The Waterfall

by Carla Neggers

  “About.”

  “No wife, no kids? Ever?”

  “Never as yet.”

  “Almost?”

  He thought of her in her wedding gown so long ago—young, pretty, beaming with a kind of hope and optimism he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt. “Not quite.”

  “I guess ‘not quite’ and ‘almost’ are two different things.”

  He let his gaze settle on her until she uncrossed her ankles and sat up a little straighter. “I haven’t been much good to anyone in a long time, Lucy. If you want Plato to come out here and see to whoever’s trying to get under your skin, I’ll get him.”

  “No,” she said, “I want you.”

  He grinned and drank more of his beer. “Well, finally we’re on the same wavelength.”

  “In your dreams, Redwing.” But he could see she was twitchy, aware. She jumped up, obviously needing an outlet for her restless energy. “Where are Madison and J.T.?”

  “In their rooms.” He scooped zucchini onto a chipped Bennington Pottery platter left over from Daisy’s day. “I was going to have them sweep the porch, rake the yard, caulk the windows and dead-head the flowers, but I figured I’d give them a break.”

  “Daisy never made you work that hard, and you know it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I live in her house. Some nights…I don’t know, it’s as if her spirit’s still here. I imagine she was hardworking and frugal, but I also think she was very kind and knew how to have fun.”

  “She was a hard-bitten old Yankee.”

  “Ah,” Lucy said, not taking him seriously, “so that’s where you get it.”

  He pointed his spatula at her. “I could have sold this place to a Boston lawyer.”

  “Why didn’t you?” she asked evenly.

  “Because I sold it to you.”

  She dropped back into her chair and stared out at the vegetable garden. Everything about her, Sebastian thought, was a mix of strength and femininity, and he knew he’d be stupid to underestimate her.

  She turned, squinting at him. “The locals are starting to call me the Widow Swift. They used to call your grandmother the Widow Daisy.”

  “That bothers you?”

  “I don’t know. I have a good life here. I like to think she did, too.”

  “She did because she stayed here so she could live, not so she could hide. She never married again, but she had a good, full life.”

  “Do you think I’m hiding out here?”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”

  “That’s true, it doesn’t.” She grinned at him, taking the edge off their conversation. “At least not about my life. Dead bats in my bed—that’s another story.”

  He slid the chicken onto the platter with the vegetables. He hadn’t done anything this domestic in years. Maybe ever. It felt good. If he didn’t keep busy, his mind would spin off in too many directions. He’d start thinking things about Lucy that he’d been repressing for more than fifteen years. Kissing her the other night might have been low, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.

  She was frowning at him.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Something about your face. You haven’t found anything else in my bed, have you?”

  He looked at her, and she slid down a bit in her chair, one foot twitching madly. And he knew. She was thinking about their kiss, too—and more. “Lucy, I promised it wouldn’t happen again. It won’t.”

  “I don’t mind that it did happen.”

  They were on dangerous ground. “Good.”

  But she jumped up, avoided his eye. “We should get dinner on the table.”

  Ten

  After dinner, J.T. slipped off. Lucy and Madison were out driving, and Sebastian made the mistake of not locking the kid in his room. J.T. had been quiet through dinner, eating his chicken and salad and pushing the grilled vegetables around his plate. Then all of a sudden—no J.T.

  Sebastian checked the garage. The kid’s fishing pole was missing.

  He went around the back of the barn and took a gently sloping but more roundabout footpath down to the brook. There was a steeper path on the other side of the barn that led straight down the embankment. It was short and direct, and if he hadn’t fallen into a waterfall yesterday, Sebastian would have taken it because it would get him more quickly to the brook’s best fishing spot.

  The air was cool, damp and still, the brook shaded with hemlock and pine, the coppery water shallow and clear. He headed downstream. He was sore and stiff, but it felt good to move.

  He spotted J.T. on a rock at the edge of the brook. His fishing pole lay on the ground beside him. He glanced up as Sebastian came toward him, then quickly tucked his face back in his hands.

