His Secret Son

by Jacqueline Diamond

  JONI LANDED WITH A JOLT on the strip of grass between the rose bed and the concrete. The impact knocked her forward until the heels of her hands made raw contact with pavement. Her shoulders absorbed the blow with a wrenching throb. Her breath rasped, too loudly. For a moment, she couldn’t move.

  One of her shoes had flown off in the jump. No sense looking for it. She needed to get up, but the grass was slick. She staggered on all fours, regained her balance and straightened.

  As she started moving, her head began to swim. It was like trying to run in a bad dream. She could see the back door but couldn’t seem to reach it.

  Then she noticed the silhouette near the garage. He’d come back. She could never reach the house before he did. But she had to do this, had to make it. For Jeff’s sake. For Dirk’s.

  Joni flung herself forward.

  As she stumbled across the hard surface, the cramp in her calf, nearly forgotten in the cold, shot white pain up through her leg. With a cry, she grabbed the glass table to keep from falling.

  The man dived for her. She braced herself for the impact, but he didn’t stop. As he went past, she made out the familiar beauty of broad shoulders and dark hair. Dirk!

  She twisted, then saw why he’d bypassed her. Somehow Fred had gotten behind them. He must have circled around the front of the house to come at her from the opposite direction. Outfoxing her. Taking control.

  He was shorter than Dirk but stockier, and he wielded a knife as smoothly as if it were an extension of himself. A superhuman madness glittered in his eyes.

  She had to help. Maybe she could make it into the kitchen to fetch one of her own knives. No, the fire extinguisher would be better. Something with enough force to knock him over.

  Joni took one step and her leg buckled. Her hands came down, ready to break her fall, but in midair the metal hose faucet caught her head with a mind-dimming whack.

  DIRK: HEARD JONI CRASH behind him. He knew she must be hurt, but he couldn’t help her now.

  He hadn’t found so much as a jack in the rental car. Good sense had warned him to enter the house through the front and find a weapon, but he didn’t want to take the time. Now only his martial-arts training could protect him against this madman.

  Disarming a man with a blade wasn’t usually difficult. Most people flailed wildly and struck from the outside, leaving their bodies vulnerable.

  Not Allen Frederick Owens. Maybe he’d learned how to fight in the marines. Dirk suspected his fanaticism helped even more.

  The man’s lips curled with fiendish glee as he performed a back-and-forth dance on the concrete. “You’re a loser just like Lowell,” he said. “Now you’ll die like him.”

  “Lowell wasn’t prepared for your attack.” Dirk crouched, watching for an opening. Let him lift his arms away from his body. Just for a second. “It’s easy killing helpless people, isn’t it?”

  Fred tossed the knife to his left hand, then back again, too quickly for Dirk to make his move. “You shouldn’t be anywhere near Joni. You contaminate her, you piece of filth. But I’ll make her clean again.”

  “Do you really think she could ever love you?” Dirk searched his opponent’s face for a flicker of uncertainty, any sign that the man might be momentarily off guard. “We’re lovers. Did she tell you that?”

  “You’re lying!” Rage bloated Fred’s face, and he slashed fast and hard. The blade caught Dirk’s jacket, inches from his stomach.

  It hung there. In the split second before the knife was yanked free, Dirk lashed out with his foot, aiming to catch his opponent in the gut. But the man dodged away, reclaiming the knife as he went. With a roar, he lunged and slashed at Dirk’s thigh, slicing the pants and drawing a stripe of blood.

  Pain clawed up his leg. Dirk ignored it and resumed his fighting stance.

  The two men faced each other, breathing hard. Fred bared his teeth and snarled like a wild animal. An animal possessed of feral cunning. And the scent of blood could only make it more dangerous.

  JONI FOUGHT THE DARKNESS. Something was wrong. Lowell. Someone had attacked Lowell.

  Her head hurt. She remembered someone grabbing her and slamming her skull against the hummingbird feeder. She recalled, just a moment ago, the sticky sugar water pouring over her neck and cheeks.

