Stonebrook Cottage

by Carla Neggers

  "You talked to Susanna," Sam said into the phone.

  "She's still holding back something."

  If there was a god, she was. Sam had no desire to explain the night he'd had two weeks ago with Jack's sister, not while brother Jack was still steamed about the gun and the plane and worried about why the Stockwell kids had turned up at her house. Susanna would withhold what she suspected—knew—about Sam and her sister-in-law from Jack—not to spare anyone but because she'd consider it beyond the scope of Jack's legitimate interests. In other words, it was none of his business who his sister slept with.

  "You have my gun?" Jack asked.

  "I do."

  "Allyson Stockwell's on her way to collect her kids?"

  "She should be here any minute."

  He didn't seem satisfied. "Kara give you that attor-ney-client bullshit?"

  "Still is."

  "I can be on a plane today if you need me up there."

  "With a little luck, we'll be back in San Antonio ourselves tonight," Sam said.

  Jack grunted. "Don't count on it. Keep her safe, okay?"

  "Done."

  He disconnected, and when Kara cursed under her breath, Sam took another sip of coffee, unsympathetic to her aggravation with her brother. "If you'd called him when you found those kids at your house, if you all'd taken a commercial flight up here and arrived unarmed—"

  She didn't let him finish. "We'd have been met at the airport by a swarm of state troopers. They'd have found out we were on that flight. And if I'd called you last night, I'd never had made it out of Texas with them."

  "Fair point."

  She snatched up her cell phone. "I made a promise to Henry and Lillian, and I've kept it."

  "Most people don't keep promises they make to kids that age."

  "I do."

  She stormed outside, the screen door banging shut behind her. Sam dumped the last of his coffee in the sink. She was probably extra testy because of throwing up. He followed her out, enjoying the mild air. He supposed it was on the warm side by New England standards.

  He sat in an unpainted Adirondack chair in the shade of a red maple in the backyard and watched her get out an old hibachi and set it on a rickety wooden table. She made several trips back inside for a dishpan of steaming water, a sponge, a wire brush, paper towels, rubber gloves. She attacked the hibachi with the wire brush, going after an accumulation of black gunk. Sam offered to help. She told him no.

  "Why don't you go back to Texas?" She didn't look up from her hacking and scraping. "The criminals might take over if you're gone too long."

  He stretched out his legs, not letting her provoke him. "I just finished an investigation on the border. I have paperwork to do but nothing that can't keep. My lieutenant knows where I am." His lieutenant being her brother.

  "Susanna shouldn't have sent you."

  "I'd have come even if she hadn't asked me to." Ordered him was more like it, but that wasn't what had gotten him here. Kara was in some kind of trouble, or the kids were and she was being dragged in with them. He needed to be here.

  Kara dipped her brush in the hot, soapy water. "You wouldn't have found me without her help."

  He said nothing. He'd have found her.

  The brush wasn't working, and she got annoyed and tossed it into the water with too much force, splashing her expensive watch and her white shirt. "Do you see why I stayed up here as long as I did?" She unrolled three or four paper towels and dried herself off. "No room to breathe in Texas. A big state like that, but two kids show up at my door, and next thing I've got two Texas Rangers on my case—"

  "Those two kids happen to be the runaway minors of a New England governor."

  "They're kids."

  "Precisely." Sam crossed his ankles, enjoying the shade. "You'd have all the room you want to breathe if you didn't provoke people. You made off in Jack's plane. You stole his gun. You put his wife in the position of having either to lie for you or betray you—"

  "I have a responsibility to Henry and Lillian that supersedes any minor irritations or inconveniences I might cause you and my family." She glanced at him, and he thought he heard her voice catch. "What else would you have had me do?"

  She obviously didn't intend for him to answer, but he did, anyway. "Invite me in for popcorn and let me talk to those kids."

  "Oh. I see. Ranger Temple to the rescue. They'd cooperate with you, a perfect stranger—"

  "It's what you should have done and you know it."

