Furious at her own weakness, she ignored a prickly sensation beneath her eyelids. “It could be.”
“This isn’t the only place we can live. You promised once to move back to L.A. if I agreed to have kids.” Jack glanced around in case he’d forgotten anything. How about your family? Casey wanted to shout.
“That was before I realized how lonely I’d been,” she said instead. “What am I going to do in L.A. when you aren’t around? Mothers need support, people they can turn to, people who care about them. And a husband who isn’t halfway around the world. If I have to be a single mom, at least I want to live where I won’t be alone all the time!”
“I told you before, we could have a long-distance marriage.” Finally, Jack met her eyes. “You stay here and I’ll visit as often as I can.”
“And I get to spend the rest of my life waiting around for you?” she blurted. “Our daughter deserves a real father. And I need a man to hold in my arms, not some stranger who drops by when he has nothing better to do.”
He returned to his packing. The meaning couldn’t be clearer: she’d lost.
“I want to be your husband and Diane’s father, but I won’t give up my work,” Jack said. “Not even for you.”
Tears burned trails along her cheeks. “You make it sound like I’m your enemy.”
He made no move toward her. But when he lifted his face, she saw conflict on it. “Do you have any idea how long it took to find my place in the world, or how hard I worked to get there? I can’t give that up,” Jack said. “What am I supposed to do, become a farmer? Or maybe a motel keeper? That isn’t who I am.”
“I know who you are! You’re my husband!”
“That will never be enough.” After snapping shut the latches on his suitcase, he carted it out of the office.
Casey stood rooted to the spot, a painful knot clenching in her chest. Oh, the heck with self-pity and pride. She had to change his mind.
She stormed into the living room. “That’s it? You’re not going to fight for our marriage?”
Jack zipped up his jacket. “We can discuss this when I finish my job in Greece.”
“Discuss it when?” she demanded. “There’ll always be some other job or some reason why you have to go to L.A.”
“You’re right. My home base is in California, not Tennessee.” Except for the ragged edge to his voice, he’d withdrawn behind a mask. “It’s up to you, Casey. We can stay married but you can’t expect me to follow you around like a lapdog.”
“You mean we can stay married in name only!” She couldn’t bear it. “Go ahead, sign the divorce papers. What’s the point of dragging this out?”
“If that’s the way you want it.” Hefting his case, he indicated the rumpled sheets. “Sorry about the mess.”
“That isn’t the mess you should be apologizing for!” She wanted to slap his face. And she wanted to grab him and never let go. She felt as if she might shatter into a thousand pieces.
“Take care of yourself and Diane.” He opened the door, caught a blast of wind in the face, and stepped outside.
Why had she told him to sign the divorce papers? But try as she might, Casey couldn’t bring herself to run after him. Like so many of their arguments, it had gone around in circles, leaving her exhausted and almost as angry with herself as with her husband.
Hurrying to the window, she watched him stride toward the parking lot. Leaves and branches whipped by, and drops of rain splatted against the glass.
The storm outside had nothing on the one raging inside her.
* * *
HE HADN’T SHOUTED. He hadn’t lost his temper the way his father would have.
Jack supposed it was a victory of sorts. Much as he loved Casey, he resented the way she’d dismissed his hardwon career and the business he’d worked so long to establish.
Yet as he steered through the intensifying rain on the way out of town, he admitted how much he would miss this place. He’d never felt much connection with any particular neighborhood in L.A. The chain stores remained the same no matter where you moved, while your friends moved away or forgot about you.
She’d been wrong about one thing. He had expected their marriage to work. He simply didn’t have a clue what that would take. He wasn’t sure she did, either.
A woman like Casey could drive a man crazy. The funny part was that, no matter how often she reversed herself and no matter how inconsistent she might seem to an outsider, Jack understood exactly what she meant.
She loved him. He loved her, too, and he didn’t mean to abuse her trust or let her down. He simply didn’t have it in him to be the sort of man she needed.
By the time he reached Nashville International Airport, rain lashed the parking structure and streamed along the pavement. Overhead, lightning split the sky, which had grown as dark as if it were late evening rather than afternoon.
At the rental return, a clerk gave him papers to fill out about the damage to his car. It took a while for a staff member to inspect the vehicle, but he’d allowed for that.
As Jack signed the checklist, he remembered asking Owen why he’d attacked a car he must have known didn’t belong to Casey. With a dismissive snort, the old man had replied, “I had nothing to do with your car. You probably messed it up yourself to make me look bad.”
Jack would have preferred to tie up all the loose ends. A police officer couldn’t close a case unless he’d solved it definitively and, without a confession or some other means of pinning the incidents on Owen, some of them remained technically open.
Like the damage to this car. Well, he could live with that.
“You’re all set,” the clerk told him. “With the extra insurance your credit card provides, everything should be covered.”
Jack thanked him and left. Inside the main terminal, an uncomfortable hubbub warned even before he checked the monitors that something was amiss. Sure enough, he found that some flights had been delayed and others cancelled. Apparently this weather system included a late-season snowstorm sweeping the Northeast.
