“I won’t wake him.”
Jessie hesitated, unsure. Then she registered the tension that held him and the emotion that had roughened his voice and her heart twisted.
“Yes, of course.” She stood and led the way out of the kitchen and down the hall, quietly easing open the door to Rowdy’s bedroom and stepping inside.
Zach walked past her to halt next to the bed. Moonlight poured through the window, slanting across the tangled sheets and illuminating the three-year-old. He lay with arms and legs akimbo, his favorite stuffed Elmo beside him on the pillow and a row of other stuffed animals just beyond. He was sound asleep, his hair rumpled, his face innocent and vulnerable in the pale light.
Zach stood motionless for several minutes. Then he bent over Rowdy, gently brushing a forefinger across his cheek, before leaving the room.
Jessie closed Rowdy’s door and followed Zach. He strode through the darkened living room and paused at the screen door to look back at her.
“You’ve kept him from me for three years, Jessie. Three years I’ll never get back. You should have told me.” His voice was thick with turmoil and deep conviction.
He turned and walked out of the house.
The screen door slapped shut and his footfalls sounded on the porch boards, followed by the throaty growl of his truck engine. When silence replaced the fading sounds as he drove away, Jessie slumped, releasing her rigidly held muscles that had quivered with the effort to keep herself together through their conversation.
The very air in the kitchen had heated and thickened with the sexual attraction that still burned between them. She’d felt buffeted and bruised by both the sparks and the emotional stress made stronger by his outrage.
I should have told him.
Too late now, she thought, much too late. Now she had to deal with the mess she’d created by keeping silent for so long. Not to mention the outright lie she’d told her dad and brothers. How could she have believed a fake marriage would make it easier for them to accept her being a single mother?
Granted, the pregnancy had been difficult enough to deal with. She’d had nausea all day long, and had been always exhausted even though she’d slept ten to twelve hours a day. She’d found herself crying one minute, giddy the next. She’d been barely able to keep up with her homework—deciding how to deal with telling Zach was beyond her. She’d finally compromised—she’d inform Zach of their baby if and when he reappeared in her life.
She groaned and dropped her head into her hands.
Her grandmother had a favorite saying about chickens coming home to roost. As a child, Jessie had never understood the metaphor of chickens for troubles but as an adult, it made perfect sense. She only wished her grandmother had confided a foolproof way of solving the whole chickens-roosting scenario.
She rose and carried the two glasses, still full of tea, to the sink, then headed to her bedroom. Even a soothing hot bath didn’t relax her enough to sleep, however, and she lay staring at the shadowed ceiling long after midnight, considering and discarding possible solutions to her dilemma.
Zach drove away from Jessie’s house, raw inside. He’d been physically wounded in combat more than once, had almost died a couple of times and been forced to spend weeks recuperating. Gunshots and knives hadn’t inflicted nearly as much pain as knowing Jessie didn’t trust him with his own son.
He slammed his fist against the steering wheel in frustration. Would Harlan and Lonnie’s bad actions forever taint his reputation?
Maybe I shouldn’t have come back here.
He’d built a life away from Wolf Creek, free of the label attached to the Kerrigan name. He’d nearly forgotten how constricting it felt to deal with that on a daily basis.
The deserted highway stretched ahead of him, his headlights creating a tunnel through the darkness. He remembered all too clearly the emotions that drove him when he was a teenager and the last night he’d spent in Wolf Creek….
Zach strolled down the carnival midway. High school graduation was officially behind him and in three more days, he’d report to Marine boot camp. He wouldn’t be sorry to leave Wolf Creek, he thought, pausing to watch grade-school kids and their parents shriek as the Tilt-A-Whirl ride sped up. He’d miss his sister and mother but they could visit him wherever the military stationed him in the future. It would give them a chance to leave Montana and see more of the world.
There was nothing for him in Wolf Creek. He wouldn’t be coming back.
Marcus Kerrigan was one of the richest men in the state but Zach fully expected his grandfather to leave the entire Kerrigan Conglomerate holdings to his Uncle Harlan. If Zach ever had a fortune, he’d have to earn it himself.
