Fathers and Sons (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Carolyn McSparren

  “Always find the hot spot,” Kate breathed.

  “Huh?” Arnold asked.

  “David would find a spotlight to stand under in the Black Hole of Calcutta.”

  “Cut the man a little slack, Kate. He’s in big trouble with this kid of his.”

  “And after twenty years, he’s still looking at me to bail him out of it. Well, David, as they say down here in Mississippi, that hound won’t hunt.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “You SEE?” David said the moment he turned and saw them. “I told you Jason was innocent.”

  “He’s lying through his teeth,” Kate said.

  She saw the deep flush even under David’s tan.

  “Jason’s not a liar, and he’s not a killer.”

  “Maybe not a killer, but a liar? Oh, yeah.”

  David turned and thrust his hands in his pockets. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, after all. Obviously you intend to take out whatever you feel about me on Jason.”

  “How dare you,” Kate said softly. “You drag me down here on false pretenses to save your son’s precious hide, and then when I don’t think he’s Little Lord Fauntleroy the way you do, you accuse me of using him to get revenge on you? If I’d wanted revenge, I wouldn’t have waited twenty years for it.”

  “Revenge is a dish best eaten cold. Didn’t somebody say that?”

  “Somebody else said living well is the best revenge. I’ve already got my revenge, David. In case it’s escaped your attention, I am living extremely well without you. Come on, Arnold, we’re outa here.”

  As she brushed past him, David caught her arm. Even after twenty years she’d have known the feel of his fingers against her body in a dark cavern. His touch awakened memories so powerful that she stumbled and almost fell. She righted herself with a hand against that filthy wall and yanked her arm out of his grasp.

  “You promised to stay through the bail hearing,” he said. “I’m sorry if I upset you, but you must realize I’m going crazy over this.”

  “And when you’re crazy, everybody around you goes nuts trying to make sure you don’t suffer.”

  “Jason’s the one who’s suffering.”

  “He’s not the one using emotional blackmail.”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing?” David asked.

  “Yes. If I walk away, I’m supposed to feel guilty because I’m taking out my feelings for you on your innocent kid—isn’t that the way you phrased it? If I stay and don’t get a reasonable bail, then I’m not doing my job. Again because of you. It’s always because of you. You expect the Archangel Gabriel to ask if sounding the last trumpet on Tuesday will be quite convenient for you, or should he maybe wait until Thursday.”

  Arnold intervened before David could reply. “Kate,” he said, “go get some lunch. It’s almost one and you haven’t had a bite since you got off the red-eye. Starvation does tend to turn you a bit testy.”

  “Damn right I’m testy.”

  “I don’t give a damn what you think about me,” David said. “The fact is that you’re a lawyer, you’re on retainer, and you’re here. You’re supposed to be good at what you do. So get my kid out on bail. Then we’ll talk about the rest of it.”

  Kate stared at him with narrowed eyes for a moment. Then she relaxed. “Fair enough. I am very good at what I do, and I will do the bail hearing this afternoon. If you don’t like the outcome, blame the situation, the crime, the district attorney and the judge, not necessarily in that order. But don’t you ever accuse me of doing less than my best. The bail could be astronomical.”

  “Thank you.” His shoulders sagged. “We’ll worry about the amount when we know what it is. At the moment, the important thing is to get Jason home.”

  “After lunch,” Arnold said. “Kate’ll pass out if she doesn’t get something to eat.”

  “Later, Arnold,” Kate said. “Right now I need to see the district attorney, find out what they’ve got on Jason, what I can use to bolster his character, review the forensics...” She realized she was talking as though she’d already taken the case.

  David sighed in relief.

  Trapped. “Okay,” Kate said. “We’re hired and we’re here. But get this straight. I agree to stay through the bail hearing, period. Whatever happens, we get somebody else to take over after that.”

