Roan

by Jennifer Blake

  “Like waiting for Santa Claus, can’t wait to open the package and discover what they have.”

  “They haven’t had an ultrasound done to find out?”

  “And ruin the surprise? Who’d want to do that?”

  It was an interesting attitude, one few of her friends would have understood, Tory thought, since instant gratification was their watchword. It was nice to come across a man who could savor anticipation. Come to think of it, Roan had something of the same quality.

  “What about you?” she asked. “Any prospects in that direction?”

  “Lord, no, love. I’m not married.”

  “I know that,” she answered with some asperity. “What I meant was, do you have your eye on someone?”

  “Present company excepted?”

  “Of course,” she answered at once, then was a little surprised at how easily the bland assurance was made. Clay was a good-looking guy, almost devastatingly so, if you liked the devil-may-care type. He wasn’t for her. She preferred someone a bit more serious, someone rock-steady that you could depend on to be there, always and without question.

  “Got your eye on someone else, that it?” he asked with a soft note in his voice.

  “What?” She turned her gaze toward him, then as she met the knowing look in the rich blue of his eyes, the realization struck her that she’d been watching Roan. That was a bad habit, one she needed to break. Voice a little stiff, she went on before he could answer. “No, of course not. It would be foolish while I’m a prisoner, wouldn’t it?”

  “Doesn’t hurt to dream.”

  “Doesn’t help, either,” she said under her breath.

  “Meaning?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on, out with it.” He upended his beer bottle for the last swallow, then turned to set it on a convenient table.

  “I just…feel out of place, I suppose.” She shifted uncomfortably, since she knew very well what he was thinking. He was wrong. She had hardly spoken to Roan since the afternoon before. The sheriff had slept alone in his room while she stayed in hers, then spent most of today getting ready for the party. It was plain enough that the incident in the back seat of the Super Bird had meant less to him than she had imagined. He was giving her no chance to discuss it, much less repeat it.

  “That’s it. Really,” she insisted as Clay remained silent.

  “Yes, well, but you’ve been meeting people this evening, haven’t you?”

  “A few.” They had all, Roan, Jake and Pop Benedict, presented her to one cousin after the other, but she had little to say to them, after all. It was no big surprise when they’d politely drifted away to join other groups where they had more in common.

  She’d watched the cousins she’d heard most about from Roan and Jake, wishing she dared join them. But Kane had seemed as formidable in his way as the sheriff, and his wife, Regina, with her red hair in soft curls around her shoulders, freckles dusting her nose, and stunning set of antique cameo jewelry, was far too busy with people asking after her welfare to be approached. Luke was surrounded, as well. His wife, well-known romance author, April Halstead, in peach silk and with her golden-brown hair in an elegant twist, spoke with such flashing wit that Tory didn’t feel up to her standard at the moment. Even Mr. Crompton and Miss Elise, with their gentle smiles and gracious manners, were so obviously the local gentry and beloved by all that she didn’t have the courage to bring herself to their notice.

  She finished a bit lamely, “I suppose the truth is that I have no right to be here.”

  “That’s for Roan to decide, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not sure it’s crossed his mind I might have a problem with it.”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” he said on a dry laugh. “Not much escapes old Roan, especially not much that goes on with you. For instance, he’s wondering right this minute what we’re finding so all-fired interesting to talk about, and how he can break it up without it looking as if he’s riding herd on you. Or on me.”

  “You’re joking,” she began with a glance in the direction he indicated.

  “Don’t look!” Clay warned in an urgent undertone. “Not unless you want to bring him hotfooting over here. But maybe that’s exactly what you do want?”

  “You’re certifiable, do you know that?” She kept her voice light with an effort. He was right, of course, though the last thing she’d ever do was admit it.

  “Yeah,” he mourned. “Nobody ever takes me seriously.”

  “Poor baby,” she said, falling from sheer stress into the kind of mindless, cocktail party repartee that had once been second nature. “I expect they’re happy to take you for any and everything else.”