  Sebastian swore under his breath. What did he know to say to a crying kid?

  “Catch anything?” he asked, coming closer. J.T. shook his head without looking up.

  “Mind if I share your rock? Tramping down here’s given me a headache. Blood’s rushed to my head.”

  The shoulders went up and down again.

  Sebastian took that as a yes, and lowered himself onto the rock. It was big, unchanged from when he was a boy. The trees and undergrowth were thicker, reminding him of the passage of time.

  “This was my favorite fishing spot as a kid,” he said. “I never caught much. Mostly, I came down here to get away by myself.”

  No response.

  “J.T.” Sebastian sighed. He hated this. “It’s this father-son canoe trip, isn’t it? Rob told me about it. He wants to take you. But he’s not your father.”

  The boy looked up. Tears streamed down his cheeks, carving a path through the dirt. He smelled like Deet and sweat, and he’d been crying for a while. “I want—I want to go with Rob.”

  And therein lies the rub, Sebastian thought. “Then why don’t you? Your mother would let you.”

  The kid cried harder.

  Damn, Sebastian thought. This time, he hated being right. He leaned back against his arms and gazed at the constant stream of water over rock and mud. “J.T., your father was my friend. We didn’t see as much of each other as we’d have liked before he died, but one thing I know. He would want you to have men like Rob in your life.”

  “I know—that’s not it.”

  Sebastian knew it wasn’t. He said quietly, “You won’t forget him, J.T. You won’t ever forget him.”

  The kid tucked up his knees and buried his face in them, sobbing loudly. Sebastian had known such inconsolable grief. As a boy, he, too, had come here to cry, where no one could find him, where no one could ever know.

  “If I stop missing him…”

  He couldn’t finish. Sebastian sat up and brushed a mosquito off a scab on his forearm. This was why he avoided victim work. He never knew what the hell to say. Daisy had pretty much left him alone to sort things out.

  J.T. Swift was a deceptively intense and introspective boy, already thinking deep thoughts at twelve. Sebastian hadn’t thought such deep thoughts at that age. He’d cry his heart out and then push the deep thoughts away, as far away as he could.

  “Wounds heal,” he said lamely. “If they’re deep, like losing a father, they take time, and they leave a scar. After a while, the scar may not hurt anymore, but it reminds you of what you lost. And of your courage in facing that loss.”

  The boy shook his head. “I’m not brave.”

  “J.T., I’ve done a lot of things. I’ve been shot and shot at, and I’ve gone after kidnappers, extortionists, terrorists and every kind of creep and scum and mad zealot you can imagine.” He paused, then gave it to the kid as straight as he could. “But I think the hardest thing I ever did was watch my grandmother cry after my parents died.”

  J.T. sat up, sniffled. “How did they die?”

  “They were hit by a car right in front of me. That was hard, too, but it was Daisy’s tears that did me in, that reminded me of what I’d lost. My grandfather was killed when she
was young, and she only had me left.”

  “What happened to your grandfather?”

  “His name was Joshua,” Sebastian said.

  “He was named after the falls?”

  “No, the falls were named after him. He fell into the falls and drowned saving a little boy—Rob’s father.”

  “He did? Georgie never said!”

  “Georgie might not know. People around here are pretty stoic. They don’t like to talk about these things, dump it on kids. It was March, in the midst of the snowmelt. The water was high and cold. The kid was going after his dog. He fell in. My grandfather jumped in and saved him.”

  “My mom won’t let us near the falls in the winter.”

  “You listen to her,” Sebastian said.

  “Did your grandmother blame Rob’s dad for killing your grandfather?” J.T. asked in a hushed voice. His eyes were wide and fascinated in a good way, taking on the best of both his parents.

  “He was an eight-year-old boy, and he made a mistake. Joshua had two choices. He could let the boy drown, or he could do what he could to save him.”

  “Mom knows about swift-water rescue. She’s going to teach me someday. I don’t think you’re supposed to jump in after someone.”

