Unexpected Son

by Marisa Carroll

  “Damn things,” Brick muttered under his breath.

  “Will Benson give you a statement and then you hightail it out here to talk to this bastard,” Hoyt insisted. “Two and two add up to four, in my book.”

  “Well, you’re wrong this time,” Brick said, his tone no longer quite so pleasant. Several of the men shifted restlessly, tugging on hat brims, looking at Brick, at Hoyt, but not at Michael.

  Michael recognized one or two of them from working around town. The one doing all the talking, Hoyt Wiggins, he’d seen at the fire. And Joey Schmidt. The others were strangers, but he’d bet his last dollar they were employees of the F and M. All of them were worried and afraid for their livelihood and their futures, and that made them dangerous if they were provoked.

  “Then what are you doing out here?” one of the other men demanded.

  “Just talking.”

  “You’re talking about the fire.”

  “Among other things.”

  “About how Kenton here is a firebug?”

  “That’s got nothing to do with it,” Brick said flatly.

  “The hell it don’t. Once a firebug, always a firebug. Let us alone with him for five minutes and he’ll tell you where he was that night.”

  Michael shifted his weight. He didn’t want a fight. He’d be a damned fool to think he could take on this bunch. And he didn’t think Brick Bauer would pull his gun on men he’d known all his life. He might be an honest cop—maybe there was such a thing—but Michael wasn’t about to stake his life on it.

  “Don’t push me too far, Hoyt, or I’ll take you in for obstructing an officer in the line of duty.”

  For a moment Hoyt looked as if he would challenge Brick’s pronouncement, but one or two of the other men urged him to slow down, take things easy. Hoyt waved them off with a slashing motion of his hand, but did as he was told. “Then tell us what the hell you were doing that night, Kenton, and we’ll go home. Leave you alone.”

  Michael ground his teeth. He’d be damned if he told this bunch anything. He flicked a glance at his truck, but three of them were standing between him and freedom. He was going to have to tough it out. Or run.

  “Where were you, Kenton?” Wiggins demanded. “Where were you when all our jobs went up in smoke?” Two or three of the men glanced off to their left. If it weren’t for the trees edging the fields behind the motel, in the daylight you could have seen the ruins of the F and M from where they were standing.

  “That’s enough, Hoyt. I’m taking Kenton down to the station where we can talk without being interrupted.”

  “No.” Michael ground out the word between clenched teeth. His gut tightened, his hands clenched. He started to sweat, even though the temperature had dropped below freezing an hour before.

  “Don’t be a fool, Kenton,” Brick said under his breath. “We’re outnumbered and I’m not going to pull a gun on these unarmed men.”

  Michael knew he was being unreasonable, but it didn’t make any difference. His loathing of returning to jail was stronger than his fear of the mob. “I’m staying here.”

  “Damned, stubborn fool. I said get in the squad car or you’ll get us both hurt.”

  A car pulled into the parking lot in a spurt of gravel, a dark-colored, late-model sedan that Michael recognized from the cemetery. A woman in a business suit and trench coat got out of one side. Judson Ingalls unfolded himself slowly from behind the driver’s seat.

  “Any trouble here, Brick?” Amanda Trask asked. She moved into the glare of the security light mounted above the office door, her chestnut hair swirling around her shoulders, her expression serious. Her grandfather followed close on her heels. “Does this man need an attorney?”

  “Hell, no, Amanda.” Brick crossed his arms over his chest.

  “It looks that way to me,” Amanda said, unruffled.

  “I just want to ask him a couple of questions, that’s all. Now what?” Brick’s gaze flicked past the assemblage to the street.

  A second car—an older, noisier one—pulled into the parking lot. Sarah’s car, followed by Tyler’s other two police cruisers.

  “What are you doing here?” Brick asked his deputies, one big and heavyset, jovial looking, the other a woman, lean and lantern-jawed.

  “Just out patrolling, Chief.”

  “Both of you?”

  “Nice night for a drive,” the woman drawled. “Saw the crowd. Wondered what was going on.”