  He stepped back as if in shock, his manner mocking though there was something close to discomfort in his eyes. “Why, Donna, sugar pie, sweetheart, my own honey child, whatever can you mean?”

  “Nothing, nothing. Excuse me a second, will you? I need to check on the brisket in the oven and see if I can figure out some way to arrange all the pots and bowls of food people have brought.”

  “Coward,” he called after her as she walked away.

  She looked back with a smile. “You got it.”

  She was lifting lids and peeling back aluminum wrap, trying to separate meat dishes from vegetable dishes and salads from desserts, when April and Regina came into the kitchen. She divided a brief smile between the two women, but kept on with what she was doing.

  “We thought you might need a hand in here,” Luke’s wife said, her gaze both bright and curious.

  The expectant mother, Regina, seconded that with a smile that illuminated the softness in her face. “Just tell us what to do.”

  Tory felt a brief flash of a kind of acceptance that she hadn’t known since the cliques and in-groups of boarding school. Was it just wishful thinking, or was there really something in the way the women looked at her, as if they thought she had something in common, knew there was something more than a jailor-prisioner connection between Roan and herself. For no good reason she could think of, hot color flooded into her face.

  “I don’t know, really. I’m not too sure how to go about this,” she said. That was the truth. She was used to buffet meals for large groups, but her participation in the arrangements usually consisted of discussing the menu with the caterer and writing his check.

  “Nothing to it,” April assured her. “Just put all the meat dishes together with forks handy, and stand back.”

  It wasn’t quite that easy, of course, but there was no great difficulty either. Logic was the key. Paper plates were stacked first, along with silverware and napkins, then followed in order by salads, meats, vegetables and desserts. Glasses for drinks were on a separate table so anyone who wanted could pick them up on a second trip without breaking into the serving line. April helped Tory lay out food and decide which dishes might need reheating, while Regina filled plastic glasses with ice and poured tea and other cold drinks.

  They talked of generalities as they worked, though Tory noticed April glancing at her once or twice with a quirk of amusement about her mouth. After a few minutes, Tory intercepted one of those quick glances and lifted a brow in inquiry.

  “Sorry, it’s nothing, really,” April said with a quick shake of her head while she sliced a baked ham with deft strokes. “Only, the funny thing is that I warned Roan, a while back, that you’d come along one day.”

  “You what?”

  “It was at Regina’s and Kane’s wedding reception. I was teasing Roan about having no steady woman. He said he had no time for one, and I made some smart remark about him making time when a female came along and held a gun to his head. Honestly, I think I must be psychic.”

  “Or Roan is,” Regina said with laughter in her voice. “Tell Donna his answer.”

  April gave the other woman a quelling glance. “Oh, I don’t think she wants to know that.”

  “I think maybe I do.” Tory looked from one to the other.

  April bit her lip an ins
tant, then gave a quick nod. “He said any woman who did that would find herself flat on her back. To which, I said…”

  “Maybe that’s where she’ll want to be if you’re lucky,” Regina put in with a chuckle.

  “And he said then…?” Tory asked with dangerous calm.

  “To the best of my memory, it was something like, ‘Let’s hope so.”’ April glanced at Tory’s set face. “Please, it was a joke. That’s all.”

  “I’m sure.” Tory turned her gaze to the pie she was uncovering. “Somehow, it doesn’t strike me as very comical.”

  Regina came close to put a hand on Tory’s arm. “We’re sorry, really. The whole idea seemed so wildly improbable when April told me what he’d said, so out of character, that for it to actually happen is the kind of coincidence that makes you laugh. Roan may look stern, but he’s probably the most tender and caring of the Benedict guys. Courting women at gunpoint just isn’t his style.”

  “Not by any stretch of the imagination,” April added.

  The gazes of the two women were so earnest that it was impossible for Tory to hold on to her annoyance. She looked away as she said, “I think you’ve got it all wrong, anyway. Courting has nothing to do with why I’m here at Dog Trot.”