  He thought for a second she'd throw her wet paper towels at him, but she didn't, just stuffed them into her hands and wadded them up into a tight ball. "My role here is different from yours. I'm their godmother and an attorney, their mother's friend. I have to take all that into consideration. Plus," she added, turning back to her hibachi, "I know more about what's going on than you do."

  With her back turned, he noticed the shape of her hips, the breadth of her shoulders. She was slim and strong, and suddenly there was no question in his mind he'd make love to her again. It was inevitable. He said quietly, "I know what it's like to have a conflict between professional obligations and personal interests."

  "I have a moral obligation to Henry and Lillian as well as a professional one. I love them without condition."

  "No such thing."

  She glanced back at him. "That's cynical." She dipped her wad of paper towels into the soapy water and squeezed them onto the black gunk. "I'll be fine if you go back to Texas. I don't need you here."

  "You don't need anyone, do you, Miss Kara?"

  She didn't answer. He could see the stiffness in her spine, the tension in her leg muscles. When she shifted back to her dishpan, he caught her expression, faintly irritated, worried, not about to give him or anyone else an inch. Maybe a little scared, but she'd try hard not to let him see her fear.

  "I'm on your side," Sam said.

  "You threatened to arrest me."

  "With just cause. It doesn't mean I'm not on your side."

  She sighed at him. "Sam, you're not on anyone's side. It's not in your nature. You're the original lone wolf."

  Lone wolf. He hadn't heard that one in a while. He rose to his feet, taller than she was but not by much. "Why were you throwing up this morning?"

  "Food poisoning." She hadn't missed a beat, but fished out her wire brush and attacked the hibachi with renewed vigor. "I'm fine now. It might just have been nerves."

  Sam shook his head. "You're not the nervous type, Counselor."

  He'd spooked her. She scooped up her cleaning supplies and started for the back door, leaving the dishpan and the hibachi. "I'll let that sit a while and see if the grit loosens up." She paused on the bottom step. "Do you want me to check on flights for you?"

  "I'm not going anywhere."

  "I could throw you out," she said matter-of-factly.

  He shrugged. "Jack said he could fly up here today. It's him or me. Take your pick."

  She tore open the screen door. "Forget it. I give up. If I keep pushing, I'll just end up with both of you. Stay. You've got my gun, but if I end up needing it—" She dropped a sponge, swooped it up. "Never mind."

  "Kara—"

  She pretended not to hear him and slipped into the cottage, letting Sam sink back onto his chair in the shade and contemplate the mess that was her motives, loyalties, fears, desires and duties—and his own. Henry and Lillian Stockwell had released her from attorney-client privilege and let her tell him they'd forged a letter from their mother, but that was as far as they'd go.

  Whatever was in the letter had precipitated Kara to depart Texas the way she had. But she refused to show it to him. He pushed. She pushed back, telling him he had no authority to compel her to turn the letter over.

  He was thinking about searching her bags for it. Let her try and stop him. He didn't need a search warrant in damn Connecticut. He was the family friend from Texas who meant to find out what was going on, the one-night stand from the night the governor had drowned in his pool.


  Except it wouldn't stay a one-night stand. That would change. Sam imagined a lot would change before he got Kara Galway back to Texas.

  Lillian ran out the back door and plopped on the chair next to him, and it nearly swallowed her up, she was so slim. She looked every inch the fair-haired Yankee heiress, except for the scratches on her legs and the scowl on her face. "There are a lot of poisonous snakes in Texas, right?" she asked.

  "I don't know about a lot, but, yes, ma'am, there are poisonous snakes in Texas."

  She giggled. "Why do you call me ‘ma'am'?"

  He smiled at her. "Would you like me to call you Miss Lillian instead?"

  "Just Lillian is fine." She was very serious now, considering her answer. "Or Lil. Henry and Mom call me Lil. Aunt Kara does, too, sometimes, but not very much."

  "What do your friends call you?"

  "Lillian."

  "It's a pretty name. Why're you interested in snakes?"

  "I'm not. I don't like snakes at all. My friend Cicely likes to catch them. Once she caught three baby snakes, and I screamed my head off. It was so gross. They were all squirmy. She tried to get me to pet them." She wrinkled up her face dramatically and stuck out her tongue.