And I will, he vowed. It had always seemed ironic to Zach that he was the grandson who loved the ranchland his grandfather had spent his lifetime accruing. But it was his Uncle Harlan and cousin Lonnie who would one day own it all. And probably destroy it within ten years.
He shook off his grim thoughts and looked about him. He wasn’t in a carnival mood. He’d head for home and pack, maybe spend his last days in Montana camping out under the stars.
He was nearly to the end of the midway, moving purposefully toward the exit when someone crowed with delight, drawing his attention.
“Yay, I won!” A sandy-haired young boy at the ball-toss booth grinned ear-to-ear; beside him, a little girl who looked about five years old clapped with excitement.
“You sure did, sonny.” The carnival barker grinned. “Pick your prize—anything on the second row.”
“But I knocked down all the milk bottles. Don’t I get one of the stuffed bears on the top row?”
“You have to knock down all the milk bottles twice in a row to get one of the big prizes. But you can choose anything you like off the second row.” The middle-aged, ruddy-faced man picked up a smaller stuffed bear. “How about this one?”
“You didn’t tell me I had to knock down the bottles two times to win a big prize.” The little boy stood his ground.
“Look, kid. Take it or leave it.” The barker dropped his amiable smile; his tone became surly.
“Come on, Bobby.” The little girl tugged at the boy’s arm, her face pale beneath her freckles.
“No. I won the big teddy bear, fair and square.”
Zach recognized the two kids. The boy was eight-year-old Bobby Sharpe; the little girl was his sister, Cindy. Their father owned a small farm south of town and was a friend of Charlie Ankrum, who worked for Zach’s grandfather and had befriended Zach after his father died.
He glanced around. The ball-toss stall was located across from a fortune-teller’s tent at the end of the midway and only the unlit expanse of the dark parking lot stretched beyond. Behind them, the noisy crowd and music shifted and moved under the bright neon lights but that was several yards away and this section of the carnival was nearly deserted.
Bobby and Cindy’s parents were nowhere in sight. In fact, there were no other adults close enough to intervene. Except Zach.
He didn’t hesitate, changing his direction to approach the booth.
“Hey, Bobby. Is there a problem here?”
They turned, looking up at him. Both childish faces held relief. “Hi, Mr. Kerrigan.” Bobby pointed at the barker behind the counter. “I won but he won’t give me my prize.”
“Is that right?” Zach queried.
“Just a little misunderstanding,” the barker said, his tone once again amiable, his smile revealing gritted white teeth. The smile didn’t reach his small eyes, however. “This young man thought he won a bigger prize than he actually did, that’s all.”
“What did he win?” Zach looked at the barker, keeping his voice lazy despite his instant dislike of the beefy man, whose buttons strained on the Hawaiian print shirt that stretched too tightly across his midsection.
“Anything on the second row.” The man waved expansively.
Zach assessed the three shelves of prizes. The first row was crowded with cheap plastic t
oys, the second with small stuffed animals no taller than seven inches, but the top row had two-feet tall, plush teddy bears. “And what are the rules for winning a bear off the top row?”
“The player has to knock down all the milk bottles two times in succession.”
“And did you tell him that?” Zach asked, his voice still calm.
“I’m sure I did,” the man responded promptly. “And even if I didn’t, the rules are clearly written on the side of the booth.”
“Where?” Zach asked.
“Bottom left corner.”
Zach scanned the painted canvas that made up the front of the booth on each side. He finally located the notice printed in tiny, nearly illegible letters.
“I see.” He eyed the barker. “Any other rules for winning that you didn’t tell my friend Bobby? Maybe posted on the back of the booth somewhere?”
“No, no, that’s it.”
“No rule about how many times a person can win?”
“No.”
Zach turned to Bobby. “How many teddy bears do you want, Bobby?”
His eyes rounded and he glanced at Cindy, who was staring at Zach in silent fascination. “One for my sister, and one for my mom, and one for me.”
Zach nodded and pulled out his wallet, took out several bills, and laid them on the wooden counter. “Your sign says four balls for a dollar. I’ll take eight, to start.”