  “Nothing’s going on. I’m just trying to have a conversation with Kenton, and this bunch of yahoos think they have the right to listen in.”

  Michael barely heard what was being said, had eyes for no one but Sarah. She was still standing beside the open door of her car. Her face was pinched with fear, her hazel eyes huge in her white face. Alyssa Baron was with her, but her being there made no more impression on him than the others did.

  “Do you wish to retain my services as your attorney, Mr. Kenton?”

  Michael tore his eyes from Sarah’s face and focused his attention on his sister. They had spoken only once, at Timberlake Lodge the day he’d delivered the Bentley to Devon Addison. The day of the fire at the F and M. A few words only, meaningless stuff. Now she was here offering to defend him. He looked at the ramrod-straight old man behind her and knew it was his doing.

  “Yes.” Michael’s face was stiff with cold and tension. The word came out a bark, an animal sound. She didn’t seem to notice.

  “Good. That’s settled.” Amanda smiled, that same high-voltage smile she shared with her siblings. The Baron smile. “What is it you’re so hell-bent to ask my client, Brick? If it’s in his best interests, I’ll let him answer. If it isn’t...” She shrugged slender shoulders. “Well, you know the drill.”

  “Yeah, ask him,” Hoyt Wiggins demanded. “Ask him where he was when the F and M burned to the ground.” The others were silent. The appearance of Judson Ingalls and his daughter seemed to have dampened their enthusiasm for baiting Michael.

  One of the men who hadn’t spoken before raised his voice. “If you have an alibi, why don’t you say so?”

  “If you have an alibi, I suggest you answer the question, Michael,” Amanda said in a softer, less-businesslike tone. “It would save everyone a lot of trouble.”

  “I told Bauer—”

  “I was with him when the fire started,” Sarah said, shaking off Alyssa Wocheck’s restraining fingers. She moved forward. The crowd parted as though choreographed by a master hand. Sarah stood among the angry men, looking small and fragile in her fur-trimmed, hooded parka. Alyssa moved to stand beside her father, her hand on his arm, her face expressionless, her eyes guarded.

  “Sarah.”

  She ignored the command in Michael’s voice. “We were together all that day.” She took a deep breath. “And all that night.”

  “She’s lying,” Michael said. He couldn’t let her do this. He could almost see the wheels turning in Wiggins’s head. Joey Schmidt had the beginning of a sneer on his face.

  “I’m not lying.” Sarah avoided Michael’s gaze, looked directly at Brick. “Michael Kenton was with me at 2:15 a.m. on the morning of the fire at the F and M.”

  There was a buzz of voices among the would-be mob. A snicker of laughter was cut off abruptly by a warning growl from Michael. His hands balled into fists. By morning the news would be all over town—hell, long before then, the way rumors traveled in this burg. By midnight everyone would know that the Reverend Sarah Fleming was carrying on with the drifter, the arsonist, the man who claimed to be Ronald Baron’s bastard son.

  “Are you willing to sign a statement to that effect?” Brick asked kindly.

  “Yes.”

  “The insurance investigator will probably want to talk to you, as well.”

  “You know where I live, Brick,” Sarah s
aid with a brave, faint smile. “My door is always open.”

  Brick watched her for a long moment, then nodded. “Come down to the station whenever it’s convenient.”

  “I take it we have your word that no formal complaint will be filed against my client,” Amanda prompted.

  “As far as I’m concerned he’s free as a bird.”

  There were mutters of discontent here and there in the crowd, but even Hoyt Wiggins kept his mouth shut. Michael wasn’t fooled for a moment. It wasn’t Sarah’s protestation of his innocence that had spiked his guns. It was the arrival of Alyssa and Judson that had brought on his sudden return to sanity.

  Brick raised his hand and his voice. “Okay, everyone, let’s go home.” It was a command, not a suggestion. “It’s colder than a witch’s thorax out here and by now, so’s my dinner.”

