Nightingale Way: An Eternity Springs Novel (36 page)

“Oh. All right. I should probably check on things up at Eagle’s Way, anyway. Maybe the change of scenery will do me good. I’m at a crossroads, Celeste. I’m having to make the biggest decision of my life, and I’m not sure which way to turn.”

“Yes, I gathered as much. Knowing you and Cat and Melinda, knowing Melinda’s situation, it wasn’t difficult to draw a conclusion. Care for a little advice?”

“From you? Any time. The guys—Gabe and Colt and Cam and Mac—have told me that if you ever have something to say to me, I should listen.”

“Smart gentlemen,” she said with a laugh. “Here’s my advice to you, Jack. Forget your past.”

He waited a beat and when she didn’t say more, repeated, “Forget my past?”

“Yes. Don’t concern yourself with the boy who couldn’t rescue his family from a fire or the man who wasn’t home to help his beloved through a tragedy. Ask yourself who Jack Davenport is today. Decide who you really are now, not who you have been in the past. Make that decision carefully and consciously and deliberately. Make it with the knowledge of yourself that only you possess, and then you won’t be concerned with trudging in one direction or another from a crossroads, you’ll have the heavens to soar. Make that decision, Jack, and then you’ll have the power to discover who you will become.”

She lost him a little with that last bit, but the rest of it … she’d definitely caught his attention.

Forget the past.

Decide who he is now, today.

Discover who he will become.

He barely noticed when Celeste left the hot springs, so intent was he on the advice she had shared. Forget. Decide. Discover.

Three hours later, he hailed a sailboat out on Hummingbird Lake and gestured for the man at the wheel to bring the boat ashore. When it pulled alongside the pier, Jack caught the lines, secured the boat, then spoke to the passenger. “Melinda, I need to talk to you.”

It was a balmy winter day, much warmer than on her last visit to Rose Hill Cemetery a year ago. As she sat on a bench across from her daughter’s grave, Cat added a little prayer of thanks for the nice weather to the usual prayers she said during this visit. In the five months since she’d moved to Texas, they’d only had snow once. She didn’t miss it one bit.

She was glad to have relatively warm hands and feet this year. She was thankful that her heart was warmer, too. Oh, it still ached for little Lauren. It always would. But her summer in Eternity Springs, and the time spent—and, yes, the love shared—with Lauren’s father had helped her heart to heal.

She didn’t hurt quite so much. Didn’t grieve quite so deeply. She’d begun to move forward with her life. It hadn’t been easy, but it had been necessary.

Today, as she placed the bouquet of yellow roses below the grave marker, pressed a kiss to her fingertips, and touched the raised letters of the name recorded there, the sense of loss didn’t overpower the love. “Happy birthday, baby. I love you.”

She wasn’t the least bit surprised when she heard Jack say, “Happy birthday, Lauren. I love you, too.”

Cat had expected him to be here and she’d braced herself for it. In all honesty, she had hoped to see him. She’d missed him desperately and she’d wondered how he was doing in the new job. She’d forbidden her Floridian-resident parents and her Eternity Springs friends to mention his name, and they’d respected her wishes. But she’d thought of him, worried about him, and hoped he was doing all right, so she figured a brief conversation with him once a year on the anniversary of their daughter’s birth wouldn’t set back her effort to move on.

“Hello, Jack.” Smiling, she turned around. “I thought I might see you here.”

He looked gorgeous, of course. A quick study of his face revealed that that incident in Manila had left no permanent scars. Dressed in a black knee-length cashmere coat over a dark suit, he looked rested and well—though a little on guard.

“I told you I visited,” he said, walking toward her.

“I remembered.”

He stopped beside her and for a moment their gazes met and held. She thought he might touch her, maybe kiss her cheek, but the moment passed. Disappointment washed over her, though she tried to deny it.

She wanted to touch him so badly.

He carried a bouquet of white roses. For a few minutes, they stood side by side in companionable silence beside their daughter’s grave. Lauren would have been six today. A first-grader. Maybe missing her two front teeth.