The barker took his money and handed him four balls, giving him an oily smile.
With the same deadly precision he’d used to earn the title of best pitcher in Montana’s high school baseball league, Zach wound up and threw. The speed and power behind the ball knocked all of the milk bottles off the stand with such force that they flew across the stand, slamming against the canvas back wall.
“That’s one,” Zach said, casually tossing and catching the second ball in one hand.
Bobby and Cindy yelled with enthusiasm and within moments, a small crowd gathered behind Zach. The barker was no longer smiling, in fact, he was red-faced with anger but he didn’t have the courage to refuse to let Zach play.
Zach methodically threw one ball after another until the top row of prizes was empty. Bobby and Cindy’s arms were filled with plush bears and several more lay atop the counter.
“Got enough, Bobby?” Zach asked, looking down at them.
“Yeah.” Bobby’s face glowed with pleasure. “This is great. Thanks, Mr. Kerrigan.”
“No problem, kid.” Zach grabbed a fistful of the barker’s loud shirt and pulled him closer. “Take this as a warning, friend. Don’t rip off any kids again while you’re here.”
The man didn’t answer, his flat brown eyes furious. Zach released him, ruffled Bobby’s hair and walked away.
He nearly bumped into two adolescent girls just outside the fortune-teller’s tent. They stared at him, wide-eyed. Zach instantly recognized the taller of the two by her red hair and the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Jessie McCloud’s slender body and fine-boned young face held the promise of beauty equal to her mother’s.
He nodded abruptly but they didn’t respond, although he felt their stares between his shoulder blades as he left the colorful midway behind for the darkness of the parking lot.
Zach realized he was nearly home and, slowing, turned into the lane leading to his house, the headlights briefly illuminating the big mailbox with Z. Kerrigan in bold new letters.
That night at the carnival was the last he’d spent in Wolf Creek until recently. He’d enjoyed his last few days in Montana camping out on the land he loved, Zach remembered, then reported directly to boot camp.
The incident was brief and he doubted Jessie even registered it, but he’d never forgotten her expression of distrust and wariness at the carnival. She’d worn the exact same look on her face when the police marched him and Lonnie away from the alley behind Mullers’ Candy Shoppe years earlier.
And he’d seen that look again when, in the Starbucks queue in Missoula, she’d glanced over her shoulder and recognized him standing in line behind her.
I should have been smart enough to realize there was no chance Jessie McCloud would ever trust me after what she believes Lonnie and Harlan did to Chase.
He parked outside the gate to the ranch house and headed inside. He wasn’t a drinking man but before he went to bed, he downed three shots of whiskey with the fervent hope it would let him sleep without dreaming of Jessie.
Chapter Five
“Mommy, look. Uncle Zach’s here.” Rowdy beamed with delight.
Zach leaned against the closed door of his silver truck parked outside the open gate to the playground, his long legs crossed at the ankle. His face was shaded by the brim of his hat.
“Yes, I see, Rowdy.” Jessie was determined to ignore the jolt of sexual awareness that accelerated her heartbeat and tightened her nerves. She mentally braced herself to cope with his anger. He wouldn’t have forgiven her overnight. He might never forgive her and she had to remember his presence in her life was only because of Rowdy.
As they approached, he unfolded his arms, pushing away from the truck to stand facing them, waiting. His lips curved in a welcoming grin when Rowdy tugged his hand from Jessie’s and ran down the sidewalk.
“Hi, Uncle Zach.” He skidded to a stop, tilting his head back to look up. “What are you doing here?”
“Your Mom told me you might be at the park this morning and since I was in town on business, I thought I’d stop by and say hello. What’s this?” He touched a forefinger to the miniature dump truck in Rowdy’s hand.
“My truck. Wanna see what it can do?”
“Sure.” Zach looked up as Jessie reached them. “Good morning, Jessie.”
Jessie felt branded as his gaze moved from her face to her toes, then back up to meet hers once again. He didn’t bother trying to hide the male appreciation that heated his gold eyes and softened the hard line of his mouth.
