Best Kept Secrets

by Sandra Brown

  It never occurred to him to be ashamed of making the thirty-mile trip to his mistress’s house, which he planned to do tomorrow night.

  Stacey dropped the ceramic mug. It crashed and broke on the tile kitchen floor. “Good Lord,” she breathed, clutching together the lapels of her velour robe.

  “Stacey, it’s me.”

  The first knock on the back door had startled her so badly the mug had slipped from her hand. The voice speaking her name did nothing to restore her heart to its proper beat. For several moments she stood staring at the door, then rushed across the kitchen and pushed back the stiff, starched curtain.

  “Junior?!”

  She didn’t have sufficient air to say his name aloud. Her lips formed it soundlessly. Fumbling with the lock, she hastily unlatched the door and pulled it open, as though afraid he would vanish before she could do it.

  “Hi.” His smile was uncomplicated and open, as if he knocked on her back door every night about this time. “Did I hear something break?”

  She reached up to touch his face and reassure herself he was really there, then shyly dropped her hand. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you.”

  She glanced past him, searching her backyard for a plausible reason for her ex-husband to be standing on the steps.

  He laughed. “I’ve come alone. I just didn’t want to ring the bell, in case the judge had already gone to bed.”

  “He has. He… uh, come in.” Remembering her manners, she moved aside. Junior stepped in. They stood facing each other in the harsh kitchen light, which wasn’t very flattering to Stacey, who had already cleaned her face and prepared for bed.

  She had fantasized about him coming to her one night, but now that it had happened, she was immobilized and rendered mute by disbelief. Myriad professions of love and devotion rushed through her mind, but she knew he wouldn’t welcome hearing them. She resorted to safe subjects.

  “Dad went to bed early. His stomach was upset. I made him some warm milk. I decided to make cocoa out of what I had left over.” Unable to take her eyes off him, she gestured nervously toward the stove, where the milk was about to scorch in the pan.

  Junior went to the range and turned off the burner. “Cocoa, huh? Your cocoa? There’s none better. Got enough for two cups?”

  “Of… of course. You mean you’re staying?”

  “For a while. If you’ll have me.”

  “Yes,” she said with a rush of air. “Yes.”

  Usually adept in the kitchen, Stacey clumsily prepared two cups of cocoa. She couldn’t imagine why he’d chosen tonight to come see her. She didn’t care. It was enough that he was here.

  When she handed him his cocoa, he smiled disarmingly and asked, “Do you have any spirits in the house?”

  He followed her into the living room, where several bottles of liquor were stored in a cabinet, to be taken out only on the most special occasions.

  “This isn’t your first drink of the night, is it?” she asked as she tilted the spout of the brandy bottle against his mug of chocolate.

  “No, it isn’t.” Lowering his voice, he whispered, “I smoked a joint, too.”

  Her lips pursed with stern disapproval. “You know how I feel about dope, Junior.”

  “Marijuana isn’t dope.”

  “It is so.”

  “Ah, Stacey,” he whined, bending down to kiss her ear. “An ex-wife has no right to scold.”

  The touch of his lips made her insides flutter. Her censure melted as quickly as ice cream in August. “I didn’t mean to scold. I just wondered why, after all this time, you came to me tonight.”

  “I wanted to.” She knew that to Junior’s mind, that was reason enough. He sprawled on the sofa and pulled her down beside him. “No, leave the lamp off,” he told her when she reached for the switch. “Let’s just sit here and drink our cocoa together.”

  “I heard about the trouble out at the ranch,” she said after a quiet moment.

  “It’s all cleaned up now. Can’t tell it ever happened. It could have been a lot worse.”

  She touched him hesitantly. “You could have been hurt.”

  He set his empty cup on the coffee table and sighed. “You’re still concerned for my safety?”

  “Always.”

  “No one’s ever been as sweet to me as you, Stacey. I’ve missed you.” He reached for her hand and pressed it between his.

  “You look worn out and troubled.”

  “I am.”

  “Over the vandalism?”

