by Nancy Gideon
His head leaned against her thigh as he closed his eyes. "I don't mean to make problems for you and Mel. I don't."
"I know, baby."
"I want to belong, Mom. These people have never once given me the benefit of anything but their mistrust. But today, they've been greeting me like a neighbor. Mom, I'm scared that's gonna get snatched away from me. I've got to prove that they can trust me, that I'm not what he was."
She smoothed her hand over the uniform shirt, saying with pride, "You already did that, Zach."
He shook his head. "I have to prove to all of them that I'm a good risk. The only way I can do that is to sweep out all the dirt and start over clean. They think I killed Dad. They'll go on believing it until I find out who did."
"And what if they don't like what you find, Zach? How are you going to get them not to blame you for stirring it up again?"
"Mom there's a killer in this town."
"Someone who hasn't stepped sideways to cross the law in seventeen years. I say leave it alone. Zach, please. Leave it alone. Don't let him ruin this chance for you."
Zach got to his feet. He didn't meet her beseeching eyes as he bent to buss her cheek and whisper, "I'll see you later."
And the sound of her hitching breath as he walked away left him sick inside but no less determined.
* * *
"Why Mr. Crandall, hello again."
Zach leaned his forearms on the counter and gave a deep, dimpled smile. "Miss Lorraine, I was wondering if you could do me a big, big favor."
Wariness sparked in her bespectacled eyes but only for a moment. Then she smiled back, blushing slightly. "I suppose I can, unless you're planning to rob the bank."
He laughed, a low, easy rumble. "No, I don't think so. Wouldn't look good on my performance evaluation. Though I might be tempted to steal you away for the afternoon if I didn't know your husband probably still has that double-barrel he used to pepper my brother's butt with rock salt when he was making off with your pumpkins."
The old woman warmed up like butter swirling in a fry pan. "He still has it, and shame on you for your teasing. Doyle wasn't trying to hit your brother. He's a terrible shot."
Zach grinned, and Lorraine Freemiere buckled.
"What can I do for you, young man?"
"I need my family's bank records from late '79 and '80."
The significance of the date didn't escape her. Her humor fled. "Why would you want those?"
Zach hung his head in a picture of humility. "Everything happened so fast back then. My mom didn't have time to square things away before—"
He took a breath, surprised by how suddenly difficult it was not to let true emotion confuse his manipulation. And that pause what all it took to convince Lorraine of his sincerity.
Her gnarled hand pressed his briefly.
"I'm sure we still have some record of your account. Mr. Tyesdale never throws anything away. If you could stop back just before five, I'll see if I can have them for you."
He glanced up, ashamed, feeling funny about his ruse to get the statements in the face of her sympathy. "I'd really appreciate that, if you're sure it's no trouble."
"No trouble. Tell your mother hello for me."
His smile wavered. "I will."
He couldn't get out of there fast enough. It took a minute for the haze of guilt to clear before he could make his next stop.
Charlie Maitland owned Sweetheart's only cab service, and had for the past twenty years. His main business was delivering groceries to shut-ins or transporting them to Doc Meirs for their checkups. Back when his father worked for Charlie, there was no daily bus route between the neighboring towns, and Sam would do the long drives when not busy putting in a new water pump or turning brake drums. Sam was a good driver when sober, and Charlie never sent him out unless he was sure.
"Howdy, Zach. Heard you was back." Charlie wiped off his greasy hand before offering it. "You was mighty good with engines way back when. Ain't lookin' to moonlight, are you? Sure could use somebody with your daddy's talent for tinkering."
Zach's smile thinned. "No sir, 'fraid not." And when he told the old mechanic what he needed, Charlie spent the better part of forty-five minutes digging through broken boxes and dirty crates before producing what he'd asked for.
"There you go, son. Your daddy's mileage log. Can't guess what you'd be wanting it for, but you're welcome to it."
Zach patted the thin ledger against his pantleg with a force that stung. "Keepsake."
