by Diana Palmer
She was feeling guilty about that when Clark phoned her.
“I’m sorry,” she said as soon as she recognized his voice.
“You are?” He hesitated. “Oh. I guess you mean about Nellie. Boone knew all along, Keely,” he added heavily. “I thought I was pulling the wool over his eyes. I always underestimate him. He’d hired his girlfriend’s father’s detective agency to investigate Nellie. I can’t say I’m really surprised at what he found out. Well, I’m surprised that she was married and…fooling around with me, I mean.”
“Boone is very intelligent,” she said noncommittally.
“Yes, and he knows how to make people talk.”
She grimaced. “I didn’t mean to…”
“No! Not you. Me! He asked me what the hell I thought I was doing, leaving you at a dance alone all evening. He was furious.”
“But I was all right.”
“He knows that your father and his partner in crime might make a grab for you, Keely. I knew it, or should have known it, and I put you at risk. Boone said anything could have happened. I’m really sorry, Keely. I was so crazy about Nellie that she was all I thought about. You’re my friend. I should have been looking out for you.”
It made her warm inside that Boone was worried for her safety. “It’s okay, Clark,” she said. “Honest, it is.”
“He gets hot about you,” he continued. “I’d almost say he’s possessive of you, but that’s ridiculous. He is fond of you, in his way, I think.” He paused. “There was some talk about the two of you at the dance. You went outside together…”
“To talk about you,” she countered. “He wanted to know where you were and what you were doing. He’s very insistent.”
There was a relieved sigh. “Yes, he is.” He paused again. “Keely, you don’t want to ever get mixed up with him,” he said, in a stumbling sort of way that made her heart fill with disappointment. “Something happened to him overseas. He hated women for years after that she-cat dropped him when he was wounded. God knows why he’s letting her lead him down the same path again. Maybe he wants revenge. He doesn’t like women at all. He just uses them. Sort of like me,” he added miserably.
Keely didn’t know what to say, how to answer him. “He’s not a bad person.”
“I didn’t say he was, just that he’s hateful toward women. He’s keeping Misty on a tight rein, and he doesn’t watch his words when he talks to her. It’s almost like he’s keeping her around for some mysterious reason, but he doesn’t really want to have anything to do with her. He couldn’t care less if he’s late for a date, or if he doesn’t even show up. She spends most of their time together complaining about the way he treats her, and about you.”
“Me?” she exclaimed. “But why? Boone doesn’t give a hill of beans about me!”
“I don’t really know. She’s jealous of you.”
“That’s one for the books,” she mumbled. “She’s beautiful and rich. I’m plain and poor. I’m no competition at all.”
“I could dispute that,” Clark replied gently. “You have some wonderful qualities.”
“I’m no beauty.”
“Neither is she.”
Keely laughed softly. “Of course she is.”
“She’s not a beauty inside,” he said doggedly. “You are.”
“Thanks, Clark. You’re nice.”
“Nice.” He laughed. “Well, at least we’re still friends. Aren’t we?”
“Yes.”
“Then you can go riding with me from time to time. At the ranch. When Boone isn’t around,” he added with a wicked chuckle.
“We both know you’re not afraid of Boone,” she chided.
“Not much, anyway.”
“What did you tell Nellie, about not seeing her anymore?”
There was a long pause.
Her heart sank. “Clark, you’re not still seeing her?”
There was a longer pause.
“Her husband might hurt you. Really hurt you,” she warned.
He sighed. “You don’t understand. It’s complicated.”
“I guess I don’t,” she replied. “Be careful. Okay?”
“I’ll be careful. I know I have to break it off. But we had something special—on my side, at least. It takes a little time to adjust.”
“You watch your back,” she replied.
“I’ll do that. See you.”
“See you.”
