Stonebrook Cottage (21 page)

pulled her against him, deepening their kiss, breaking down her natural reserve, until finally she cupped his waist just above his holster and felt the muscles and the heat of his skin through his shirt.

He drew his mouth away from hers, still holding her, still close. "I went too fast with you two weeks ago, but I don't regret it. I can't." His voice was low and filled with an intense, direct passion, a kind of honesty that itself left her breathless. "I'm not afraid of hurting you. I don't want to, but I'm not afraid of it, because that'd mean backing off right now, and I'm not going to."

"You're not afraid of anything." There was no lightness in her tone.

"I am, Kara. I'm afraid of not being capable of the kind of love you want and deserve, the kind of commitment Jack and Susanna have for each other. You've watched them since you were a kid. They're soul mates." He dropped his hands, stepping slightly away from her, his eyes black and hard against the soft summer sky. "I'm not anyone's soul mate."

"Sam…" Kara fought for air, a chance to regain her balance, and tried to adopt a teasing tone. "I don't know, maybe I should sneak off on you more often—"

He touched her nose, then her chin. "One day you're not going to make jokes to cover for how you feel. You're going to tell me." He straightened and stepped back from her, grabbing the last sack of groceries. "Now, let's talk ground rules."

"Who says you get to make the rules?" She didn't know what else to say, how to keep him from holding the high ground now that he'd claimed it.

"All right, Miss Kara." His eyes gleamed, a twitch of humor on the corners of his mouth. "You can have input. Mind if I go first?"

"No. Go ahead."

"You don't leave here without me. The kids don't leave here without me." He rocked back on his heels. "Your turn."

"That's it? That's all you're demanding—"

"Requesting. Yes, ma'am, that's it. What's your input?"

She eyed him and realized he was having fun with her, at least to a certain extent. Well, why not? She smiled. "Do I get my gun back?"

"You must be hell in a courtroom."

"Let's just say you don't want me cross-examining you if your story doesn't hold up."

"Ditto. If we were in Texas, we wouldn't be talking ground rules. We'd be talking bail."

She snatched up the milk jug. "Bet I could have disarmed you while you were kissing me."

"You were too busy kissing me back."

"You're cocky as hell when it comes to women, aren't you?"

He grinned. "I know you'd rather kiss me than go for my gun. You went to Yale. You're smart."

It didn't take a Yale education to know that, Kara thought with a touch of amusement. Sam Temple was not an ordinary man, and this was not an ordinary situation.

His grin faded, and he lifted out the last grocery sack and held it in one arm. "What's wrong with your governor friend?"

Kara shivered despite the warm air. "I don't know."

He seemed to believe her. "Come on, let's fire up the hibachi and throw some dogs on. You can tell me who the players are in this state." He started across the lawn, peeking in at the groceries. "A lot of junk here."

"I didn't think it was the time to enforce good nutrition."

"Probably not." He put one foot on the bottom step and glanced back at her, no hint of humor in his expression now. "One more thing, Kara. If you throw up again for no good reason, you and I are taking a trip to the local drugstore."

"There's a well-stocked first-aid kit in the cottage—"

"Does it include a home pregnancy test kit?"

His black eyes drilled through her, but she managed a scowl. "It was food poisoning."

He didn't say a word as she pushed past him, her mouth still tasting of his, her head spinning.

Pete Jericho drove out to Stonebrook Cottage after lunch and found Henry and Lillian playing barefoot on the tire swing out back like a couple of ordinary kids. He greeted Kara politely, and she responded with her usual warmth, pretending she didn't know he still resented her for the plea bargain. He knew he wasn't being fair. Allyson had told him as much. He sometimes wondered if Allyson would have taken up with him had Kara stayed in Connecticut, if somehow Kara's presence had helped stall things between them.

He'd worked hard all morning and smelled it. Kara introduced him to her Texas Ranger friend, and Pete could tell right away Sam Temple knew about his jail time. Either Kara had told him or Temple had some kind of cop radar that pointed out the ex-cons. Maybe both. Pete groaned inwardly. Maybe he was just paranoid.

He wanted to get the kids alone to ask them about the tree house, but the opportunity didn't present itself.