  “If you think that,” April said, holding her knife poised in the air, “then you have a lot to learn about Benedict men.”

  “Absolutely.” Regina’s agreement was dry. “They fall fast and hard, and when they do, nothing stands in their way. They’ll do whatever it takes to hold on to the woman they want—even if it means bending a rule or two, or even a few laws.”

  “Oh, please. Roan Benedict is the most stiff-necked, law-abiding, unforgiving man ever born! He wouldn’t bend one of his precious laws if his life depended on it.”

  “No? Let’s see,” Regina said, a considering look in her green eyes. “According to Kane, he’s holding you here illegally since no charge has been filed against you—and no charge has been filed because he talked Cousin Betsy out of the notion. In the meantime, he’s diverting sheriff’s office personnel to his private use for your sake, a clear violation. And he’s concealing the extent of your recovery from your injuries so no one will question his actions. That’s just for starters.”

  Tory stared at her. Finally, she said, “He isn’t endangering his job, is he?”

  “Oh, dear,” April said with a flashing grin in Regina’s direction. “She does have it bad.”

  “Well, you have to admit she’s in good company.”

  “Too right,” April said, and sighed. Then she brightened. “Did I tell you another grand idea that came to me in the middle of last night?”

  “You know you didn’t,” Regina said as she stopped to shake her fingers, apparently half frozen from the ice she’d been distributing among the glasses.

  “History is repeating itself, at least it is in a strange sort of way. You remember the four Benedict brothers who first came to Turn-Coupe? One married an Indian woman who came here with them, another married a red-haired Scotswoman who came as a settler, the third kidnapped a Spanish woman who wasn’t too averse to being taken away, and the last married a Frenchwoman he found lost in the woods?”

  “So?” Regina’s glance in Tory’s direction seemed to invite her to enjoy the joke of April’s intense concentration.

  “Well, you’re the stand-in for the Scotswoman who came from back East, and I’m the one that was kidnapped. And Tory, here,” she ended in triumph, “was found in the woods with no memory of who she is or where she belongs, just like the Frenchwoman.”

  “Stretching, honey, stretching,” Regina told her.

  April took the ribbing in good part. “Maybe, maybe not. But you have to admit it’s an interesting theory.”

  “I’ll admit no such thing. Even if I am Scots on my great-grandmother’s—”

  “See!” April crowed. “And my great-grandfather eight or nine generations back was a Spanish merchant who wound up in New Orleans because he offended some grandee back in Spain and decided to travel for his health.”

  “All we need now is a Native American woman for one of the guys.”

  “Clay,” Tory said without hesitation. She just couldn’t resist. It was all a joke, anyway. Wasn’t it?

  “Perfect,” Regina said with satisfaction.

  “If she doesn’t scalp him for being such a flutter-by.”

  “A what?” Tory was lost again.

  “Male version of a butterfly. You know, a guy who flits from one woman to the next because he’s afraid of being caught. Luke was a lot like that, once upon a time. In fact, Clay often reminds me of Luke—in his bachelor days, of course. Luke is so settled now he’s practically set in concrete.”

  “Which is another thing about the Benedict men you’ll have to guard against,” Regina said wisely. “They are such homebodies, once they’re married, that you’ll be lucky if you ever leave Turn-Coupe again!”

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” Tory said tightly, “but I doubt it will be my problem.”

  April and Regina exchanged a quick look, but neither commented. Still, Tory, afraid they might, quickly zeroed in on the portion of what had been said that was of particular interest to her.

  “Jake told me something about what happened last summer between you and Luke, but I never did hear all of it.”

  With a sparkle in her eyes that indicated how important the story was to her, April regaled her with the tale of how she had decided to write a story about the Benedicts. The family had been none too happy about being put under a microscope, particularly Luke. In the meantime, another sticky situation had developed. Prank calls, midnight shootings, and life-threatening boat explosions had been the result. Finally, Luke had spirited April away against her will, taking her far back in the swamp that lay beyond the lake, the only place he’d felt she might be safe.