“Good morning, Zach.” Her tone was as carefully polite as his had been but she knew he hadn’t missed her reaction. Her pulse raced and her skin felt as if his palm had stroked it in slow exploration from her throat to her toes, lingering in between on all the curves that now ached and yearned. Damn him. Why could he still do this to her?
“I’m gonna show Uncle Zach how my trucks work in the sand. He’s gonna play with me, Mom.”
“Is he?” Jessie smiled and slipped the strap of his small backpack from his shoulder. “Why don’t I carry this while you tell Zach about your trucks.”
“Okay.” Rowdy unzipped the pack and pulled out a small yellow metal earthmover. “You can use this one. Come on.” He grabbed Zach’s hand and tugged him along with him.
Rowdy skipped to keep up with Zach’s long strides as they crossed the wide strip of lawn between the sidewalk and the park’s play area. The sandbox was a large golden square in the rich green grass with wooden planks edging the sides at ground level. Zach sat on his heels on the grass while Rowdy dropped down onto the sand and began to demonstrate his toys.
Jessie followed them more slowly, stopping at a picnic table to deposit Rowdy’s backpack. The wooden seat was warm against the back of her knees and thighs below the hem of her white shorts. She took her paperback book and sunglasses from the pack, pretending to read behind the concealment of the dark lenses while she watched Zach and Rowdy.
Rowdy chattered away, explaining the complexities of moving sand and loading it into his miniature dump truck. Zach’s replies were often followed by hoots of laughter from Rowdy.
Except for an older gentleman who walked a Jack Russell terrier in the far corner, dawdling in the shade of a huge maple, the park was occupied only by them. Then a car slowed and parked a short distance from Zach’s truck. Three young children scrambled out and ran noisily toward the play area, followed more leisurely by a white-haired woman. Jessie and Rowdy often saw Barbara and her grandchildren on Saturday mornings. The two little boys joined Rowdy and Zach at the sandbox while their sist
er claimed a seat on the swing set. Barbara Ingram settled into the swing beside her granddaughter, smiling and waving hello to Jessie, who returned the courtesy.
Zach spent a few moments with the three little boys before he rose, brushing sand from his Levi’s, and left Rowdy building in the sand with his friends. He stepped over the bench and sat down across from Jessie at the picnic table.
“He’s quite a kid,” he commented. “A great kid. You should be proud of him, Jessie.”
“Thanks,” she said softly, blinking back tears. Somehow, his quiet words of approval were important and eased a worry deep inside that she hadn’t known was there. “He reminds me a lot of you.”
“He does?” Zach looked surprised.
She nodded, welcoming the truce Zach seemed to have called in the tangled web of emotions and hostility that lay between them. “He has your eyes. And your dark hair. Your smile.” A rueful half-smile curved her mouth. “In fact, the only thing about him that seems to have come from me is the auburn sheen to his hair.” She lifted a brow, curious. “Isn’t that how you knew who he was—because he looks like you?”
“Not at first. He told Rachel about his birthday party. I asked him how old he was, and when he told me, I did the math. Then I looked at him, really looked at him, and I knew beyond a doubt.”
“Yes,” she said with a small smile. “Difficult to deny with those eyes. Do you think Rachel guessed?”
“I don’t think so. If she did, she didn’t say anything.”
“I thought she might call but I haven’t heard from her.”
He leaned his arms on the table and watched her. “What will you tell her if she calls?”
“I haven’t decided. I’m hoping I can dodge talking to her until after I tell my parents.”
“When will that be?”
“Today or tomorrow. I want to get it over with.” She frowned. “You do realize that once I tell my family, it’s possible my dad and brothers will come looking for you.”
His eyes narrowed. “And why would they do that?”
“Because they believe Rowdy’s father had a responsibility to me. Despite my repeatedly telling them it’s my fault Rowdy’s father is absent, they insist on believing it’s a male obligation to know if he’s made a woman pregnant. Stubborn as they are, I’m afraid they won’t listen to me when I tell them, for probably the thousandth time, that the blame is all mine.”
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