He didn't want to say anything in front of Kara or the Texas Ranger and cause trouble for the children, or come off as overdramatizing. So he just let it go.

He wondered about Temple. The Texan didn't seem Kara's type, but who was? Hatch Corrigan had a thing for her, and Big Mike had, too, if Pete wasn't totally off base about what he'd seen and heard before she'd headed back to Texas. They were both a lot older than she was. Temple looked to be about the same age, and he was a law enforcement officer, armed, definitely not a Yalie.

Well, who knew with Kara Galway. She and Allyson had been friends for years, very different people who loved and trusted each other. Pete figured that sort of friendship wasn't something that went according to logic. It was there, and he had to live with it.

"Would you like some lemonade or iced tea?" Kara offered.

"No, thanks. Just wanted to stop by. Kids are hanging out with you here for a day or two?"

She nodded. "I haven't seen them in quite a while."

"If you need anything, you know where to find me."

He adjusted the rope on the tire swing and left, feeling vaguely foolish for having come in the first place. What made him think he could be a stepfather for those kids? He'd known them since they were babies, but he was someone they'd hire after Madeleine died and they inherited Stockwell Farm. He could see himself in thirty years, like his father, puttering up on his tractor, arguing over cordwood. Henry and Lillian couldn't really remember their father. Lawrence had been so much older than Allyson, and maybe that was part of the problem—she was looking for a father figure. Pete was just a handy romp in the hay.

He headed up the road to finish work on the retaining wall, but Madeleine cornered him out on the patio. She had a tall glass of iced tea and a full pitcher, but didn't offer him any. "I can't get used to having state troopers around whenever Allyson is here," she said, but Pete thought she was secretly pleased at all the activity. "She's been on the phone or in conference with Hatch most of the afternoon. She says she has state business to conduct. I understand, of course, but what state business could be more important than her own children?"

"I just came from the cottage. They're fine."

"They're
not
fine. They can't be fine if they took the trouble to run away. Allyson's doing nothing to get to the bottom of it."

"Maybe it's not a mystery to her—"

"Nonsense. She just doesn't want to know the truth. She's not one for discipline, you know. In my mother's day, they'd be in for a good buggy-whipping."

Pete grinned at her. "Your
mother's
day, Mrs. Stock-well? You're not that old. A buggy-whipping's more like your grandmother's day."

"I'm eighty. I never thought I'd live this long."

She was on a roll, but Pete decided he'd gone in deep enough with her. "Maybe Allyson's taking advantage of having Kara here and clearing the decks so she and the kids can have some uninterrupted time after Kara leaves."

Madeleine looked at him over her frosted glass, and he could see he'd surprised her. "You're so sensible, Pete. I'm not sure I knew that eight or ten years ago."

He wondered if that was an apology for what she'd done to escalate the charges against him and land him in jail, but he didn't ask—she'd only deny she'd done anything. She'd say she never thought ill of him or wanted to stymie his affection for her daughter-in-law in any way. She'd say
affection,
too. Even when she talked about her four husbands, she never said she'd loved them. She'd had great affection for them. There'd been lovers on the side, too, from what he'd heard, but Madeleine liked to pretend lust and sex were for commoners.

He got back to work. He waved to a state trooper posted outside the barn. No wave back. No sign of Allyson at all, but Pete knew she was in there, and he pictured her in the moonlight, her head thrown back as she climaxed. His heartbeat quickened, and his chest felt as if it were being squeezed, his future, hope, everything he'd ever wanted and cherished slowly being choked out of him.

Kara slipped into the bathroom and locked herself inside, shakily opening one of her pregnancy test kits and easing out its contents. She was dizzy, probably just from nerves, but if she passed out and hit the floor with a loud klunk, and Sam had to beat down the door— well, she wouldn't pass out.

She followed the directions on the kit. While she waited for the results, she took a shower, rubbing soap over her abdomen, wondering what she would do if she were pregnant. Did she want to be? How would she proceed with Sam, her family, work? What would a baby feel like moving inside her? Would she be a good mother?

She thought of her own mother, reaching out a bloodied hand to her.
I'll take care of you, Kara…

When she stepped out of the shower, she made herself wrap up in a bath sheet and take a calming breath before she looked at her test stick.