Charlie shrugged. "Whatever. Take care now. Stop on by if you want to tip a few some night and talk old times."
"I'll do that."
Like hell. No way he was planning to reminisce about all the nights he'd shown up after three in the morning to drag his father out of the back seat of the cab, drunker than sin, only to endure his slaps and abusive talk as his old man stumbled out to his beat-up truck growling that he damn well didn't need some snot-nosed thirteen-year-old to drive him. Then, taking the bastard home so the drunk could take out the rest of his temper on his mother, who'd worried that the wretch had wrapped himself around a tree somewhere. Feeling guilty for wishing he had.
Old times. He shuddered and spat on the antifreeze-stained drive. Even after more than twenty years, he could still taste the oil in his mouth from the flat of his father's hand.
He pocketed the ledger, hoping it would provide a clue worth causing his mother's heartbreak.
He didn't have time to dive into the information he'd ferreted up. Just before five, Lorraine Freemiere stopped by to deliver a batch of rubber-banded papers. Before he could go through them, a call came in. A wreck on the interstate wasn't a big deal, but an overturned hog hauler freeing sixty pigs weighing in at over three hundred pounds apiece brought out every man. After two and a half hours of the wildest greased pig contest ever held in the county, the porkers were safely corralled without any of the east or westbound traffic making bacon out of them.
Aching in every fiber and thinking he'd rather wrestle a gorilla in the drunk tank than face hogs anytime soon, Zach sank into his chair with a heavy sigh and turned his attention back seventeen years. Deciding to go over the bank statements first, he opened his desk drawer and stared for a long minute at the empty spot where the papers had been. His brow creased as he plunged his hand back into the drawer, fumbling around in case they somehow got shoved to the back.
But they just plain weren't there.
"Cora Beth?"
The switchboard operator wheeled her chair around the partition at the end of the room. "Yeah, Zach?"
"Was anybody back here at my desk?"
"Not that I recall. Why? Somebody leave you something?"
Yeah, they'd left him something, all right. A big fat nothing to go on.
He reached behind him, to the leather jacket hanging on the back of his chair and knew a moment of thanksgiving when he felt the outline of his father's ledger in the interior pocket. Whoever knew about the bank records apparently didn't know about his visit to Charlie. He wasn't dead in the water, yet.
"Oh, Sheriff Baines stopped in while you were out," Cora Beth yelled back. "But that was to talk to Les. I think he said he was leaving a note on his desk. Maybe he put it on yours by mistake."
Zach leaned back in his chair, eyeballing the desk across the aisle from his. "Must have been what happened. Thanks, Cora Beth." He studied the clean top of Les's work space. No note. No reason for Lloyd Baines to stop back. Except to retrieve potentially damning evidence.
Against whom?
* * *
Cranking off the water at the kitchen sink, Bess grumbled all sorts of dire threats against the person at her back door and their lack of timing. One of Murphy's Laws: no one ever knocks at the door unless you're in the middle of something. Thinking it was probably the Bartlett boy collecting for the newspaper, she swiped a hand through her hair to make it somewhat presentable and pulled open the door. The annoyed gaze she leveled at Timmy's approximate height rose another f
oot to meet Zach Crandall's grin.
"Somebody forget they were having company?"
His teasing startled her from her surprise, but the way his sassy, smoldering gaze took her in by increments made her aware of how she must look to him.
Wallpapering wasn't the neatest job around, and she'd been at it for hours. She wore her oldest clothes, a pair of ancient jeans with rips across the knees and a snug neon green T-shirt Julie had sent her emblazoned with the saying, "Outside a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read." Wanting comfort as well as casual practicality, she'd opted to go braless, thinking who'd see so why should she care?
Perspiration formed damp crescents beneath her breasts. Water splashed from the sink in her hurried cleanup soaked the snug front into revealing more than it was meant to as her nipples puckered beneath the clingy knit. When she crossed her arms for modesty's sake, his stare flashed up to her face and his irreverent grin returned.
