Silk and Stone (71 page)

It was nearly dark. Sam tried to concentrate on her loom, but kept wondering where Jake was. The low, mournful strains of a jazz disc played on the boom box by her feet, taking up some of the lonely silence. When she heard his footsteps on the porch she leapt up, then stopped herself. Something wounded and proud made her sink back to the bench of her loom. She tuned the portable player to a pop-rock radio station.

If he were going to wander the woods with his secrets for company, she would pretend to be content with her loom and Rod Stewart.

She jumped when she heard the front door slam. Bo’s large, long-nailed paws clicked alongside the loud
thuds of Jake’s quick strides. Jake walked into her workroom with all the calm of a human tornado. Her heart pounding, she peered at him between the vertical strands of thread.

Have a nice walk
? came to her lips, but by then he was pulling her off the bench. He said nothing, but held her in a tight, almost ferocious embrace. The breath bubbled out of her in a confused sigh, and she put her arms around him. Conversation was lost—as usual—in anticipation of another irresistible plunge into bed.

But he tilted her head back with his hands cupping her face, then studied every feature as if making certain nothing about her had changed. His scrutiny was so intense, so desperate, alarm shivered through her. She had barely begun to come to terms with his talent, or gift, or
curse
—she wasn’t even certain what to call it. How well could he read her emotions, her thoughts?

“Clara and Joe were here while you were gone,” she said hoarsely. He didn’t look surprised. “I asked them questions. You’ve obviously kept Joe guessing about you, but not Clara. She told me I was right about you. What Hoke Doop said is true. You have a … gift.”

He shut his eyes and cursed softly, bitterly. Sam rested her head against his shoulder. “I’ve always believed in you—your loyalty, your love. Having you in my life was the one miracle I never doubted.” She slid her arms tighter around him and lifted her head. He opened his eyes. There were tears in them. Sam whispered, “Because of you, I can believe in this other miracle too.”

He didn’t say a word. No agreement, but no denial either this time. His unexplainable, unspoken suffering was wrapped around them like a silk web—deceptively fragile, as binding as steel. Sam burrowed her face into the crook of his neck. She felt the accelerated rhythm of his heart against her own chest. “It must color your whole life,” she continued, hoping something she could say would wedge further inside the wall around him. “Who you are, how you deal with other people, everything and everyone you love. Or hate.” Her fears merged into a tight knot in her throat. “It might explain why
you tried to make me think you didn’t want me anymore when you went to prison. And why you tried to keep me away after you came home. If you knew something about our lives you couldn’t tell me. Something that might hurt me.”

He dug his hands into her back. Could he sense her dread that she’d stumbled on the truth? Sam looked at him again. “We can’t go on this way. You have to tell me everything. If you know what I’m feeling right now, then you know I’m afraid, but you also know I can deal with it.”

But suddenly his head jerked up and he twisted toward the radio. Sam’s startled attention went from him to it. “What—” she began, but he held up a hand.

“…  We’ll update you on Governor Lomax’s condition as details come in,” the announcer was saying. “Recapping that story, Governor Orrin Lomax collapsed at his home in Pandora this afternoon and was taken to the hospital there. After doctors determined the governor had suffered a stroke, he was flown to the university medical center in Durham, where he has, at this time, been listed in critical condition. Mrs. Lomax was with the governor when he became ill, and went with him to Durham.”

Sam gripped Jake’s sleeve. The news was less shocking than the vivid emotions playing across his face. Satisfaction. Uncertainty. Every muscle in his body had tightened in defense. She called his name softly, urgently, as if trying to wake him from a nightmare.

The phone in the living room began to ring. She ignored it, her attention riveted to Jake. He pivoted toward the sound, head up, one hand closing like a hot clamp on her shoulder. His face was grim. “Get the phone,” he ordered in a low, gravelly voice.

Sam shook her head. “Whoever it is, they’ll call back. Please, talk to me. Tell me why you look as if you’re about to explode.”

“
Answer the phone,
” he repeated. A shudder went through him. “It’s important. It’s Charlotte.”

“
Sammie.
” Charlotte ran to her the instant Sam and Jake rounded the corner of the waiting area outside the doors to the emergency ward. The sight of Jake beside her sister, his expression fierce, clamped a torrent of words inside Charlotte’s throat. Panic gave way to caution.

Sammie threw an arm around her shoulders and stared at the red scrape along Charlotte’s jaw. “Tim did that to you?”

“He tried to grab my hair. I jerked away from him, and he caught the side of my face with his fingers.”

“How’s Ben?”

Tears slid down Charlotte’s face. “He dislocated his shoulder when he rammed the condo’s door open. And he got two cracked ribs when Tim threw him across my living room.
Sammie
, he was all broken up like that, but he kept trying to get up and fight. You remember how huge Tim is. It was David and Goliath, with me in the middle. All I could do was keep a stranglehold on Ben and hiss pathetic threats at Tim.”

“What did Tim want?” Sammie asked. Her eyes glittered with fury.