  “I’ve already set up an interim affiliation with Whitman, Tarber and McDonough in Jackson,” Arnold said. “They’re the biggest law firm in Mississippi. I’m sure they’ll have someone who can represent you if you decide to go with a criminal lawyer closer to home.”

  “I know Pinkney Tarber,” David said. “Seems like a good man. But he’s not who I want to represent Jason.” He turned to Kate. “I want you.”

  “No can do.”

  “We’ll discuss that over lunch.”

  “I just told you—”

  Arnold intervened. “I’ll go deal with the sheriff and the district attorney. Keep your cell phone on, Kate. I’ll let you know for certain if and when we go before the judge today. Don’t count on it. Could fall through.” He turned to David. “She’s right, you know, the kid’s lying about something. Don’t be an ass. Feed the lady. You need her. She does not need you.”

  “Arnold,” Kate said menacingly. “You are going to join us for lunch, remember?”

  He smiled at her blandly. “I had a late breakfast, and one of us has to do some work.” He shoved her gently in David’s direction. “It won’t kill you to have a simple little lunch. Go in health.”

  As David propelled her toward the front door, she glowered at Arnold over her shoulder and mouthed, “That’s two you owe me.”

  He wiggled his fingers at her.

  Down the steps of the courthouse, across the street and past a block of grubby shops, Kate and David walked without a word to each other. She noticed several people staring at them as they passed, but nobody spoke. It was obvious that several people knew David and were deliberately avoiding meeting his eyes. She glanced at him. His jaw was set, his broad shoulders back, his fists clenched at his sides. He stared straight ahead.

  She felt a pang of sympathy. Being Jason’s father was already causing him a lot of grief. She owed him grief, but not this kind.

  He held open the passenger door of a shiny new navy blue Navigator. It was an expensive car with leather upholstery and all the bells and whistles. So David was living well too. Perhaps the car belonged to his father-in-law.

  As David pulled out of the parking space, she glanced at his hands.

  “I’m surprised Melba doesn’t make you wear a wedding ring,” she said.

  He flushed but said nothing.

  “Where is she, by the way? Hiding at home from her son’s little peccadillo?”

  “She’s dead.”

  Kate gulped. “Oh.”

  He glanced at her. “You had no way of knowing. She died three years ago. Congestive heart failure. Runs in the family. Her mother died young.”

  “I didn’t know. Is Jason’s health all right?”

  David nodded. “He’s fine. Runs on the female side, apparently. Melba never fully recovered from carrying him.”

  “I’m sorry. Truly.”

  “So we’ve both lost our spouses.”

  “You know about Alec’s death?” She was surprised. “I wasn’t even certain you and Melba were still married, much less where you lived or what you did.”

  “You’ve developed a fairly high profile. I hear things from time to time.”

  HE HEARD EVERYTHING about her life, but he wasn’t about to clue her in on his source. Not now, certainly. Probably not ever.

  And then there were the friends from their old theater crowd at college he kept up with. Funny, David thought, that he should have been the one to keep up with them. They’d always been more her friends than his, but after the divorce she’d cut herself off from everyone who knew them as a couple. Maybe she thought they’d take his side. Fat chance. They all thought he was crazy for losing her. He cou
ldn’t agree more.

  Maybe she thought they’d known about his infidelity all along and had kept it from her. True, a couple of them had done just that, but only because guys did not rat on their married male friends even when they were tomcatting around on the perfect wife. And it had lasted less than a week—the affair, that is, if that’s what you could call it. Terminal idiocy is what he called it.

  He’d been paying the price for his momentary madness for twenty years. Just as he had finally decided he’d paid enough—Jason was now in college—and could see his way clear to getting on with the next phase of his life, this murder charge popped up. Seemed as if he’d been given a life sentence without possibility of parole. And no chance of escape. “There’s a Sonic out by the highway,” he said.

  “I don’t like drive-ins,” she answered. “Don’t you have a decent restaurant in this town?”

  “Not a restaurant where everybody won’t gawk and gossip and try to overhear our conversation.”