So far, however, his flight to New York appeared on track. After passing through security with his bag and laptop, Jack headed for the gate.
Too restless to work, he stood staring through the window at the rain lashing the tarmac. At last, he shifted his attention to an overhead TV showing weather news.
Pine trees swayed behind a correspondent in a rain slicker, who had to shout into his handheld mike. “We’re getting reports of tornadoes here in northern Tennessee around Clarksville. So far, no damage or injuries, but the Weather Service urges everyone to take precautions.”
Tornadoes! The man hadn’t mentioned Richfield Crossing, which lay between Nashville and Clarksville, but it was such a small town that maybe he wouldn’t bother.
Such a small town. The phrase echoed ironically in Jack’s thoughts. Just one more cluster of houses in the middle of nowhere, like countless others. Except that Casey lived there, along with her unborn baby and many other people who’d become friends in a remarkably short time.
He didn’t suppose Casey ran much risk of being hit by a tornado. Nevertheless, his anxiety persisted. With labor imminent, the current storm could leave her even more isolated than usual.
The image of Casey alone in the wooded area brought back memories of last night, along with a nagging doubt that Jack had pushed aside earlier. Owen had admitted to some acts and denied others. At the time, it had seemed obvious that his senility accounted for the discrepancy.
Jack admitted the possibility that someone else, intentionally or not, might have used Owen as a fall guy. If so, the perp now had a clear field.
He remembered the recurring nightmare in which he ran through a devastated landscape seeking a woman in a white nightgown. He’d suffered it ever since his mother’s death and had accepted it as a symbol of loss.
Jack didn’t believe in a sixth sense. Yet at this moment, with the wind gusting so hard airplanes shivered out on the tarmac, he began to wond
er if his subconscious hadn’t been sending a warning.
The intensity of his concern came as a surprise. He’d never understood why people agonized over events that might not happen. In the security business, you took reasonable precautions but you did your client no favors if you obsessed about the outcome.
He didn’t care. Flipping open his phone, he called Casey’s number and listened to ring after ring. On the verge of hanging up and calling the police, he heard an answering click.
With a sleepy rasp, she said, “Hello?”
“It’s me.” Jack angled himself so the conversation wouldn’t disturb other waiting passengers. “I’m at the airport. How’re you doing?”
“I was taking a nap,” Casey muttered, evidently not yet awake enough to be gracious or else still annoyed from their earlier argument.
“I’m sorry.” He didn’t waste time on further apologies. “Listen, it occurs to me that I may have jumped the gun in assuming that Owen’s the only one responsible for what’s been going on. Keep the doors locked and your guard up.”
Across the miles, he could feel her coming fully awake. “You think there’s still danger?”
“I hope I’m wrong, but the more I think, the more it strikes me that Owen wasn’t being cagey last night. He confessed to several of the offenses and denied others. At the time, I attributed it to forgetfulness, but we can’t count on that.”
“What are the odds of having two prowlers at the same time?” Casey inquired skeptically.
“Greater than you might think.” In matters of security, Jack never relied on odds anyway. “If you see or hear anything suspicious, call the police at once.”
“Okay.” She hesitated. Given her usual forthrightness, he sensed she was holding something back.
He made a guess. “What about the labor pains?”
“I’ve had a couple,” she admitted. “Three in the past hour.”
“You need a doctor. Get someone to drive you into town.”
“Hold on,” Casey said. “For one thing, the pains could stop again. Even if this is for real, it’ll probably be hours before labor really sets in. And furthermore, the roads are covered with debris. If I wait, the storm may end before I have to set out.”
Jack paced away from the gate and along the corridor. “How do you know the roads are a mess? Have you been out?” She shouldn’t be driving in her condition.
“Matt stopped by earlier,” she explained. “He’d gone for a walk and saw a lot of branches in the street.”
Great. She had tenants giving her weather reports. What she needed was professional care. “Casey, if you wait too long, your doctor will go home for the day. It’ll take that much longer to get ahold of him.”
“I am not going to run around like a chicken with its head cut off. Even if this is labor, I probably won’t deliver until tomorrow. Jack, what’s wrong with you?”
“Call the doctor’s office,” he said. “At least alert him to the possibility that you might need him.”
She heaved an impatient sigh. “I’ll tell you what. If the pains start to come fifteen minutes apart, I’ll phone Gail. Okay?”
“Remember not to drive if you’re in labor.”
“Matt’s home and I think Enid is too. I’m sure one of them will take me.”
He ought to be with her. Oh, for heaven’s sake, Paul was waiting for him in New York and he had a duty to fulfill halfway around the world.
Reluctantly, Jack backed off. “Call me if there’s a problem.”
“You bet.”
He wanted to add that he loved her, but what good would it do? At last, he said goodbye. After they rang off, frustration swept over him. He scarcely noticed the foot traffic that swirled past him.
A man in a raincoat sidestepped him irritably and yanked a little boy out of the way. Jack guessed he was about three or four.
The child held up his free arm. “Pick me up, Daddy.”
Ignoring the request, the man hauled him down the corridor. The small figure nearly disappeared among the crowd, but his voice drifted back. “Daddy, I want a horsey ride!”
