Magic Moment (32 page)

“FBI! Drop the guns!”

Chase, having learned from experience, dropped his gun immediately. He set his attention on his father.

Dick did not drop his, but rather aimed the weapon at Saunders. Before the agent had the chance to give the
drop it
command again, Dick’s gun discharged. The shot hit the forearm of a similarly dressed agent standing to Saunders’ right. Hit with the bullet, the man cried out, dropped his own revolver, and grabbed the wounded area.

Saunders’ reflex was to fire. He didn’t miss and Dick hurled backwards, a gaping whole sputtering red from his chest. With one leap, Chase flew over the desk, and caught his father in his arms. Together they sank to the floor.

“Hey, Dad, hold on,” Chase’s said, his voice breaking.
Why didn’t he drop the weapon?
There was no logical reason to shoot. “You got a grandson to meet. Remember? Hold on.”

But Dick Donovan was already dead.

Two days before Christmas, Chase stood in a sterile white hospital room. He smiled, peering out the window and watching a light evening snow fall on the Chesapeake shores. Snow always added to the holiday’s serene magic. A few short hours ago, he officially became a father.

Spinning wheels clanged on linoleum, and Chase swirled his attention to the door. Laura lay completely still on the gurney as it rolled into the room. He stood aside as the nurse and two attendants transferred her to the hospital bed.

“We’ll bring the baby in soon,” the nurse said to Chase with a smile and left the room.

Chase gazed down at his wife. Slightly pale, her eyes were closed, her breathing faint, and a slight grin curled her lips.

“Laura,” he called softly.

Her eyes blinked open. “Hi,” she whispered.

Chase wrapped his fingers around hers. “You did great, honey.”

She smiled. “I had a great coach.”

Six hours of labor and Chase had been with her every step of the way, coaching her breathing and giving her ice chips. “We make a great team.”

“We sure do. Did you call Aunt Lonnie?”

“It hasn’t stopped snowing,” he said, nodding toward the window. “I was afraid she’d drive too fast from Annapolis. I left a message on her voicemail. She’ll discover her new nephew when she gets home.” Since the couple had moved into their own home, Lonnie had been anxiously hovering over Laura on a daily basis. Convinced they had a few days before Baby Donovan’s birth, Chase and Laura swayed Lonnie to attend her annual Christmas luncheon with her former colleagues.

Baby Donovan had his own ideas.

Laura’s green eyes twinkled like the lights on the Christmas tree they had been decorating when her first contraction hit. “Chase, isn’t he a beautiful baby?”

“Beautiful? That baby?” Chase frowned, unable to resist teasing her. “How could you tell? His face was all screwy. He came out with gunk on him.”

As promised, the curly haired nurse entered the room wheeling a Plexiglas cart with Baby Donovan.

Chase pressed the button on the side of the bed, raising the top half and enabling Laura to sit up. She leaned forward, and Chase propped her pillows. The nurse gathered the blue-blanketed baby, and Laura anxiously reached for her child. The woman placed the tiny bundle in his mother’s arms, then quietly left the room.

Perched on the edge of the bed, Chase’s arm wrapped around Laura’s shoulders. She nestled against him. They gazed down at the precious chubby-cheeked face, flushed and wrinkly, wide blue eyes staring back.

“Now,
that’s
a great looking kid. He’s got your gorgeous blond hair,” Chase said fondly.

“And your beautiful blue eyes,” Laura said happily.

“He needs a name,” Chase said. “We can’t keep calling him Baby Donovan.” Despite all their debates, Chase refused to name their child, Richard Chase, the fourth.

“I always liked my father’s name. Matthew.”

“Matthew Donovan?” Chase tried the name. “Matthew Donovan. Matthew Donovan,” he repeated and paused. “I like it.”

Laura hesitated, before her eyes met Chase’s. “For a middle name, I thought we’d give him Richard.”

“Richard.” Neither Chase’s tone nor his face held any emotion, favorable or otherwise.

“In his own way, your father loved you, Chase,” she said. “He kept me safe to have the baby. We can call the baby Matthew, or Matt, but we should acknowledge your father. He was the baby’s grandfather, too.” Laura waited for a response. When Chase didn’t offer one, she returned to cooing at her son.