  The way the writer’s voice softened when she talked of her days on the lake with Luke was a revelation. Tory was fairly sure this was another incidence of a Benedict hauling off a woman who wasn’t terribly unhappy to be abducted as April had suggested. Or at least one who had come to appreciate it.

  “I’m afraid Luke and I made life a bit hectic for Roan at the time,” April said. “He had to step in at the crucial moment to help take the shooter, who happened to be someone we’d both once known.”

  “I don’t suppose he minded,” Tory answered with a touch of acid in her tone, “given his dedication to his job.”

  “He hasn’t had much else to be dedicated to in the last few years,” April answered.

  “He has been a bit more extreme about it since you and Luke married,” Regina put in with a troubled frown. “I get the feeling, sometimes, that he may be…lonely.”

  “He has Jake and Pop,” Tory said shortly.

  “True, but it’s not the same.”

  Tory refused to acknowledge that as she fidgeted with the position of a cake taken from a plastic cover. “Then I’m sure there are plenty of women who wouldn’t mind being the sheriff’s wife.”

  “He told me once that he wasn’t immune to women,” April said in musing tones, “but didn’t have much time for them. Besides, I think he intimidates a lot of them, especially those a bit younger.”

  “The last thing he needs is a silly young thing. She’d drive him mad in a week. Not,” Tory added in some haste, “that his love life is any of my concern.”

  “Of course not,” April said, her face perfectly solemn.

  “Absolutely.” The echo was from Regina.

  And the two women didn’t even look at each other.

  A short time later, they called everyone to come and eat. A serving line formed as if by magic, and soon one and all had a plate piled high with the bounty and had spread out, seeking some corner in which to consume the food in comfort and safety. The main danger was the kids, ages four to around ten, who ran in and out of the house in a tight pack with a good half-dozen hound dogs at their heels. Harassed mothers corralled them,
finally, and sent them to wash their hands before sitting down to plates that had been prepared for them. Someone called for a blessing, and abrupt silence descended for the prayer.

  A period of relative calm followed as the serious business of eating got underway. The only sounds, other than the clatter of utensils and tinkle of ice in glasses, were the compliments, both wordless and fulsome, to the cooks. More than a few of these were directed toward Tory for her brisket and, later, her cobbler served with homemade vanilla ice cream.

  Tory, sitting near Miss Elise and Mr. Lewis, watched Roan as he dipped his spoon into his dish of cobbler. For herself, she couldn’t bear to taste it. Even the sweet berry smell of it brought a rush of memory that made her feel hot inside her skin. Then as Roan put the cobbler in his mouth, he closed his eyes. An instant later, he opened them again and looked straight toward where she sat. His gaze was opaque and his face pale. He turned and set the dish aside.

  He couldn’t bear it, either.

  Clay was among the first to finish, mainly because he’d been first in the serving line. Setting his plate aside, he brought out a guitar with which he accompanied himself as he regaled the others with popular country-and-western ballads and old folk songs. He had a good voice, a rich baritone with much liveliness and underlying humor. His lengthy renditions of “Froggy Went A-Courting” and “There’s a Knot on a Log” drew the children to him like flies, so they clustered around his feet and begged for more.

  No one showed any inclination to leave after the dirty plates and glasses were collected and disposed of in big garbage bags. Someone went out to his vehicle and brought in a fiddle, another person produced an accordion. The parlor was cleared for dancing, with the chairs and the rug moved out to line the hall. Tory stayed in the kitchen, putting food away, as long as she could. When there was absolutely nothing else to do, she drifted back up to the upper floor and took a seat on the attic stairs, out of the way.

  People came and people went. Teens holding hands whispered from a few treads above her, while a group of older women sat fanning themselves in the chairs against the hall wall. She felt conspicuous, with a crawling sensation along the back of her neck as if people were watching her, discussing her. She had no place here, and never would.