Jack said, “I think she would have had curly hair. Curly red hair.”

“Do you? I always picture her with your dark hair—and your blue eyes.”

A few more minutes of silence passed, then Jack knelt
on one knee and set his white roses beside Cat’s yellow ones. He, too, trailed his fingers across Lauren’s name, and when he stood, he sank his hands into his coat pockets. Clearing his throat, he said, “I’m sorry we’ve paid these visits separately all these years. It helps to have you here beside me.”

“I agree.”

After another few minutes, she said, “I need to be going, Jack. It’s been—”

“I’ll walk you to your car.” His blue eyes challenged her to deny him.

Wary, she wondered what he had in mind. Would he push her to have some big serious talk? That wasn’t what she wanted or needed. Not today of all days.

However, she couldn’t exactly stop him from walking beside her. All she had to do was get to her car. She’d get right in and go—before she did something stupid.
Like throw myself into his arms
.

He waited until they’d left the children’s section of the cemetery to say, “I understand you’re living in Texas.”

“Who told you?”

“Don’t worry. Our friends and parents explained that you didn’t want them telling me about you. But I know how to check on people, Cat. It’s not difficult.”

True. Especially for a spy. “It’s a little town at the north end of the Hill Country called Cedar Dell. It’s not far from Gabe Callahan’s hometown. I work for the newspaper there.”

“Yes. I read your column about the abandoned pet problem.” When she looked at him in surprise, he added, “I subscribe.”

She didn’t know how to respond to that, so she didn’t say anything. It was easier to keep her mouth shut because the questions that hung on her tongue—how is the job and are you dating anyone—were better left unsaid.

A short distance from the car, he asked, “Would you
come with me to get a cup of coffee, Cat? There is something I’d like to tell you about.”

A wariness in his eyes triggered a suspicion.
A woman. He’s found another woman. Maybe he’s getting remarried. Maybe they’re having a baby!

I’d rather jump naked into the Potomac than listen to him tell me that
.

Or was he going to make an attempt to lure her back to his house for an … interlude? A long weekend before she returned to Texas? The thought was tempting … and devastating. As much as she loved him, she could not, she would not, go down that road again. Though she found it excruciatingly hard to do, she said, “I’m sorry, Jack. I have a plane to catch.”

He touched her arm. “I’ll drive you to the airport. We could talk on the way.”

“No, thank you.” He was trying, and it tore her up. She glanced back toward the cemetery and added, “The drive is part of my ritual for today. I need the silence. Besides, I honestly don’t think it’s a good idea. Closure, and all that.”

He gave her a long, steady look. “Are you sure?”

It was all she could do not to throw herself into his arms and beg him to take her back. “I am sure. Good-bye, Jack. Take care. I’ll see you next year.”

She thumbed the remote to unlock the door, and he picked up his pace to open it for her. Cat slipped behind the wheel, fitted the key into the ignition, and started the car. She smiled up at Jack, her heart aching, and said, “Lauren would be proud that you’re her daddy.”

His smile came slow and sweet. “Travel safely, Kitten. I’ll see you around.”

“He’ll see me around?” she murmured as she pulled out of the cemetery. What did he mean by that?

The comment nagged at her during her trip back to Texas, but once she returned to her little rental house
and dived back into her work with the Cedar Dell
Clarion
, she was able to put the remark and the man out of her mind.

Mostly.

Therefore, she was taken totally by surprise when she walked into her kitchen on the first day of March and found an intruder in her kitchen. “Fred?”

He bounded toward her.
Arf, arf. Slobber slobber. Lick lick
.

Her attention on the dog, she never noticed the man dressed all in black until he swooped in, grabbed both her hands in his firm, unyielding grip, and began wrapping her wrists in … something hot pink? “Is that a bandage?”

“The self-sticky kind,” Jack said, his hand moving rapidly as he secured her wrists together. “I wanted yellow, but you always did look good in pink.”

