Daddy On The Run

by Carla Cassidy

  She turned onto her back, staring at the patterns of light that played on the ceiling from the moonlight wafting in the lacy curtains. The bed was big and lonely, as it had been for such a long time. But she was so confused and her mind was overwhelmed by Sam’s sudden reappearance.

  For the past four months she had gone to bed every night with a prayer on her lips that Sam would come home safe and sound. And now that he was back, she realized she no longer knew exactly what she wanted from him. Certainly she wanted him to vindicate himself, clear his name from beneath the weight of a pressing murder charge. After that…she just didn’t know.

  Flipping over onto her side, she willed her thoughts and confusion to go away, seeking the peaceful oblivion of sleep. But her mind refused to turn off. Sam’s words echoed in her head, everything he had told her, about why he’d run, how he couldn’t trust anyone, and how the only way to clear his name was to crack into the computer file his father had left behind.

  Their conversation had been interrupted by Garrison’s bringing Emily home. Sam had run back to his hiding place in the attic and he and Julianne hadn’t had an opportunity to talk any more. But before the interruption, they’d spoken of the crime, of Sam’s sisters and of Emily. The one thing they-had danced around was the status quo of their marriage, and what would happen once he managed to clear his name and put that part of the past behind them.

  Julianne wished she could assure him, but she couldn’t even reassure herself that once they solved the case the two of them would live together happily-ever-after.

  Realizing her head was too full for sleep, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. She pulled on a robe and left the bedroom. She checked on Emily, who slept soundly, then went downstairs to the kitchen, hoping a cup of herbal tea would help her relax enough to sleep.

  She crossed the foyer and started through the living room, but paused as she saw Sam sitting in the moonlight by the bay window. Although she could have sworn she made no sound, he turned as if he sensed her presence. “Can’t sleep?” he asked softly.

  “No.” She reached out to turn on a lamp.

  “Don’t,” he said, his voice a gentle plea. He turned back and stared out the window. “I prefer the dark.” He paused a moment, then added, “It feels safer.”

  His words, displaying more vulnerability than he’d ever shown, touched her heart in a place it had not been touched in a very long time. She’d been so caught up in her own worry, her own fears, she hadn’t fully comprehended the depth of his fear, the nightmares he must have been enduring.

  “I’m going to make myself a cup of tea. Would you like one?” she asked.

  “No, thanks.” He turned and looked at her once again, his pale blue eyes shining almost silver in the moonlight. “But I would like it if you’d bring yours in here and sit with me for a little while.”

  With a nod, she walked into the kitchen. Guided by the small light above the stove, she filled a cup of water and placed it in the microwave. As the water heated, she got out a tea bag, keeping her thoughts schooled to the task at hand. She didn’t want to think about Sam’s vulnerability, didn’t want to think about what the future held for them.

  When the tea was ready, she carried it into the living room and sat on the sofa. She sipped from her cup and watched Sam as he stared out the window. “Are you watching something specific, or just staring at the night?” she finally asked when several minutes had passed.

  “A little of both. Although I’ve learned to enjoy the night, embrace the darkness as a friend.” He sighed and left the chair by the window. “I think I’ve got my days and nights mixed up,” he said as he sank next to her on the sofa. “For most of the past couple of months, I did my traveling at night and my sleeping during the day in an attempt to avoid anyone who might recognize me, report where I was. It’s going to take a while for my body to readjust to a normal routine.”

  “As long as you’re in hiding I’d say there will be no such thing as a normal routine,” she observed. She took another drink of her tea, then set the cup on the coffee table in front of them.

  “I’ve decided to stay in the attic rather than in one of the spare rooms. Emily seems to accept the fact that I visit her at night from heaven. I don’t want to make things any more confusing for her by moving into one of the bedrooms.”

  Julianne frowned. “Are you sure you’re comfortable up there?” Guilt played at her heart. He was her husband, and deserved the comfort of his own bed. “You could take our bedroom and I could stay in one of the guest rooms for a little while.”

