The Passions of Chelsea Kane

by Barbara Delinsky

  Rather than moving off, it aimed for the shoulder of the road.

  With seconds to spare before they were hit, Chelsea threw herself at Donna and tumbled them both into the brush at the side of the road. Breathing hard and trembling, they scrambled to their knees and stared off at the disappearing truck. Then they looked at each other. No signing was necessary. Donna’s stunned expression said that she knew what Chelsea did. The white writing on the tailgate of the dirty gray truck identified it, clear as day.

  Sixteen

  Are you sure it was one of ours?” Judd asked.

  “It was a Plum Granite truck,” Chelsea confirmed.

  Nolan sat behind his desk, jotting notes on a form. His office was done up in metal and would have felt cold, had it not been for Nolan. He was a large man in blue with graying hair, a bull neck, and a warm way about him that surprised Chelsea each time she saw him. “Did you see anything of the driver?” he asked now.

  “I couldn’t. The sun was just coming up behind it, so the cab was dark. Besides, I really expected that it would pass us like the others all do. When I looked back and saw it so close, the only thing I had time to do was to get us out of the way. By the time it occurred to me to wonder about the driver, it was long gone.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Judd asked. His eyes held hers, telling her the nature of his concern. She imagined he would have looked at her stomach if it weren’t for presence of the others. For all he lacked in softness, he was discreet.

  “I’m fine,” she said quietly. She looked at Donna. “Are you okay?”

  Donna nodded.

  “No bruises?” Nolan asked. He, too, was looking at Donna. His eyes were filled with the softness Judd’s lacked, and for an instant Chelsea felt an overwhelming envy. Then she realized the folly of that. She wouldn’t want to trade places with Donna. Not only did Donna have a physical handicap that prevented her from hearing the sound of her own son’s voice, but she had a husband who treated her like dirt. She more than deserved what little gentleness came her way.

  Donna shook her head no to Nolan’s inquiry. She shifted to Judd and mouthed, “Who?”

  “There are four trucks that size,” Judd said. “Three are parked at Moss Ridge every night. Oliver drives the other.”

  “You didn’t see a license plate?” Nolan asked Chelsea.

  She shook her head. “I was too shocked by the writing on the back of the truck.” After a hesitant glance at Donna, she asked Judd, “Is it safe to assume that it was one of the three parked at Moss Ridge?”

  Judd looked her in the eye. “Oliver may be ornery, but he isn’t evil. Or stupid. The business is moving again. Knocking you off would be sabotaging his own prosperity. Knocking Donna off would be suicide. Besides”—he spoke more quietly—“he only drives the truck from home to work and back, and then only in broad daylight. Anything more scares him. His reflexes aren’t good. In a pinch, I’ve seen him put Margaret behind the wheel. Usually it’s me.”

  “Arthritis,” Donna said. Her voice was too loud, but no one minded. She was visibly shaky.

  “That, too,” Judd confirmed, “only no one’s supposed to know. He has an image to protect.”

  Chelsea shouldn’t have been surprised by the fact that Judd covered for Oliver. He took care of his own father above and beyond the call of duty. It stood to reason that he would respond to Oliver’s frailties. He was that kind of man.

  What she didn’t understand was why, if he could be understanding and compassionate toward a wretch of a man like Oliver, he couldn’t be understanding toward her. She supposed it was because she was an intruder of sorts. There was no shared past, no loyalty or sense of obligation. They had briefly been lovers, never friends in the sense of going through life’s trials together.

  “Let’s focus on the other three trucks,” Nolan said. “Where are the keys?”

  “In their ignitions, I assume,” Judd answered.

  “They’re not locked up at night?” Chelsea asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this isn’t the city,” he said without apology. He was looking her straight in the eye again, daring her to say something or do something or feel something that would betray what had happened between them. “We don’t lock things up the way you folks do.”