She hung up, but she was worried. Clark was playing with fire. If she and Boone were really friends, she’d tell him. But Boone hadn’t called or come near her since the dance, when he’d kissed her so sweetly. She’d dreamed about him, ached to see him, but she hadn’t had so much as a glimpse of him. Perhaps he’d just been leading her on, she thought sadly, to get information about Clark and Nellie. There was a miserable thought, and it kept her unhappy the rest of the day.
She and her mother were getting along better than they ever had, although Keely lived in terror that her father, or worse, Jock, might just show up at the door. Ella had talked to a Realtor about the house and land. She had to take Jock’s threat seriously, she said, and she didn’t want to go to jail. Keely was worried that the secret might come out anyway. She felt guilty just knowing about it.
Things got worse when Hayes showed up at the vet’s office where she worked in the middle of the next week. He was somber and worried. He asked Keely out into the parking lot, away from the crowd in the waiting room, where they could talk undisturbed.
“What’s wrong?” Keely asked him apprehensively.
“It’s about your father,” he began hesitantly. His face became hard. “I’ve heard something. A little gossip. It involves my brother…”
“Oh, heavens!” Keely ground out. “I’m so sorry!”
The expression on her face spoke volumes. She never could keep secrets, and this one had cost her many a night’s sleep. If Hayes pushed, she’d have to tell him. She went pale.
“You know, don’t you?” he asked quietly. “Tell me, Keely.”
She wrapped her arms tight around herself. “If I do, my mother will go to jail,” she said miserably.
“If you don’t, your mother may die,” he countered. “Your father was seen at a roadhouse over in Bexar County two days ago.”
She actually gasped. “With Jock?”
“The person who saw him didn’t know about the other man. Probably wouldn’t recognize him. What does Brent have on your mother, Keely, and what has it got to do with my family?”
She leaned back against his patrol car, looking at him with dead eyes. “My father was apparently dealing cocaine before he left here with me, and he had some pure stuff. He made a deal with…” She stopped and bit her lip. She hadn’t thought how it would sound.
Hayes seemed to know. He shifted his tall frame. “I know what my brother was,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to pull any punches on his account. He’s long dead and buried.”
She drew in a long breath. “Yes, but he was still your brother and you loved him,” she said gently. “I loved my father. I never dreamed…” She stopped. “Your brother saw my father make a drug buy. My father offered him a small fortune in cocaine not to tell you.”
“So that was it.”
“My father gave it to your brother. He didn’t tell him that it was a hundred-percent pure. Your brother had his supplier inject him with it. That’s why he overdosed.” She lowered her eyes. “I’m so ashamed!”
“No!” He moved forward and framed her face in his big, warm hands. “No, Keely, it’s not your shame or your guilt! You’re as much a victim as Bobby was. Don’t take that burden on your own shoulders. It’s their crime, not yours!”
Tears were rolling down her cheeks. Hayes felt for a handkerchief, but he didn’t have one. Keely laughed as she tugged a paper towel out of her jeans pocket. “I always carry them around,” she explained, dragging at her eyes. “We’re constantly cleaning up messes. Some dogs get sick when they’re brought here.”
“I can sympathize with them,” Hayes said with a forced smile. “I don’t like going to doctors myself.”
She blew her nose. “I wanted to tell you. I couldn’t. I haven’t been close to my mother, until the last few days, and I knew if I told, she could go to prison.”
“What for?” he asked heavily. “There’s no evidence. Everybody directly connected with the case is dead. The woman who gave Bobby the drugs was Ivy Conley’s sister, Rachel. She died of a drug overdose herself not long ago. She left a diary and confessed that she’d given Bobby the overdose,” he said surprisingly. Actually Keely knew Ivy, who had just married Stuart York, her best friend’s brother.
Hayes looked thoughtful. “Your father and Rachel handed Bobby the gun, but he pulled the trigger himself, figuratively speaking. Bobby was an addict from the time he was twelve. I knew and tried to stop him. I never could.”
“You mean, Mama won’t go to jail?” she worried.
“No.” He hesitated. “But your father will, if I can find one damned thing to pin on him,” he added in the coldest tone she’d ever heard him use.
