odd tug in the pit of her stomach. What was it
about this man's smile that made women-all women-go weak in the knees?

    "Johnny Mack?" Mary Martha
rose from the sofa, her lips curving into a smile as she gazed at their
uninvited guest.

    "Hello, Miss Mary Martha."
He removed his tan Stetson and nodded.

    "It's so good to see
you." Mary Martha took a tentative step in Johnny Mack's direction.
"I haven't seen you in quite a while."

    Edith snapped to her feet and reached
for her daughter, who shrugged off her mother's grasping hand and walked
straight to Johnny Mack.

    "Kent says I shouldn't be nice
to you." She gazed up at Johnny Mack as if she were utterly delighted.
"But I told him that I liked you and I could be nice to you if I wanted
to." Mary Martha laid her hand on Johnny Mack's arm. "I told him
that you were so good to me that night… that night… I'm not supposed to remember,
am I? Kent said not to tell anyone, but I told you. And you believed me,
didn't you?"

    "Mary Martha, dear, please
don't upset yourself," Edith said.

    Dear God, she had to find a way to
make her daughter keep quiet. The more she talked, the more she might
remember. And Edith couldn't allow that to happen. If Mary Martha started
remembering the ancient past, she might remember more recent events.

    She might remember what had happened
the day Kent died.

    "Buddy, will you be a dear and
take Mary Martha for her afternoon stroll?" Edith glanced at Mrs.
Russell, who waited in the doorway. "Go upstairs and tell Jackie
to hurry up with Miss Mary Martha's sweater."

    Mary Martha squeezed Johnny
Mack's arm. "You will excuse me, won't you? Mother insists I get some
sunshine every day."

    "Of course."

    What the hell had happened to Mary
Martha? Johnny Mack wondered. She had always been emotionally fragile,
and for good reason if what she'd told him fifteen years ago was true. But
even that night, when she had been drunk and hysterical and begged him to
make love to her, she'd still had a precarious hold on reality. But now…
dear God, now she was completely lost.

    Had Kent's death affected her so
severely? Had the love/hate relationship she had shared with her brother
finally destroyed her?

    As she accepted Buddy's arm and he
guided her toward the French doors leading out onto the side veranda,
Mary Martha paused. Glancing over her shoulder, she smiled at Johnny
Mack, a bittersweet expression on her face.

    ''You will come back again, won't
you? You've been ever so kind to me. But you mustn't come when Kent's here.
I'm afraid he's terribly jealous of you."

    Johnny Mack exchanged a knowing
glance with Buddy, and for a split second he almost felt sorry for the guy.
They both knew that Mary Martha's mind was gone, that she had finally been
pushed off the emotional high wire on which she'd been walking most of
her life. Just how much did Buddy really know about the woman he loved?
Had she ever told Buddy the same fantastic tale she had once told him? And
if she had shared her secret with him, had Buddy believed her?

    Breaking eye contact with Johnny
Mack, Buddy hastily led Mary Martha outside, leaving Edith with the task
of handling her unwanted guest.

    Deadly silence. The soft sound of
Edith Ware breathing. The clatter of footsteps in the foyer. The respectful
reentrance of the housekeeper.

    '’Jackie's on her way down
now," Mrs. Russell said.

    "Yes, thank you." With
only a nod of her head Edith dismissed the servant.

    Planting her hands on her slender
hips, jeweled rings sparkling on almost every finger, Edith tossed back
her head and stared him up and down, from head to toe. "You look more
like John now than you did when you were twenty."

    "Is that a compliment or
a-"

    "It's a compliment and you
damn well know it. John was a handsome devil. So are you." She looked
him square in the eye. "So was my Kent."

    "I suppose I should say that
I'm sorry about Kent's death and offer you my condolences, but it's difficult
to work up any sympathy for a man who ordered my murder." He noted the
slight flinch, the practically indiscernible change in Edith's expression,
but he knew his comment had, despite her calm demeanor, struck a nerve.

    "I hope you don't intend to
spout off that nonsense around Noble's Crossing." Smoothing across
the soft wool of her gray slacks, Edith slid her left hand down her slender
hip. "There's no one who will collaborate your story."

    "Are you worried that I've returned
for revenge, Miss Edith?"

    She did flinch then, and gave him
an eat-dirt-and-die glare. "Why else would you have returned? Buddy
delivered your succinct message. I took it as a threat. Are you telling
me that it wasn't a warning?"

    "Succinct. Short and sweet. No
wasted words." He liked the surprised expression on Edith's face.
"The high school dropout learned a thing or two in college. Like
the meaning of simple little words that used to stump me when you and others
used them."

    "You went to college?"

    "I'm sure that by now you know
I did. I assume you had Buddy run a check on me. I'm surprised you haven't
hired a private detective."

    "That's still a distinct possibility."

    ''As for the message I sent by your
lackey-"Johnny Mack chuckled. "Was it a threat or a warning or…
hmm… If revenge was high on my list of priorities, I’d have come back before
now. Five years ago, I already had enough money to buy Noble's Crossing,
lock, stock and barrel." How he wished that he had come back five years
ago. If only he had known… but once he'd left this damn little town and time
had passed, his thirst for revenge had been partly quenched. Eventually,
he had realized that he hadn't been an innocent bystander in the events
leading up to the night Buddy and his cohorts had dumped him into the river.

    "If you're that wealthy, I'm
surprised you didn't come back and try to prove your allegations. You
certainly never struck me as the noble type. Certainly not the forgiving
type."

