Stonebrook Cottage

by Carla Neggers

  But it's difficult, Allyson thought, when it's family trying to kill you.

  She should have said something sooner. She knew that now. She thought she was doing the right thing, but, it turned out, the bulk of the calls were from Wally Harrison. The police would have caught him. Or Hatch would have spoken up sooner about his arrangement to have Wally keep an eye on Henry and Lillian.

  Still, who knew? Wally had been clever with the calls, and if Allyson had spoken up, she could have ended up triggering Billie to act sooner, with even more disastrous results.

  Allyson knew she couldn't let the what-ifs drive her out of her mind. The last call, just before the bomb exploded in the barn, was from Billie. Wally was already dead. They'd played each other, Billie Corrigan and Wally Harrison.

  Billie made both bombs with common materials she'd stolen from the Jerichos. She set the bombs on timers. Allyson didn't understand why Billie hadn't set them to go off at night. The investigators believed she already had the bombs in place, but was pushed into setting the timers after she killed Wally Harrison. That was a clear homicide, and Billie would know once his body was found, access to the Stockwells would be cut off, even for her, until his murder was solved. The sand had simply run out of the hourglass. She'd had to make her move. She must have set the timer on the cottage bomb when she picked up the art supplies for Henry and Lillian, the one at the barn when she delivered the supplies. Helpful Billie, always trying to make people happy. Nobody had thought anything of her showing up.

  None of them had seen that she was bold and desperate and maybe a little crazy—and also very determined.

  "Are you sure you're up for this press conference?" Pete asked, and Allyson could see his concern for her. He had no other agenda. He just wanted to be sure she was okay.

  But she didn't hesitate. "Yes."

  "Henry and Lillian want to do it with you, you know."

  "They're not allowed. They're children. But I'm telling the world that if not for them, God only knows where we'd all be right now." She felt the hot sting of tears in her eyes. "They've been so damn brave."

  "Pop wants to put homing devices on them."

  Allyson smiled through her tears. "I swear to God, Pete, but Madeleine said the same thing."

  He laughed. He was so good for her, she thought. So steady. "Those two. A couple of old cranks. They ran into each other in the hospital waiting room. Madeleine told him she could have done worse for neighbors all these years. I could tell Pop was pleased, but he insisted she'd never called him a neighbor before. Then she said she had—well, they argued about that for a while, until she finally told him not to get the idea he could just pop over to borrow a cup of sugar whenever he felt like it."

  "They both love the land," Allyson said. "They respect that in each other."

  Pete ran one hand over the top of the grass, not looking at her. "Madeleine's blunt and says things she shouldn't, and she's a snob. But she never asked Wally Harrison or anyone else to put the screws to me. They did it to curry favor with her. She's not perfect. She's made mistakes, but we all do." He looked at Allyson now, wisdom in those young eyes. "Even you."

  "That's not so easy to admit," she said quietly.

  "No. Not for you."

  He leaned back on his outstretched elbows, his face and arms tanned, his stomach flat, his legs well muscled, and she knew she could rely on him. He was solid, her rock. They'd rebuild Stonebrook Cottage and live there, make it their home. Pete was excited about doing a lot of the work himself.

  "Madeleine'll help Henry and Lillian get through this," he said. "She'll help you if you'll let her."

  Allyson thought of Madeleine Stockwell, the joys and the immeasurable grief they'd shared over the years. Could she have endured Lawrence's death without his mother there, ever the survivor? She sighed, listening to Bea hum to the chickens. "You're right, Pete. You like that, don't you? Being right."

  He grinned. "It's a switch."

  And he rose, agile and surprisingly graceful. Allyson gave a small groan. "I can't believe I'm lying here burned and broken and thinking about the next time we're in bed together."

  "Good, because I was starting to wonder what kind of creep I am to be thinking the same thing." He leaned over her hammock and took a strand of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. "You need to rest and use that breathing thing they gave you for your lung. It's okay to cry at your press conference, but if you collapse and have to be carried out of there on a stretcher, that's it. Connecticut'll have a new governor by the six o'clock news."

  "They might, anyway," she said. "I might yet resign."

  "Nah. You'll stay. You're a do-gooder, Allyson. You love this state. You want to give it your best shot."

  "My children need me."

  He winked. "Don't tell them that."

  She'd set them up with a psychologist who'd asked her to listen to them very carefully and not assume she knew what they were thinking. Help them to feel safe. Make sure they knew she loved them. They'd already made their position on her future very clear. They liked the idea of their mother being governor, and if she wanted to continue as governor, she should. She said it could be rough going for a while, because of the scandal and her own inaction. They'd asked her why she didn't say anything about the calls.

