The Waterfall

by Carla Neggers

  “Does your grandfather know Sebastian’s visiting your mother?” the woman asked.

  The criticism in her voice was almost undetectable, but still unmistakable. Sebastian frowned. This was someone who believed she had Jack Swift’s best interests at heart—and believed Lucy didn’t.

  Madison, however, was oblivious. “I don’t think so. She doesn’t tell Grandpa much.”

  “No. I’m sure she doesn’t.”

  Whoever this woman was, she didn’t like Lucy Blacker Swift.

  “Mom’s very independent,” the girl said in grudging defense of her mother.

  “That she is. Well, you should be running along before she wakes up and doesn’t find you. She’ll worry.”

  Sebastian ducked deeper under the branches of the hemlock. He could hear creaking floorboards as Madison and the woman walked, presumably toward the door of the screened porch.

  “I can’t wait for Grandpa to come up this summer,” Madison said. “It’ll be so cool. None of my friends believe I have a grandfather who’s a United States senator.”

  “Your friends in Washington did, didn’t they?”

  “I mean up here.”

  Madison went out onto the deck and took the steps down to the driveway, which was on the opposite side of the house from where Sebastian was hidden.

  “Come see me again,” the woman called from the deck. “You’ll keep our secret, won’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  Sebastian didn’t like secrets. It was one thing to keep your own mouth shut about something, another thing to ask someone else to keep their mouth shut. Especially a fifteen-year-old. A sure sign of something afoot was an adult telling a child to keep a secret. If it didn’t involve Christmas or birthday presents, it usually wasn’t good.

  He wanted to know about the woman on the deck, but his first priority was seeing Madison Swift safely home. He eased down the wooded hill, making as little noise as possible, and came onto the path several yards behind her. She was walking briskly, practically skipping. Whoever this woman was, Madison certainly thought she was something.

  They were almost to the field when Sebastian announced his presence. The girl jumped, startled, then turned sullen. “You followed me?”

  “Yep. A kid sneaking out of the house at the crack of dawn is asking to be followed.”

  “That’s not true.”

  She looked as if she might throw a fit. They were out of earshot of the rented house, but not if the kid started screaming and stomping around. Sebastian sighed. “Now don’t start yelling bloody murder. It won’t go over well if you do.”

  Madison snorted at him, out of breath and furious at being caught. “What’ll you do, tie me to a tree?”

  “It’s a thought.”

  “My mother—”

  “Your mother would tie you to an anthill.”

  The girl’s mouth snapped shut.

  “Who’s the woman at the house?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Okay, I’ll just go up there, knock on her door and ask her myself—”

  “No! She’ll get in trouble!”

  “Is that what she told you?”

  Madison obviously didn’t care for his tone of voice. “It’s what I know,” she said snottily and marched a few steps ahead of him.

  He was still feeling pretty good—she couldn’t outrun him. He thought of his hammock in Wyoming. His horses. His dogs. He could pull together a poker game with the ranch hands. Five-card stud, cigars and a couple of six-packs.

  Damn, what was he doing here?

  “The woman works for your grandfather,” he said to the girl’s retreating back.

  She refused to answer, kept walking.

  Sebastian easily caught up with her. “I can call him, find out who’s out of town—”

  She stopped abruptly and spun around at him, her face pale. “No, don’t. Please. I promised.”

  “Promised what? Your firstborn?”

  “No, but I gave my word—”

  “Well, you can un-give your word and tell me what’s going on.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Two reasons. One, if you don’t, I’ll still find out, but I won’t be as pissed off if you go ahead and tell me yourself. Two, if you do tell me, I can tell your mother and hold her down and let her cool off before she tans your hide.”

  “My mother doesn’t believe in corporal punishment.”

  This was no surprise. Sebastian kept his cool. “I was speaking metaphorically.”

  She licked her lips. “Barbara’s here renting a house for my grandfather. He’s spending August in Vermont. He asked her not to tell Mom. He wanted to make sure everything worked out first, then tell her himself.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, that’s the way he is. It’s a surprise, I guess.”