She felt sad, because her father had been kind to her. She hadn’t known about his dark past, and she’d loved him. It was hard to know that he was one jump ahead of the law. She wondered why, what he’d done to get in so much trouble that he was running scared. “If he’s running, and he needs money,” she reasoned out loud, “he must be desperate to get away.”
He pursed his lips. “You think like a detective,” he mused.
“He’s done something bad,” she continued. “Or Jock has, and he helped.” Her eyes were sad as they met Hayes’s. “He was good to me, those two years I lived with him. If he’d never got mixed up with Jock again, he might have stayed changed.”
“Bad men don’t change, Keely,” Hayes said in a resigned tone. “A lot of them are easily led. Others are just lazy, and they don’t want to have to work for a living. Some have been so badly abused that they hate the world and want to get even. In between, there are good kids who use drugs or get drunk and do things that they regret for the rest of their lives.” He shrugged. “I guess that’s why God made lawmen.” He smiled.
She smiled back.
“If you hear anything from him,” he said, “you have to tell me right away.”
“Mama’s talking to Realtors,” she volunteered. “She’s really afraid of what he might do.”
“So am I,” he said. “I’ve got a friend up in San Antonio talking to the man who recognized your father. He’s got a lead, and he’s following it up. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“What should I tell Mama to do?”
He thought for a minute. “Tell her to go ahead and put the property on the market.”
She opened her mouth to protest.
He held up a hand. “She doesn’t have to sell it. She just has to appear as if she’s selling it. It might buy us a little time. I’d bet money that your father or his partner is keeping an eye out around here.”
“I’ll tell her,” she promised.
“And keep your doors and windows locked, just in case,” he added grimly.
“We always do that.”
“Keep a phone handy, too,” he advised.
She nodded.
“I’m sorry you ever got involved in this,” he said.
“We don’t get to choose our families,” Keely said philosophically.
“Isn’t that the truth?”
She went home after work and told her mother what she’d learned from Sheriff Carson. Ella was obviously relieved.
“I was scared to death,” she confessed to her daughter. “Sheriff Carson isn’t going to arrest me? He told you that?”
“He told me,” Keely replied. “But he does want you to put the house up for sale.”
“I can do that.” Ella smoothed her hands over her silk slacks. “Yes. I can do that.” She looked her age. She hadn’t even put on makeup. “I’ve only had one drink today,” she said after a minute, and smiled at her daughter. “I’m shaky. But maybe I can give it up, if I try.”
Keely felt the beginnings of a real relationship with her mother. “Really?” she asked, and smiled.
“Well, just don’t expect too much,” Ella laughed. “I’ve been a heavy drinker most of my life. It isn’t easy to quit.”
“I understand. I’ll help. Anyway I can.”
Ella studied the younger woman quietly. “You’re a good kid, Keely,” she said. “I haven’t been a good mother. I wish…” She shrugged. “Well, we don’t get many second chances. But I’ll try.”
“That’s all anyone can do,” Keely replied. Impulsively she hugged her mother. Ella hesitated for a minute, but then she hugged her back. It was a moment out of time, when anything seemed possible. But it only seemed that way.
Keely had hoped that Boone might call her, or bring Bailey by the office for a checkup or even be at home when she went riding with Winnie on the occasional Saturday. But he stayed away.
She accepted an invitation to go riding at the Sinclairs’, hoping for a glimpse of Boone. She knew it was pathetic, but she was hungry to see him, under any circumstances. Winnie led the way down a wooded path to the river that ran through the property. Keely started to get down off her horse.
“Don’t,” Winnie said quickly, indicating the tall grass. “Rattlers are crawling. One of the boys killed two of them near the river this week.”
“It’s really hot,” Keely said, unnerved by the mention of snakes. She was terrified of them.
“Yes, and they like cool places,” Winnie said. “We’d better get back,” she added, checking her watch. “I have to go in this afternoon. One of our dispatchers had a death in the family and I promised to fill in for her.”