  “I noticed we were drawing attention on our way to the car.”

  “Yeah. Plenty of people are taking sides—loud sides, at that. They’re basing their opinions not on whether Jason is guilty or innocent, but on how they feel about Dub and his kin. It’s old South versus new, Katie. I may not be Athena born and bred, but Dub and his family have been here since before the war.”

  NOBODY ELSE HAD EVES called her Katie. David had only called her that on rare occasions, usually after they’d made love and were lying sated in each other’s arms. She felt hot tears start and blinked them back. Alec had always called her Katherine, even when they made love, which, given his heart condition and their conflicting schedules, they had not done very often, and even less during the last three years of his life. For a moment she felt a physical ache to turn back the clock, to become once more “Katie,” twenty-two and in love with the next Laurence Olivier.

  Not possible. Her life had been chopped into three parts—B. D., before David; W. D., with David; and A. D., after David. She could barely remember B. D., and she fought every day of her life to forget W. D. A. D. ached like a tooth that never hurts quite badly enough to require a root canal.

  “At least if we eat in the car we can have some privacy,” David continued.

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  David pulled under the awning at the Sonic, cut the engine and turned to her. “Do you still like your cheeseburgers with everything?”

  “I can’t go before a judge with onions on my breath.”

  “Except onions, then? And with large fries?”

  “No fries.” Then she said, “Oh, heck, after this morning I deserve comfort food. Yes, large fries. And iced tea.”

  He gave the order to the small two-way radio beside the car and a bored female voice confirmed it. “Oh, and could you bring us a bottle of steak sauce?” he asked and turned to her. “You still eat steak sauce on your cheeseburgers and fries?”

  “You remember?”

  “I remember everything about us,” he said softly.

  She couldn’t bear to look into those eyes of his. God help me, so do I, she thought. She turned away to avoid his gaze and to get her breathing back under control.

  “Kate, I—”

  “So, how’re your parents doing?” she asked brightly.

  After a pause in which he visibly changed gears, he said, “Okay. Since Dad’s retired, he spends all his time with his roses. He’s winning prizes. Says my farming genes must have come from his side of the family because my mother can kill dirt.”

  “I remember. That was about the only trait she and I had in common.” She pointed to the driver’s-side window.

  David turned and rolled down the window so that the waitress could set the tray on the edge of the car. David pulled out his wallet, paid the bill and watched her walk away. “That girl went to school with Jason. She’s been out to Long Pond to pool parties a dozen times. She acts as though she’s never seen me before in her life.”

  “Jason’s been arrested for raping and murdering one of her friends.”

  “She can’t possibly believe it.”

  “One thing I’ve learned, David, is that almost everyone assumes a person is arrested because he or she is guilty. Everyone’s embarrassed for you. Nobody knows what to say so they look right through you.”

  “They know Jason wouldn’t do something like this.”

  “Do they?” David was learning a hard truth. He was suddenly alone among people who had been his friends since he came down here to marry Melba.

  David kept getting hit in the face with life’s lessons long after most people had assimilated them and moved on. Like chicken pox, the older you were when the disease hit, the worse the case. And the deeper the scars that remained.

  “You’ve got to eat,” she urged.

  “Tastes like cardboard.”

  “Do it anyway. Try the fries.”

  He bit into one and closed his eyes as though he’d forgotten how to swallow. After a moment he asked, “How’s your mother?”

  “You knew my father died?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Testicular cancer. Ironic given his history of rampant infidelity. Six weeks later my mother sold the house in Mount View, bought a condo in Saint Petersburg and is blossoming like one of your daddy’s roses. She says it’s a relief not to have to act as though she doesn’t recognize Daddy’s latest mistress in the supermarket or the reception line at the faculty tea.”

  She heard the bitterness in her voice and knew that David would recognize her tone. Well, let him. She wadded up the paper from her cheeseburger and handed it to David. He’d eaten practically nothing, but he added his detritus to hers on the tray, set it into the holder beside the car and rolled up the window.

