Roan

by Jennifer Blake

  Roan moved to stand over him. Melanka heaved to one elbow, as if expecting another blow. When it didn’t come, he swiped a hand under his nose, then turned greenish as he saw blood. His laugh was harsh, breathless. “So much for Southern hospitality.”

  “Exactly,” Roan agreed. “You have two minutes to clear out, or you’ll discover what happens when a Southerner really gets a bellyful of uninvited company.”

  “You’ll arrest me, that it? I doubt your fine mayor will appreciate the gesture, or the treatment, I’ve had from you.”

  “The mayor isn’t the law here.”

  “You won’t be, either, not for long. Once this place is dependent on gaming money, I’ll see to it that there’s a new sheriff.”

  “Fine.” Roan reached down and picked up the man by his shirtfront, then shoved him toward the steps. “But do it far away from Dog Trot.”

  Harrell Melanka almost fell again, then caught his footing. He straightened his clothes with a jerk, while sending a look of pure spite, the refuge of the ineffectual man, toward all the Benedicts who had crowded out to watch the show. He swung around and marched down to his rental car. Slamming the door behind him, he sprayed gravel as he tore away down the drive.

  “Gee, I’m sorry,” Betsy said at Roan’s elbow. “I didn’t know who he was, honest, and sure didn’t mean to stir up such a hornet’s nest.”

  “Never mind,” he answered, sighing as he ran his fingers through his hair. Turning back inside the house, he sent a quick glance toward Donna—no, Tory—where she stood in the hall.

  April was beside her. “I’ll see to her,” Luke’s wife told him. “You take care of your guests.”

  It wasn’t what Roan wanted. He’d have much preferred to send his guests to the devil while he took Tory in his arms and held her until her pain went away. That would help no one, least of all a woman who apparently hailed from the rarefied parts of the world where people had gazillions and titles to go with the cash.

  “Right,” he said under his breath. Then he dragged air into his lungs and looked around at his relatives. “All right, folks, let’s get back to the serious fun.”

  They didn’t, of course. There was too much gossip and speculation going on. Those who weren’t interested in talking had more consideration than to linger where everything was in such turmoil. People began to gather their dishes and their kids, to say their polite goodbyes and climb into their cars and trucks. In less than a half hour, the house was empty. Even Jake and Pop left, taking Clay’s invitation for a fast spin in his airboat out to his place in the swamp. He’d promised them the high treat of watching the comic turns of a baby blue crane he’d rescued from a watery death and named Banty because the bird was convinced he was a bantam chicken.

  Roan straightened the worst of the ravages left by the departing guests, mopped a couple of sticky puddles in the kitchen and hauled out the trash. When he could put it off no longer, he climbed the stairs to Donna’s—Tory’s room. He thought he might find her asleep, since April had reported giving her a couple of aspirin. Instead, she was sitting up in bed with a paperback novel resting on her knees while she stared at the darkened window.

  She looked so enticing, so soft and warm and alone, that he felt a wild urge to forget what had happened a little while ago, to abandon all thought of right and wrong and duty, and simply climb in bed with her. He wanted to hold her, to feel her heart beating against his chest, to listen to her breathe and not get up again until he was a very old man.

  Dumb. Impossible. Impossibly dumb.

  She turned her head to meet his gaze across the room. Her eyes were shadowed with watchful stillness. She didn’t speak.

  “How’s the shoulder?” he asked as he closed the door behind him. “Any damage?”

  She shook her head. “It’s all right. I just…needed to get away from everyone. Are they all gone?”

  “Finally.” He moved toward the bed, stopping where he could lean a shoulder against one of the tall posts at the foot.

  Her smile was faint, a token effort for the fact that neither of them seemed to be fond of crowds, or at least not for long. After a moment, she said, “I’m sorry if Harrell ruined you dad’s homecoming.”

  “Oh, he was the icing on the cake,” he said on a short laugh. “The Benedicts will be talking about this shindig this time next year.” He paused, then came out with the question that burned in his mind. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “What? That I used to have a fiancé?”

  “That I had a princess living in the spare bedroom and scrubbing my kitchen floor. Think of all the fun I missed, not knowing it.” He breathed deep, trying to calm the anger that simmered inside him.

  “Supposing I remembered that little detail?” she asked, her voice husky.

  The look he gave her was as level as it was hard. “You remembered. In fact, I don’t think there was a time, from the very first, that it slipped your mind.”

  She held his gaze for long moments, her own crystalline with suspended thought. Then she looked away. “No. Though I wish it could have.”

  He swore, a soft sound that was loud in the stillness. He’d half hoped that she would deny it. It would have made things easier. “So what happened? Did you have a tiff with Melanka and run off with the two thugs that brought you here? Or was it some kind of scheme to get more than just an allowance from this stepdad of yours?”

  She compressed her lips, and the look in her eyes was hot as she swung back to face him. “I told you what happened! I was kidnapped off the beach at Sanibel. Zits and Big Ears were hired to chase me down and haul me here. As far as I can tell, Harrell is the one who paid them to do it.”