  He shook his head, his gaze soft as it lingered on her. “Julianne, I don’t want to disrupt things any more than they’ve already been for you.”

  Again guilt surged inside her. It wasn’t Sam’s fault that his father had been murdered and he’d become the prime suspect. “Sam, I’m sorry that I can’t just pretend things are back to normal…”

  “Shh.” He placed an arm around her shoulders and, after a moment of hesitation, she sank against the warmth of his side. “I know it was a shock, seeing me standing here this afternoon. I’d be unrealistic if I expected things to magically be all right after being gone for so long.”

  With one hand he reached up and stroked the length of her hair, and she felt the tension slowly ebb from his body as he continued the stroking motion. “We’ll take this mess one day at a time, Julianne. I’ll crack into that computer file and clear my name. The police will arrest my father’s killers, then we’ll be free to go back to the life we had before this nightmare began.”

  Julianne closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, knowing now was not the time to tell him that she didn’t want the life they’d had. Instead she cuddled closer against him, enjoying the familiar, comforting scent of him. He was home. For now it was enough. Later she would decide if she wanted him to stay.

  Sam leaned back against the sofa, his hand still caressing the silk of her hair. For the first time in months he felt safe, at peace. With her wonderful scent surrounding him and the warmth of her body against his, he felt the last of the tension ebb from inside him.

  He could tell the moment she fell asleep, when her body finally relaxed completely and molded it-self against his side. In sleep, she accepted him completely, leaving behind the slight reservation that had kept her unyielding while awake. It was a sweet surrender, and he tightened his arm around her, wanting to erase any lingering memory of all the lonely nights they’d suffered while apart.

  He wasn’t sure if he’d made a mistake in not letting her know he was here. When he’d awakened with the smoke swirling in the house, filling the upstairs with noxious fumes, his only thought had been to save his family. Even after carrying Emily out of the house, he had been able to tell by the look in Julianne’s eyes that she was in shock.

  He could have disappeared again and allowed her to think she’d dreamed his presence, hallucinated his rescue. It would have been easier that way for her.

  However, when he’d seen her standing in the living room that afternoon, looking so lost, so vulnerable, he knew he couldn’t stay hidden another moment.

  The smoke bomb worried him. Somebody suspected he was here, hiding out in the house. That could be the only reason to set off such a device. Had somebody stood in the dark shadows of the night and watched him carry his child to safety? The thought chilled him. He could only hope that Julianne was the only person who saw him emerge from the house.

  As he remained in the darkness of the room, holding his wife, his thoughts turned to the Baker corporation. Baker Enterprises. His father’s life-blood. It had probably gone to hell in a handbasket since he’d been gone. Garrison Fielder was an adequate administrator, but he had no vision, no imagination, when it came to growth and expansion. Sam’s sister Carolyn had been a valuable asset to the company, but she’d quit her job soon after their father’s murder to move to Casey’s Corners, Kansas, and adopt the Johnson twins. Bob and Mary Johnson had been friends of Carolyn’s,
had even named Sam’s sister as godmother of their twin boys. A tragic car accident had taken Bob’s and Mary’s lives, and Carolyn had gone to Casey’s Corners to see to the twins’ welfare.

  He missed his sisters. Carolyn, Bonnie, and Colleen. The four of them had endured growing up without a mother and with a workaholic father. They’d survived being separated and sent to various boarding and prep schools, but there had always been a special bond between them physical distance couldn’t destroy.

  The one good thing that had come from the murder and Sam’s disappearance, was.that in the time he’d been gone, each of his sisters had found love and married. Carolyn had wed the godfather of the twins who’d been left parentless by a car accident. Bonnie had married a deputy sheriff with a young son, and was now pregnant. And just last week Colleen had wed Gideon Graves, a private investigator she’d hired to find Sam.