  She told them the truth. "Because I didn't believe they meant anything, and I didn't know whether Pete and I would stay together after Big Mike died—I wasn't going to be backed into a corner by some jerk looking for political advantage. Then everything started to happen. I was afraid for you two, for myself. Don't get me wrong. I should have said something the minute I got the first call."

  "It wouldn't have mattered," Henry had said sagely. "It was that man who followed us—Walter Harrison— who was calling you. Billie still wanted to kill us."

  Twelve years old, and someone had wanted— tried—to kill him and his sister. A reality they would all have to absorb. The news conference was at Stock-well Farm in two hours. Madeleine had insisted. People needed to see the ruins of the barn, she said, see for themselves the depths Billie had sunk to, how close Allyson had come to being killed. Pete had told Madeleine she just wanted people to see her summer roses. She'd almost managed a small laugh. Allyson knew they'd be all right. It would take time, but they'd be okay.

  She planned to stand there and talk until the reporters ran out of questions. Then she'd probably have to start over and answer them all again. But they'd be the ones to call it quits, not her. The people deserved to know what had happened to their governor and lieutenant governor this summer. She would tell them everything. Then they would decide if they wanted her to continue as their governor.

  Hatch wouldn't be there. He'd packed up and bought a ticket for the Patagonians. He would hike, he told her. He would find himself. Then one day he'd come home.

  Allyson became aware that Pete had left, letting her rest, but she could see Henry and Lillian running across the lawn toward her hammock. She sensed their excitement, the resilience their psychologist had already spoken of. "What's up?" she asked them.

  Lillian was jumping up and down. "Charlie and Bea are getting us a baby goat! We can each have our own!"

  Henry's response was more muted, because, Allyson thought, he had to prove he was older and less prone to wild displays of enthusiasm for anything. But he was pleased, his eyes sparking in a way she hadn't seen since the kids had escaped Billie Corrigan. "I'm helping Charlie build a pen for them."

  They talked about the goats for a while. Bea was insisting they learn all about goats and what they needed, how to care for them. Then Lillian, sitting in the grass with her brother, frowned up at her mother. "When can we go visit Aunt Kara?"

  Kara had been released from the hospital that morning and had stopped by with her brother and sister-in-law before they all headed to Boston. Sam Temple wasn't there, but Allyson wasn't worried. She smiled at her children. "I think very soon we'll be going to a Texas wedding."

  Twenty-Six
/>   It was chowder night at Jim's Place, and Davey Ahearn was complaining. "Jimmy, is that corn in my clam chowder? Why is there corn in my clam chowder?"

  "I'm trying something new."

  "Not with the chowder. You don't mess with the chowder."

  Kara laughed, and for once it didn't hurt all that much. She had painkillers in her tote bag, just in case. And her family around her. Jack, Susanna, the twins. Iris Dunning, Susanna's indomitable grandmother, had secured them two tables, shoved them together and made them all sit.

  The crowd at Jim's Place was celebrating the birth of Jim Haviland's grandson, Jedidiah James Thorne. Kara thought finally she had all the players straight. Tess, the baby's mother—Jim's daughter and Susanna's best friend in Boston—was doing fine, and Andrew Thorne, the baby's father, and his little girl, Dolly, were beside themselves with joy. So were Jim and Davey, Tess's godfather, except they had an opinion about the name. They thought it should be James Jedidiah. Who'd

  name a kid Jedidiah?

  "We'll call him Jed," Jim said.

  Davey sighed. "Like Jed Clampett?"

  But the two friends passed out cigars, and some of the construction workers and firefighters had brought booties and little nighties, and the graduate students all insisted they liked the name Jedidiah. Before they flew back to San Antonio tomorrow, Susanna said she wanted to run up to the North Shore and visit.

  The baby talk made Kara wistful, and even with her family gathered around her, she felt alone.

  Sam wasn't there. He was still explaining himself to the Connecticut authorities. Jack had gone to the mat for his sister and his sergeant, and Kara knew it just about killed him. He was a by-the-rules kind of guy. In another life, he'd have Sam fired and both of them in jail—or at least tossed to the coyotes.

  Texas Rangers weren't supposed to go up to Connecticut and shoot people, even murder suspects. And little sisters weren't supposed to get themselves shot.

  "I can't believe you stood there arguing with Billie Corrigan when she had a gun pointed at you," he said over his chowder. This part of Kara's story had only just come out. He was sitting across from her at the table. "You lawyers.You'll argue with anyone, over anything."

  She scoffed. "What would you have done?"

  "I don't know. Door swing in or out?"

  "Out."

  "Kicked it in her face and dived for cover."

  Next to him, Susanna rolled her eyes, amused.

  "He doesn't know what he'd have done, Susanna. He wasn't there."

