by Loree Lough
She waited until the movie’s intro credits had scrolled by on the television screen, then went into the family room and closed the door. With any luck, Agent Spencer would be at his desk, but in the event he was in the field, she said a little prayer that he’d return her call quickly, because it wouldn’t surprise her to find out Molly Logan had already changed her mind about the rehab center.
Grace punched the digits and said another prayer: that Dusty would join her and the boys for supper, and take advantage of the room she’d rearranged and redecorated with him in mind.
16
When his wife left him, Eli Spencer swore off women. Well, not women, per se, so much as relationships with them. She’d taken everything. Every stick of furniture, every dollar he’d saved, even the house he’d gone into debt to buy because she’d fallen in love with it. It had taken five of the ten years since the divorce to dig himself out of the money hole she’d left him in. He felt entitled to his low opinion of women, would have bet his next promotion that divorce-induced bitterness would climb into the grave with him . . .
. . . until he met Grace Sinclair, who’d stuck by the Logan woman’s side, delivering hot tea and warm hugs, aiming a cold glare Timmons’s way when the agent’s interrogation style got out of hand. Eli might have said nosiness explained it all . . . if not for the sadness glittering in her big dark eyes. Seeing the dead girl’s body and witnessing the mother’s grief hadn’t put it there; if he had to guess, he’d say she’d been carrying it around for years.
He pegged her as the type who’d deny it if he asked her about it, and Eli knew types, thanks to the deceitful people he’d met and the ugly things he’d seen since finishing up at Quantico. He liked her, felt protective toward her—weird, considering he’d spent less than three hours in her presence. A dozen times since leaving the Logan house in Oella, he’d wracked his brain, hoping to come up with a legitimate excuse to call, so he could get to know her better, find out if he’d judged her accurately, or if he was all wet.
And then she’d called him, and he’d been so distracted by the music in her voice that he’d only heard every other word: Taylor Manor. Mrs. Logan. Rehab. Friend. He’d driven straight over there, and nodded politely when she introduced him to a guy with tattoos and long hair and a diamond stud earring—no doubt the owner of the shiny black Hog parked out front—and a dozen or so boys whose expressions told him they’d seen almost as much of life’s ugliness as he had.
Then Grace had fixed him a sandwich—ham and cheese on toasted rye, with a slice of homegrown tomato and a side of chips—and while he wolfed it down, she repeated everything she’d said on the phone
Eli had given her his word: he’d call his pal at Taylor Manor to see if it was possible to skip the red tape and get Mrs. Logan into the facility’s rehab unit, ASAP. For a minute, relief had replaced the sadness in her eyes, and he’d felt so good about putting it there that he’d asked about her plans for the Fourth.
“Something simple,” she’d said. The parade in Dundalk for years, a backyard barbeque. The fireworks. Everything had been going great between them until he’d asked her to dinner, inspiring half a dozen excuses to bubble from her lips: Chores. Errands. Lesson plans for the boys. . . . “I homeschool them, you know?”
No. He hadn’t known that, he’d said as she walked him to the door. Grace thanked him for coming over, for going above and beyond his original promise to help Mrs. Logan. And she’d waved as he got into the car. Asked him to let her know once things were set up, so she could drive Mrs. Logan to the facility. “Sure, of course,” he’d said, half distracted by the beam of the porch light reflected in the Harley’s shiny black motor casing . . . and the memory of the way her voice had gone all soft and sweet when she’d introduced him to its owner. Didn’t seem right . . . gorgeous little gal like her, falling all over herself for a guy like that.
The thought had inspired an idea, and the idea had been responsible for the pages now tucked into the manila folder under his arm.
Eli rang the bell. The door swung open, and there she stood, looking even prettier than he remembered.
“Agent Spencer,” she said, smiling.
“Please. Call me Eli. . . .”
“Good news about Mrs. Logan?”
“Too good to share over the phone,” he explained as she closed the door. “It’s awfully quiet around here. Where is everybody?”
