Stonebrook Cottage

by Carla Neggers

  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."

  Her dark eyes settled on him, unrelenting. "Tell me why you'd take care of me."

  "I don't want a child of mine to grow up without a father." But that wasn't all of it, except he didn't know what the rest was—or just couldn't explain it. Family. Responsibility. Commitment. Love. Easier to keep it simple.

  "Fair enough," she said. "Do you know what I want, Sam? I want a soul mate."

  "A soul mate's a rare thing."

  "You don't believe in unconditional love, do you?"

  "There are always conditions."

  "Name one," she said.

  "Fidelity."

  She gave him a half smile. "Not an issue with a soul mate."

  He settled back in his chair, his legs outstretched, and he noticed her gaze drift to his thighs. He smiled. Soul mates. Right. "Rousing good sex at all hours. That's a major condition, don't you think?"

  "You're an evil man, Ranger Temple." But color rose in her cheeks, pushing out some of the rawness from her tears. "I knew the score when we went out for coffee that night. We had ourselves a pretty good weekend fling, didn't we? If it's any consolation, I fantasized about sleeping with you before Mike died."

  "Was the reality better than the fantasy?"

  "It was," she said.

  She used the past tense, spoke with finality, as if she'd dismissed any notion of them going to bed together again. But of course she hadn't. Sam knew it.

  She ducked out into the sunlight and marched up the back steps, and he realized that in her mind they'd been discussing what might have been—not what could be with time, effort and compromise, even a little common sense. This, Sam decided, needed immediate attention.

&nb
sp; He got up from his chair and walked up the steps, pulling open the screen door. She was at the sink, trying to look for something to do. He took her arm and turned her around, then caged her with his arms against the counter. She could have told him to go away, or go to hell, or leave her alone, but she didn't. She didn't meet his eyes, either.

  He'd never known anyone like her. "I don't know if I can be your soul mate—"

  "You either are or you aren't," she said, not snappish, just stating the facts. The attorney on the case, but he could feel the passion she was trying to hide, the wanting. "It's not something you can aspire to."

  "Jesus. Never mind, then."

  He didn't bother with a lot of niceties, just kissed her, and there was nothing restrained about it, either. He felt her small gasp, the response of her body as her lips parted and she fell back against the counter, her legs giving out under her. He could feel her slipping and swept her up before she could hit the floor, pressing himself against her, into her.

  "I plan to make love to you again, Kara. Soon."

  He felt a shiver of desire go through her, the memory of what they'd been together, the anticipation of having it happen again. But she took in a breath, and cleared her throat. "We haven't even been on a date."

  "We had coffee."

  "Dinner, a movie—"

  "Okay. We'll do dinner and a movie sometime." He rubbed against her as if he was making love to her, and she gulped in another breath. He smiled. "We'll see if you can get through them."

  "I'll be lucky to make it through the next five min-utes…Sam…"

  "If we didn't have a couple of middle-schoolers about to burst in here hunting for junk food, I'd have you on the kitchen table right now."

  "The bedroom's just around the corner—"

  He winked, setting her down on the floor. "Table'd make you forget all your troubles." He touched her cheek, kissed her softly, lightly. "It's good that you cried over not being pregnant."

  He released her and went back outside, feeling hot and uncomfortable and strangely exhilarated. Men who loved her from afar. Hell, Kara was the most touchable woman he'd ever met. Touching her hadn't ruined ev-erything—it was damn near perfect.

  Lillian skipped back outside and asked him if he'd like to hunt frogs with her—provided he didn't plan on eating them—and he agreed, deciding it wouldn't hurt to put his feet into an ice-cold Yankee stream.

  Henry allowed Sam to bunk in with him that night, giving Kara the double bed downstairs. She slunk off early, claiming she was dead on her feet and just wanted to read for a while and go to sleep. Sam sat up in the cute living room and flipped through books on fly-fish-ing and golf, a bicycle-riding guide to New England, a kayak instruction book and a history of Connecticut. Not a murder mystery to be found in the place.

  He searched the kids' backpacks and found nothing of interest. No incriminating letter. Kara probably had it under lock and key, buried, flushed or burned.

  Had he wanted her to be pregnant?

  The question returned to him again and again, and remained unanswered when he went upstairs and sat on the edge of the twin bed. Henry had given him the bed next to the window, he said, because the moon got in his eyes last night. Sam thought it was something more, a fear he wouldn't acknowledge. For twelve, Henry Stockwell had layers and depths that most people didn't have in a lifetime. They'd make him strong one day, if he didn't fall into one so deep he could never get himself out.

  Sam could see the kid was still awake. He took off his boots and stripped down to his shorts and tried to remember if he'd ever bunked in with a twelve-year-old heir to a Yankee fortune. In the dark, Henry Stockwell's hair seemed flaxen, pale and shining as the half moon rose high in the night sky. The boy reminded Sam of a little prince, the weight of the world on his young shoulders.

  He rolled over, yawning at his roommate. "What time is it?"

  "Ten o'clock." An eternity until morning.

  "You really are a Texas Ranger, right?"

  "That's right."

  "Do you like catching criminals?"

  "It depends."

  "What if it's a criminal you like?" he asked.

  "People are complicated," Sam said, keeping his voice neutral. "I don't judge people. I make arrests based on evidence."

  Henry watched him pull back the covers and slide into the skinny bed. "It was hot at the ranch. Aunt Kara says hell's cooler than Texas in the summer."

