Queen (5 page)

The sun rose on a new day as Queen dragged her brush through the tangles in her hair, then winced as it caught and snagged. The knot was only an echo of the one in her stomach, and she decided to ignore both.

Sleeping in that king-size bed had not been as easy as it had looked. Every time she'd turned over in the night, she'd imagined that a big angry man was hovering above her, pointing a finger and accusing her of trespass. Her chin jutted stubbornly as she eyed her reflection in the mirror over the sink. When he came back, she just dared the sorry so-and-so to complain. She'd show him what accusations were made of.

Aware that the boys would be stirring soon and wanting food, she made her way downstairs to the kitchen. As she started to assemble the ingredients for pancakes, her stomach growled, reminding her that the boys weren't the only ones who were hungry.

Queen broke eggs and poured milk and measured flour with absentminded thoroughness. But no matter how smooth the batter became as she stirred it angrily, she couldn't forget that three days was a long time to be zone without an explanation, even for a sorry-ass man.

By midmorning she was beginning to get as worried as the boys. A phone call to the sheriff’s office had confirmed nothing beyond what they already knew. The sheriff was out on a call, and the dispatcher didn't know anything about the situation. All Queen could do was leave word for Sheriff Miller to call when he returned.

The older the day got, the more strained and anxious the boys became. Queen knew from experience that there was only one cure for worry, and that was to substitute it with something else.

"Who wants to give me a tour of the Bonner property?" she asked.

The request took them by surprise, and then the two younger ones held up their hands and shouted in unison, "Me! Me!" Clearly they were glad of an excuse not to think of another day without their father.

"How about both of you," Queen said. "That way I won't miss anything."

Donny stood his ground. "I think I'll stay… just in case."

Queen nodded. She understood his need to remain close to the phone.

The tour began and ended thirty minutes later. The Bonner property consisted of the house, a barn and a shed, and acres and acres of thick, heavily wooded area that Queen elected not to explore. She didn't want to be that far from the phone, either.

She wondered what to do next until she remembered the wall unit full of video games in the living room.

"I don't suppose you guys are old enough for Super Mario Brothers?"

The question was, she suspected, a stupid one. At the gas station in Cradle Creek she'd seen children barely tall enough to reach the controls playing video games with great skill. J.J. and Will burst forward into a race toward the deck, yelling that the winner would pick the first game to be played.

Queen smiled, watching them running as if their lives depended on it. She stepped aside as they flew past and accidentally bumped into the old red truck in which they'd driven home from Snow Gap yesterday. It was dented and scratched and clearly had seen better days. She ran her hand absently over the fender and frowned. It didn't fit the image of the house at all.

"Dad just uses it to haul wood," Donny said, answering her question before it was voiced. "I saw a puddle underneath it awhile ago. I ran over a pretty good-size rock on the way to Snow Gap yesterday evening. Do you think I broke something?"

Queen heard his voice tremble, although Donny was doing all he knew how to remain calm in the face of a total stranger. "I could take a look," she said, although to be honest, crawling in the dirt beneath that rickety old truck was not what she'd planned to do for lunch.

"But you're a girl!"

Queen grinned. "Girls can fix cars just like guys… sometimes even better. I'm not good at it, but I'm also not the worst mechanic you'll ever find. Does your dad have any tools?"

He nodded and jogged away toward the shed, returning moments later with a shiny metal box.

"Thanks," Queen said. "While I'm doing this, why don't you go back to the
house and keep an eye on your brothers. It's nearly noon. Maybe you could fix
sandwiches from that meat we bought from the deli, and there's some—"

"I can handle it," Donny said, cutting her off. He pivoted and started toward the house. "Don't get dirty!" he called over his shoulder with a smile.

Even from this distance, Queen could see blue devils dancing in his eyes. She looked down at the puddle beneath the truck, and then at her clothes, and shrugged.

"Get real," she answered, and grinned in spite of herself when Donny Bonner whooped with laughter before entering the house.