  “Barbara who?”

  “Barbara Allen. She’s my grandfather’s personal assistant. She’s worked for him forever, since even before you saved his life.”

  So, as far as Madison was concerned, Barbara had seniority on him, and he wasn’t such a big deal. Sebastian was amused. Little snot. But there was real fear in her eyes, not for herself but for a woman to whom she’d given her word. That mix of loyalty and kindness was more like her mother than Madison would probably want to know.

  “I accidentally saw her the other day,” Madison went on, “and she asked me not to tell.”

  “Madison, Barbara Allen isn’t going to get fired because you caught her renting a vacation house for your grandfather. She must know that.” And if she did, he thought, she was deliberately manipulating a fifteen-year-old girl. Why?

  Madison nodded, not happy about having to tell him anything. Her blue eyes fastened on him. She wasn’t afraid of him any more than anyone else in her damn family was. He was out of practice. People used to be afraid of him.

  “Anything else?” she asked sarcastically, as if he were the inquisitioner.

  “Nope. Now we can go back and tell your mother.”

  She said something under her breath. He was pretty sure it was “bastard,” but she was only fifteen and shouldn’t be using that kind of language. He let it go. Then she said something about being glad he’d tumbled into Joshua Falls. She spoke a little louder, wanting him to hear, wanting him to react. He didn’t. In her place, he’d be pissed, too.

  Which was nothing compared to what Lucy was.

  She greeted Madison at the door, white-faced and scared and too angry to speak. She had on shorts, a T-shirt and sandals. No more little nightgown. She pointed at the ceiling. “Upstairs.”

  “Mom, I can explain. I—”

  Lucy held up her hand, and the girl shut up and flounced off, pounding up the stairs.

  “A wonder she doesn’t get shin splints.” Sebastian slid onto a chair at the table. He was breathing hard; his head was pounding. He needed coffee and food, maybe one more day before he was fit to tackle desperadoes instead of Lucy’s kids. “It wasn’t a guy, if that makes you feel any better.”

  Lucy was slightly less pale. “Who was it?”

  “A woman named Barbara Allen. She’s renting a house on the sly for your father-in-law. He wants to come up in August. Know her?”

  Lucy nodded. “Damn Jack. He’s always doing things in secret. He says it’s because he likes surprises and wants to avoid publicity. He thinks he’s the president, I swear.”

  “What about Barbara Allen?”

  “Barbara? She’s been Jack’s personal assistant for—I don’t know, twenty years or so. She’s devoted to him. If he says, ‘Jump,’ she says, ‘How high?’ She’s always been fond of the kids—she’s wonderful to us whenever we’re in Washington. Gets us tickets, restaurant reservations, things like that.”

  “She shouldn’t have told Madison not to tell you—”

  “I know.” Lucy took two mugs down from a cabinet, her movements jerky, betraying her agitation. “But that’s Jack, and Barbara would want to please him. S
he probably didn’t think. And she wouldn’t know about the incidents.”

  Sebastian made no comment.

  She set the mugs on the counter and looked around at him. “Sebastian, don’t even think it. Not Barbara.” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to spend ten seconds inside your brain.”

  He leaned back and kicked out his legs. The trek up into the woods had done him good, but he could feel it. He smiled. “No, you wouldn’t. Tell me what you know about Barbara Allen.”

  “I just did.”

  “Her personality,” he said, “her sense of loyalty, what she thinks of you, your children, your move to Vermont. Anything.”

  “I don’t know a lot. My contact with her over the years has been mostly about Jack, not her. She’s very professional—she’s never said much about her personal life around me. I think she has an apartment on the river.”

  “Not married?”

  Lucy shook her head. “She’s about my age, maybe a year or two older. Now, don’t be thinking she’s your weird, mousy, stereotypical spinster, because she’s not.”

  “I wasn’t thinking that. I wonder why you did?”