  Gideon and Sam had met the night Sam snuck through Colleen’s bedroom window to “borrow” her charm necklace. Gideon had spied him and wrestled him to the ground. It had taken some fast talking, and Colleen’s pleas, for Gideon to finally agree to help Sam instead of turn him over to the police.

  Sam dragged a hand down his face, exhaustion blurring his thoughts. He was glad his sisters had found happiness in the aftermath of all the horror. It was important to him that something good had come out of the mess his own life had become.

  He had to find out who had killed his father. He had to discover who was using the company for nefarious purposes. Baker Enterprises was Sam’s legacy from his father, the final piece of his heritage he had to hang on to. He had to crack that computer file. He had to clear his name and save the company.

  Once that was behind him, he could exert all his energies, the rest of his life, making up to Julianne for the past lost months.

  He closed his eyes. Of course Julianne had reservations about him, about their future. He was still a wanted man, a fugitive from justice.

  She stirred against him, a small moan escaping her lips, and he wondered if she experienced the same kind of nightmares that haunted him. He sighed, realizing he couldn’t even begin to guess what she dreamed. There had been a time he was sure he could read her mind, knew her dreams before she had them. But in the brief time they’d spent together this afternoon and evening, he hadn’t been sure of her thoughts, hadn’t had a clue as to what was going on in her mind. He wondered when he’d stopped knowing her. When things had changed between them…

  Although she was right here next to him, so close against his heart, the emotional distance between them was miles. With a heavy sigh he closed his eyes, for the moment willing to accept what Julianne offered. Just holding her in his arms would have to be enough for now.

  Julianne awoke to the golden hues of the early morning sun streaming through the window and one of her arms sound asleep. Somehow in the course of the night they had shifted positions while sleeping, resulting in her arm being trapped beneath his back.

  Gently disentangling herself, she sat up, her gaze lingering on Sam. In sleep, the lines of strain that had radiated from his eyes were relaxed, making him appear younger than his thirty-six years. She remembered the first time she’d met him, when he’d come to her college to give a business seminar.

  She could still remember the thrill of sitting in the front row and that single moment when his gaze had connected with hers. Across the expanse of stage, brighter than the spotlights that played on his features, it was a connection that exploded in her heart, and she knew at that moment she would be seeing more of this man.

  Sure enough, at the cocktail party immediately following the seminar, he found her and before the evening was over, Julianne was in love. Sam was the most dynamic, exciting man she’d ever known. She was enchanted by his charm, bewitched by his wit, and in awe of his confidence and apparent emotional strength. He was a man who didn’t seem to need anyone, but who made it clear he wanted her in his life.

  They were married three months later and Julianne quickly learned she had not only gained a husband, but a corporation, as well. The family business was as much a part of Sam as his azure eyes and the small mole on the side of his neck.

  With the golden hues of dawn painting his sleeping features, a wistful bittersweet longing rose up inside her. It was the memory of love so pure, so clean, it ached within. When had loving Sam become so difficult? Where once she couldn’t imagine living life without him, she now wasn’t sure she could go back to living with him.

  Unsettled by her thoughts, tasting the bitterness of forgotten dreams and unfulfilled hopes, she got up from the sofa and quietly made her way to her bedroom upstairs.

  It took her only a few minutes to shower and dress for the day. When she left the bedroom and started down the stairs, the scent of fresh coffee greeted her, letting her know Sam had awakened.

  When she entered the kitchen he grabbed a second cup from the cabinet. “Good morning,” he said, gesturing her to sit down at the table.

  “Thanks,” she murmured as he set a cup of coffee in front of her, then poured one for himself and joined her.

  Sam smiled at her. “Been a long time since I shared my first cup of coffee in the morning with my wife.”

  Julianne nodded, trying to remember the last time she and Sam had begun a morning together. It had been long before Joseph’s murder, way before Sam’s disappearance. “If I remember correctly, the last time we had coffee together in the morning was when Emily was still a baby.”

  “No, surely not,” Sam said in disbelief.