"You've got paste in your hair."
He said it as if he thought her disarray adorable instead of mortifying. Immediately she raked her fingers through the gooey tresses, making matters worse.
Frustrated because he was standing in her doorway looking as cool and fresh as she was hot and icky, she grew testy in her own defense. "I'm in the middle of papering the kitchen. It's not something I do in evening wear."
Instead of looking duly chastised, Zach continued to grin, lines of indecent humor fanning out from the corners of his eyes. "Where's Faith?"
"Deserted the ship, the rat. And after talking me into this project. She went to the show in Chariton. You just missed her."
Nervously, she surveyed the room again, imagining homey craft accessories in place of her mother's dusty teacups. She'd felt guilty at first when packing them away but a sudden urgency filled her to put as much of her mother's memory away as possible. A frantic urgency.
"Want me to help you finish up?"
She shook her head, thinking about the two of them in the sweltering kitchen working in close tandem. "I was about to take a break. There's some sun tea in the fridge."
"Go on out to the front. I'll bring the tea."
The small screened-in porch was a shady relief after the heat of the sunbaked kitchen. Bess settled onto the metal glider and went limp with a weary sigh. The spurt of frenetic activity worked wonders for keeping her worries at bay but the minute she relaxed to let her guard down, they were right there, waiting to exert their pressure. She refused to acknowledge them. Not now. Not yet. She rubbed at the tight muscles in her neck and shoulders, trying to work them out, even as her mind was trying to work out a way to handle Zach. A way that wouldn't hurt everyone.
He paused in the doorway to the house, his big frame boldly filling the space in an affront to Joan Carrey's wishes. Sweaty glasses of tea filled both hands.
"Sugar, lemon?"
"Plain."
"Nothing fancy."
"You know me, Zach."
He handed her one of the glasses along with a cryptic observation. "I thought I did."
She sipped the brew slowly. She expected him to join her on the swing. When he continued to linger in the doorway, she fidgeted. He was building up to something, and she knew she wasn't going to like it.
Then, in typical Zach form, he cut right to it.
"All right, Bess. Suppose you tell me what's going on."
* * *
Chapter 17
« ^ »
Ice rattled in her tea glass. "I'm not sure what you mean." She couldn't meet his probing stare, feeling every bit as guilty as a criminal under interrogation. Was she a criminal for concealing her discovery? What did he know? What had he found out?
"The wallpapering. The changes. That have anything to do with this morning?"
She risked an upward glance and found no ulterior suspicions in his handsome features. He didn't know anything, she thought with a rush of weakening relief. It took a second to quiet down her jitters so she wouldn't sound like a crazy woman when she answered.
"Partly. And partly to whatever you said to Faith."
His brows lifted in mock innocence. "Moi?"
"She told me you two talked."
"Oh?"
Bess smiled through the swain. "Don't get all squinty-eyed. She didn't mention any particulars."
He blinked his eyes and opened them wide. "So you two mended fences, I take it."
"We're wallpapering them. We've decided to help each other grow up."
A pause, then his quiet summation, "Good."
He crossed the porch to settle on the glider, and for a moment they racked in silence, both studying their glasses while their awareness of each other built like thunderheads over the sleepy Iowa town. Bess spoke first, her voice thin with agitation.
"Remember when we used to sit out here studying?"
His chuckle was whiskey rich and wickedly warm. "You were trying to study. I was trying to hypothesize on how to kiss you without having you flatten my face with my math book."
She gave a startled little laugh. "You were not. You thought I was a—how did you put it?—stiff-necked dogooder."
Zach leaned back, his arms draping along the top of the swing, framing but not touching her. "Well, you were, but that didn't mean you didn't have my shorts in a knot for four long months."