  “I didn’t. I was just—”

  “The thought was there, Lucy. Something about this woman made you think ‘weird, mousy, stereotypical spinster.’ Think of how many single women in their late thirties and forties you know. Would you immediately warn someone not to think of them in stereotypical terms?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “I doubt it. Something about Barbara Allen made you want to defend her against stereotype.”

  Lucy frowned. “I suppose there is a neediness about her. You’d never notice it right off, but I’ve known her for years. Who knows, I could be projecting.”

  “There’s nothing needy about you.”

  “I don’t know. After you left this morning—”

  He grinned. “That’s different.”

  She filled the two mugs with coffee, and with her back to him, said, “Sebastian, I can’t be attracted to you. It’ll never work, and the timing couldn’t be worse.”

  “I agree.”

  She spun around to face him. “You agree?”

  “Bad timing. Won’t work. Can’t be attracted. That’s pretty much what I was thinking, too.”

  “After what happened upstairs.”

  “No, before, actually. I thought about it all night.” He walked over to her and picked up one of the mugs, sipped the hot, black coffee. “Obviously I wasn’t convinced.”

  “I am.”

  “Good. That’ll give me ammo for talking myself out of kissing you again.”

  She nodded. “Right. We can’t—” She turned, facing him, and leaned against the counter with her coffee. “I have a sneaky daughter and a son who’s worried about forgetting his father, and a business to run, and this person to find—and now Jack Swift coming for August. So, yes, please talk yourself out of kissing me again.”

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “About what?”

  “Kissing me. Because if you know I want to kiss you, and would at the drop of a pin, then you don’t have the kind of ammo I have. I know you don’t want me to kiss you. You don’t know that about me.”

  She stared at him. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Sure I am. I want to kiss you again. Very much.” He touched her hair. “I have for a long, long time.”

  “How long?”

  And suddenly she seemed to know. He could feel it. “Years,” he said, and he touched her mouth, traced her lower lip with his thumb.

  Her gaze held steady, but he could see her swallow. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not.” He smiled. “Now go see about your daughter.”

  “She’s a good kid, Sebastian.”

  “I know.”

  He moved aside, and she crossed the kitchen with her mug of coffee. At the doorway, she turned back to him and smiled. “But I am going to lock her in her room for the next hundred years.”

  While mother and daughter had it out, Sebastian took his coffee to the back steps. J.T. was still asleep; outside the air was warm and still, and the birds were twittering. He thought about Barbara Allen and Jack Swift, a rented house, a dead bat in Lucy’s bed, a landslide that had nearly killed him, Darren Mowery, the August congressional recess and blackmail.

  And kissing Lucy. He thought about that, too.

  Eleven

  Madison acted defiant and put-upon when Lucy confronted her in her room. “I’ll be a junior in high school next year. I don’t have to tell you everything.”

  “That’s true,” Lucy said, “and I don’t need to know ‘everything.’ But sneaking out of the house at five in the morning after I specifically asked you—”

  “There was no reason to worry!” Madison slammed her pillow onto the floor. She was sitting up in bed, looking misunderstood and furious. “You don’t make any sense. If you had a life, maybe you’d leave me alone.” She caught herself immediately and gasped. “Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  Lucy stayed calm, even though she could feel the sting of her daughter’s words. “Madison, I have a life. I have my work, I have you and J.T., I have my friends, hobbies I enjoy. I like living here. I get away just often enough. But whether or not I have a ‘life,’ in your eyes, isn’t your concern. My happiness is my responsibility, not yours or J.T.’s.”

  “I just—I just don’t want you to give up everything for us. I don’t want us to stand in your way…” She didn’t finish.

  “You aren’t standing in my way of doing anything.”

  Madison raised her chin. “Then why can’t I spend a semester in Washington?”

  Lucy smiled. The kid never missed an opening. “Your brother would miss you.”

  “No, I wouldn’t!”

  Madison threw another pillow at her door, where her little brother was eavesdropping. “J.T.!”