  "Blech."

  Sam settled back in his chair, noticing that it hadn't taken long for Miss Lillian to warm up to him. "You probably shouldn't be messing with snakes. You leave them alone, they'll likely leave you alone."

  "That's what they said at the ranch. I kept asking and asking, but no one would tell me what kind of poisonous snakes there are in Texas. Will you tell me?"

  "It depends where you are. It's a big state. We've got cottonmouths, copperheads, coral snakes, six or eight different kinds of rattlesnakes. I don't see too many snakes in the city."

  She shuddered. "Eight different kinds of rattlesnakes? I never want to go back to Texas. Henry says there are poisonous snakes in Connecticut, but I don't believe him. I think he's stupid. Do you believe there are poisonous snakes in Connecticut?"

  "I don't know much about Connecticut snakes." Sam didn't know what else to do but be honest with her. "I think timber rattlesnakes are up here, but I doubt they're common, and I seem to remember reading about a northern copperhead. I'm sure any poisonous snakes up here are rare."

  Lillian didn't like his answer. She hung on to the arms of the Adirondack chair as if it were a spaceship about to take off. "Well, Connecticut doesn't have as many poisonous snakes as Texas does. I've never seen one."

  Sam laughed. "That settles it, then, Miss Lillian."

  Something caught her eye off in the distance, and Sam, instantly alert, got to his feet. She did, too, then gasped as a fair-haired woman waved from out in the small field, across a low stone wall. Lillian squealed. "Mommy!"

  The girl raced across the yard and scrambled over the stone wall to her mother. Sam watched Allyson Lourdes Stockwell scoop up her daughter, hugging her, swinging her so that the top of the tall grass tickled her bare feet.

  Henry burst through the back door and got almost to the stone wall before he slowed suddenly, then stopped, waiting as his mother set down his sister and the two of them climbed over the wall. The boy shoved his hands into his pockets and yawned, as if nothing unusual had transpired in the past two days. "Hi, Mom."

  "Hello, Henry." Allyson smiled at him and slung one arm over his thin shoulders, hugging him, kissing the top of his head. "I'm glad you're here. I've missed you."

  Kara had come out onto the steps. If she was worried she was in as much trouble with her friend as she was with Sam and her brother, nothing in her demeanor showed it. All that courtroom experience had to be coming in handy right now, Sam thought, observing the scene with interest. His mother was an art teacher and loved kids, but if he'd pulled the kind of stunt Henry and Lillian had pulled on their mother, he'd have been skinned for supper.

  "Mom, I'd like you to meet Sergeant Sam Temple of the Texas Rangers," Henry said, his tone Prince of Wales formal. "Sergeant Temple, this is my mother, Allyson Stockwell."

  "Pleased to meet you, Governor," Sam said, shaking her hand. She was an attractive, naturally pale and elegant woman, he thought, but the strain of the past few days was evident.

  "Thank you—thank you for everything." She turned to Kara, and Sam could see they were both tense, even awkward, as if neither wanted to say anything that would further upset the other. Allyson managed a weak smile. "I'm sorry about all this. I thought going to the ranch and then visiting you was what they wanted to do—they'd been looking forward to their trip to Texas all summer."

  "I'm fine, Allyson. Don't worry about it," Kara said. "We're all here, and we're all okay. Nothing else matters. Why don't you and the kids go inside and visit? Sam and I were just cleaning the hibachi."

  Allyson clenched Kara's wrist. "Kara…"

  "It's okay, Allyson. Hey—we made up a can of frozen lemonade. There's ice."

  "Lemonade would be wonderful." She seemed unaware even of what she'd said, and added, out of the blue, "I released a statement this morning basically saying the kids went to your place on their own, but all's well, we're handling it—I didn't lie, just let it be known this is a private family matter. The media'll still have a field day, but Hatch thinks they won't go too far, not with two young kids involved. I don't think any reporters will come out here to the cottage."

  Henry tugged on his mother's hand. "Come on, Mom, let's go have lemonade."

  "What?" She seemed to have forgotten the lemonade, then smiled, ruffling her son's blond hair. "Sure. Lemonade it is. I want to hear all about this ‘wild tale' you told Kara."