“Just shut up,” the man snapped.
The rebuke sparked harsh memories of Jack’s own father. How often had he heard that same rejecting tone?
“Daddy, I’m scared,” the little fellow persisted. “Pick me up!”
A young woman hauling a large suitcase caught up with them. As she went by Jack, he noted her drawn expression.
She must be anticipating the explosion that would come next. He, too, cringed instinctively.
“Daddy…”
The man in the raincoat swung around in a temper. “You little pest! Can’t you see I’m busy? Sometimes you’re more trouble than you’re worth!” He grabbed the child’s shoulders and began to shake him while his wife uttered ineffectual squeaks of protest.
A surge of disgust propelled Jack forward. He had to stop the abuse, since no one else seemed about to intervene.
Sharply, he reminded himself to control his temper. If he sought revenge for his own past instead of focusing on the present, he’d be worse than useless.
He stopped in front of the man and took a firm but not pugnacious stance. “Excuse me, sir. I need to speak with you.” Jack kept his tone professional to match the words.
The whole tableau froze. “You some kind of cop?” the guy demanded.
“I used to be.” At close range, he caught a whiff of alcohol on the man’s breath. “Shaking a child can cause severe brain damage.”
“I got a right to discipline my kid,” the man shot back. “I don’t see that it’s any of your business.”
“I’m still mandated to report child abuse to the authorities.” That might not be true, but it sounded good. “And morally, I can’t stand by because I’m a survivor of this kind of treatment myself.”
He hadn’t realized he was going to reveal anything so personal. As a cop, he’d never have done it. But he saw from the man’s indecision that perhaps he’d gained a small opening.
“I know you love your family,” Jack went on. “But if you don’t stop drinking and get control of your anger, you’ll ruin your life and maybe theirs, too. I can’t make you listen but I hope you will.”
The man’s jaw worked. Building up further rage, most likely.
“You have no idea how much harm you’re doing.” Now that he’d started, Jack couldn’t stop pouring out the things he wished he could have told his father long ago. “You’re at a crossroads right now. You’ve still got your family and you’re still young.”
“Just what I needed, some damn do-gooder,” the man snarled.
He ignored the interruption. “No one can force you to make the right choice. But one of these days you will run out of second chances. That’s what happened to my dad. He died from alcohol poisoning and I didn’t even attend his funeral.”
He braced himself, half expecting the man to punch him. Or, worse, to take out his fury on his wife and son. From the woman’s apprehensive look, he gathered that she expected something of the sort.
“I hope I haven’t made things worse, but I had to try,” Jack added. “I wish someone had done this for me.”
The man still didn’t answer. His lip curling into a sneer, he turned sharply away, leaving his wife to take the little boy’s hand.
Abruptly, he swung back. Jack prepared for a blow.
The man met his eyes. Instead of out-of-control fury, he saw grudging respect. “I don’t hold with people pushing into my business, but I guess that wasn’t easy for you to say.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
The man gave a tight nod, as if they’d reached some kind of understanding, and moved off. Jack stood rooted there as emotions seared through him.
He felt as if he’d stared down his father and won. It could never have happened, of course. This fellow wasn’t blind drunk yet, and he’d been challenged not by his child but by another adult. Most of all, he retained enough judgment to recognize when somebody
talked sense.
Jack didn’t kid himself that the exchange had reformed the man. At best, he’d halted one incident of abuse.
Staring down the corridor, he caught sight of the family again. It was a swooping movement that drew his attention, and for a moment he feared it signified a blow.
Then he saw the man lift the child and plant him atop his shoulders, little legs straddling his neck. After a pause for adjustment, the trio moved on.
Instead of venting his anger on the child, the father had reached out to him. It was a first step. Not a guarantee of anything, but a hopeful sign all the same.
Filled with an odd mixture of elation and disbelief, Jack took an empty seat. He sat there trying to puzzle out why he felt as if the Berlin Wall had just crumbled inside him.
He’d learned even before his mother’s death to hide his vulnerability. Over the years, the barriers had hardened into a protective shield that kept him safe. Now, without warning, he’d spilled his guts to a stranger in the middle of an airport.
He’d torn open old wounds because that seemed the only way to help that little boy. Miraculously, his intervention appeared to have made a difference.
It had made a difference to Jack, too. He’d always feared that his innate darkness, once unleashed, might overwhelm him. But now he experienced only a vast wave of relief.
Even if he and Casey never resolved their differences, maybe he did have what it took to be a father. One of these days he’d like to hoist Diane on his shoulders and play horsey with her. He might even figure out how to sing a children’s song or tell a story rather than reciting the Miranda warning.
He was actually looking forward to it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Casey was debating whether she dared eat a snack in case she went into labor in earnest, when she heard a knock on the back door. It was Matt Dorning, his wizened features almost cartoonlike.
He’d come to check on her, since she’d experienced a contraction during his earlier visit. “I’m not believing that man of yours went off at a time like this,” he told her, carefully removing his windbreaker in the kitchen. Underneath, he had on a jacket for extra warmth. “You sure he’s not coming back?”
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