  “No.” He slumped deeper into the cushions of the couch and rested his head on the back of it. “This mess we’re in about Celina’s murder. It’s depressing as hell.” He tilted his head until it was lying on her shoulder. “Hmm, you smell good. It’s a smell I’ve missed. So clean.” He nuzzled her neck.

  “What bothers you so much about this investigation?”

  “Nothing specific. It’s Alex. She and Mother had a row today. Mother let it slip that Celina got knocked up and had to get married to her soldier. It wasn’t a pretty scene.”

  His arm slid around her waist. Automatically, Stacey lifted her hands to cradle his cheek and pressed his head against her breasts.

  “I lied to her,” she confessed in a small voice. “A lie of omission.”

  Junior mumbled with disinterest.

  “I never told her I was in the barn the day Celina was killed.”

  “How come you did that?”

  “I didn’t want her hounding me with questions. I hate her for causing you trouble again, Junior.”

  “Alex can’t help it. It’s not her fault.”

  It was a familiar refrain, one that set Stacey’s teeth on edge. Junior had often said the same thing about Celina. No matter how shabbily she treated him, he had never spoken a harsh, critical word against her.

  “I hate this girl of Celina’s as much as I did her,” Stacey whispered.

  The alcohol and strong Mexican grass had dulled Junior’s thinking. “Never mind all that now. This feels good, doesn’t it?” he murmured as his lips followed his hand inside her robe to her breast. His damp tongue glanced her nipple. “You always liked for me to do that.”

  “I still do.”

  “Really? And this? Do you still like this?” he asked, sucking her nipple into his mouth and pushing his hand into the furry, damp warmth between her thighs.

  She groaned his name.

  “I’ll understand if you don’t want me to.” He pulled away slightly.

  “No,” she said quickly, guiding his head back down and clenching her thighs closed around his hand. “I do want you to. Please.”

  “Stacey, Stacey, your tender loving care is just what I need tonight. I could always count on you to make me feel better.” He raised his head from her breast and gave her mouth a long, slow, thorough kiss. “Remember what always made me feel better than anything?” he asked, his lips resting on hers.

  “Yes.” She looked up at him solemnly. He smiled as beatifically as an angel. When he looked at her that way, she couldn’t deny him anything—not when they were teenagers, not when they were married, not now, not ever.

  Stacey Wallace Minton, the judge’s proper, straitlaced daughter, immediately dropped to her knees in front of him, hastily opened his fly, and took him into her hungry mouth.

  “Miz Gaither, ma’am? Miz Gaither? You in there?”

  Alex had been dozing. Roused by the knocking on her door, which had been repaired, she woke up to find that she was sprawled on top of the bedspread, stiff and cold. Her eyes were swollen from crying.

  “What do you want?” Her voice amounted to little more than a croak. “Go away.”

  “Is your phone off the hook, ma’am?”

  “Damn.” She swung her feet to the side of the bed. Her clothes were wrinkled and bunched around her. She shook them back into place as she walked to the window and pulled aside the drape. The motel’s night clerk was standing at the door.

  “I too
k the phone off the hook so I wouldn’t be disturbed,” she told him through the window.

  He peered in at her, obviously glad to see that she was still alive. “Sorry to bother you then, ma’am, but there’s this guy trying to get in touch with you. He’s been arguin’ with me, saying you couldn’t be talking on your phone for this long.”

  “What guy?”

  “Happer or Harris or something,” he mumbled, consulting the slip of paper he’d brought with him. He held it closer to the light over her door. “Can’t quite make out my writin’ here… spellin’ ain’t so good.”

  “Harper? Greg Harper?”

  “I reckon that’s it, yes, ma’am.”

  Alex dropped the drape back into place, slid the chain lock free, and opened the door. “Did he say what he wanted?”

  “Sure did. Said for me to tell you that you was to be in Austin tomorrow morning for a ten o’clock meeting.”