  The men were still there, facing off on the patio. She saw the knife in Fred’s hand, just as it had been before. But the man with his back to her wasn’t Lowell. She knew the compactness of his frame, the grace with which he moved. It was Dirk.

  Lowell and Fred—that had been last week. The memory of that event must have lain buried in some deep recess of her mind. Now it was happening all over again. If she didn’t find a way to stop it, this time it would be Dirk lying dead on the patio.

  DIRK UNDERSTOOD that he had made the nearly fatal error of underestimating his opponent. He wouldn’t do it again.

  He shifted to keep Joni’s crumpled form behind him. Fred would have to kill him to reach her.

  On the hill, the downpour intensified, although a moment ago he wouldn’t have thought that possible. Even here beneath the patio cover, rain was hitting sideways against Dirk’s overheated skin.

  The business suit cramped his movements. He wished he had Fred’s ease of action in a sweatshirt and jeans. But Dirk had once disabled an armed robber even though his own gun jammed. He had also, in a burst of adrenaline, foiled a kidnap attempt by shoving an overweight businessman up half a dozen steps and through a doorway.

  He wasn’t going to let a minor annoyance like a suit jacket get in his way. Not when there was so much at stake.

  At least this time he knew the other man’s weakness. Jealousy. He must use it to goad Fred.

  “You can’t have her,” Dirk panted. “She doesn’t want you and she never will. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  The blade quivered. Dirk tensed, ready.

  He was so focused on the knife that he almost didn’t notice Fred’s subtle change of position. As Dirk tried to jump away, a foot shot out and caught him on the side of the leg. If it had hit his knee, as intended, he would’ve been disabled. Instead, it knocked him off balance just enough to give Fred an opening.

  The man darted in for the final thrust. A blast of water hit him directly in the face. Dirk dived and rolled under the stinging spray, toward his sputtering foe. Toward the knife Fred had just dropped.

  Their hands met on the haft. The water stopped. Joni, hose in hand, couldn’t hit one without hitting the other.

  This was hand-to-hand fighting, no-holds-barred. Dirk knew all the dirty tricks. He knew where to kick and where to gouge. But Fred’s sheer raging madness gave him an edge. It made him close his fingers over the blade itself, forcing Dirk’s hand away. It enabled him to smash his forehead into Dirk’s and keep going through the shock.

  Toward Joni.

  SHE SAW DIRK GO DOWN. She didn’t know how badly he was hurt. Maybe another blast of water would protect him, but between the disorienting shadows and the thrumming in her head, she could scarcely tell one looming shape from the other.

  By the time she saw Fred swooping toward her, he was too close. She couldn’t swing the nozzle into position.

  A booming sound filled her head, as if a great wind had hit the patio. Fred stopped, surprise rendering his evil face suddenly childlike.

  Earthquake? she wondered dazedly. But earthquakes didn’t strike precisely when you needed them. They also didn’t make a man clutch the front of his sweatshirt and crumple to the ground.

  Footsteps scuffed behind Joni. “You can put the hose down now, Mrs. Peterson.” Someone reached around and removed the nozzle.

  “It’s about time you got here.” Dirk sat up, rubbing his head. “I don’t suppose you put in a good word with the paramedics?”

  “They’re on their way,” Detective MacDougall said, and caught Joni as her knees gave out.

  “KATHRYN’S TAKING the boys to Herb’s place,” Dirk reported a short time later as they waited in
the kitchen. Another detective was on his way to question them, since MacDougall had been involved in the shooting. “Then she’ll go to the police station to tell them what she knows.”

  “She’s a good person,” Joni said. “What happened is not her fault.”

  “I hope she understands that. She’ll have enough to deal with now.” Dirk stopped. “We’re not supposed to discuss the case.”

  “I know.” MacDougall had allowed them to wait together only after they promised not to talk about what had happened. He wanted to make sure their testimony wasn’t compromised.

  Not that it would make any difference. This time, Joni had no fear of forgetting.

  Once she grasped that Fred Owens was dead, relief had cleared her mind. She had even remembered to ask that a patrolman break the news gently to his mother. She hoped that Edith’s closeness to Kathryn and Bobby would help her weather this blow.