She started down the hall, waved for him to follow. “Dusty’s in New York,” she said over one shoulder. “His aunt had a heart attack, so the doctor scheduled open heart surgery. She’s more like a mother than an aunt, really, because she took him in after his parents were killed.”
Grace pulled out the same kitchen chair he’d been in last time he was here. Eli slid the folder to the far end of the table and sat down.
“So to make a long story short. . . .” Laughing, she poured him a glass of lemonade. “I know, I know . . . too late for that, right?”
So far, she hadn’t told him anything he didn’t already know, thanks to his background check. Eli took a sip of the lemonade. “Fresh squeezed?”
“Well, yeah,” she said. But her voice, her raised eyebrows, and her stance said, “As if I’d serve anything but. . . .”
“Did you skip supper again?”
“Matter of fact,” he admitted, “I did.” Because I was hoping you’d ask. . . .
She pulled sandwich fixings out of the fridge, assembled them on the counter. “So anyway, Dusty’s in New York, with his cousins, who—”
“—are more like brothers than cousins,” he teased, “seeing as they were raised in the same house.”
“So, where are the kids?”
“Oh, they went with him, of course.”
Of course? Nothing his research had turned up indicated that Parker had adopted the boys. . . .
“I have a theory,” she said, using a butter knife as a pointer, “to explain that. I think he brought them along for two reasons. One,” she said, slicing a tomato, “he’s proud of how far they’ve come, considering their background.” The toast popped up as she said, “And two, I think he thinks I needed a break from the bunch of them.”
She slid the sandwich plate in front of him, then handed him a paper napkin.
“Well, do you?” he asked, draping it over one thigh. “Need a break from them, I mean.”
She sat across from him and folded her hands on the table. “Actually, the exact opposite is true. The place feels so big and empty without them.”
“Guess it’s good practice, then.”
“For when the state says they have to leave?”
Nodding, he bit off the corner of the sandwich.
“You’re probably right. That won’t be easy.”
“I feel like a pig, sitting here stuffing my face, alone.”
“I’ve already eaten.” She sat back in her chair. “So . . . this good news about Mrs. Logan. . . .”
“Oh. Right.” He took a swallow of the lemonade, then blotted his lips with the napkin. “Sorry. I was enjoying the sandwich so much, I plum forgot why I came here.” Liar, he thought, glancing at the folder. Eli filled her in: the room is there for the taking . . . once Mrs. Logan submitted to a physical and psych exam. “Probably not a good idea for her to wait too long,” he advised. “With everything that’s going on in this crazy world, no telling how long the room will be available.”
“I’ll call her. Tonight.”
As soon as she gets rid of me.
“Thanks,” Eli said, shoving the plate aside. “That was fantastic.”
“I have some pie in the fridge, if you have room for dessert.”
“Sounds good.”
She got up to cut him a slice, and her back was to him when she said, “So what’s in the folder? Admission papers for Mrs. Logan?”
Moments ago, when she’d talked about Parker, had been one of the few times when the sadness left her eyes. Clearly, she cared about the good reverend. Maybe Eli had been wrong,
and the man had turned over a new leaf. People changed, became better human beings, every day. He’d changed . . . after meeting Grace. . . .
If he was wrong about Parker, he’d erase her happiness in one swipe. But if he was right, he’d spare her another heartache.
Right?
“Hope you like apple,” she said, putting the dish in front of him. “I can nuke it if you want, put a scoop of ice cream on top. . . .”
“Some other time, maybe,” he said, spearing an apple. “Homemade?”
Again, with the “of course” posture.
Yeah, she was different, all right. Different enough to make him wolf down the pie, so he could open that folder, get the whole ugly business of Parker’s past out of the way. He spelled it out slowly, starting with the not-so-honorable military discharge, ending with the troubles that nearly got him canned from the police department in New York. Then he sat back, wondering as she leafed through the pages, how she’d react once she read black and white proof that her Harley-riding hero had feet of clay
Grace closed the folder. “It doesn’t matter what Dusty was,” she said, sliding it closer to Eli. “The only thing I care about is who he is.”