One pink line.

Negative.

It was the damn seafood tacos. Nerves. A bug.

She sank onto the edge of the bathtub and cried softly into her towel.

Lillian, who'd had hot dogs for lunch, informed Sam that she'd decided to become a vegetarian. She plopped onto the Adirondack chair next to him. "Did you know that some people eat
frogs?
"

"Not the whole frog. Just the legs."

"That's so gross."

"Like orange macaroni and cheese isn't?" They'd had that for lunch with the hot dogs.

She giggled. Their mother had stopped by for another brief visit, bringing fresh clothes and, incongruously, a bouquet of asters and zinnias from their grandmother. Henry and Lillian showed her where Pete had fixed their tire swing and told her about catching frogs and about Kara buying them onion rings. Sam didn't think Allyson Stockwell looked any better than when he'd left her in the field, but her children didn't

seem to notice.

"Some people eat snake, too," he told Lillian.

She gasped. "They do
not.
"

He smiled. He thought she was enjoying being appalled by meat-eaters. "I've tried it. It's not my favorite. I like ‘gator better. The tail's nice and tender."

"You mean you eat
alligators?
" She jumped up from her chair and ran up the back steps, calling for her brother. "Henry! Henry, Sam eats the
awfulest
things!"

"And you wonder why they have funny ideas about Texans." Kara walked around from the front of the cottage, her hair damp on the ends, her feet bare. She had on shorts and a lightweight sweater. Her cheeks were raw and red-looking, her eyes puffy as she sank into the chair Lillian had vacated. She stared up at the maple leaves flickering in the late-afternoon sun, and she said without looking at him, "I don't care if you can tell I've been crying. Everything suddenly got to me. Big Mike's death. The kids and their problems. Allyson and how overwhelmed she is.
You.
"

"Say the word and I'll take you back to Texas."

"I can't run—"

"And you can't solve these people's problems for them."

"I'm not trying to. I'm trying—" She sighed up at the tree, as if she was trying to make sense of its branches, the shifting light taking some of the worry out of her face. "I can't leave Henry and Lillian, not right now."

"Because they came to you for help," he said.

She nodded. "Come on, Sam. You get this. There's nothing complicated about it. I made a promise that I intend to keep."

Sam was entirely unconvinced. "If I had all the facts, I might agree with you. Since I don't, I will remain skeptical."

"You were born skeptical."

"Helps."

She rose, agitated, maybe a little stir-crazy. Kara Galway was not a woman who would handle idleness well. She walked in front of him, and he threw out one leg and caught her at the knees. When she lost her balance, he pulled her onto his lap and held her close. "Take me off your list of things that make you cry." Her shirt had raised up, exposing the smooth, taut skin of her lower abdomen. He placed his palm there. "If you're pregnant, I'll take care of you."

He expected her to bristle and tell him she could damn well take care of herself, but she didn't. She whispered, "I know you would," and her body went slack, her forehead resting against his shoulder as if she just wanted to stay there in his arms for a while. Forever would suit him.

It didn't last. He felt her muscles tense, and she exploded to her feet. "I don't like needing anyone."

"I don't, either, but I didn't say you needed me to take care of you. I said I would."

"Well, it's all a moot point." Her eyes shone with tears, undermining the fierceness of her words. "I'm not pregnant."

Sam was silent and very still for a moment. He was surprised at the emptiness he felt, sudden but unmistakable. "We'd have cute babies together, Kara. Black-eyed, stubborn, independent as hell."

"Listen to us. A couple of damn romantics, and you a Texas Ranger and me a defense attorney. We've seen too much." She gave a small, mirthless laugh, the tears still unspilled. "A wife and a child would be a ball and chain for you right now. Don't think I don't know it. You're ambitious, Sam. You've taken on every bit of hard training you can, you earned your master's part-time—Jack says you could be governor if you decided to quit the Rangers."

"I'm not going to quit." He watched her, could feel the doubt in her, about him, who he was, what he wanted. He was aware of emotions surfacing in her that she usually kept carefully at bay, not all of them pleasant emotions involving duty and honor and love, but fear, inadequacies, secret wants and desires. "Kara, you don't know me at all."