“It wasn’t me.”
He wavered, then stalked back up the stairs, flicking on the light switch as he entered the house. Nothing happened.
“I haven’t figured out how to reconnect the solar power yet.”
“Here, give me that,” he said, taking the shotgun from her. “I’ll go check things out for you, connect the power, then I’ll be gone.”
He snagged the lantern from the table and thudded up the wooden stairs.
Muirinn pressed her trembling hand to her stomach, trying to collect herself. Then, forcing out a huge breath, she followed him—and the light—up to the attic.
He creaked open the attic door, the movement causing a draft to rush in from the attic window behind Gus’s desk. Drapes billowed out, scattering papers to the floor. Outside, the rain fell heavier, the breeze carrying the moisture in with it.
“I…I could swear that window wasn’t open earlier,” Muirinn said, moving quickly into the study and stooping to gather the documents scattered across the Persian rug. Her movements were awkward around her growing stomach and she could sense Jett watching her. She stilled, and her gaze slid up to meet him.
In the light of her lantern, the planes of his face were rough, utterly masculine. His mouth was shaped with a sculptor’s fine precision, wide and bracketed by laugh lines that had deepened over the years. New, too, were the fine creases that fanned out from his cobalt eyes—eyes still as clear and piercing as the day she’d left town. And they bored into her now with an animal-like intensity that turned her knees to jelly.
Muirinn swallowed.
She knew he had to be thinking about her pregnancy. She also knew that he was too damn proud to ask. They were alike in so many ways.
She stood up, awkwardly clutching the papers to her belly, her cheeks flushing as something darkened in his eyes. Something that made her feel dangerously warm inside.
“It must have been how Quicksilver got in,” she said quietly, trying to fill the volatile space between them. “My cat,” she explained, then laughed nervously. “Gus got him for me when I turned thirteen, remember?”
“That cat can hardly be called yours, Muirinn,” he said crisply. “You left him. Eleven years ago.”
The implication was clear. She didn’t have any rights. Not here, not anymore, not in Jett’s eyes. Not even to a cat.
She moistened her lips.
Jett turned from her suddenly and crossed the room. He held the lantern up behind Gus’s desk. “You didn’t see this, either?”
“God, no!” Muirinn said, coming to his side and seeing shards of glass glinting on the carpet. The desk drawers had been wrenched open, too, folders lying scattered beneath the leather chair in which she’d sat only hours before. The computer tower beneath the desk was toppled onto its side, wires ripped from the back. A chill rustled through her.
“Someone was up here, Jett, while I was sleeping.”
Jett yanked back the heavy drapes. “The windowpane’s been shattered. Whoever came in here must have ransacked Gus’s desk.” He frowned, surveying the scene. “The sound of my truck must have interrupted them.”
Muirinn wrapped her arms over her tummy, shivering as the rain-damp wind from the broken window whispered over her skin. “Why would someone want to go through Gus’s things?”
“Hell knows,” he said, studying the floorboards under the window. “But whoever did this was clearly looking for something. He might’ve tried to take the whole computer tower because your solar power is off, and he couldn’t access the information he wanted right here.”
“He?”
“There’s dirt transfer on the wooden floor here, left by a boot, about a size 12. I’d say it was a guy.”
Another gust of wind chased a ripple of goose bumps over her skin, tightening her nipples. Jett glanced at her breasts, then caught her eyes for a long beat. He looked away quickly, rubbing his brow as he cursed softly.
“Is it that hard, Jett?” she whispered. “Seeing me again?”
He kept his face turned away from her for a long moment.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “It is. Come—” He touched her elbow, gently ushering her out onto the landing. “We should leave the scene as is. I’ll call the cops.”
He pulled the attic door closed behind them, the space on the narrow landing suddenly close, the halo of lantern light too intimate. Jett had that effect on space—it shrank around him. It wasn’t just his physical size; he radiated a kinetic energy that simply felt too large for contained spaces. He thrived out in the wilderness, and it was why he’d refused to follow her to Los Angeles. He’d said the city would kill his spirit, who he was.
In retrospect, Muirinn knew he was right. A crowded urban environment wouldn’t accommodate a man with a latent wildness like Jett’s. He was born to roam places like Alaska, the tundra, in his plane. It’s why people like him came north of 60 in the first place.
Los Angeles would have been a concrete prison for him. But at the time, it had represented freedom and adventure to her—a key to a vibrant new world.
Yet, he had left for a while. He’d gone to Las Vegas. Where he’d gotten married. And that really burned.
It also made him a hypocrite.
He glanced down into her eyes, sensuality swimming into his features.
“Jett—” she said quietly.
He swallowed, tension growing thicker. “Get something warm on, Muirinn,” he said abruptly. “I’m going to call this in. Then I’ll connect your power and wait with you until someone from the police department arrives.”
She blew out a shaky breath, nodded. “Thanks for doing this.”
He held her eyes a moment longer, then jogged down the stairs without a word.
Jett stood in the brick archway, quietly watching Muirinn busying herself in Gus’s rustic, open-plan kitchen. She’d pulled one of her grandfather’s voluminous sweaters over her white nightgown, and she’d caught her rampant copper curls back in a barrette. He felt relieved—the other look was driving him to total distraction…or destruction. Same difference with Muirinn O’Donnell.