"Oh, come on." The subject had her all achy inside, remembering the fear and fascination she'd held for the dangerous Zach Crandall who could have had any girl he'd wanted with a flash of his dimpled smile. Being bad made him all the more desirable to the school's good girls. She'd spent four months of sheer torture, sitting with him, wishing she had the nerve to do something more instructional than dissect x=y2 multiplication formulas.
Zach drew a line along her taut shoulder with his thumb, the gesture part chiding, part coaxing. "You were harder to figure out than any of those equations. You still are."
"I'm not complex, Zach."
He made an objecting noise. "It would have taken Einstein to analyze what you saw in me back then. But you saw something worth saving, and damned if you didn't rescue me whether I wanted to be rescued or not. I never really thanked you for that."
Bess shifted on the hard cushions as a flush of color rose in her cheeks. "Yes, you did."
"I tried to stay away because I was bad for you. Everyone knew it. Hell, I knew it, but it didn't keep me from wanting you. God, I wanted you, Bess. You were every good thing I never had. When you wouldn't leave with me… I never got over it." He gave a soft, wry laugh as if he found amusement in his own desperate straits. Then he suddenly sobered. "That's why I came back, Bess. To get a second shot at the best thing I ever had. And I'm blowing it again."
Surprised, pleased, alarmed, all in one, Bess angled toward him, needing to see his face, to read it in his eyes, but his hand fisted in her paste-filled hair, guiding her head to his chest to deny her a glimpse of his vulnerability. Not sure how to react, she leaned into him, feeling the runaway gallop of his pulse beneath her cheek as she sorted through her own turmoiled emotions.
"Blowing it in what way?" she asked cautiously.
"I can't let it go, Bess, this business with my father."
Her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
"I have to know what happened that night I left. Even if it destroys everything else. I know you can't understand—"
Her palm pressed over his heart, stilling his words. Her own were unbending. "Yes, I do, Zach. I understand. I always have. It's the one thing that's driven you all your life. You can't give it up now."
She felt his harsh inhalation and its gradual release. "I must be crazy to risk so much. To risk losing you again."
"You never lost me."
He went completely still, as if he didn't dare believe her. She continued in a small but sure voice.
"My life stopped when you left. I've been waiting all these years for you to come back and start it up again. I won't give up so easily this time."
"Bess, you don
't know what you're letting yourself in for."
"Yes, I do."
"No one in this town wants me to find out the truth."
Herself included. Bess gathered wads of his T-shirt within her hands, horribly torn between the rights and wrongs and middle grays.
"You do what's right for you, Zach."
"I have to do more than that, Bess. I'm not a kid without responsibilities anymore. I can't just run away if I don't like how things are going. I can't leave the people I love behind to get hurt. You could have died in that fire. Someone in this town isn't afraid to play for keeps. I don't want you to take those risks for me."
"Then what are you asking, Zach?"
"I'm not asking you to do anything."
"Yes, you are." The roughness in his voice said he was, and that it was a big thing, one he didn't have complete faith in. Bess sat up within the wrap of his arms. For once he evaded her gaze. "Ask me, Zach." Trust me, this time.
"Not now. Not yet. Not until I'm damn sure it's a risk I can let you take."
"I'm a big girl, Crandall. For heaven's sake, I'm wallpapering."
Only he would understand the significance, the cost of that defiant gesture. But it didn't leave him looking any more confident. If anything, he seemed more disturbed.
"I need to do these things first, to put them to rest. I need to know—I want to know if you'll be there when it's over. I want you to know that you can count on me, Bess. Things might get crazy for a while, and maybe you'll change your mind about all this—about me—by the time it's done, but I swear to you, Bess, I wouldn't ask you to hang on if I wasn't planning on something more than dinner out and sex."
She didn't even blush at his bluntness. "I was planning on more, too. And after investing seventeen years, I'm too stubborn to give up on you now."
He was too good at hiding all the pain in his life to allow her to see everything. Just flickers of what he was feeling. Wariness. Fragile hope. And fear, gut-twisting, soul-deep fear.