by Diana Palmer
The guilt made him angrier.
She poured coffee into a mug and put it in front of him on the table. Her hands were unsteady. “I realize it must seem like I’m keeping secrets,” she began.
“It sounds a lot like that.”
“I was going to tell you,” she protested.
“When?”
She hesitated.
“You said you didn’t want to get married yet. Is that why?” he persisted. “You got a job so you could take care of your bills here, so that you could refuse to honor the terms of our uncles’ wills?”
It was sounding worse than it was. He was mad. He couldn’t even hide it.
He hadn’t touched his coffee. He got to his feet. “You back away every time I come close to you. When I take you out, you dress like a teenager going to a dance in the gym. You get a job and don’t tell me. You’re being overheard flirting with the man who supposedly assaulted you years ago.” His eyes narrowed as she searched for ways to explain her behavior. “What other secrets are you keeping from me, Jillian?”
She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t make things worse. Her face was a study in misery.
“I’m not flirting with him,” she said.
“That isn’t what one of the diners said,” he returned.
She bit her lower lip. “I’ve been wondering,” she began.
“Wondering what?”
She lifted one shoulder. “Maybe I made a mistake,” she blurted out. “Maybe I did exaggerate what happened, because I was so naive.” She swallowed hard. “Like with the auditor, when I went out with him and didn’t tell him my age, and he got in trouble.”
Ted’s expression wasn’t easily explained. He just stared at her with black eyes that didn’t give any quarter at all.
“Davy Harris was kind to Uncle John,” she had to admit. “And he was always doing things for him, and for me.” She lowered her eyes to the floor, so miserable that she almost choked on her own words. “He said the other men did things to him in prison.”
He still hadn’t spoken.
She looked up, wincing at his expression. “He wasn’t a mean sort of person. He never hurt me…”
He picked up his hat, slammed it over his eyes, and walked out the door.
She ran after him. “Ted!”
He kept walking. He went down the steps, got into his truck and drove off without a single word.
Jillian stared after him with a feeling of disaster.
Sandra gaped at her the next morning at work. “You told Ted Graves that you made a mistake?” she asked. “What in the world is the matter with you? You were so young, Jillian! What sort of man tries to get it on with a kid barely in high school?”
“He was just twenty-one,” she protested.
“He should have known better. No jury in the world would have turned him loose for making advances to you.”
“Yes, but he, well, while he was in prison, some of the men…” She hesitated, searching for the words to explain.
“I know what you mean,” Sandra replied shortly. “But you’re missing the whole point. A grown man tried to make you go to bed with him when you were young then. Isn’t that what happened?”
Jillian drew in a long breath. “Yes. I guess so.”
“Then why are you trying to take the blame for it? Did you lead him on? Did you wear suggestive clothing, flirt with him, try to get him to come into your room when your uncle wasn’t around?”
“Good heavens, no!” Jillian protested.
Sandra’s black eyes narrowed. “Then why is it your fault?”
“He went to prison on my testimony.”
“Sounds to me like he deserved to,” Sandra replied curtly.
“But he was a kind man,” she said. “He was always doing things for other people. One week when Uncle John was real sick, he even did the grocery shopping for us.”
“A few years back in a murder trial, a witness testified that the accused murderer helped her take her groceries into the house. Another told the jury that he tuned up her old car when it wouldn’t start. What does that have to do with a man’s guilt or innocence?”
Jillian blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t you think that a man can do kind things and still kill someone, given the motive?” she asked.
“I never thought of it like that.”
“Even kind people can kill, Jillian,” Sandra said bluntly. “I knew this guy on the reservation, Harry. He’d give you the shirt off his back. He drove old Mr. Hotchkiss to the doctor every month to get his checkup. But he killed another man in an argument and got sent to prison for it. Do you think they should have acquitted him because he did a couple of kind things for other people?”
“Well, no,” she had to admit.
“We all have good and evil in us,” the older woman replied. “Just because we’re capable of good doesn’t mean we can’t do something evil.”
“I guess I understand.”
“You think about that. And stop trying to assume responsibility for something that wasn’t your fault. You were just out of grade school when it happened. You weren’t old enough or mature enough to permit any man liberties like that, at the time. You weren’t old enough to know better, Jillian, but he was.”
She felt a little better.
“Besides that, did you like it?”
“Are you kidding?” Jillian exclaimed. “No, I hated it!”
“Then that should tell you who’s at fault, shouldn’t it?”
Jillian began to relax. “You have a way with words.”
“I should have been a writer,” Sandra agreed. She grinned, showing perfect white teeth. “Now you stop spouting nonsense and start working on that bacon. We’ll have customers ranting because breakfast isn’t ready!”
Jillian laughed. “I guess we will. Thanks.”
Sandra grinned. “You’re welcome.”
Jillian didn’t go out front when the doors opened, not even to put out the cakes and pies. Sandra did that for her.
“Curious,” she said when she came back into the kitchen.
“What is?”