  “It was when Emily was about six months old that you started going into the office so early in the mornings.” It was also about that same time he began working late into the evenings.

  “Dad was a slave driver,” he said, then took a sip of his coffee. Julianne didn’t say anything, although she knew the truth was that Joseph Baker had been a workaholic and Sam was cut from the same bolt of cloth. He set his cup down, then looked at her curiously. “Tell me, why on earth was that man here the other night talking to you about jobs?”

  Julianne frowned. “You mean Bill Martin?” Her eyes widened in realization. “It was you, wasn’t it? You made that vase fall from the landing.”

  Sam nodded. “The worm was lucky I didn’t make his teeth fall out of his head.”

  “Oh, Sam, you should have seen his face.” She threw back her head and laughed. “He went from smooth to scared in a split second. And his fake teeth almost did fall right out of his head.”

  He grinned, responding to the sound of her low, musical laughter. He’d always loved the richness of her laugh, had spent the months of their courtship making her do so as often as possible.

  His smile faded and he reached out and stroked the back of one of her hands. “I love to hear you laugh. We haven’t had many reasons to laugh lately, have we?”

  She shook her head and wiped a strand of her shining gold hair behind an ear. “No, we haven’t.”

  They fell silent, and again Sam wished he could read her mind, what thoughts scurried around in her head. There was a distance in her eyes he couldn’t seem to breach. Time, he reminded himself. She needed time.

  “You asked me why Bill Martin was here,” she said, breaking the silence. “Sam, all our assets have been frozen by the police. If not for Garrison, I don’t know what we’d have done. He’s been paying the bills, giving me money to live on.”

  A renewed despair clawed its way through Sam as he realized that while he was gone, Julianne and Emily had been dependent on others for their very livelihood. The crime of his father’s murder had robbed him of his pride as a man supporting his family.

  He raked a hand through his hair. “I didn’t even think about that. I knew better than to try to access any of the accounts or use a charge card, knowing it would leave a paper trail, but I didn’t dream you wouldn’t be able to get to any of the funds.”

  “Both Garrison and Barry have been wonderfully supportive,” she said. “And in any case, I’m going
to get a job.”

  “But that’s not necessary now. If you can just hang on a little while longer we’ll sort this mess out and things will go back to the way they were,” he replied.

  Julianne shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Even after we get all this straightened out, I’ve decided I want a job.”

  Again Sam saw a steely strength in her eyes, one he’d never seen before his absence. He realized the past months of stress and strain had changed not only him, but Julianne, as well. In all the time of being on the run, the one thought that had sustained him was that eventually he would be vindicated and everything in his life would go back to normal.

  But as he looked at his wife’s face, felt the emotional restraint emanating from her, he wondered if it would be possible to go back.

  “Daddy!”

  Sam turned at the sound of his daughter’s squeal, laughing in delight as she catapulted into his lap. “What are you doing up so early?” he asked as he cuddled her little-girl sweetness close.

  “I woke up and heard your voice. I didn’t know you could come out in the daytime.” Her blue eyes studied him in delight. “You’re my ghost daddy and I thought ghosts only came out at night.”

  Sam exchanged a look with Julianne, unsure how to handle this development. Before he had a chance to reply, Emily scrambled off his lap and requested pancakes for breakfast.

  “One of these days you’re going to eat so many pancakes you’ll turn into one,” Julianne said as she stood and went to the cabinet where the pancake mix was kept.

  Emily crawled back up on Sam’s lap, her body still maintaining the residual warmth of sleep. “Daddy, will you stay and eat pancakes with us?” she asked.

  “I think I could manage to eat a couple,” he agreed.

  As Julianne prepared the pancakes, Sam set the table and Emily filled the early morning with her childish chatter. She talked about school and her new boyfriend, Ian. “He’s nice,” she explained. “He always shares his cookie with me during treat time. If it’s the chocolate cookies I tell him no-thank-you ‘cause I know those are his favorites.”