  Roan crossed his arms over his chest. “Why would he do that?”

  “Why do you think? I’m an heiress, you know, or didn’t you get that part? My mother was the only surviving grandchild of Angus Bridgeman of department store fame. My stepfather benefited from marriage to my mother to the tune of the start-up fortune for his empire, so it was her money that put him where he is, her money that made him a big-time industrialist. Everybody thinks it’s a huge deal that I’m his stepdaughter, but he’s only controlled and grown the fortune that came to me when my mother died. And that’s what Harrell wanted, that’s why he was so totally pissed when I broke the engagement.”

  “It was revenge then?”

  “Also to make sure I didn’t ruin the deal he’d put together with the gambling consortium. He used my name and our engagement as proof to his backers that he could deliver his portion of the money that would cut him in on the profits. When it came time to sign the papers, though, they wanted my signature. Harrell knew I’d never go for it, so he forged it. I found out, broke the engagement and was unwise enough to tell him I meant to contact his associates to make sure they knew I was out of the deal. He wasn’t happy.”

  “You handed over his ring because of a financial deal gone sour? It couldn’t have been much of a love match.” The hollow feeling inside as he put that question was a warning, one he did his best to ignore.

  She gave a moody shrug. “The sour deal was proof that it was my money he was after and he’d do anything to get it. Not that it matters, I’d already realized the engagement was a mistake; Harrell seemed like a self-made man, a maverick, but that was a sham. The minute he became a part of my crowd, he did his best to be more supercilious and Old Money than the most obnoxious Harvard grad. More like Paul Vandergraff. He and I…don’t get along. I made it my purpose in life to offend him at least once a month from the day my mother died in a fancy sanitarium where he put her.”

  Roan didn’t like the easing he felt in the region of his heart, but it was there all the same. “Not exactly the most mature or effective retaliation I’ve ever heard of,” he offered.

  “No,” she agreed at once. “I was a teenager when it began, and I suppose it became a habit. I decided, recently, that there are more valuable reasons for living.”

  The need to ask her what
that might be was so strong he almost choked on it. But he wasn’t going to be a part of whatever future she might have, couldn’t be, and the sooner he faced it the better. “All right, so Melanka had you kidnapped to prevent you from talking to his business partners. What then?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You weren’t likely to keep quiet about it later.”

  “Oh, I was supposed to die, of course. A lot of kidnap victims do.”

  The dead calm of her voice made the hair rise on the back of his neck. She must have faced that particular truth long ago, perhaps even as a child, for it to be accepted with so little emotion. The ache that caused inside him was nearly as strong as the knowledge that he’d shot her at the end of her kidnap ordeal. Almost, but not quite.

  “Tell me about this kidnapping one more time, from the beginning,” he said, his voice as even and official as he could make it. “I want every detail, from the time you left wherever you were staying to go for a swim, or whatever you were doing, to the time you fell out of that rattletrap van with a pistol in your hand. Leave out nothing. I want to know exactly what time everything happened, every single place you stopped, every time you ate, who the men with you talked to, when and where. Who they might have called, and every word they said to you or to each other. Start. Now.”

  “Does this mean that you believe me?”

  “How can I, when you’ve been lying to me for weeks? The fact that you don’t need money doesn’t mean you weren’t an accomplice in the convenience store robbery. Added to that, there’s no proof Melanka is who he says he is. You could have called him, asked him to provide you with a background, as implausible as it may be. Sorry, but I’ll have to look a lot deeper before I reduce the charges against you, much less drop them.”

  A twisted smile appeared on her lips. “At least you didn’t take the word of the first man to back up what I said.”

  “Meaning I’m a stupid idiot, but not chauvinistic?” He pushed away from the bedpost and moved around to the end of the bed where he could put the carved footboard between them.

  “Something like that,” she agreed.

  “I’ll be anything you like, as long as you talk to me. Come on. I want the story of how you got here from Florida.”

  She gave it to him, talking nonstop for the best part of an hour. The words tumbled out in near incoherence at times, as if she’d been waiting for the time when she could lay them out for someone. He liked to think she’d been saving them for him alone, but her manner was too distant, too self-contained, to allow it. As he listened to her, he studied her face, noting the patrician nose, the delicate molding of the lips, the air of refinement in every line. He should have known she was someone special, he thought. Or perhaps he had, and preferred not to acknowledge it for all the reasons that made it impossible for him to consider her innocent, even now.

  Finally, she came to a halt. The silence stretched between them as he turned over what she’d been able to add to the little he knew already. The one she called Zits had made a couple of calls, but she’d only heard the distant sound of his voice at the pay phone, not the actual words. They sometimes mentioned the Big Man who’d pay them, but had never called him by name. Zits had been pretty cagey, all in all, cagier than seemed likely if he’d intended to kill her. Of course, she’d offered the pair money, more than they stood to make from the man who’d hired them, if they released her. It was possible that was the reason she was still alive. Whether it would have been enough to save her life in the end was another question.

  She was watching him, her gaze so intent on his face that it almost felt as if she were trying to read his mind. At last she said, “What do you think?”