Damn if he hadn’t gone red-hot at the sight of her on hands and knees in that cotton nightgown as she’d gathered up Gus’s papers, strewn all over the attic office. There was something about her pregnant body that drove him wild. And made him incredibly sad.
Hurt.
She’d always had such power over him, yet she’d never known the extent of her control. But now, in Gus’s oversized sweater, she looked small, vulnerable. Jett wasn’t so sure this look was any better for his health. It aroused protective instincts in him—things he didn’t want to feel for her. This was such a total shock, seeing her again, without warning. He needed to figure out what this might mean to his family. To his son.
To him.
“Hey,” she said with a soft smile, as she caught him watching. His blood quickened.
He stepped into the kitchen, making sure he remained on the opposite side of the rough wood table.
She poured him tea from a stubby copper kettle, which she set back on the gas stove, still steaming. He avoided eye contact as he took a seat at the table, and accepted the mug from her.
She’d made his tea just the way he liked it, black and sweet. The fact that she even remembered cut way too close to the bone. Why should it matter? Truth was, it did.
Everything about Muirinn mattered.
And right now he was struggling with his emotions, trying to avoid the elephant in the room that was her pregnancy, trying to be the gentleman and not ask, yet desperate to know who the father was, where he was. Why she was here alone.
The fact that she was expecting a baby at all sliced Jett like a knife. He forced out a heavy breath of air. Civility be damned—they were beyond that. There was no way to be polite about what had transpired between them, no way to bridge the divide with small talk. So he chose a direct approach. “You never came to visit Gus,” he said quietly. “You didn’t even come home for the funeral
. So why are you here now?”
She studied him with those shrewd cat eyes for a moment. “I came to take over Safe Harbor Publishing, Jett. Gus left me the company in his will, along with this property.”
He literally felt himself blanch. “You’re going to stay?”
Pain flickered over her features. “Maybe.” She inhaled deeply, bracing her hands on the back of a chair. “The will stipulated that I could sell the business, but only after a year. That means running it myself for twelve months, or hiring someone else to do it.”
“So you’re here to hire someone?”
“No. I’m here to run it.”
“For one year?”
“Look, Jett, I’m not going to get in your way, okay? I’m not going to cramp your style.” She hesitated. “I…I saw you down at the ferry dock this morning, with your son—” She wavered again, as if not quite trusting herself to say the next words. “And your wife.”
Perspiration prickled across his lip. He’d made a mistake starting this conversation now. He set the mug down, getting up in the same movement, and he stalked into the hall. “I’ll just go wait outside for Officer Gage.”
“Jett?” she called after him.
He halted, hand on the doorknob.
“What’s his name? Your son?”
A strange emotion tore through him, raw and wild. Part of him didn’t want to give the name up to her, give any part of his boy to her. “Troy,” he said quietly, still facing the door. “Troy Rutledge.”
She was dead silent for a long moment. “Troy was my father’s name.”
“Your father was a good man, Muirinn. I was proud to name my son after him.”
“I…it just surprises me.”
He turned. “Why?”
“Half the town—the union hardliners—hated my dad for crossing that picket line, your own father included. They called my dad a scab, called me terrible names at school, humiliated my mother in the supermarket. They hated my father enough to blow him and eleven others up with a bomb.”
“It was a bad time for everyone, Muirinn.” Jett paused. “But no matter what people said, you know that I always cared for your father. If Troy O’Donnell hadn’t introduced me to model airplanes, to the idea of flying, I might have become a miner, not a pilot. He was the one who told me, when I was ten years old, that I could do something better with my life than go down that mine. He was a friend, Muirinn. I was twelve when he died, and I was also devastated by his murder. It ate my father up, too, regardless of what he might have said about your dad.”
Emotion seeped into her eyes, making her nose pink—making her so damn beautiful. “Thank you, Jett,” she whispered. “I…I needed to hear that.”
“It’s not for you,” he said quietly. “It’s for a man who knew honor, knew his home. Knew how not to deliberately hurt the people who cared for him.”
She stared at him. “Do you really still hate me that much?”
Wind rattled the panes. Rain smacked at the windows. “I hate what you did, Muirinn, to the people who loved you.”
He closed the heavy oak door behind him with a soft thud that seemed to resonate down through her bones.
Muirinn slumped into a chair at the kitchen table, and buried her face in her hands. If she’d known it was going to be quite so rough to see him again, she wouldn’t have come. If Jett only knew what she’d gone through since she’d left Safe Harbor. He didn’t have a clue just how much his ultimatum had cost her back then…how much it had cost them.
She should’ve told the lawyer to just go ahead and hire someone—anyone—to run Safe Harbor Publishing, and to put the word out that the company would be up for grabs within twelve months.
But at the same time, Muirinn felt in her heart that Gus had wanted her to come back. Why else would he have insisted she be given the small compass along with the terms of his will? She’d told Gus that she was pregnant, having a baby alone. He might have been trying to show her a way home, to remind her where her family roots lay.