    Noble? Only once in his life. When
he had left town and refused to take Lane with him. Forgiving? "I'm
about as forgiving as you are, Miss Edith."

    Someone cleared their throat.
Edith tensed. Johnny Mack turned and saw Jackie Cummings as she entered
the living room. Jackie was someone else who had changed and yet had remained
the same. Same bleached white-blond hair. Same skinny body. Glancing at
the way her uniform fit snugly across her nicely rounded breasts, he wondered
if she still wore a padded bra as she had done in high school or if she'd
had breast augmentation. On their first date, he had slipped his hand
inside her bra and discovered a lemon instead of the ripe orange she
falsely advertised.

    But the years hadn't been kind to
Jackie, nor, h suspected, had the two-pack a day smoking habit she had
started in her teens. She was thirty-five, but looked ten years older.
And there was a used, weary look about her that told him she hadn't lived
an easy life.

    "Well, hello there, stranger."
Jackie slinked over to him, giving him a come-hither smile. "Where
have you been so long? This town has been dull as dishwater without
you."

    "Jackie, please take Miss
Mary Martha her sweater."

    Edith glowered at her daughter's
nurse. "Buddy has taken her for a stroll in the garden."

    "Sure thing, Miss Edith."
Jackie gave Johnny Mack a lingering smile, then scurried across the room
and exited through the French doors.

    "One of your old lovers?"
Edith asked.

    "I'm not the type to kiss and
tell," he replied. "You should know that."

    Despite her iron-willed control,
Edith blushed. He could tell by the way her breathing had accelerated
slightly that she was remembering. That last summer. When she had seduced
her husband's bastard son. He had enjoyed the irony almost as much as Edith
had, but their revenge against John Graham had come at a high price.
Kent had seen them together in the summer house. That had been the beginning
of the end for Johnny Mack. And he suspected that it had changed Kent's relationship
with his mother forever. No doubt Kent had used that knowledge against
Miss Edith. He had been the type of man who would have had no qualms about
blackmailing his own mother.

    "Why are you in Noble's Crossing?"
Edith asked again.

    "Two reasons." He paused,
forcing her to wait, something he knew Edith hated to do. "First reason-I
came back to claim my son."

    Edith gasped silently, then bit
down on her bottom lip as if in an effort to keep from blurting out, How do
you know about Will?

    "So, you didn't realize I
knew about Will. Sorry to disappoint you, but I know the whole
story."

    "Then, you know that Lane duped
Kent. She lied to him for years, and then when the truth finally came out,
he was devastated. And now, unfortunately, Lane is the prime suspect
in Kent's murder."

    "That brings me to the second
reason I'm back in town-to make sure Lane doesn't get railroaded."

    "Are you implying-"

    "I'm not implying anything,"
Johnny Mack said. "I'm stating a fact. Take it as a threat or a warning
or whatever the hell way you want to take it. But mark my word, anybody
who goes after Lane will have to come through me to get to her." He
moved closer, until only inches separated him from Edith. He cupped
her chin between his thumb and forefinger. "I can't be scared off. I
can't be run off. And I can't be bought off."

    When he released her, Edith rubbed
her chin and all but hissed at him.''This is still my town. My county. My state.
You may be a big shot out in Texas, but around here you're just white trash
with money."

    Slapping his Stetson on his head,
Johnny Mack let out a loud belly laugh. "Yes, ma'am, Miss Edith, you're
exactly right. But you might want to remember this-I still don't play by the
rules. And these days, I'm the one who always wins."

    With that said, he nodded, turned
and walked off, leaving Edith to digest his comments. He hoped the bitch
choked on them.

    Buddy walked upstairs with Mary
Martha and waited around until Jackie settled her into her rocking chair
and handed her her baby doll. Immediately she began rocking and singing
to the life-size doll. After giving Mary Martha an affectionate kiss
on the forehead, he nodded to Jackie and left the room. Pausing on the
landing, he allowed himself a few minutes before going downstairs
to face Miss Edith.

    He supposed he fell in love with
Mary Martha when she was only twelve. She had been the sweetest, prettiest
thing he'd ever seen. Like a storybook princess. And she had liked him.
For a friend. Then when she was sixteen, he had asked her for a date and
couldn't believe his good fortune when she had accepted. She had later
explained to him that Kent had told her she should date Buddy, that he was
a good ole boy and she would be safe with him. And she had been safe with
him. Oh, he had wanted her. Wanted her so bad that he'd gone around with a
hard-on just thinking about her. But whenever he'd tried more than kissing
her, she had pushed him away.

    He had been stupid enough to
think that she was saving herself. Saving herself for when they got married.
He had been wrong on both counts. She had never had any intention of marrying
him. And she hadn't saved herself for him.

    So over the years, while he had never
stopped loving Mary Martha, he had married and divorced once and had a
couple of long-term affairs. But when his last relationship ended
over a year ago, he had, as he'd always done, come flying back to this house
like a homing pigeon.

    He loved Mary Martha and probably
always would. God knew he would do anything for her, even lie down and
die, if necessary. But he could never have her, in the way a man wants a
woman, needs a woman. She had been ruined long ago, physically and mentally.
There was nothing left of Mary Martha Graham except a pathetic little
girl who pretended that all was right in her world. And if he could do nothing
else for her, he could keep that world bright and shiny and safe.

    Balling his trembling hands into
fists to steady them, Buddy took a deep breath and marched down •he stairs.
From the foyer he heard the hum of Miss Edith's distinct voice. Who was she
talking to? Johnny Mack had left over an hour ago.