Now, why did that remind him of what his grandpa used to say? “Who you are is shouting at me so loudly that I can’t hear what you’re saying.” Or something like that.
“Dusty is the most decent man I’ve ever known, with the possible exception of the grandfather who raised me.”
Then she launched into a long list of the things he’d accomplished, starting with the boys who were his responsibility now and those who’d come and gone before them, and ending with everything he’d done at Angel Acres.
Eli picked up the file, thanked Grace for the sandwich and the pie, and made the most dignified exit possible under the circumstances. Mrs. Logan was her problem now, and so was her precious Dusty. Halfway home, he thumped the steering wheel in frustration. You’ve got nobody but yourself to blame, he told himself. He didn’t live by many rules: tell the truth as completely and as often as possible; do your level best at everything you attempt; show up for work on time; don’t let yourself be fooled by a pretty face.
The driver of the car ahead of him slammed on his brakes, forcing Eli to follow suit. And when he did, the folder slid from the passenger seat. It opened when it hit the floor, exposing the cover page he’d so carefully typed up and centered on the screen before sending it to the printer.
What galled him most was the possibility that Dusty Parker—long-haired, tattooed, Harley-riding preacher was a more honorable man than Eli Spencer, decorated FBI agent.
17
In the waiting room adjacent to the OR suites, Dusty’s cousins paced.
“They’re gonna wear out that rug,” Jack whispered behind a cupped hand.
“You’d be right with them,” Cody said, nodding toward the double doors, “if that was your mom in there.”
Cody followed his line of vision and nodded. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.” Then he shrugged. “Guess when Dusty gets back with the coffee, they’re really gonna give that rug a workout.”
The middle-aged man flopped onto the nubby seat of the chair between them, and, leaning forward, grabbed a dog-eared magazine.
Tony put the rest of the periodicals back into a fan shape. “Who you waiting for, mister?”
He peered over gold-rimmed half glasses. “My wife.” He ran a trembling hand through gray curls. “You?”
“Long story,” Guillermo told him.
“I’m not going anywhere.” He closed his magazine and propped an ankle on a knee.
“Well, the guy who takes care of us—”
“Our guardian,” Trevor put in. “He’s in the cafeteria. His turn to make the coffee run.”
“—his aunt is in there.”
“She raised him,” Nick said. “Those are his cousins over there.”
The man nodded. “What sort of operation is she having?”
“Not sure, to be honest. She had a heart attack, see, so—”
“Her doctor said a triple bypass,” Jack said. “Maybe quadruple.”
“Yeah,” Nick agreed. “No way to know until he gets in there.”
“That’s pretty much what my wife’s surgeon said. Except in her case, it’s defective valves.” He glanced at the Rolex on his wrist. “She’s been in there four hours.”
“Where you been all this time?” Billy asked.
“Got a call from her surgeon’s secretary,” he said, “in the middle of a meeting with the Japanese. Took a while to get hold of my pilot.”
Billy’s eyebrows disappeared behind shaggy brown bangs. “Japan?”
The man was nodding when the boy added, “Wait. Did you just say your pilot? Are you famous or something?”
“Only among computer geeks,” he said, chuckling.
Montel picked up the magazine he’d just dropped. “Hey,” he said, pointing at its cover, “is this you?”
“ ’Fraid so.”
“So if you ain’t famous,” Montel said, “why’s your pi’ture on the cover of Time?”
Jack peeked over Montel’s shoulder and read the bold white sidebar. “Which name is yours, mister,” he asked, “John Peterson or Pete Leonard?”
Dusty walked in just then, balancing a cardboard cup holder on each hand. It wasn’t a good sign that the three of them were still walking circles outside the OR. “Give me a hand with this, Flynn.”
His cousin stopped pacing long enough to take one of the cartons. “Which one’s double cream, double sugar?” he asked, placing it on the table.