  Three of the men headed for their pickup. A second truck pulled out of the parking lot right behind them. That left only Hoyt and Joey and another man, who looked enough like Joey Schmidt to be his brother and probably was.

  “Go home, boys,” Judson said, the first words he’d spoken. “There’s nothing you can do here that won’t make things worse than they already are.” He looked old suddenly, every day of his eighty-plus years, as he leaned slightly on Alyssa’s arm for support. “We can’t take the law into our own hands. So help me, if anything happens to this man or anyone else, I’ll pull the rest of that building down myself, with my own hands. Go home!”

  They went.

  “I’ll leave one of the patrol cars here, just in case,” Brick said, opening the door of his cruiser.

  “Don’t bother,” Michael said. “They won’t be back.” He wanted to believe it, for Sarah’s sake.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she interjected.

  Michael didn’t take his eyes off her pinched, cold face. “I don’t want any more attention drawn to me than I’ve already got. Just go away. All of you.”

  “Michael.” Sarah’s tone held the faintest hint of censure, of disappointment.

  He lifted his eyes to his half sister. “Thank you, Amanda. I—I appreciate what you did for me tonight.”

  “It’s my job.” She smiled again, making her not just pretty, but really beautiful. “I’m glad I could help.” Michael searched her face for some sign of himself, some link to their shared heredity. He found it in her eyes, as blue-black as a midnight sky. Like Jeff’s. Like his own.

  He smiled, too. “Just like the cavalry, arriving in the nick of time.”

  “That’s me. Come on, Granddad. Brick’s right. It’s cold and I’m hungry. What do you say I buy you a burger at Marge’s before you drop me at home? Ethan’s working late tonight at the courthouse. He won’t be home for hours.”

  Judson was watching Michael. “You sure you’re all right, son?”

  “I’m fine, sir.” Michael held out his hand. “Thank you for getting Amanda. I—I never expected your help.”

  “Least I could do.” His grip was strong and sure. “Tisha and I... Well, we’re sorry that word got out about your father like it did. It was awkward.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “We’ll work this out....” Judson looked for a moment as if he might say more, then thought better of it. “I think I’ll take you up on that burger at Marge’s, Amanda girl. Will you join us, Alyssa?”

  Alyssa, too, was watching Michael—and Sarah. Her blue eyes were dark with concern. “Sarah? Do you need me?”

  “I’m fine, Alyssa. I...Michael and I have to talk.”

  “I understand. In that case, I’ll join you and Amanda, Dad. I think it’s a good idea if the town sees us together. We are going to have to talk about the F and M soon, you know. People will only get more and more anxious and suspicious, if we don’t.”

  Judson patted her hand where it rested on his arm. He looked down at his only child. “I know, Lyssa. I know. If only that damned investigator would get it over with. Then we’d know where we stand.”

  “We have to rebuild, Dad. Regardless.”

  “I know. I just don’t know where the money will come from if the insurance company won’t pay up. Maybe Edward’s company...” Judson shook his head and looked around, recalling that they were not alone. “We’ll find it somewhere.”

  Amanda helped her grandfather into the passenger seat, then slid behind the wheel. Alyssa hesitated a moment before following them into the car. “Michael, I’m sorry. This isn’t... Those men tonight. That’s not Tyler. Not really.”

  “It’s okay, Alyssa. Thanks for coming with Sarah. I wouldn’t have wanted her to be alone.”

  Alyssa smiled. “She has faith, Michael. She’s never alone.”

  A minute later Brick Bauer and the other two Tyler cruisers pulled out of the parking lot. The sound of idling car engines and angry voices was replaced by the silence of a cold, country evening, with the promise of snow before morning, but for Michael, the faint tinge of menace still hung in the air.

  “I’ll follow you home,” he said.

  Sarah shook her head. “I’m not going home.”

  “What do you mean, you’re not going home?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the door of his motel room. “I’m not leaving you alone in this place. They might come back. You should never have sent Brick and his deputies away.”

  “Sarah, I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m not leaving.” She set her chin at a stubborn angle.