  “We’d better get back,” he said.

  As if in answer, her cell phone shrilled. She heard Arnold’s voice.

  “I’m still trying to confirm that bail hearing this afternoon at four,” he told her. “So far I haven’t heard one way or the other. But we have an appointment with the sheriff and the D.A.”

  “You have the arrest reports?”

  “Yeah. And the sheriff is supposed to give us a copy of the autopsy.”

  “Fine. We’re on our way back.” She turned to David. “Is there a motel in this place?”

  “Dub may want you to stay at Long Pond.”

  “No way.”

  “There are five guest rooms. I don’t live there, Kate.”

  “That has nothing to do with it. Arnold and I want our own space. I’ll only be here one night anyway. So, is there a motel?”

  “Yeah, but hardly four star. The Paradise out on the bypass.”

  She passed on the information to Arnold. “Call them and get us a couple of adjoining rooms if possible.” Out of the corner of her eye she caught the quick turn of David’s head toward her. She glanced at him and saw the speculation in his eyes. He was obviously wondering whether she and Arnold had a relationship that went deeper than business. Let him wonder.

  David’s parking karma was not so hot this time. The courthouse square was full of cars.

  “Let me out please, David. Then go home. There’s nothing you can do until the bail hearing.”

  “How does that work?” He pulled into a loading zone under the watchful eye of a deputy sheriff.

  “If the judge grants bail, then you have to hand over ten percent of the total amount to a licensed bail bondsman along with collateral for the rest in case Jason runs away. He gives surety to the court, and Jason is released pending his court appearance.”

  “I don’t know whether we even have a bail bondsman in Athena.”

  “Bound to. It’s the county seat. Look in the telephone book and make some calls. But be prepared for a hefty sum. Do you have a house you can mortgage?”

  “I already mortgaged it to pay your retainer.”

  “I see. Land?”

  He shook his head. “Not possible. Not your problem. You concentrate on getting any
kind of bail. We’ll come up with the money somehow.”

  “I’ll try to get it as low as I can. That young man in the police uniform over there is getting antsy. Let me out. Go home. Make those calls, then try to get some rest. See you at four.” She felt an incredible impulse to lean across the car and kiss him goodbye as she’d done a zillion times before. She caught herself, opened the door and bolted up the marble courthouse steps as fast as her high-heeled pumps would take her.

  THE ROOM IN WHICH the bail hearing took place was smaller than the average corporate conference room. A dozen scratched, gray, metal folding chairs sat in rows across the back. At the front, four of the same chairs stood behind a pair of six-foot deal tables, one on either side of a center aisle. In front of them at a similar table sat the judge beside his clerk. A court reporter was behind him and to his left, her fingers poised over the keys of her machine, ready to record the proceedings.

  When Otis brought Jason in to sit between Kate and Arnold at the defense table, she realized he’d cleaned himself up. Maybe he’d even risked that shower after all, but he still wore shackles and handcuffs and prison orange.

  After the preliminaries, the prosecuting attorney, an intense man in an ill-fitting blue suit, outlined the charges against Jason and inveighed against granting bail in any amount.

  Whether Jason was guilty or not, Kate and Arnold had recognized five minutes into their meeting with Athena County district attorney James Roy Allenby that he viewed this case as a stepping stone to a bigger pond. He obviously realized the case had what lawyers called “legs.” Beauty queen murdered, possibly raped. Suspect from a prominent old family. Victim’s family newly rich. And a pair of hotshot Atlanta attorneys.

  Kate listened as James Roy spent ten minutes playing poor little good ole boy from the sticks up against the powerful Delta elite. Kate recognized immediately that the judge was unimpressed. Fortunately, there was no jury to play to. If this case went to trial, her Beverly Hills haircut might become a liability. The Chanel suit would definitely have to go. The last thing she needed was to come across as the “pro from Dover” willing to use any big-city trick to get a guilty rich kid off a jail sentence he richly deserved.