He continued to wrap her with the bandage roll until he used it all up. “What are you doing!”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m abducting you. Now … your choice.” He held up a hypodermic needle, and said, “I’d rather not go this route, but I will if you force me to do it.”

“Jack Davenport, you wouldn’t dare.”

“Probably not, but you never know.” Moving quickly, he grabbed another bandage roll from the counter—why hadn’t she noticed that when she walked in?—and went to work binding her ankles. “I am determined, Cat.”

Made as immobile by shock as by his actions—Bandages? Really?—Cat asked, “Determined about what?”

“To take you home where you belong, of course. Now, I have duct tape, too, and I will use that. You won’t scream or anything, will you?”

Her head was spinning, partly because he had just lifted her and dangled her over his shoulder.
Oh for crying
out loud
. She squirmed, she squealed, he slapped her butt. “Stop it. Fred, let’s go.”

“Put me down, Davenport.”

“In just a moment.” He carried her outside, and with nowhere else to look, Cat focused on his ass. Had she seen a prettier view since leaving Colorado?

Then they were at the curb and she found herself being shifted forward. He heaved her like a sack of potatoes into … a black limousine? Jack climbed in after her, saying, “C’mon, Fred. Here, boy.”

When the dog bounded inside, she heard a stranger’s voice ask, “Next, sir?”

“The airstrip.”

“Very good, sir.”

The door shut. Cat scrambled to a seated position. Jack sat stretched out on the seat like a Regency rogue, a satisfied smile on his face and a wicked gleam in those gorgeous blue eyes. “Are you crazy, Davenport?” she demanded. “Have you lost your mind?”

“No, Kitten. I’ve figured out who I am.”

Fred climbed up on the seat beside her and began licking her face. Cat laughed—she couldn’t help herself—and turned her face away. “Would you get these stupid bandages off me, please? I feel like I’m in a bad remake of
The Mummy Goes Girly
.”

“I don’t know.” He reached out and scratched Fred behind the ears. “It might be better if I wait until we’re in the air.”

Cat hadn’t been miserable since moving to Texas, but she hadn’t felt like singing and dancing and floating on air while she was at it, either. Right now, even though she might pretend otherwise, the fact that Jack had come after her had given her heart wings. “Get rid of these bandages and tell me why you’re here.”

His gaze scorched a trail over her from head to toe. “I
don’t know, sweetheart. You and I never did the bondage thing before. Maybe we should give it a go.”

“Jack!” Her gaze darted toward the front of the limo, but the privacy screen kept everything black.

“Don’t worry. That can wait for later. At least until we’re in the air.”

“In the air?”

“You know I don’t take a car on my kidnappings. I have more class than that.”

He reached into the bar and pulled out a soda, lifting it toward her in silent offering. She declined with a shake of her head. “Okay, Davenport, what are you up to? I know my abandoned pet article didn’t bring out the crazies this time, so what are you trying to prove?”

He sipped from the can, his gaze never leaving hers. Cat had the sudden sensation that she was prey being sized up for a meal.

“I should be angry.” She wasn’t angry, though. How could she be angry when she was so glad to see him and he sat there watching her with that smug, knowing smirk? He’d gotten her good and they both knew it.

Besides, she was thrilled to see him. “Where are you taking me?”

“You wouldn’t have coffee with me in Maryland, so that kind of forced the issue. I have something I need to say and I need you to listen.”

“You could have tried a phone call.”

“No. It’s too important.”

Cat tried to convince herself that she was annoyed, but that was a lie. She wasn’t annoyed. She was excited. Anxious. Hopeful.

Had she been unconsciously waiting for him to come to her ever since she left him?

The drive to the private airstrip took less than ten minutes, and the limo pulled up beside the same Citation jet that had taken her from D.C. to Eternity Springs
more than half a year before. Once again, Jack served as copilot, and after the plane was airborne and reached cruising altitude, he joined her in the cabin. “I truly should be furious with you,” she told him.