  Alex stared at the clerk, stupefied. “You must have gotten the message wrong. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”

  “That’s what he said, and I didn’t git it wrong, ’cause I wrote it down right here.” He showed her the slip of paper with the message scrawled in pencil. “The man’s been callin’ you all afternoon and was p.o.’d ’cause he couldn’t git you. Finally, he said he was goin’ out for the evenin’ and for me to come to your room and hand-deliver the message, which I done. So, good night.”

  “Wait!”

  “Look, I’m s’posed to be tending the switchboard.”

  “Did he say what kind of meeting this was, why it was so urgent?”

  “Naw, only that you’re s’posed to be there.”

  He stood there expectantly. With mumbled thanks, she pressed a dollar bill into his hand, and he loped off in the direction of the lobby.

  Thoughtfully, Alex closed her door and reread the message. It made no sense. It wasn’t like Greg to be so cryptic. It wasn’t like him to call meetings that were virtually impossible to make, either.

  When the bafflement began to wear off, the enormity of her dilemma set in. She had to be in Austin by ten o’clock in the morning. It was already dark. If she left now, she would have to drive most of the night, and would arrive in Austin in the wee hours.

  If she waited until morning, she would have to leave dreadfully early and then be on a deadline to get there in time. Either choice was wretched, and she wasn’t mentally or emotionally fit to make a decision.

  Then, an idea occurred to her. Before she could talk herself out of it, she placed a telephone call.

  “Sheriff’s department.”

  “Sheriff Lambert, please.”

  “He’s not here. Can anybody else help?”

  “No, thank you. I need to speak with him personally.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but is this Ms. Gaither?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In my motel room. Why?”

  “That’s where Reede’s headed. He should be there by now.” Then he paused and asked, “Say, are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right. I think I hear the sheriff pulling up now. Thank you.” Alex hung up and moved to the window in time to see Reede get out of his truck and rush toward her door.

  She flung it open. He drew up abruptly, almost losing his balance. “Please don’t kick it in again.”

  “Don’t be cute with me,” he said, glowering darkly. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Like hell.” He gestured toward the bedside telephone. Its innocence seemed to provoke him further. He pointed toward it accusingly. “I’ve been calling for hours, and all I got is a busy signal.”

  “I took it off the hook. What was so important?”

  “I heard what happened this afternoon between you and Sarah Jo.”

  Her shoulders dropped dejectedly and she released a long breath. She had almost forgotten about that in her perplexity over Greg’s summons.

  She had never checked the date on her parents’ marriage license. It wouldn’t necessarily be conclusive, anyway. As an attorney, she knew that dates, even on so-called legal documents, could be falsified. The way everyone had reacted to Sarah Jo’s revelation, she knew it was true. She had been conceived illegitimately.

  “You should have been there, Sheriff. I made a spectacle of myself. You would have been thoroughly entertained.”

  Her flippancy didn’t improve his mood. “Why’d you take your phone off the hook?”

  “To get some rest. What did you think, that I took an overdose of sleeping pills or gave my wrists a close shave?”

  He gave the sarcastic question credence. “Maybe.”

  “Then, you don’t know me very well,” she told him angrily. “I don’t give in that easily. And I’m not ashamed that my parents had to get married.”

  “I didn’t say you were or that you should be.”

  “That was their mistake. It has nothing to do with me as a person, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “So stop thinking… Oh, hell, I don’t care what you’re thinking,” she said, rubbing her temples. She was more annoyed with herself than with him. Lashing out was only an indication of how upset she really was. “I need your help, Reede.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “Can you fly me to Austin?”

  The request took him by surprise. He pulled himself upright from where he had complacently slouched against the framework of the recently repaired doorway.

  “Fly you to Austin? Why?”

  “Business with Greg Harper. I need to be there at ten o’clock in the morning for a meeting.”

  Chapter 27

  They were in the air less than an hour later, on a southeasterly course toward the state capital. Alex had used a quarter of that hour to get herself looking human again. She had washed her face in cold water, applied fresh makeup, brushed her hair, and changed into a pair of wool slacks and a sweater. Whatever she wore to the meeting in the morning could come out of her closet at home.