Charlotte shook her head warily, watching Jake. When he reached out and took her chin with one huge, big-knuckled hand, she froze. How much should she say in front of him? It might be better to tell Sammie the details, then let her decide how to confront Jake.

A doctor pushed through the double doors of the treatment rooms and motioned to Charlotte. “We’re going to keep your friend overnight. We’ve given him a shot for the pain. He’s not very coherent, but he keeps asking for you.”

Charlotte stepped away from Jake’s bewildering grasp, then took one of Sammie’s hands. “Come with me.”

“Jake too,” Sammie said quickly. “You have to tell us what Tim wanted. What he said.”

“No. Please. Please, not right now. Just come with me, big sister. I’m feeling really
small
at the moment.”

Sammie frowned and looked at Jake. He nodded. “Go on.” She touched his arm. “I’ll be right back.”

“I know,” he said.

Charlotte dragged Sammie into the examining area. The doctor pointed them toward a curtained cubicle. Charlotte ran to it and slipped inside. She forced a sob back when she saw Ben ensconced on a gurney, bare from the waist up, his right arm in a sling and a girdle of white tape binding his rib cage. She bent over him. He gazed up at her with groggy devotion but more than a hint of unhappiness. “Is it obvious,” he mumbled, “that I’m a pit bull trapped in the body of a poodle?”

“You’re no poodle,” she declared tearfully. She stroked his hair and kissed his forehead, then carefully took the hand of his good arm in hers. She was dimly aware of Sammie standing close beside her. “We’re
not
going to keep telling the doctor that you fell off a fishing dock. We’re going to tell him the truth. My own cousin did this to you. State senator or not, he can’t get away with this. I’m going to call the sheriff and report him.”

Ben scowled sleepily. “I don’t want to bring assault charges against him. I don’t want to sue him for my medical bills. I want to
kill
him.”

“
Don’t say that
. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

Charlotte bowed her head. Sammie took her by the shoulders. “Tell me what happened.”

“He stood over us,” Charlotte said raggedly. “He looked as if he’d beat us both to pieces if we got up from the floor. He wanted to give us a lecture, he said. He talked about me—what he did to me at Highview—the truth, just like it happened. He said he hated his mother and took it out on us, Sammie. He … pulled his hair back from the top of his ear—well, where the top of his ear used to be—and he said, ‘See? See what you did to me? It’s not as bad as what she did to me.’ ”

“His mother? Aunt Alex? Did he say what he meant by that?”

“Told us,” Ben said, mushing the words with his drugged, elegant drawl, “told us he’s glad Jake is punishing her.”

“Jake … 
what
?” Sammie’s voice rose desperately.

“I don’t understand it all,” Charlotte interjected, looking at her sister’s horrified face with sympathy. “Just that he thinks Jake is behind some kind of terrible investigation that’s being done. He mumbled about his mother, and Orrin—how they deserved it. How
he
deserved it, because he’d never had the courage to fight back.”

“Jake hasn’t done anything to him, Aunt Alex, or Orrin,” Sammie said, shaking Charlotte a little. “There’s no reason for him to care about them.”

“Oh, Sammie, you know how it’s always been. You know it hasn’t changed. Ben and I … a few days ago … we found some things in Jake’s tent. Newspaper articles about Aunt Alex and the others. He’s been involved in some sort of revenge against them, Sammie. And they’ve figured that much out.” She shook her head wildly. “Tim said that, and then he just walked out. Just left us on the floor and calmly walked out, got in his car, and drove off.”

“Hey, hey, look at me,” Ben mumbled with moon-eyed determination. He tugged at Charlotte’s hands and winced, but kept tugging until she clutched his arm to make him stop hurting himself. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said, apparently unconcerned with making sense or nonsense of anything other than his own train of thought. His voice was hoarse, loving. “You didn’t do anything wrong. With Tim. He’s insane. You understand? No more … embarrassment. Promise?”

Charlotte broke down, sobbing softly and squeezing his hand with infinite care. “I love you. I didn’t want you to know.”

“It’s all right. When I can walk without my bones squeaking, I’ll … kill him. Kill him for hurting you.”

“
No!
”

She was so intent on soothing his lovely, violent attitude that it took her a moment to realize that Sammie had left them.

Jake was gone.
Gone
. Oh, God, he hadn’t needed to hear the details. He’d gleaned the basics when he touched Charlotte. Sam realized that now.

And he’d encouraged Sam to go into the examining room so he could leave before she followed him. She stumbled into the parking lot and retched when she saw the empty space where their car had been. He’d been keeping so much more from her than she’d ever imagined. What it was, she still didn’t know precisely. But it was deadly.

He had gone to take care of business without her—shut her out, just as he’d done ten years ago.

But this time she would find a way to save him from himself, and from the past, no matter what secrets it harbored.

Jake found Tim’s car on an old logging trail deep in the lap of the Razorbacks. The cluster of high, thin ridges flanked the more rounded peaks north of Pandora. Jake had followed him there by memory as much as instinct. Tim had staked out one of the Razorbacks during high school; he had claimed the highest peak as his personal territory, the place he retreated to after football games, usually with a girl and case of beer in tow.