  "I wouldn't have argued," he insisted. But he sighed at his sister and said to his wife, "Look at her. She's going to slide under the table any minute."

  "I'm fine," Kara said.

  "Right. Well, when you do slide under the table, we'll just have Sam carry you back to Iris's and put you to bed."

  "Sam's not here or you wouldn't be saying that."

  He gave her one of his know-it-all looks. "That's where you're wrong, little sister. Sam is here, and he will carry you back. Just one clarification." Jack got to his feet, Susanna and Iris and Maggie and Ellen all following his lead, and he leaned across the table to her and smiled. "It's separate beds at Iris's."

  They left her alone at the table, and Sam walked into the pub and sat across from her, tilting back in his chair and shaking his head. He was, Kara thought, the sexiest, handsomest man not just in Texas, but on the planet.

  He grinned at her. "You look like you've been shot, Miss Kara."

  "I didn't expect you back here. I thought I might end up having to borrow some of Susanna's millions to make bail for you."

  "Not me. The state's chief attorney herself told me I was free to go this morning and personally thanked me for saving the lives of the governor's children. I told her you saved their lives, and I saved your life."

  "Did you tell her I saved your life?"

  "Ah. The hibachi. No, I didn't mention the hibachi."

  "It was a good move," Kara said. "Sam—" "I know, babe." She took a breath. "Billie was determined to kill

  Henry and Lillian. I could see it in her eyes. She had it in her head that all her problems would be solved if only they were out of the way. Allyson, too, by that point. Hatch'd be rich and take care of her, Pete'd be free to fall in love with her, Allyson wouldn't be there to resent and be jealous of, the kids to remind her of her own sad upbringing. If you hadn't shot her, she'd have come after them—"

  "She'd have gotten her ass blown up by her own damn bomb." Kara had hardly touched her clam chowder. "What about Zoe West?" "She'll be fine. She says she wishes she had a picture of me charging to the rescue in her yellow VW." Kara smiled. "The whole of the Texas Rangers will wish she had that picture."

  Sam ignored that one. "I don't think she's going to last much longer in the Bluefield Police Department. Her chief's pretty mad at her for letting me run loose with a gun, but it would have been a hell of a lot worse if he'd had another governor turn up dead in his town."

  "She'll take the fall," Kara said. "She knows it. She told me she's been trying to get

  fired for the past year. I gather she doesn't like guns." "Why doesn't she quit?" "Her father was a police chief in Maine, killed in the

  line of duty." "I didn't know," Kara said quietly.

  Jim Haviland offered Sam chowder, a beer, a cigar— whatever he wanted. But he shook his head, and Kara knew she had to tell him what Susanna had told her just that morning.

  "Gordon Temple called Susanna's mother after he saw what happened on the news. He wanted her to tell you he's sorry you and he didn't get to talk at the opening. He hopes to have that chance one day soon."

  "He's my father," Sam said.

  Kara nodded. "What you said before—you're right. Not every love is meant to last forever. Sam, about what I said when I was in the hospital—"

  "It scared the hell out of me."

  "I understand."

  He leaned across the table and put one finger under her chin and lifted it, raising her eyes so they had to meet his. "You should jump on my testimony, Counselor. I used the past tense. Scared, not scares. I never believed I could love one woman with all my heart and soul, forever." He smiled, tracing his fingertip over her lips. "But I do. I do love you with all my heart and soul."

  Her throat caught. "Sam—"

  "How loopy were you in the hospital when you said you were my soul mate?"

  "Pretty loopy to have said it out loud."

  "Did you mean it?"

  She didn't look away, didn't even think of running. "Yes."

  "Good, because I'm your soul mate, Kara. Forever."

  Up at the bar, Davey Ahearn groaned. "Jesus, I think I just cried in my chowder. Jimmy? Champagne all around. On me. It'll help kill the taste of the damn corn." He slid off his stool, a big man with an enormous heart, and he clapped a powerful hand on Sam's shoulder and pointed at Kara. "She isn't going to make it through champagne, Sarge. She'll be on the floor in about thirty seconds."

  Sam nodded. "Rain check?"

  "Sure, although you're running out of places up here where you're welcome."

  "You'll always be welcome here, Sam," Jim Haviland said.

  Davey scowled at his friend. "That's what I said."

  Whatever they said next, Kara was lost—her bullet wound and the medication and fatigue and the delirious feeling that came with knowing Sam Temple loved her, loving him as much as she did, all had her falling off her chair.

  Davey Ahearn and Jim Haviland made a move for her, but it was Sam who got around to her first. Although she said she could walk just fine, he carried her out of the bar into the warm summer night and up the street to her family.

  ®

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-2891-1

  STONEBROOK COTTAGE

  Copyright © 2002 by Carla Neggers.

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