Chase believed, given the circumstances, his father would have been touched. “Dad would like the baby’s name.”

“You have a name, sweetheart,” she murmured to her son.

Pulling Laura closer, Chase focused on his baby cradled in her arms. “Matthew Richard Donovan, welcome.”

Angela Adams writes and reviews contemporary romances. Her work has appeared in
Romance at Heart, Oysters and Chocolate,
and
The Long and Short Reviews
. In December 2011, Whimsical Publications published an anthology,
Winter Wonders
. Angela’s short story “Burgers and Hot Chocolate,” was among the collection. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and the online chapter, From the Heart Romance Writers.

Steve Morgan heaved a deep, frustrated sigh and cast his line back into the water. His goal for the day had been to relax and enjoy an afternoon of fishing at Beaver Lake, even if the vacation had been mandated by his commanding officer.

He glanced around, his eyes narrowing in disgust. Fir trees and tranquil wilderness as far as the eye could see. Off in the distance were majestic, rocky bluffs that stood out in contrast to the backdrop of greenery. But why anyone would prefer this to the stark, hard lines of steel and concrete was beyond him.

The only sound for miles was the lapping of the lake to the shore and the occasional birdcall. Steve hated it. He needed background noise. Lots of it. Horns honking. Sirens blaring. People shouting at each other, all in a rush to get to where they had to go. That kind of life he understood. This peaceful one had him off kilter. He literally felt like a fish out of water. He had to get back to work before all this sereneness drove him to the brink of insanity and had him drowning himself in this damnable lake.

He backed up and settled onto a deteriorating fallen log stretched across the bank and watched the red and white bobber move listlessly through the water. It reminded him of his emotions — up and down since the shooting — an event that not only left him injured and hospitalized for close to a month, but had him questioning if he’d done everything he could to save the woman who died that same day.

Regret clogged his throat as he reeled the line in a few feet.

He hadn’t caught one damned trout since he’d been there. Not even a nibble. Maybe he’d bought the wrong bait.
No.
That wasn’t it. His heart wasn’t in this particular leisurely activity. But what else did one do in a podunk town, population a little over a hundred — at a resort touted the best for rest and relaxation with its scenic hiking trails and cabins featuring all the amenities, including a full functioning kitchen?

Nope. This didn’t set well with him. He was like Eva Gabor on
Green Acres
. He loved city life — preferably the frenzied hustle and bustle of Denver.

Steve cranked the spindle on the reel again. As his line neared the bank, it snagged on something in the water.

Just great. If he broke the nylon line, he’d probably have to pay yet another fee for the rented equipment.

He rose and waded into the water.

A few feet into the murky backwash, Steve’s boot bumped into something on the bottom. He squinted to get a better look.

What the hell was it?

He worked his foot along the object and felt it give under his probing. Steve leaned over and cranked the line taut and what he saw had him sucking in a strangled breath. Under the water, caught on his twelve-pound test line, a distorted hand bobbed up and down, his hook having punctured the skin between the thumb and forefinger.

“Jesus Christ.” He shot back to the bank and dug through his backpack for the cell phone he’d brought. He punched in 9-1-1. That’d get him to the area police, if they had any. Steve had learned long ago not to step on another agency’s toes, but he was almost positive they wouldn’t have a team that dealt with something like this.

“Carbondale Emergency Services,” a man said, throwing Steve off guard. The town was some thirty minutes from where he stood.

“Yeah, I’m Detective Steve Morgan. Calling out at Beaver Lake. I found a body in the water.”

“Did you say a body?” The man’s voice cracked.

Clearly, the area’s biggest concerns were a stolen bike here or there. Maybe a missing cat or dog. Nothing like Denver where you saw death on a daily basis. The night of his shooting, he’d been working thirty-six hours straight on a case they were fast getting nowhere on when he’d stopped at a local convenience store to grab a cup of coffee and happened upon a robbery in progress. All he could remember was a loud bang. Pain so intense, slicing through him. Then everything went black.