“Your old friend Davy wasn’t out there.”
“Maybe he decided to leave,” Jillian said hopefully.
“It would take somebody more gullible than me to believe that,” the older woman replied.
“Yes, but I can hope.”
“Know what the Arabs say?” Sandra asked. “They say, trust in Allah, but tie up your camel. Sound advice,” she added, shaking a long finger at the other woman.
Jillian did hope for the best, anyway, and not only about Davy Harris leaving town. She hoped that Ted might come by to talk, or just smooth things over with her. But he didn’t come to the restaurant, or to the ranch. And the next morning, Davy Harris was right back in the same booth, waiting for his breakfast.
“Did you miss me?” he teased Jillian, having surprised her as she was putting a pound cake in the display case.
“I didn’t notice you were gone,” she lied, flushing.
“We both know better than that, don’t we?” He leaned back in the booth, his pale eyes so smug that it made her curious. “I’ve been talking to people about you.”
She felt uneasy. “What people?”
“Just people.”
She didn’t know what to say. She got to her feet and went back into the kitchen. Her stomach was cutting somersaults all the way.
That afternoon, as she went out to get into her old vehicle to go home, she walked right into Davy.
She gasped and jumped back. He laughed.
“Do I make you nervous?” he chided. “I can’t imagine why. You know, I never tried to hurt you. I never did. Did I?”
“N-no,” she blurted out, embarrassed, because a few people standing outside the bank were listening, and watching them.
“I told your uncle I wanted to marry you,” he said, without lowering his voice. He even smiled. “He said that he hoped I would, because he liked me and he
knew I’d take care of you. But that was before you told those lies about me, wasn’t it, Jilly? That was before you got me put in jail for trying to kiss you.”
She was embarrassed because they were talking about something private in a very public location, and several people were listening.
“It wasn’t…wasn’t like that,” she stammered, flushing.
“Yes, it was, you just don’t like admitting that you made a mistake,” he said, his voice a little louder now. “Isn’t that the truth?”
She was fumbling for words. She couldn’t get her mind to work at all.
“You lied about me,” he continued, raising his voice. “You lied.”
She should have disputed that. She should have said that it was no lie, that he’d tried to assault her in her own home. But she was too embarrassed. She turned and almost ran to her truck. Once inside, she locked the door with cold, trembling fingers.
Davy stood on the sidewalk, smiling. Just smiling. A man and woman came up to him and he turned and started talking to them as Jillian drove away. She wondered what they were saying. She hoped it wasn’t about her.
But in the next few days, she noticed a change in attitude, especially in customers who came to the restaurants. Her pretty cakes had been quickly bought before, but now they stayed in the case. Jill took most of them back home. When she went to the bank, the teller was polite, but not chatty and friendly as she usually was.
Even at the local convenience store where she bought gas, the clerk was reserved, all business, when she paid at the counter.
The next morning, at work, she began to understand why she was being treated to a cold shoulder from people she’d known most of her life.
“Everybody thinks you did a job on me, Jilly,” Davy said under his breath when she was putting a cake on the counter—only one cake today, instead of the variety she usually produced, since they weren’t selling.
She glared at him over the cake. “It wouldn’t do to tell them the truth.”
“What is the truth?” He leaned back in the booth, his eyes cold and accusing. “You had me sent to jail.”
She stood up, tired of being harassed, tired of his unspoken accusations, tired of the way local people were treating her because of him.
“I was a freshman in high school and you tried to force me to have sex with you,” she said shortly, aware of a shocked look from a male customer. “How hard is that to understand? It’s called statutory rape, I believe…?”
Davy flushed. He got to his feet and towered over her. “I never raped you!”
“You had my clothes off and the only reason you stopped was because I slugged you and ran. If Sassy Peale hadn’t had a shotgun, you never would have stopped! You ran after me all the way to her house!”
He clenched his fists by his side. “I went to jail,” he snapped. “You’re going to pay for that. I’ll make sure you pay for that!”
She took the cake, aimed it and threw it right in his face.
“I could have you arrested for assault!” he sputtered.
“Go ahead,” she said, glaring at him. “I’ll call the police for you, if you like!”
He took a quick step toward her, but the male customer stood up all at once and moved toward him. He backed away.
“You’ll be sorry,” he told Jillian. He glared at the other customer, and walked out, wiping away cake with a handkerchief.
Jillian was shaking, but she hadn’t backed down. She took a shaky breath, fighting tears, and started picking up cake.
“You think he’ll go away,” the customer, a tall blond man with a patch over one eye, said quietly, in an accented tone, like a British accent, but with a hard accent on the consonants. She recalled hearing accents like that in one of the Lethal Weapon movies. “He won’t.”
She stopped picking up cake and got to her feet, staring at him.
He was tall and well built. His blond hair was in a ponytail. His face was lean, with faint scars, and he had one light brown eye visible. He looked like the sort of man who smiled a lot, but he wasn’t smiling now. He had a dangerous look.