“It’s all right there on the lids,” Dusty said, grabbing the one with the big black B on top. “So, what’s the word on—”
“Dusty?” The man from Time got to his feet. “Not Dusty Parker. . . .”
The boys looked from his face to Dusty’s and back again.
“Well, if it isn’t John Peterson,” Dusty said, slapping the man’s back. “Long time no see, you old codger.” He could say things like that, now that John wasn’t his boss.
“How long has it been?”
“A lifetime,” he said. And it was true. He’d been a very different man, back when he’d worked security, keeping autograph hounds and panhandlers from pestering John. But at first glance, it seemed John hadn’t changed a bit.
Of all the well-heeled executives he’d protected, John was at the top of Dusty’s list. The media liked to paint him as a womanizing, gambling, party animal, and credited his father’s wealth for John’s gregarious, down-to-earth persona. He’d inherited millions, that much was true; but he’d grown his wealth, rather than squandering it on needy kin and dolled-up women who came out of the woodwork whenever he made a public appearance. He’d liked working for the man, mostly, because he respected him.
Dusty waved his cousins over. “Flynn, Connor, Blake . . . c’mere. I want to introduce you to an old friend of mine.”
The men took a moment to trade names and handshakes before all three Parkers retired to a bank of chairs to sip coffee and stare at the OR doors.
“Dusty,” Trevor said, “this dude’s got his own plane.”
He knew, because he’d been in it, dozens of times. “Is that so?”
“And his picture on the cover of Time.” Montel handed Dusty the magazine.
It wasn’t the first time, Dusty thought, grinning. “What did you do to get there this time?”
This time, the boys’ expressions said, meaning . . . he’d been there before?
John shrugged, as if it was no big deal, which told Dusty that whatever he was about to say would be a very big deal.
“Started a fund for the tsunami victims in Japan, and the donors insisted that I go over there to deliver it.”
Made sense, since his wife had been born over there. “Everybody okay in Kim’s village?” Her parents and siblings had been in America for generations, but she’d made a point of visiting extended family, every other year or so.
&nb
sp; “She lost her grandmother. Two cousins.”
Dusty nodded. “Sorry to hear it.” Then, “So what are you doing here?”
Peterson told him about his wife’s operation, then slid a leather checkbook from his pocket. “How much do you need?”
Hands up as if he’d pulled a gun, instead, Dusty frowned. “Put that thing away, John. We’re doing fine.”
“Some things never change,” he said, twisting the cap of a sleek, silver pen. “Still a proud and stubborn idiot, I see.” He used the pen to point at the boys. “You telling me they don’t need shoes? Haircuts? Won’t be summer forever, you know. What about winter coats? Boots and—”
“John. Seriously. We’re holding our own.” He nodded toward the OR doors. “Besides, we’ve got bigger things to worry about right now than stocking caps and mittens.”
“You still riding a Harley?”
“Yeah. . . .”
“What do you do . . . take the kids to school, one at a time?”
Dusty laughed. “Have you grown so old and crotchety that you’ve forgotten a little thing called ‘summer vacation’?” He elbowed John’s ribs. “I’m kidding. They’re homeschooled. And we have a van.”
“Bet it’s an old clunker.” John waved the boys over. “What year is it, son?” he asked Montel.
“Eighty-eight. But she runs great, ’cause we take good care of her. Dusty taught us how to change the oil. Rotate tires. Replace hoses. That baby purrs like a kitten, don’t she, Dusty?”
When she’s in the mood to, he thought. Unfortunately, she wasn’t in the mood to purr very often.
The OR doors hissed, and Aunt Anita’s doctor appeared in the opening.
“He looked tired, but pleased,” John said. “That’s gotta be a good feeling.”
After a brief consult with the Parker men, the surgeon ducked back into the surgical suite. “It is. And you’ll feel it, too, just as soon as Kim’s doctor comes out here.” He turned to his boys. “You guys okay out here while I go in to see her?”