  She ignored the “you folks” but not the dare, because ignoring dares wasn’t in her nature. “That means,” she concluded with a straight-in-the-eye look right back at him, “that anyone, even someone with nothing to do with the company, could have been driving that truck.”

  “Only if that person wanted to crash through the gates,” he said. “They are locked at night.”

  “Who has the keys to the gates?” Nolan asked.

  “I have a set. Oliver has a set. Each of the site foremen has a set. So does the shed foreman. Problem is, we’re not talking about Fort Knox here. The locks aren’t sophisticated. They could probably be picked by anyone who knows anything about picking locks.”

  “Then I was right,” Chelsea said. She didn’t look Judd in the eye this time. She was tired of that game. The fact was that either there was a lousy driver on the road, or someone was out to run her down. “It could have been anyone.”

  Nolan checked his watch. “I want to start looking around. It’s nearly seven-thirty, Judd. Your men already there?” When Judd nodded he reached for his hat and rose. “I’ll follow you out.”

  But Judd was reaching for Chelsea’s arm. “I’m taking her home first. I’ll meet you there.”

  Chelsea would have run home had her legs felt stronger. But she didn’t want to push, not with the baby. Promising Donna she would stop by on her way to the office, she went along with Judd. He didn’t say a word until they had left the town green behind.

  “Are you really feeling okay?”

  His eyes were on the road. She couldn’t tell if they held concern. His voice gave nothing away.

  “Worried, is all.”

  “You look pale.”

  “I’m not wearing makeup.”

  “I’ve seen you without makeup before.” And so he had. “You still look pale.”

  She shrugged and turned to the window. The fact was that she was feeling shaky and scared and that what she wanted most was to slide across the seat and be held for a minute. Instead she wrapped her arms around herself.

  He took in the gesture and braked. “Maybe Neil Summers ought to check you out.”

  “I’m fine,” she insisted, and waved him on. Reluctantly, she thought, he returned to the gas.

  “Have you seen him about the baby?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “I have a man in Baltimore.”

  “Lotta good he’ll do you down there. Don’t you think you should see someone here?”

  “I will.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “When are you going to make it public?”

  “When it shows.”

  “It shows now.”

  “Only if you look for it.”

  “It shows.”

  So he’d been looking. That knowledge set off a humming inside that she determinedly ignored. “What’s the rush?”

  He was silent, jaw set, brow beetled. “Someone wants you out of this town enough to make phone calls at night and then, when that didn’t spook you, try to run you off the road. If whoever it is knows you’re pregnant, he may think twice. Harming you is one thing, killing your baby another.”

  “Good God, Judd,” she breathed because the word killing made her shudder.

  “I should pretend it isn’t a possibility? Aren’t you concerned?”

  “Of course I’m concerned. Why do you think I’m sitting in this car right now?”

  His profile was hard. “Maybe because you want to get home faster so you won’t be late for work. You know, it wouldn’t kill you to take it easy a little. If this hadn’t happened, you’d probably have k
ept running until you were ready to drop the kid.”

  “No. I’ll only run for another month. Less if it starts to bother me. I’m not that irresponsible, Judd.”

  He shot her an incredulous look. “You’re running after today?”

  “Definitely.” Cydra might have called the near miss a sign, but what did Cydra know?

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No. Running airs me out.”

  “You are crazy.”

  “Not crazy,” she mused. “I like exercising. I also like the freedom to choose where I go and what I do. I refuse to be intimidated by a madman in a truck.”

  “Now, that’s smart.”

  His sarcasm stung. She tried to shrug it off. “That’s the way it is. Donna and I have been taking the same route each time we run. Next time we’ll vary it.”

  “Clever.”

  “If she still wants to run. If she doesn’t, I’ll go myself.”

  “Wise.”

  She turned on him. “It could be that whoever was driving that truck was after her. Have you thought of that?”