  Although the paramedics had offered to transport Dirk and Joni to the hospital, they had both declined. She had, however, allowed the men to bandage her right hand, and they’d checked but found no sign of concussion.

  The crime-scene investigators had discovered suspicious hairs and bloodstains in the back of Fred’s van. That, coupled with other evidence and Joni’s restored memory of last Wednesday, was likely to close the books on Lowell’s and Kim’s deaths. There was no further reason for Dirk to hang around Viento del Mar.

  Joni didn’t want to come home from the hospital in a day or so and find him gone. She intended to stick around for what little time he remained in town.

  “I’m going to sell the house,” she said abruptly. “We can’t stay here after this.”

  Dirk’s eyes met hers across the table. A bruise purpled his forehead, and she knew his leg must be hurting, but warmth suffused his face. “It does have a few wonderful memories, though.”

  She glanced down at her scraped hands. “Also little pieces of me scattered all over it.”

  “Oh, by the way...” Dirk reached inside his jacket. “Happy birthday.”

  She didn’t want to hear about birthdays, not another reminder after all Fred’s prattling. But when she saw the velvet jeweler’s box, she knew Dirk must have gone to a lot of trouble. He’d bought something for her to remember him by. As if she needed anything. As if his scent and his voice and his way of glancing at her sideways weren’t seared into her heart.

  “That was...very thoughtful.” She let the case rest on her palm. What was inside hardly mattered because the only gift she wanted was sitting across from her, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth.

  “Well?” he said. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  Through the window, she could hear police officers calling to each other. It was beginning to be a familiar sound. Way too familiar.

  “Sure.” Joni pried at the tight lid. It took a couple of attempts to get the box open.

  It was empty. Inside she saw nothing but a pink satin lining bearing the name of the town jewelry store.

  “Is it supposed to be this way?” she asked.

  Dirk chuckled. “I wasn’t robbed, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Well, it’s lovely,” Joni joked. “A girl can always use a few of these.”

  His hands closed over hers, enfolding them in warmth. “It’s empty,” he said, “because I didn’t know what kind of wedding ring you wanted.”

  She couldn’t believe she’d heard correctly. Maybe she wanted to hear the words so badly that she’d misinterpreted him.

  “I’m not sure I understand,” she said.

  “I’m asking you to marry me.” He leaned across the table until his head nearly touched hers. “Battered and bruised as I am, I promise I’ll clean up and make a respectable husband.”

  It wasn’t easy to resist the urge to shout, “Yes!” But Joni knew that happy endings only grew from sturdy roots.

  “Your work is overseas,” she said. “Isn’t it?”

  He sat back but didn’t let go of her hands. “The answer’s been growing on me all week. I’ve got a lot of companies already established and, with some adjustments, I can manage them from here most of the time.”

  “But don’t you love a challenge? Starting something new?” she asked.

  “I am starting something new, or at least launching something Lowell started,” he said. “The publishing business. The more I get involved, the more I’m enjoying it. I suspect it will keep me occupied for a long time to come.”

  Joni had to get everything out in the open. There couldn’t be any doubts, for either of them. “I thought you didn’t want to be tied down.”

  “Commitment felt like a ball and chain,” he conceded. “I guess it took coming back to Viento del Mar, being around you and Jeff, to realize I was allowing myself to be haunted by my own childhood. I was afraid to relinquish control, to let myself be vulnerable.”

  “Now you’re not?” she demanded.

  “It happened anyway.” Dirk gave her a rueful grin. “The two of you sneaked into my heart. Joni, you’re not just the woman I love. You’re my soul mate. You’re part of me. Getting married is only a formality.”

  Laughter bubbled inside her. She didn’t want this moment to end. She wanted to stretch it out and savor every nuance.

  “So when did you change your mind?” she asked. “You didn’t even give me a hint this morning.”

  He glanced down at the jeweler’s box. “When I picked this up, my intention was to let you select whatever jewelry you wanted. But even then I think I was picturing a ring in here.”