“You’re a nice person,” Keely said. “I really mean that.”
Winnie smiled. “Thanks, Keely. So are you. I mean it, too.”
“How’s Clark?” she asked on the way back.
“Heading for tragedy,” Winnie said coolly. “He’s still seeing that woman.”
“How do you know?”
“He stuffed a jewelry box into his pocket when he thought I wasn’t looking last night,” she said.
“But she’s married,” Keely argued. “What if her husband finds out?”
“Clark will be very sorry,” she replied. “That detective’s report said that he was a truck driver who did long hauls, and he’s got a prior for assault.”
“Oh, boy,” Keely muttered.
“One day we’ll get a call for Clark at work, you wait and see,” Winnie said grimly. “He won’t listen. He thinks he can win her away from her husband. He’s in love.”
“That woman hasn’t left her husband for a reason,” Keely agreed. “She’s probably afraid of him.”
“That would be my guess.”
They rode in silence until they were within sight of the barn.
“Boone’s doing a stupid thing, too,” Winnie said after a minute.
Keely’s heart jumped. “What?”
“He’s bringing that Misty person home for the weekend,” she said tautly. “God knows why. He treats her badly, but she hangs on. I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Revenge,” Keely guessed.
“That’s what I thought, too. But Clark wasn’t the only one hiding jewelry from me. Boone had a jewelry box in his pocket, too, just like Clark,” she said, glancing worriedly at Keely. “I saw it. A little square one, like a ring comes in. He was hiding it.”
Keely’s world was ending. She tried to smile. “I guess he discovered he really does care about her, huh?”
Winnie looked worried. “My brothers are both idiots,” she muttered.
“Love doesn’t make people rational,” she said, glancing around at the parched pasture. “If we don’t get some rain, even the animals are going to go loco,” she added, trying to change the subject. “This drought is terrible.”
“Worse for small ranchers than for us,” Winnie replied. �
��We can afford to buy hay to feed our cattle. Now, this corn thing for fuel is pushing those prices even higher.” She shook her head. “You try to fix one thing, and it damages another thing.”
“That’s life, I suppose.”
“Don’t look so glum,” Winnie said gently. “Maybe it was a lapel pin or something that Boone bought for a friend. It might not even be a ring.”
“Of course.”
Winnie knew the other woman was hiding a big hurt. She changed the subject as they rode back toward the ranch.
They met a furious Clark at the barn. He was pacing, steaming. He saw the women ride up and went to meet them, along with a wrangler who took the horses to unsaddle and stable.
“What in the world is the matter with you?” Winnie asked her brother when the horses had been led away.
“That damned private detective who works for Boone’s girlfriend’s father, that’s what’s the matter!” he raged. “Boone set me up!”
“Set you up? How?” Keely wanted to know.
“Nellie is not married,” he ground out. “I was suspicious, because she lives in an apartment in town. None of her neighbors have ever mentioned that she had other men coming and going, much less that her so-called husband was parking his semi in an apartment parking lot. So I asked a friend of mine on the San Antonio police force to check her out for me, on the quiet. He found out that she’s never even been married!”
Winnie was shocked. “Clark, I’m sure Boone didn’t tell them to make up that report,” she began.
“Boone hates Nellie,” he shot back. “He’d do anything to break us up. And before you both say it, I know she has a mercenary streak. She likes pretty things, because she can’t afford them. It’s my business if I want to buy them for her…nobody’s making me do it.”
Winnie and Keely exchanged woeful glances.
“Anyway, she’s furious because Boone checked her out and tried to break us up with lies,” he added grimly. “She won’t see me anymore.”
Keely felt guilty. Although why she should was anybody’s guess.
“I’m really sorry,” Winnie said gently, kissing him on the cheek. “I wish I could stay and talk more about it, but I’ll be late for work. We can talk later, can’t we?” She frowned. “Oh, I forgot! I’ve got to drive Keely home….”