Muirinn scrubbed her hands over her face quickly as she heard tires crunching up the driveway, telling herself it would be okay; she wasn’t trapped here anymore. She could go back to New York anytime before the twelve months were up if things weren’t working out. She could hire a publisher at any point she chose. She was the one in control here.
Smoothing errant tendrils of hair back from her face, Muirinn adjusted her sweater and went to meet the police.
“Could have been kids,” Officer Ted Gage said as he stared at the papers scattered under the desk, thumbs hooked into his gun belt. “Incidents of vandalism often flare up during the summer holidays.” His gaze tracked round the room. “Kids probably thought Gus’s place was still empty.”
“So you’re not sending crime scene techs or anything?” Muirinn asked from the doorway.
He shrugged. “That’s for the movies. We only dust for prints in major crimes. And nothing was stolen—”
“Not that I know of,” she interrupted.
“That footprint is pretty big for a kid, Gage,” said Jett. “I’d say about a size 12.”
“I can point you to several kids with feet that size,” he said around the gum between his teeth.
“Well, why don’t you see if you can match one of them up to this print?”
“That’s a lot of lab time and resources for a possible mischief or vandalism charge.” He glanced sideways at Muirinn, a whisper of hostility beneath his deceptive easy-breezy style. Unease fingered into Muirinn.
“Look,” he said suddenly. “I’ll send someone around later. Depending on our caseload.”
Muirinn was beyond exhausted now. She just wanted to go to bed. She thanked the cop, saw him out.
Jett hung back. “Would you like me to stay, Muirinn?”
She knew how difficult it must be for him to make the offer, and all she truly wanted to answer was yes.
“I’ll be fine, thank you. Officer Gage is right, it’s probably just vandalism with the place being empty and all. I can call 9–1-1 if the kids come back. Somehow I doubt that they will.”
Jett didn’t look so sure.
She wondered if his hesitancy was because of Officer Gage’s chilly attitude toward her. Or because it seemed pretty darn clear that someone had been after something in her grandfather’s office. For all Muirinn knew, they’d found what they’d been looking for, and had taken it. And she had no way of knowing what it was.
He reached for a pad of paper by the phone, scribbled something down, then ripped off the top sheet. “Here’s my number.” He looked directly into her eyes. “If you need help, Muirinn, I can be over right away. I live next door.
“Next door?”
“I’ve taken over my parents’ house.”
She felt the blood drain from her face.
His gaze skimmed over her tummy again, and she wanted to explain, to tell him that she was single; that she’d do anything for a second chance.
But he was married. He had a family.
And damn if they didn’t all live right next door. Muirinn felt vaguely nauseous at the idea of facing the other woman. She told herself that she was tough, she could handle it. She’d been through enough in her life to know that.
So instead of justifying herself, she became defensive. “You’re just dying to judge me, aren’t you, Jett?”
“I gave up judging you a long time ago, Muirinn. What you do is none of my business.”
And neither was his business hers. Yet here he stood, in her life again. And his words rang hollow.
“Look, I’m tired, Jett. I don’t want to argue. I need to get some sleep.”
He studied her for a long moment. “You always did get the last word in.”
“No, Jett. You got the last word eleven years ago when you told me you hated me, and that I should never, ever come back.”
His mouth flattened. “Muirinn—”
She swung the door open. “Go, please.”
And he stepped out in
to the storm-whipped darkness.
She slammed the door shut behind him, flipping the lock with a sharp click. Then she slumped against the wood, allowing the hot tears to come as she listened to the tires of his truck crunching down the driveway.
Jett stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows in his living room, rain writhing over the panes as he watched the yellow glow coming from the kitchen window of Gus’s house on the neighboring knoll.
He spun around, pacing the floor. What was he supposed to do?
Tell her?
After all these years?
No. He couldn’t. He’d done what he had for a reason—and Gus had helped him do it.
He cursed viciously.
Seeing her pregnant now, back here in Safe Harbor…the irony just made everything more complicated.
Jett poured himself a whiskey in spite of the hour and took a long, hard swig, felt the burn in his chest. He exhaled slowly. He had no choice but to ride out this storm that was Muirinn O’Donnell. If she stayed true to form, she’d probably be gone within twelve months.
He wondered again about the father of her baby; where he was, whether they were married. There was a chance that Muirinn’s husband would suddenly show up next door and join her. How in hell was he going to swallow that?
At least Troy was away at summer camp for a few weeks, because he was the one person who stood to lose the most in this situation. And Jett did not want his boy to get hurt.
He could not allow Muirinn to do that Troy.
There was just no way he was going to tell his son that Muirinn O’Donnell was his mother—that ten years ago she’d simply given him away in a private adoption.
He wasn’t going to tell Muirinn, either, that he’d named their son after her father out of some deep need to connect his boy to his mother’s side of the family.
In retrospect, Jett recognized that he’d probably been trying to tie himself back to Muirinn in some subconscious way, hoping she’d come back.
And now she was back.
Living right next door. Another baby on the way. Another man somewhere in her life. And before too long, she’d surely be gone again.
Cold Case Affair Page 3