“You should talk to a lawyer,” he said quietly.
She bit her lip. “And say what? He eats here every day, but this is the only restaurant in town.”
“It’s still harassment.”
She sighed. “Yes. It is. But I can’t make him leave.”
“Talk to Ted Graves. He’ll make him leave.”
“Ted isn’t speaking to me.”
He lifted an eyebrow expressively.
“I ticked him off, too, by saying I might have made a mistake and overreacted to what Davy did to me,” she said miserably. “Davy made it sound as if I did. And then he reminded me about all the kind things he did for my uncle and me…”
“Adolph Hitler had a dog. He petted it and took it for walks and threw sticks for it to chase,” he said blandly.
She grimaced. She went back down and picked up more cake.
“If you were so young and it took a shotgun to deter him,” the man continued, “it wasn’t an innocent act.”
“I’m just beginning to get that through my thick skull,” she sighed.
“This sort of man doesn’t quit,” he continued, sticking his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans. His eye was narrow and thoughtful. “He’s here for more than breakfast, if you get my drift. He wants revenge.”
“I guess so.”
“I hope you keep a gun.”
She laughed. “I hate guns.”
“So do I,” he mused. “I much prefer knives.”
He indicated a huge Bowie knife on one hip, in a fringed leather sheath.
She stared at it. “I don’t guess you’d have to do much more than show that to somebody to make them back off.”
“That’s usually the case.”
She finished cleaning up the cake. “They aren’t selling well lately, but I thought this one might. Davy seems to have been spending all his spare time telling people what an evil woman I am. There’s a distinct chill in the air wherever I go now.”
“That’s because he’s telling his side of the story to anybody who’ll listen,” he replied. “And that’s harassment, as well.”
“I can see Ted arresting him for talking to someone,” she said sarcastically.
“It depends on what he’s saying. I heard what he said in here. If you need a witness, I’m available.”
She frowned. “He didn’t say much.”
“He said enough,” he replied.
She shrugged. “I like to handle my own problems.”
“Ordinarily I’d say that’s admirable. Not in this case. You’re up against a man who’s done hard time and came out with a grudge. He wants blood. If you’re not very careful, he’ll get it. He’s doing a number on your character already. People tend to believe what they want to believe, and it isn’t always the truth. Especially when a likeable young man who’s apparently been railroaded by a nasty young girl tells the right kind of story.”
She blinked. “I’d be the nasty young girl in this story?”
He nodded.
She put the remnants of her cake into the trash can behind the counter. She shrugged. “I never thought of myself as a bad person.”
“It’s his thoughts that you have to worry about. If he’s mad enough, and I think he is if he came here expressly to torment you, he won’t stop with gossip.”
That thought had occurred to her, too. She looked up at the customer with wide, worried eyes. “Maybe I should get a job over in Billings.”
“And run for it?” he asked. “Fat chance. He’d follow you.”
She gasped. “No…!”
His face hardened. “I’ve seen this happen before, in a similar case,” he said tersely. “In fact, I was acting as an unpaid bodyguard as a favor to a friend. The perp not only got out of jail, he went after the girl who testified against him and beat her up.”
She glared. “I hope you hurt him.”
“Several of
us,” he replied, “wanted to, but her boyfriend got to him first. He’s back in jail. But if she’d been alone, there might not have been anybody to testify.”
She felt sick to her stomach. “You’re saying something, aren’t you?”
“I’m saying that such men are unpredictable,” he replied. “It’s better to watch your back than to assume that everything will work itself out. In my experience, situations like this don’t get better.”
She put down the rag she’d been cleaning with, and looked up with worried eyes. “I wish Ted wasn’t mad at me,” she said quietly.
“Go make up with him,” he advised. “And do it soon.” He didn’t add that he’d seen the expression on her assailant’s face and he was certain the man would soon resort to violence to pay her back.
“I suppose I should,” she said. She managed a smile. “Thanks, Mr….?”
“Just call me Rourke,” he said, and grinned. “Most people do.”
“Are you visiting somebody local?”
His eyebrows arched. “Don’t I look like a local?”
She shook her head, softening the noncomment with a smile.
He laughed. “Actually,” he said, “I came by to see the police chief. And not on a case. Ted and I were in the military together. I brought a message from an old friend who works as a police chief down in Texas.”
She cocked her head. “That wouldn’t be the one who taught him to tango?”
He blinked his single eye. “He taught Ted to dance?”
She nodded. “He’s pretty good, too.”
Rourke chuckled. “Wonders never cease.”
“That’s what I say.”
He smiled down at her. “Talk to Ted,” he advised. “You’re going to need somebody who can back you up, if that man gets violent.”
“I’ll do that,” she said after a minute. “And thanks.”
“You’re welcome, but for what?”
“For making me see the light,” she replied flatly. “I’ve been blaming myself for sending Davy to prison.”
“You mark my words,” he replied. “Very soon, Davy is going to prove to you that it was where he belonged.”