If only he hadn’t been so tired, maybe his reflexes would’ve been quicker. He might have noticed something seemed off as he walked inside, and the outcome could have been different.

“Yes, a body,” Steve repeated, shaking off the scene that had played over and over in his head. Would the memory ever go away or was he doomed to relive it every single day for the rest of his life?

“Can you give me your location, sir?”

“I’m about a quarter of a mile south of Crane Lodge. On the east side of the lake.”

“Okay. We’ll have a car there as soon as possible.”

Steve closed the phone and tucked it into his bag, and then waded back to his fishing pole floating on the water.

The size of the hand indicated the victim was either a woman or a young man. Someone’s son or daughter. Possibly a mother with children. The thought had acid working its way up Steve’s throat. He’d seen a number of dead bodies in his nine-plus years on the force, but to actually stumble upon one left him feeling uneasy, as if it were the first all over again — an event that had left him spewing in a darkened alleyway while a handful of officers looked on. Frankly, one embarrassing event like that was enough for him.

• • •

Whitney McAllister trudged down the trail, bucket and cleaning supplies in hand, exhausted from lack of sleep. She’d been so lucky that Kylie’s temperature had broken late last night or she would have had to call in sick again, and she couldn’t afford to lose another job. Not with a three-year-old to feed and clothe on her own in a town the size of Marble. Employers could only be so understanding when it interfered with their business, and she didn’t want to have to move away from where she’d grown up. Marble had been her only home and she wanted to raise her daughter there, even if there weren’t many opportunities for growth. The people, the place itself spoke of values Whitney intended to instill in Kylie. That’s why she’d stayed when most of the young people headed for the big city.

Someday Whitney hoped to open her own bed and breakfast, which seemed more a pipe dream than reality lately as she struggled from paycheck to paycheck. But the picture in her head of the idyllic place with a handful of happy guests kept her getting up on those days when things appeared almost bleak.

She picked up her pace. The sooner she finished her work, the quicker she could get back to her daughter.

Whitney sighed with longing when the cabins came into view. It was a sight to behold. All six bungalows sat nestled in an alcove of fir, aspen, and cottonwood trees about five hundred feet from the lodge’s central building and small café.

She took the planked steps up to the recently painted green cabin and inserted her key. It’d take half the day to get five of the six ready for check-in. Just a bit of cleaning, dusting, and freshening up the bedding because the cabins were cleaned thoroughly when guests left the lodge. One of the cabins currently housed an occupant, and she wasn’t supposed to clean his unless he asked for the service.

A siren wailed in the distance, and she whirled around to see where it came from. Red lights moved swiftly up the gravel road leading to the lake.

What could be going on? This was considered the slow season at the lodge — heck for Marble altogether, though business had started to pick up. The town didn’t even have its own police or ambulance service, so the emergency vehicle had to have come from Carbondale or Glenwood.

Whitney watched as the lights continued up the road, a dust trail rising above the treetops.

She turned back to the cabin just as the siren stopped. Whatever the emergency, it was at the water.

Maybe their only guest had been hurt.

Whitney hesitated, contemplating what to do. She should mind her own business, yet her head told her to go see what happened.

To heck with it.
She dropped the bucket, raced down the stairs, and took off toward the lake. Her boss would probably yell at her. But as long as she got the cabins cleaned by noon, what was the harm in finding out why the vehicle had been dispatched? Maybe she could help in some way.

As Whitney rounded the bend to the shoreline, she screeched to a halt mere inches from the water, almost losing her balance as she did. A few feet in the lake, standing and holding a fishing pole had to be the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. He had short, sandy blond hair that curled, a slight breeze stirring up the ends, the sun’s reflection giving his head a strange, almost halo-like effect.

His eyes were a blue-gray and hooded by long, dark blond lashes. His nose was his most prominent feature — large but not enough to overpower his face. Light beard stubble covered his chin and jawline, an effect that gave him a rugged appeal, perfect for the surroundings.

Then her gaze landed on his mouth. The grimace made it hard to tell how full his lips were, but the color reminded her of ripe apricot. Whitney had always loved the taste of the fruit. Sweet and juicy and …