There was no way in hell she wouldn't get dirty. But what she was wearing wouldn't matter. The jeans were old and worn, and her green-checked shirt was faded. Grumbling to herself about the merits of being a Good Samaritan, she knelt in the dust, opened the toolbox, selected a couple of tools, and then rolled over on her back before scooting beneath the truck to survey the damage.

The Blazer was nothing more than a streak of color against the landscape. Cody Bonner drove it just as he'd flown fighter jets—skillfully, with total concentration, and without thought of the laws of speed or gravity. He outran the dust boiling from beneath the wheels of the blue-and-white four-by-four and tried to ignore the knot of fear in the pit of his stomach.

"Dammit to hell." There was little else he could say.

The set of circumstances that had kept him away from home for the last two nights would have been ludicrous if the consequences weren't so tragic.

But laughing off what had happened was impossible. He kept thinking of his youngest boy. J.J. was barely past babyhood. Had he cried for me? The thought made him sick. Was he afraid that his daddy was gone for good… just like his mother? The knot in his stomach turned once just to remind him it was still there.

Will was ten, and tall for his age, but he was too damned quiet for his own good. Cody could imagine what must have gone through his mind.

He cursed as his Blazer bounced across a narrow set of ruts in the road, yanked at the steering wheel, and then pressed on the gas as the wheels straightened.

"Thank God for Donny. He'll have managed," Cody said aloud. He just has to.

At thirteen Donny was already close to six feet in height and as reliable as Cody's old red truck. And with the thoughts of the truck came the first sight of his home nestled against the tall backdrop of ponderosa pine and Colorado evergreens.

The stark beauty of the landscape had been his main incentive for moving to Colorado with his boys only weeks earlier, away from the cities… and his in-laws. But now the isolation of their home made him think again.

After what his late wife's parents had put him through, early retirement from the military had seemed his only option if he wanted to regain complete custody of his sons. They'd made the move just after school had let out for the summer, and Cody hadn't taken the time to make new friends yet. He'd purposely put off meeting any neighbors, savoring instead the serenity of their surroundings and hoping that it would heal whatever was festering inside him. But now, after this incident, he couldn't get past the thought that maybe it hadn't been such a good idea after all. Anything could have happened to the boys.

Cody's belly gave a jerk as he swerved into the driveway. The house was still standing, but the red truck looked as if it had been moved. Hell, he told himself, I've slept since then. Maybe I'm just imagining things.

He pulled into the yard and frowned as the cloud of dust caught up with him, then bailed out of the driver's seat as panic began to set in. No one came running out to greet him! What if something had happened? What if they'd gotten sick? What if…?

He stopped in midstep, frozen with shock and fear at the sight of a pair of long, jean-clad legs protruding out from beneath the old red pickup.

Oh, Jesus… someone's stripping the truck. Damned thieves! But what have they done to my boys? he thought, and started toward the truck.

Ignoring the fact that confronting a burglar unarmed was not wise, Cody Bonner walked toward the truck, his eyes fixed on the long length of legs and the old, well-worn boots. Even from here he could see that one of them had a hole worn nearly all the way through.

"Damn drifter," he muttered. "If you've hurt my boys, I'll kill you."

He reached down, wrapped a hand around each boot at the ankle, and pulled hard, dragging the would-be thief out from under the truck. Dust clouded around them.

"You sorry sonofa…"

Queen Houston blinked through the dust settling in her eyes, wiped the smear of oil she felt running down her cheek, then looked down at a matching greasy stain spreading across her left breast.

In disgust she looked up into the bluest eyes she'd ever seen, recognized the familiarity of facial features he'd given in varying degrees to each of his sons, and knew that the errant father had returned.

Ignoring his presence, as well as the rude manner in which he'd dragged her from beneath the truck, she calmly got to her feet, tossed the 3/16 crescent wrench and the pliers into the toolbox, and began dusting herself off.

Cody was in shock. His burglar was a woman? A curvaceous, buxom, green-eyed redhead? And why didn't she say something? Why wasn't she trying to get away? Accusations hovered on his lips, but she beat him to it.