  Kara frowned, staring after mother and children as they headed into the kitchen.

  Sam understood her concern. "Something's not right with your friend the governor," he said. "Those kids know it, just like you do. Ten to one they clam up on her."

  Kara clenched her hands into fists, her mouth shut tight, and he could see she wasn't saying anything, either.

  "Maybe you should tell me this wild tale," he added quietly.

  Instead of answering him, she fished the wet, shredded paper towels out of the dishpan and slapped the soaking mess on the hibachi. She breathed out. "Well, I think all that black gunk's set long enough, don't you?"

  Allyson did as she'd promised and let Hatch know she'd arrived safely, then tried to make sense out of her children's behavior. Seeing her hadn't brought forth a rush of explanations—a rush of anything, for that matter. Henry and Lillian refused to go into any detail about their reasons for running away and conning Kara into sneaking them to Stonebrook Cottage. They weren't even subtle about it. They just wouldn't talk.

  Allyson was stung. "Is it because you're afraid you'll get into trouble?" she asked.

  "No." Henry had drained one glass of lemonade and was at the refrigerator pouring himself another. "Aunt Kara's our lawyer. She'll make sure we don't get into any trouble."

  "Henry, Kara's not your lawyer—"

  "She says everything we told her is privileged."

  "If you thought you were confiding in her as your lawyer, yes, but—" Allyson tried to keep the hurt and impatience out of her tone; she'd hardly touched her lemonade. "You're my children. I need to know what's going on with you. I want to know. Lillian? What about you?"

  Lillian, sitting across the table from her mother, didn't seem enthusiastic about her lemonade, either. "My stomach hurts."

  Allyson reined in her frustration. Insisting on answers was getting her nowhere, and she'd been advised not to pressure them. She couldn't remember by whom. Her mother? Madeleine? The kids' counselors in Texas? She couldn't remember. "I'm just glad you're both okay. You can tell me the whys and wherefores when you're ready. If there's anything I absolutely needed to know, you'd tell me, wouldn't you? Or let Kara tell me?"

  Henry sat at the table with his fresh glass of lemonade. "Sure, Mom."

  "I can work here in Bluefield for a few days. We don't have to go back to Hartford right away, and you know your g
randma would love to have you around."

  "When are we moving into the governor's house?" Lillian asked.

  "Soon. We're keeping our house in West Hartford, and your school won't change—"

  "We know," Henry said.

  She was getting nowhere. "I've had a lot to do in the past two weeks because of the sudden nature of what happened—but August tends to be a slow month for state government." God, she thought, she sounded like a stereotypical wire-walking politician instead of a mother who had a firm command of the situation. She smiled, feeling her tentativeness. She didn't know what was wrong with her children, and they wouldn't tell her. And she'd never ask Kara to violate their trust. "We'll work all this out in time. I promise, okay?"

  Henry was concentrating on his lemonade. Lillian's eyes had glazed over. She stirred her lemonade, then frowned at her mother. "Mom, does Connecticut have poisonous snakes? Henry says it does, and so does Sam."

  The nonsequitur caught Allyson by surprise, and she had to stop herself from making a sharp retort. "There are two species of venomous snakes found in Connecticut, the northern copperhead and the timber rattlesnake, but neither is common. Why were you talking about snakes?"

  "Lillian wanted to know," Henry said. "She just likes to pretend she's worried about snakes."

  "I know this hasn't been an easy summer." Allyson took her lemonade glass to the sink and dumped it out, her stomach burning. "A lot's happened that none of us planned. That means we all have to make adjustments."

  Lillian raised her eyes to her mother. "Why can't someone else be governor?"

  "Someone else can be. There'll be another election. For now, I'm the governor. That's part of the job of being lieutenant governor—it's the commitment I made when I was elected. If something happened to Big Mike, I had to step into his shoes. Unfortunately, something did happen."

  "Are you glad?" Henry blurted.

  Allyson jumped back against the sink, shocked. "No, of course not. He was my friend. He was your dad's friend even before either one of them knew me. No. I did not want anything to happen to him."