  On the way to Purcell’s municipal airfield, Reede stopped at a hamburger joint and picked up the order he’d phoned ahead for. There was a single-engine Cessna waiting for them on the tarmac when they arrived at the landing strip. The sheriff knew how to pull strings.

  Purcell was no more than a patch of glittering light on the black carpet beneath them before she thought to ask, “Does this plane belong to you?”

  “Minton Enterprises. Angus gave me permission to use it. Pass me one of those cheeseburgers.”

  She devoured almost half of hers—Sarah Jo’s cucumber sandwich hadn’t gone far—before she came up for air. “When did you learn to fly?”

  Reede munched a french fry. “I was about eight.”

  “Eight!”

  “I had salvaged an old beat-up bike from a junkyard and repaired it well enough to get around on. I pedaled out to the airfield every chance I got.”

  “It must be three miles from town,” she exclaimed.

  “I didn’t care. I’d have gone twice that far. The planes intrigued me. The old guy who ran the place was as testy as a rattlesnake, a real loner, but he kept a strawberry soda pop waiting for me in his ancient icebox. I guess I pestered the snot out of him, but he didn’t seem to mind all my questions. One day, he looked over at me and said, ‘I gotta check out this plane. Wanna go along for the ride?’ I nearly peed my pants.”

  Reede probably didn’t realize that he was smiling over the happy memory. Alex remained silent so he wouldn’t be reminded that she was there. She enjoyed his smile. It attractively emphasized the fine lines at the outer corners of his eyes and those around his mouth.

  “God, it was great,” he said, as though he could feel the surge of pleasure again. “I hadn’t discovered sex yet, so flying was the best thing that had happened to me. From up there, everything looked so peaceful, so clean.”

  An escape from the awful realities of his childhood, Alex thought compassionately. She
wanted to touch him, but didn’t dare. She was about to venture down a rocky, hazardous path. One wrong word or turn of phrase would spell doom, so she felt her way carefully.

  Quietly, she asked, “Reede, why didn’t you tell me that my mother was pregnant when she came back from El Paso?”

  “Because it doesn’t make any difference.”

  “Not now, but it did twenty-five years ago. She didn’t want to marry my father. She had to.”

  “Now that you know, what does it change? Not a goddamn thing.”

  “Perhaps,” she replied uncertainly. After another brief silence, she said, “I was the quarrel, wasn’t I?”

  He looked at her sharply. “What?”

  Letting her head fall back on the headrest, she sighed. “I wondered why the two of you didn’t kiss and make up when she got back that summer. Knowing how much and how long you had cared for each other, I wondered what could possibly keep you apart after a silly lovers’ spat. Now, I know. It wasn’t silly. It was more than a spat. It was me. I kept you apart. I was the quarrel.”

  “It wasn’t you.”

  “It was.”

  Grandma Graham had said it was her fault that Celina had been killed. Everything Alex uncovered was bearing that out. Had Celina, by having another man’s child, driven her passionate, jealous, possessive lover to kill her?

  “Reede, did you murder my mother because of me?”

  “Damn,” he swore viciously. “I could strangle Sarah Jo for telling you about that. My quarrel with Celina wasn’t over you—not originally, anyway.”

  “Then, what?”

  “Sex!” Swiveling his head around, he glared at her. “Okay?”

  “Sex?”

  “Yeah, sex.”

  “You were pressuring her to and she wouldn’t?”

  His jaw tensed. “It was the other way around, Counselor.”

  “What?” Alex exclaimed. “You expect me to believe—”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you believe. It’s the truth. Celina wanted to get a head start on our future, and I wouldn’t.”

  “Next, you’re going to tell me that you had an unselfish, noble reason,” Alex said, tongue-in-cheek. “Right?”

  “My own parents,” he said without inflection. “My old man got my mother pregnant when she was barely fifteen. They had to get married. Look how great that turned out. I wouldn’t take a chance on the same thing happening to Celina and me.”