  “Frankly, no. You’re the one who barged into town uninvited. You’re the one threatening to change the status quo. You’re the one responsible for Bibi not making apple brown betty for Labor Day Dessert—and that may sound petty to you and me, but there’s a slew of folks here who didn’t like it at all. Donna’s a different story. She’s a Plum and a Farr. She’s lived here all her life. There’s not a soul in this town who doesn’t know her and like her.”

  But Chelsea wondered about that.

  ———

  SO DID NOLAN. “I WANT TO ASK YOU SOMETHING,” HE SAID.

  Donna had lingered in his office after Chelsea and Judd left. She knew that Nolan had to get to Moss Ridge, but he wasn’t rushing off any more than she was. She had to get home, was already late, but she couldn’t resist this small gift.

  He hunkered down beside her chair and brushed a hand against hers. His touch never failed to amaze her. For a big man, it was exquisitely gentle.

  “Do you think Matthew could have anything to do with this?” he asked.

  Matthew. The thought took her by surprise. Quickly she shook her head.

  “He has cause,” Nolan went on. “He doesn’t like you running. Maybe he felt that by scaring the two of you, he’d end it.”

  Again she shook her head. It wasn’t that she thought Matthew incapable of violence. She knew that he was.

  But hitting his wife was one thing—running down a major player in the town’s future was something else.

  Distressed, she quickly signed some of those thoughts. Nolan waited until she was done, then caught both of her hands in his one and asked, still gently, even regretfully, “Where was he last night?”

  Matthew had been out, as usual. As usual, she had no idea where. Her eyes told Nolan that.

  “When did he come home?”

  “One,” she mouthed.

  “Was he drunk?”

  “I think so.” She didn’t know for sure, but it was a fair guess. When he was drunk he collapsed on the day bed in the den. Since he hadn’t come to bed with her—for which she said a small prayer of thanks—she assumed that was where he was.

  “Did you see him before you left to run with Chelsea?”

  She shook her head.

  “Was the car in the driveway?”

  She hadn’t looked. But she saw what Nolan was getting at.

  He studied her hands, ran his thumbs over her knuckles, then raised his eyes to the scoop neck of the singlet she’d worn running. “It’s possible that he came home at one and went out again before you got up. Or that he left the house right after you did, drove to Moss Ridge, picked the lock on the gate, and so on.”

  “I’ll know soon,” Donna said aloud, because her mind was speeding ahead. If Matthew had been drunk and dead to the world on the day bed, he would come to breakfast hung over. She would be able to tell by looking at him whether he had been up and driving around that morning.

  Squeezing Nolan’s hand, she whispered, “I’d better go. If I’m too late, he’ll be mad.”

  Nolan didn’t immediately release her hands. “Will he hit you?”

  She gave a quick head shake.

  “But he has.”

  “Don’t,” she mouthed pleadingly. She couldn’t talk about what Matthew had done. Nolan already knew. His eyes saw the bruises that other people missed, especially the ones deep inside that cried out for soothing. But there was only so much he could do about those without making things worse.

  “I wish you’d leave him.”

  She shook her head.

  “Because of Joshie?” he asked with such concern on his face that tears came to her eyes. He brushed them away, leaving his hands framing her face. “I’ll take care of Joshie.”

  The tears returned. She wrapped her hands around his wrists and tried to shake her head, but the gesture only moved her cheek against his hand.

  “I want to help you, Donna.” He looked tormented. “Let me help you.”

  Before she could protest, he came forward and gave her a kiss that was feather light and as sweet as anything she’d ever tasted. She hadn’t nearly had her fill when he pulled back and said with a surprisingly shy smile, “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”

  She touched his mouth with her fingertips, but when he sucked one in, the shock of it had her pulling back fast. She held her fisted hand by her heart.

  “Too much?” he asked.

  She forced herself out of the chair. The longer she stayed, the more in danger she was of giving in. Nolan would take her to bed if she wanted. She’d known that for a long time. He would show her what making love truly meant. She’d wanted that for a long time.

  The issue was a moral one. She was married to Matthew. She couldn’t sleep with Nolan.