  “J.T.,” Lucy said, shooting him a warning look. He laughed without remorse and ran down the hall. She turned back to Madison. “You have lots of time for Washington. Right now, I’d like you to think about what it means to be trustworthy. If I can’t trust you here, at home, how can I trust you on your own in Washington or anywhere else?”

  “I’d have Grandpa—”

  “He’s a busy senator, Madison. He won’t have time to make sure you’re not sneaking off. First, you have to know you can trust yourself to make good decisions. Then I have to know. Then we might be able to discuss Washington.”

  “I’m sorry,” Madison said simply.

  “Find something to do in the house.”

  Her daughter nodded, if not contrite, at least re-thinking her conduct.

  Lucy didn’t leave. “Madison, I know I didn’t convey this adequately the other night—” She breathed, went on, “But I don’t want you and J.T. out alone, not because I’m an overprotective lunatic mother with no life, but because I’m afraid you might become targets of someone who’s been harassing me.”

  Madison paled. “What?”

  “Right now, I seem to be the only target. And the incidents—I don’t know what else to call them—seem to be tapering off. I hope they’re over. I hope I’ve exaggerated their significance. But until I’m sure, I ask you please not to go off on your own.”

  “What kind of incidents?”

  Lucy told her. She left out none of the possibilities. “I don’t know if they’re all related—I don’t know if any of them are related.”

  “That’s why Sebastian’s here?”

  That and something else, which he wouldn’t explain. She expected it might have to do with Darren Mowery, an unnerving prospect. She nodded. “Yes.”

  “J.T. doesn’t know, does he?”

  “No.” Lucy smiled a little. “He’s still young enough that he’ll do as I ask without five million questions and arguments.”

  Madison didn’t smile. “This is spooky.”

  Wrung out, Lucy headed downstairs, refilled her mu
g with stale coffee and joined Sebastian on the back steps. She sat close to him, but not touching. She sipped her coffee. After a long silence between them, she said, “I’m not Colin’s wife anymore. One of the hardest things I did after he died was to take off my wedding ring.”

  She jumped up before Sebastian could respond and ran into the kitchen. J.T. had wandered down from his room. They made pancakes and sausage, heated up pure Vermont maple syrup and filled the kitchen with homey smells. Madison was allowed down for breakfast, but declined.

  This is my life, Lucy thought. It wasn’t with a burnout like Sebastian Redwing, a man who’d had to renounce violence, not because he was a pacifist, a gentle man by nature, but because he wasn’t. He had killed people. People had tried to kill him. Maybe as recently as two days ago, someone had tried to kill him.

  She sat back, stared at her hands. She wore no rings now. She and Colin had been young and broke, and they hadn’t spent much on their wedding rings. But that was okay, they’d had such faith in their future together.

  Daisy Wheaton had worn her wedding ring until the day she died. Rob had told Lucy, not that he’d needed to. She’d known, somehow.

  I am not Colin’s wife anymore.

  Her chest was suddenly tight, aching, and she could feel tears welling, because it was real this time, not symbolic. She’d kissed Sebastian. She wanted Sebastian. Never mind that he wasn’t right for her, he’d somehow managed to set her physically on edge, fill her mind with thoughts of making love to him. It was madness.

  But maybe, she thought, necessary.

  She didn’t want to be known as the Widow Swift. As good as Daisy’s life might have been, it wasn’t her life.

  She poured herself a fresh cup of coffee and took it out to the barn with her. Sebastian wasn’t on the back steps. She didn’t know where he was. Just as well, she thought, and settled in to work.

  Barbara went for a run on the main road, past Lucy’s house. She’d left her car at the end of the dirt road because she didn’t want to walk back up the steep hill. It was Sunday, but no one was around. Still, she could feel Sebastian Redwing’s eyes on her as she ran. She wasn’t paranoid. He was there. He would wonder who she was. Perhaps Madison had already told him. Barbara didn’t know why she was baiting him. Why not stay up on the hill? Why go for a run?