  “So this is kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing?” she persisted.

  His eyes flashed blue fire. “I’ve always known there was a piece missing inside me, but I didn’t think it could be found. Tonight, when I nearly lost you, I realized that without you, my world isn’t merely incomplete. It doesn’t exist. I know I deserve to be tortured, but please put me out of my misery. Marry me, Joni.”

  She ran her thumb along his cheek and gazed into his bruised, fierce, loving face. “Try to stop me,” she said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  If a blizzard hadn’t hit Moscow, Dirk would have made it home in time for his first anniversary. As it was, it took two extra days to catch a plane out of Russia.

  Then, if his connecting flight in London hadn’t been canceled due to fog, at least he would have made it home before Thanksgiving. Instead, he got stuck for an extra day, spent nearly twenty hours in transit and arrived bleary-eyed in Los Angeles on the holiday with a two-hour drive ahead of him.

  It was, he supposed, what he deserved for spending three weeks away from home. Travel held less and less appeal these days, except for the few times when Joni was able to travel with him.

  As the publishing business got under way, she’d given up her public relations job and taken to editing with boundless excitement. Where Dirk enjoyed hunting down cutting-edge subject matter and authors, his wife had the patience for details and an instinct for identifying what wasn’t working on the page.

  They made a good team, he reflected as he drove north on the freeway toward Viento del Mar. After three weeks away from her, he didn’t dare dwell on all the ways in which they fitted together or he might steer right off the road.

  At least he’d be home in time for Thanksgiving dinner at their new house in a pleasant development north of downtown. By now, cooking aromas must be drifting from kitchen to den to cathedral-ceilinged living room, all the way upstairs to Jeff’s room.

  Selling the old Peterson estate hadn’t been difficult once Mrs. Wright decided to accept a generous pension and move near her sister in Florida. Joni’s old house had presented more difficulty because it had been the scene of a murder. Finally, Celia Lu had bought it as a rental. That way, she’d told them, she could always be sure of having neighbors whose company she enjoyed.

  The investigation of Lowell’s and Kim’s murders had been formally closed. With the perpetrator dead, no further action was necessary.

  Jon
i had dropped assault charges against Charlie Rogers after he agreed that he needed more counseling. He was no longer coaching soccer, but he still taught adult fitness and had had no further problems.

  Although Edith Owens might never fully recover from her son’s death, she’d admitted to the police that she knew he was capable of violence and had sometimes feared him herself. Moving in with Kathryn and Bobby gave her renewed purpose in life and helped all of them recover.

  Both Herb and Jeff had been happy to learn the truth about Jeff’s parentage. In fact, Herb had confided, he’d been intending to tell Joni not to let that fool Dirk get away because he would make a terrific father.

  He was a father all right, Dirk reflected, warming at the memory of reading bedtime stories to Jeff. And accompanying him to ball games. And helping with his new hobby of building models of spaceships.

  He wished he’d been part of Jeff’s life earlier. Not that he would’ve wanted to deprive Lowell of the experience, but watching Joni as the baby grew inside her, witnessing the birth and seeing those first baby steps would’ve been a miracle beyond imagining.

  Well, his cup was already overflowing. It was pure indulgence to wish for anything more.

  Clouds hovered all the way to Santa Barbara and then the sun broke through. Dirk gave a sigh of satisfaction. He’d had enough bad weather on this trip to last him a long time.

  Downtown Viento del Mar was shuttered except for the supermarket at the corner of San Bernardo Road. Dirk had called ahead and offered to pick up any items Joni needed, but she’d said that all she wanted was the sight of him, and the sooner the better.

  He pushed back a hank of hair, askew from having been slept on crookedly aboard the plane. He should have gotten a cut last week but preferred to wait for his regular barber.

  For a moment, when his hand brushed his forehead, Dirk flashed back to that Halloween night when he’d nearly lost Joni. The scars had faded in a year, but the trauma recurred now and again.

  He could still see Fred’s lunging shape and feel the slash of the knife on his leg. Could still hear Joni behind him, crashing against the faucet.