"So! You finally made it home." Queen fixed him with a hard green stare.

He flushed in spite of himself and then got angry at the fact that a total stranger was assigning him blame. He started to argue, but the words he meant to say died in the back of his throat as Queen once again ignored him and began brushing at the accumulated dust on the backs of her legs and rump. Then she leaned over and began combing her fingers through her unruly hair in a vain effort to get rid of the grass and dirt he'd plowed into her scalp by dragging her from beneath the truck.

He didn't know whether the sudden urge he had to bury his hands in her hair was to see if it was as hot as it looked or just to throttle her and get the ordeal over with at once. But the notion disappeared when she suddenly straightened. He stared transfixed as she brushed the wild mane of red curls back into place and then fixed him with a piercing glare.

Queen hid her surprise. He wasn't what she'd expected. He didn't look particularly dissipated, and he didn't look as if he'd been in any fights. But she wasn't one to let good looks get in the way of the truth.

"Where the hell have you been?" she demanded.

Cody's answer, a knee-jerk reaction to her accusation, came out all wrong.

"In jail."

Queen snorted. "It figures," she said, and walked away.

Cody stood where she left him, trying to figure out why he'd just let a total stranger reprimand him for something that wasn't his fault, when he heard her call out, "Hey, guys, your daddy's home!"

Seconds later the boys burst from the house and ran past her with their arms outstretched. In spite of her determination to remain neutral, she turned and watched and then, oddly enough, felt abandoned… even forgotten, as they flew into their father's arms.

Tears blinded Cody's eyes as J.J. catapulted against him and clung with the tenacity of a leech.

"I knew you'd come back. I knew it," J.J. said.

"Dad! Where did you go? What happened?" Donny asked as he hugged and patted his father, and then repeated the question and the gesture over and over.

Will didn't speak at all, he just clung. For Cody that greeting was the most telling and the most difficult to face.

"I was so worried about you guys," he said, staring intently into his oldest son's face. "Thanks, son," he said quietly, almost mouthing the words.

Donny nodded, relieved enough now that his father was back to convince himself that he hadn't really been worried at all.

"You have no idea what happened," Cody said. "Oh, God, I've never been so glad to get home in my life." And he hugged and kissed them over and over, ignoring the fact that Donny had been refusing the gesture for nearly a year. "Let's go inside where we can talk. You won't believe what happened."

With J.J. in his arms and Will clinging to his hand. Cody started up the steps, certain that Donny would follow. He'd seen the relief on his eldest son's face and knew that they'd talk later. For now it was enough that they were reunited. Then J.J. turned and looked over his father's shoulder at the tall redhead standing alone in the yard.

"Aunt Queenie… aren't you coming?" he asked.

Cody stopped, stared at J.J., and then turned around and fixed her with a piercing stare. Aunt Queenie?

Donny spoke up. "I'm sorry, Dad, but you're not the only one with a story to tell. If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't be here to greet you."

"The sheriff tried to give us to a mean old woman. I didn't like her. She wouldn't smile," J.J. said. "And then Aunt Queenie came and took us home."

"The woman was from social services," Donny explained.

Cody felt the old fears swamp him. He looked at his sons and then back at the woman in the yard and sighed. All in all, being shot down in the Persian Gulf hadn't been as nerve-racking as the last two nights had been.

"Please… Aunt Queenie… do come in," he said, just missing sarcasm with his courteous tone.

It was more order than request, and Queen knew it. There was nothing else she could do. Besides, she was intensely curious about the good reason a man could have for being in jail.

But when Cody Bonner sat down and started talking without making excuses for himself, she wondered if maybe… just maybe… she'd misjudged him.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked, giving the woman a hard, unforgiving stare.

"Daddy… she's our aunt Queenie. Don't you remember her?"

J.J.'s question came without warning, and for a heartbeat Cody Bonner wondered if somewhere down the hellish road he'd been lost on, he'd lost more than sleep. But the flush on her cheeks told him all he needed to know. She was an impostor! Just what the hell that meant to him he had yet to find out.