  “It holds together, barely.”

  “And that’s all? Why would I make up something like that?”

  “To stay out of jail after you got yourself into more than you could handle?”

  “Oh, please. Have I done anything since I’ve been here to make you believe I’m some kind of thrill-seeker or so mentally unstable that I’d get a kick out of pointing a gun at someone? It’s crazy! I think you just don’t want to accept that I was in that van against my will!”

  He stared at her, his gaze moving from the quick rise and fall of her breasts under her blouse to the taut lines of her chin and mouth, and the accusation in her eyes. In trenchant tones, he said, “You’re right.”

  Her face changed, softening, and a flush appeared on the ridges of her cheekbones. “What? I mean—”

  “If I believe you, then I’m guilty of something close to attempted murder.”

  “No, only of doing your duty.”

  “If I take everything for the truth,” he went on inexorably, “then I’ll have to let you go.”

  “I should think that’s what you’d want. You’d be rid of me, rid of the problems I’ve caused you. Maybe you and the mayor could work out your differences….”

  “Do you think I care two cents for what the mayor thinks, or for working things out with him?”

  “You disagreed because of me, didn’t you? At least, Jake said—”

  “Jake talks too much,” he answered in taut annoyance. “I’m an elected official, a parish official, with nothing to do with the town of Turn-Coupe’s mayor. He didn’t hire me, and he can’t fire me. If I choose to accommodate him for the sake of peace and getting things done, that’s one thing. If we have different views of what’s best for the town and the area, that’s something else again.”

  “I didn’t realize.”

  “Fine. Now you do. Maybe you’ll also see that the problem of Melanka and this gambling consortium will remain whether you go or stay.”

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “I think I do.”

  Did she? Did she understand that so long as the man posed a danger to her, then Roan preferred to have her where he could protect her instead of worrying about her running around loose where the ex-fiancé could get his hands on her again? The last thing he needed was for her to be taken as a hostage for his cooperation. And that was something Tory could easily become if Melanka or anyone else figured out how important her welfare was to him.

  “Good,” he said, as if the subject was settled. As it was, indeed, in his mind. “It’s possible that the news wires may get hold of your story—nobody in my office will leak the news, I think, but a lot of people have been speculating about you and the sensation of your identity may be too good to keep. You might want to consider letting your family know first.”

  “If you mean my stepfather, I’ve already called him,” she said in low tones. “It seemed best to head off his lawyers, if I could.”

  “So are they coming or not?” If he was to be inundated by legal eagles before breakfast in the morning, he’d just as soon know it now.

  “Paul agreed to wait, though he won’t keep them leashed forever. In fact, he said…”

  “What?” he asked, as it appeared she wasn’t going to finish what she’d started to say.

  Her chest lifted and fell in a sigh. “He said I had only to give the word, and I’d be free in a matter of hours.”

  “And why didn’t you?”

  “Give the word? I was so sure that you’d see reason, that it would be unnecessary.”

  Roan narrowed his eyes as he studied her. “You really expect me to believe that?”

  “Why not? You’re a fair man.”

  “Thank you. I think. But what bothers me is the question of what took you so long to get in touch with Vandergraff. If he’s so willing to spring to your defense with a legal team, why did you stay here pretending amnesia for so long? Why did you let Doc Watkins take care of the hole in your chest when you could have had the best plastic surgeons, best medical team in the country?”

  “Because…” She stopped, compressed her lips.

  “Because you were afraid Vandergraff was involved?” he asked. “Or is it something else? Did you maybe get a kick out of all of us running around at your beck and call, knocking ourselves out to
see that you were safe and comfortable?”

  She lifted her hand then let it fall again in a tired gesture. “What does it matter? It’s over, or as near to it as makes no difference. I’ll be gone before long, and you can all get back to your normal lives as if I’d never been here. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you’d at least take off the monitor. Even you will have to admit that I’m not such a desperate felon that you have to know my every move.”

  He stepped around to the side of the bed where her foot was stretched out in front of her in a pose of unconscious grace. He slipped his little finger under the collar of the device. Even as he tested for tightness and chafing, he was aware of the silken smoothness of her skin, and the certain memory that it was even silkier in other places.

  He stepped back, abruptly, before he said, “I’d feel better if you kept the thing for another day or two, at least.”

  “You’re not going to remove it.”

  He shook his head.

  She watched the movement, watched him, while her features settled into grim purpose. “Fine, if you really enjoy keeping me in electronic bondage. But if it’s a substitute for keeping an eye on me yourself, I don’t think much of it. Satisfy my curiosity, will you? Tell me why you’ve been avoiding me since we picked the blackberries?”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard to figure out,” he said, retreating another step and shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans.

  “No? Well, I must be missing something, because I don’t get it. Unless I did something wrong…”

  “It isn’t you,” he said swiftly, even as alarm crawled over his scalp at the idea that she was blaming herself. “It’s me. I’m the sheriff, you’re my prisoner. It’s unethical for me to take advantage of you.”

  “I don’t remember that part, you taking advantage,” she objected. “I was perfectly willing.”