  “This is no place for you.”

  She sighed. “Michael, I’m an adult woman. I make my own choices.”

  “This place is a dump.” He couldn’t take her inside. He wanted her so much, had missed her so much, he couldn’t be certain he could control his need. Nothing had changed between them. The last thing he wanted to do was compound the heartache by making love to Sarah, only to see regret and remorse later in her eyes.

  “Then come home with me, Michael.”

  He thought of the drafty old house by the drafty old church and his heart contracted with a new, sharp pain. A house like that could be home. But not for him.

  He wrenched his thoughts away from fantasies of what might have been. “I can’t.” He’d sent Brick Bauer’s deputy away, but he had no intention of relaxing his guard. Desperate men did desperate things, and Hoyt Wiggins, at least, was a desperate man.

  “Then I’m staying here, too.”

  “No.” He spoke too quickly, too intently.

  A tiny smile curved the corners of her mouth. “Alyssa was right. I’m strong because I have faith. In God. In you. In myself. I’m not leaving you.”

  He was too tired to fight. Too tired to argue and he wanted her too much, needed her too much to have the strength to send her away again. “God, Sarah, don’t do this to me.”

  “Shh, Michael. There’s no reason for us not to be together now.” Her eyes were bright with reflected tears. She touched her finger to his lips, and he could feel the warmth of her skin, imagine the softness, even through the fabric of her glove. “I’m not asking for anything. I’m not talking about forever. Just tonight. Just let me be with you tonight to keep you safe.”

  He did smile then at the thought of this small, determined woman proclaiming herself his bodyguard. He pulled her tightly against him. “You can stay.”

  “Just tonight,” she whispered, her breath warm against his cheek. “Just to keep you safe.” The words were sweet and low, a prayer, a benediction.

  You don’t know how much I want it to be forever, he said inside his head, but the cold, hard hurting place in the middle of his chest closed his throat and the words stayed bottled up in his heart.

  * * *

  SARAH AWOKE COLD and confused. She lay quietly a moment on the unfamiliar bed, bringing her thoughts and her surroundings into foc
us. The room was dark and musty smelling, the bed beneath her hard and lumpy at the same time. The only light came from the reflection of a street lamp outside the window.

  “Michael?” She reached for him, realizing that it had been the loss of his warmth, of the comfort of his arms around her that had wakened her from her restless dreams.

  “I’m over here.” He was standing near the room’s only window, his hand on the frame, his profile etched sharply against the gray-yellow background, looking out into the darkness.

  Sarah’s heart began to pound. “Is something wrong? Is someone out there?”

  She could see him shake his head. “No. It’s snowing, that’s all.”

  “Is it? Perhaps this time it will last. It would be nice to have a white Christmas.” If she didn’t speak of such ordinary, everyday things, the silence would be overwhelming.

  Michael said nothing.

  “I—I fell asleep.”

  This time he answered her, although he didn’t turn away from the window. “So did I, for a little while.”

  Sarah glanced around her. There was no clock. She couldn’t see her watch in the murky light. “What time is it?”

  “After midnight.”

  Sarah sat up on the bed and wrapped her arms around her knees. Something in his voice, in his stance, told her he had made up his mind. Her heart slowed down and began to shrivel up inside her chest. He was going to leave. Maybe not tonight. Maybe not even tomorrow, but he was going, as surely as the sun would rise in the morning, and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

  She had suspected it from the moment he’d closed the door to the shabby motel room behind them and taken her in his arms. They hadn’t talked. They hadn’t made love. He had only held her and kissed her and warmed her with the heat of his body, lying beside her on the narrow bed until she had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion. He had made her feel safe and secure enough to sleep, when it was he she wanted to protect.

  “What are you thinking, Michael?” she asked very quietly. She loved him, would always love him, but sometimes love was not enough. She held her breath. If he didn’t answer her again, ignored her plea for understanding, she would leave, never look back. She would have to for her soul’s sake. For her heart’s sake.