  Sebastian nodded. “Sometimes life doesn’t present you with a good choice and a bad choice. Sometimes you just have bad choices. You do the best you can.”

  The boy gave that some thought. Finally, he jumped to his feet and grabbed his fishing pole. “Bugs’re bothering me.”

  And that was that. Their conversation was over. J.T. bounded up the steep path. Good, Sebastian thought. He was exhausted. If someone had tried to talk to him at twelve the way he’d just talked to J.T., he wouldn’t have known what the hell he was talking about. J.T. had followed right along.

  Neither he nor J.T. mentioned their conversation to Lucy when she and Madison returned. “If it’s run over the chipmunk or lose control of your car,” Lucy was saying, “you run over the chipmunk.”

  “I couldn’t,” Madison said. “I’d just die.” J.T. leaned toward Sebastian and whispered, “Two bad choices?”

  “Tougher to have to run over a chipmunk than go on a father-son canoe trip with Rob and Georgie, don’t you think?”

  J.T. grinned, and Sebastian retired to his room. Lucy’s room, he amended. He surveyed the bed, the furnishings, the rug for anything out of the ordinary—dead bats, bullet holes, live rounds. He dropped down and checked under the bed. Nothing.

  He kicked off his shoes and fell back onto the worn, soft quilt.

  Lucy knocked. “I need to get a few things.”

  “Be my guest.”

  She went straight to her dresser and opened drawers, discreetly pulling out a nightgown—no black silky thing tonight—and underthings, socks, an outfit for tomorrow. Her back was to him. He observed the curve of her hips, the shape of her legs, the way her hair fell carelessly past her shoulders. Without looking at him, she said, “I hope today wasn’t too deadly for you.”

  “I’ve had worse. You could use a couple of horses, though.”

  She turned to him. “I can barely manage two kids, a company and this place. What would I do with horses?”

  “Loan me one. I’d rather ride a horse than pick squash.” Except he’d enjoyed picking squash. He couldn’t explain it and didn’t want to try.

  “You’re in no condition to go horseback riding.”

  “Nah.” He was stretched out on her bed, watching her. The scene struck him as scarily intimate. “I’m right as rain. Or close to it.”

  “Sure,” she said dubiously, and breezed to the door. But she stopped, one hand on the knob. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “J.T. He told me he’s decided to go on the father-son canoe trip.”

  “That was his doing, not mine.”

  “You talked to him.”

  He sighed. “I should have just fished with him. Kids are too intense these days. It’s this damn therapeutic culture.”

  “Right. Nevertheless, thank you.”

  “Lucy.” He let his gaze settle on her, felt her change in mood. “Don’t let today fool you. I needed a day or two to recover from my fall. I talked to J.T., picked squash and fired up the grill to kill time.”

  “Are you trying to tell me you’re not a nice man?”

  He said nothing, and she smiled.

  “I already knew that,” she said, and left.

  Moron, Sebastian thought. He’d had her right here in his room, thinking kindly toward him, and he’d had to remind her of what a son of a bitch he was. It was Daisy’s ghost, he decided.

  Back in Wyoming, he’d have had Lucy Blacker Swift in bed with him by now.

  A noise woke Sebastian early, just after daylight. It came from outside. He glanced at the bedside clock: five-twenty. This was an early family, but not a crack-of-dawn family. So who—or what—was in the backyard?

  He rolled out of bed and peered through the window as he pulled on his pants.

  Madison was climbing over the stone wall on the other side of the vegetable garden. She jumped down and, ducking low, ran up through the field.

  Sebastian swore under his breath. What would get a fifteen-year-old out of bed at five in the morning?

  “A secret,” he said to himself.

  He ducked down the hall and made his way soundlessly up the stairs to Lucy’s room. The door was open a crack. He slipped inside and dropped beside her bed. “Lucy.”

  She bolted upright, sank her fingers into his arm. “What is it?”

  “Madison’s sneaking out across the field,” he said. “You know how teenagers love their secrets. I’ll go after her. You stay here with J.T.”