  Sam smiled. "I'll go along with that. Kara put a lot on the line for you and your sister."

  "I know." He seemed pensive, his eyes shining as if he was wide awake, but Sam could feel the boy's fatigue and strain. "We made her promise not to tell anyone what we told her."

  "She takes attorney-client privilege very seriously." Sam laid back against his pillow. Even at twelve, he hadn't bunked in with other twelve-year-olds. He'd never done camp. He glanced over at the boy, still listening intently. "She knows you trust her, and she's trying to do the right thing by you and your sister, even if it costs her. You don't want to abuse that."

  Henry propped his head up with one hand. "She wants us to tell some of the stuff to someone else, so she's not the only one who knows."

  "That'd be a good idea. Your mother—"

  "Mom has a lot on her mind."

  "Is that part of why you ran away? Get a little attention from your mother the governor?"

  Henry scowled as if Sam were an idiot. "No. I'm almost thirteen."

  "Then why did you run away?" Sam asked quietly.

  "To see Kara."

  "What could she do?"

  "Help us. I don't know." He rolled over, so thin under the covers he hardly made a bump. "I don't think she believes us."

  "Henry—"

  "Lillian's scared to go back to Texas," he said, "because of the snakes. Not me. I want to be a Texas Ranger when I grow up."

  "Up to you."

  "No, it's not."

  He pulled his sheet to his chin, burying himself deep, a stuffed animal slung over his face. He peered closer and saw it was a tiger, most of its fur worn off. Almost thirteen, Sam thought.

  Fourteen

  Since she wasn't pregnant, Kara indulged herself with a mug of Sam's drop-dead coffee the next morning and brought it outside with her. She did the second test in the middle of the night, and it, too, was negative. Both kits had indicated it wasn't too soon to check.

  Butterflies meandered in the beebalm and hollyhocks, the morning dew clinging to the grass, the air warm, slightly hazy with humidity. But autumn was her favorite season in New England, when the days would get shorter, the air crisper and the leaves start to turn as farmers and gardeners rushed to beat the frost, hauling in the last of the tomatoes and corn, bringing out the pumpkins and butternut squash. She could have stayed here. Yet even when her father drove her north at eighteen, she'd known she'd end up home in Texas, eventually.

  Last night, waking up from dreams about soul mates, she'd told herself she was meant to be in Austin the night of the Gordon Temple opening, not just for her sake, but for Sam's, too, although she didn't understand why.

  In the warm light of morning, drinking the strong coffee, she shuddered at her romantic yearnings. She must have been half-asleep, delusional. Falling for Sam, Sam falling for her. Impossible. She'd had her guard down yesterday, hence the talk about soul mates and lovemaking, the kissing. Today she'd stick to business and find a way to check out the kids' tree house and get them to tell her what they were holding back, whether it had anything to do with Big Mike's death or their amorphous fears about their mother. The trick was to manage any sneaking around despite Sam and his ground rules. It would be easier if she could take him into her confidence, but she couldn't. She couldn't violate the kids' trust, and she couldn't be sure what Sam would do.

  The sound of a car on the dirt road brought her around to the front of the cottage, where Hatch Corrigan was pulling into the driveway in a monstrous SUV. He climbed out and waved to her over the gleaming hood, the
sun catching his graying auburn hair.

  "Kara! It's good to see you."

  He laughed, greeting her with a kiss on the cheek, as if he hadn't revealed his feelings for her so awkwardly, so hopelessly, just two weeks ago at Mike Parisi's funeral. But it was like him to pretend he hadn't said a word, if only to prove his point that he didn't want to let anything as messy as romance interfere with how he felt about her.

  "A lot's happened in the past couple of days. You're all right? The kids?"

  "We're all fine." Kara smiled at him, noticed lines etched into his forehead that hadn't been there a year ago, a thinness to his cheeks, a tentativeness about him.

  "I should thank you for handling Henry and Lil-lian's little rebellion with such discretion. I can understand this all has been difficult for them and they must be feeling shuffled aside, but to run away—well, it's not acceptable." He seemed annoyed even to have to discuss his niece and nephew's behavior. "But, Allyson will deal with them in her own way."

  "Hatch, I don't think they took off as a bid for attention—"

  "Well, whatever."

  Sam walked out the front door with a mug of coffee, but Kara wasn't fooled by his casual air—and she knew better than to think he was just now aware of Hatch's arrival.

  "My, my." Hatch's tone was low and amused. "The Texas Ranger."

  "Shut up, Hatch," she said.

  He laughed, no hint of regret or jealousy in his eyes. "You're blushing. I should notify the media. Kara Galway and a Texas Ranger is a bigger story than the gov-ernor's children sneaking off to visit their godmother." His voice lowered, the amusement going out of his expression. "I just want to see you happy, Kara."

  She nodded, but said nothing. Sam ducked under a butternut branch and joined them on the driveway. He gave no indication he'd heard Hatch's remark or even guessed the tenor of what he'd said. Kara made introductions. Hatch thanked Sam, too, and apologized for any inconvenience.

  "Not a problem," Sam said.

  Henry and Lillian wandered out of the cottage and sat on the front steps in clean clothes their mother had brought yesterday. Hatch called them over, but they didn't move. They'd shown no sign of fear of retribution from Allyson, but their uncle, it seemed, was another matter.