  But where did justice fit into the scheme? Matthew abused her. She had every right to seek solace in another man’s arms.

  If only she had the courage. Running with Chelsea was a small gesture of defiance. Being with Nolan was a far, far greater one than that.

  “D’YA DO IT?” OLIVER ASKED HUNTER WHEN HE FINALLY showed up at the quarry late that morning.

  Hunter strolled up to the railing where Oliver stood with Judd. Tucking his hands under his arms, he peered into the belly of the quarry, where men the size of roaches were at work. Drills bit into rock, cranes rumbled, cables strained, hammers resounded, all of it muted by distance and the breeze.

  “Do you think I did?” Hunter returned.

  “I’m askin’ the questions here. Did you or didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “That the truth?”

  Hunter’s dead expression said that he had no intention of responding—which was, Judd had long ago realized, his greatest weapon against Oliver. Oh, they bickered. Hunter was sufficiently glib to match Oliver reproach for reproach, but silence was more effective. For a man who liked to rule, being ignored was infuriating.

  Hunter did just that now. He looked past a glowering Oliver to Judd and said, “So Nolan hasn’t solved the case?”

  “No, he hasn’t solved the case,” Oliver snapped. The late September breeze raised strands of gray hair on his head, but otherwise he was as stiff as the stone around him.

  “I was talkin’ to Judd,” Hunter said, then to Judd. “No leads?”

  Judd paused, giving Oliver a chance to answer. When he didn’t, he said, “Not yet. There was no sign of a break-in.”

  “Had to be an inside job,” Oliver muttered.

  Hunter spared him a look. “Where were you at sunup?”

  “In my own bed, which is probably more than you can say. Do you have to drive that machine around at five in the morning? Just th’other day, Haskell Rhodes was complaining about the noise. It’s a gawd-awful sound to wake up to.”

  Hunter smiled dryly. “It sure identifies my comings and goings. If I’d gone out at sunup to get a truck, the whole town woulda known it.�
� Again he looked past Oliver to Judd. “Is she all right?”

  Judd didn’t have to ask who he meant. He wondered if Hunter knew about the baby. “She says she’s fine.”

  “My daughter was out there, too,” Oliver put in.

  Hunter responded before Judd could. “No one would hurt Donna. Everyone in town likes her but Matthew, and he wouldn’t have the guts to do anything so public.”

  Oliver scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Hunter pushed his hands, one at a time, deeper into the bunches of sweatshirt under his arms. “You guess.”

  “You got a gripe against Matthew?”

  “Not me, but you should. He’s not nice to your daughter.”

  “If he’s not nice to her, it’s because she does things she shouldn’t do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like running with Chelsea Kane.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “It’s not seemly.”

  “Seemly?” Hunter mocked. “So because she does something that isn’t seemly, her husband is allowed to beat her?”

  “He doesn’t beat her,” Oliver scoffed in dismissal, but Hunter wasn’t letting the matter drop, and Judd, for once, agreed.

  “Where’ve you been, old man? The whole town knows he gives her a good wallop when he’s in the mood.”

  “He doesn’t beat her.”

  “Keep telling yourself that and you might believe it. Open your eyes and you’ll see the truth.” The breeze gusted, whipping his hair back to reveal his gold earring and, Judd thought, an uncharacteristic concern. “He makes her work like a dog in that store. He orders her around. He ranks on her in front of the customers. He gives her a lousy fifteen-minute break three times a day. That what you want for your daughter?”

  “You don’t know squat.”

  “I know. I take your shit all the time, and I may or may not be your kid. But she’s a definite. Don’t you care about her?”

  “I don’t need that kind of question from you.”

  “You need it from someone. Wake up, old man. He’s beating her.”

  Oliver’s tall body was rigid. “He ain’t doin’ no such thing. He’s a good man, Matthew is. He’s Emery’s son. Emery’s son wouldn’t lay a hand on his wife.”