  “What?” She was half asleep, trying to figure out what was going on. “Madison’s where?”

  She pushed back the covers. Sebastian felt his mouth go dry. Her nightgown wasn’t silky, but it was little. The V-neckline was askew, revealing almost her entire breast. The fabric was pulled tight across the nipple. He tried not to stare, but something in his expression tipped her off—she looked down, sucked in a breath and adjusted her position.

  “She doesn’t have much of a head start,” he said. “We’ll probably be back before you and J.T. are even up. I didn’t want to chance your waking up and not finding us.”

  The covers dropped off her legs; the nightgown just barely covered her hips. Her thighs were smooth and tanned. If her daughter wasn’t charging off to God-knew-where, there’d be no stopping him. Desire fired through him, stealing his breath, his senses.

  “It’ll be okay, Lucy,” he whispered, and kissed her, but held back, giving just a hint of how badly he wanted her. She fell against her pillow, her short nightgown riding up to her hips. He pulled away, every fiber of him throbbing with the need to make love to her, now. It was all he could do not to leave Madison to whatever mischief she was making. “I’ll be back.”

  She slipped her sheet over herself. “You’ll find her?”

  “Yes. Lucy—”

  “Go.”

  He nodded without a word and went.

  The morning dew was cold, soaking his shoes and pants below the knee as he tore up through the field. He could distinguish mourning doves and crows in the flurry of bird calls, saw a bluebird swoop toward a bluebird house he’d put up for Daisy years ago at the edge of the field.

  He felt better. A good night’s sleep and a morning kiss had helped. His head was clear, and the pain of his bruises had lessened. He was stiff, but the soreness wasn’t as raw-edged.

  He wasn’t worried about following Madison’s trail. He knew the route she was taking, and wasn’t surprised when he found her footprint in a low, muddy spot just into the woods beyond the stone wall. He took the narrow path up a hill, moving carefully and quietly but not making an effort to make no sound at all. If Madison heard him and scurried home, all the better.

  The path ended at the dirt road. Sebastian had already investigated the occupants of the
homes up on the ridge: a Boston optometrist, two New York florists. A local real estate woman rented out the third.

  He found Madison at this last house, a glass-and-wood contemporary.

  She was talking to someone on the screened porch. Sebastian couldn’t see who it was as he crept under the sweeping branches of a huge, gnarled hemlock.

  “Madison, you can’t sneak up here at this hour.” A woman’s voice, low and urgent. “It’s wrong. What would your grandfather think?”

  “I know—but I had this terrible nightmare, and I had to get out of the house. I couldn’t breathe! And my mother’s not herself since…” The girl coughed, as if she were choking on her own drama. “I can’t explain.”

  “Try,” the woman said calmly.

  “Do you know Sebastian Redwing?”

  Sebastian remained very still. Who was this woman Madison had snuck out to see?

  “Not personally. I know he saved your father and grandfather from an assassin some years ago and has his own investigative and security firm. He’s widely respected in that community.”

  “Well, he’s here,” Madison said, pumping each word full of as much drama as she could.

  “Sebastian Redwing?” The woman remained cool. “Really? Why?”

  “Mom took us to see him when we were in Wyoming, and—and I didn’t think he liked us at all. He was such a jerk.”

  Actually, Sebastian thought, he didn’t think he’d been that bad.

  “Now he’s here,” Madison went on, “and I don’t know, I just think it’s so weird. He almost killed himself at the falls the other night. He slipped or something, and Mom found him.”

  “Sebastian sold your mother your house, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah, it used to belong to his grandmother.”

  “Perhaps your visit in Wyoming got him thinking about Vermont, and he decided he wanted to see his grandmother’s house again.”

  “But Mom—she doesn’t want J.T. or me going off into the woods alone. She’d kill me if she knew I was up here.”

  Sebastian knew this to be untrue. If Madison really thought her mother would “kill” her for disobeying, she wouldn’t have sneaked off. He wasn’t sure if this meant mother and daughter really did trust each other or that the kid was a spoiled brat.