“Yes, sir.”
Courtney was trembling so badly, she could hardly stand. “Now that it’s over I’m realizing how terrified I was.”
“You did great.”
“He could’ve killed you.”
His blue eyes clouded, but he said nothing, only hugged her tight.
Roger cursed them both. “You think this is over,” he raged. “I’ve got the best lawyers and judges money can buy. I’ll be out in twenty-four hours. I’ll disappear. But I’ll be back. In a month, a year, ten years, I’ll be back. You’ll never know where or when.”
A shiver skittered up Courtney’s spine at the thought of looking over her shoulder the rest of her life.
Roger pushed to his feet. “I’ll kill you both. I’ll—” His face changed. At first, he looked puzzled, then a kind of dawning realization set in, and his face twisted with pure horror. He looked down. Courtney saw it the same time Roger did.
The hypodermic.
It was jammed into his left thigh.
The vial was empty.
Courtney made Jack take her out of the house. The walls themselves echoed with the sounds of Roger Winthrop’s screams.
* * *
It took Roger three days to die. He was right on every other count, too. The doctors were baffled. There was no antidote. And the pain was straight out of hell.
As for Mark Segura, he emerged from the ordeal—with the exception of a nasty concussion—with relatively minor physical injuries. It was his psyche she and Jack worried about. Day after day they stopped by his room at the hospital. And day after day he spent their entire visit apologizing. Just as he was doing this morning.
“I led the bastard straight to you,” he said, his voice choked with emotion. “Straight to you. You could both be dead because of me.”
“He threatened your family,” Courtney reminded him for the umpteenth time. “You had no choice.”
“I’m turning in my badge.”
“Pete’s cabin’s taken, amigo,” Jack said.
Mark blinked, confused. Very quietly, Jack told him about Emmett. Only then did Mark let go of some of his guilt. Only then did he seem willing to acknowledge that he’d done the best he could.
Outside Mark’s room, Courtney gave Jack a fierce hug.
“What was that for?”
“For being you.”
“I’d best get down to the courthouse. I’ve still got a mountain of paperwork to fill out.”
Courtney tried to assure herself that she was just imagining Jack’s withdrawal these past few days. That he was preoccupied with official reports, TV interviews and his concern about Mark. “Will I see you for dinner?” she asked.
“I doubt I can get away.”
“Jack...”
“It’s hectic, princess. Things will calm down soon. Are you going to stop in to see your father?”
Quentin Hamilton had regained consciousness two days ago, the same day Roger died. He was still too weak to talk much. “Are you coming with me?” Jack had yet to do so.
“I’ve got—”
“I know. You’re busy.”
He gave her a swift hug, then left her there, feeling bereft. She hadn’t the slightest idea what was troubling him. Worse, the stubborn jackass wouldn’t offer up a single clue. He just kept telling her it was something he had to work out. In his own time, his own way.
Didn’t he understand how much she needed him right now? How much she just needed him to hold her, touch her, make love to her, reassure her that her world wouldn’t spin out of control again—for a little while at least.
But he hadn’t spent more than a few minutes with her at any one time since that hellish day out at the log house. She liked to tell herself it was because if he did, whatever problem he was having would shift to the back burner while they made wild, passionate love. But the more days that passed, the more she began to wonder. To doubt.
Courtney paused outside the door to her father’s room. As usual, she had to gear herself up to go inside. There were a lot of painful memories on the other side of that door.
Over her vigorous objections the FBI had brought Fletcher Winthrop by yesterday. Fletcher himself had looked like a broken man in every way. His reputation was in ruins, his son was dead, his company in a shambles.
Courtney took a deep breath and opened the door. Her father was sitting up a little straighter today. But he still looked frail and old. He seemed to have aged twenty years in the four years it had been since she’d seen him. Today his eyes looked more defeated than she had ever seen them.
“Damn the cops anyway,” Courtney muttered.
“I needed to be told.”
“Not this soon.”
“What difference does it make?”
“Did you have any part of it, Daddy?
“I must’ve been some kind of father to have my own daughter have to ask me a question like that.”
She made no apology.
“I swear to you on your mother’s grave, I knew nothing. I found an odd entry in a computer file a few weeks back, something I know I’d never entered myself. Yet the account was for my eyes only. I confronted Roger about it. He handed me a bourbon and offered some excuse that made no sense. I told him I was going to bring in outside people to look over the books. He had the oddest look in his eyes when he said that that wasn’t going to happen. And then just that suddenly I felt the most crushing pain in my chest.
“If my secretary hadn’t walked in, Roger would have let me die right then and there. I don’t remember anything else until I woke up here.”
The door opened to a soft knock. Courtney was surprised to see Jack.
“I thought you were on your way to the courthouse,” she said.
“I was.” He didn’t meet her gaze. “I got a phone call.”
“About what?”
He didn’t answer.
“I can guess,” Quentin Hamilton said.
Courtney looked from Jack to her father. “What’s going on? You don’t seem surprised to see each other.”
“Mr. Sullivan and I have had more than one conversation these past couple of days.”
Courtney’s eyes narrowed on Jack. “You’ve been to see my father? But I thought—”
“I’m sorry, princess. It wasn’t my idea. Believe me.”
She experienced a sudden flare of fear. “What’s this all about, Jack?”
He pulled an official looking piece of paper from his inside jacket pocket. “Quentin Hamilton, it’s my duty to inform you that you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent...”
Courtney stared at him, stunned, disbelieving. No wonder he’d kept his distance. No wonder he could barely look her in the eye. He finished reading Quentin Hamilton his rights. “So you finally got your wish,” she said, her voice shaking. “Your revenge against my father.”
He winced, but said nothing.
“How could you?” she demanded.
“It’s all right,” her father said quietly. “This isn’t Sullivan’s doing. It’s Roger’s. He made certain, if any of this ever came out, that I would look as guilty as he was.”
“It’s not all right!” Courtney cried. “It’s not all right at all!” She turned on Jack. “How could you do this to me? To us?”
“This has nothing to do with us.”
She wondered who he was trying harder to convince—her or himself.
“It isn’t what you’re doing,” she said, “nearly as much as it is your not telling me.”
“I didn’t tell you, because I was hoping it wouldn’t happen. I’ve been fighting like hell with my superiors, trying to convince them—”
“Spare me any more lies, Jack. Please.”
He reached a hand toward her, but let it fall back to his side. “You’re tired. You’ve been through hell. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying.”
He stiffened, but his eyes regarded her with such an aching sadness that sh
e had to look away.
Jack sighed. “Mr. Hamilton, there’ll be a guard posted outside your door. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” He paused, then added, “More than you can ever know.”
“Get out,” Courtney said. “Just get out.”
He started to say something, then decided against it. Without another word, he left the room.
“He’s only doing his job, you know,” Quentin said quietly.
“His job?” Courtney whirled on him. “Arresting a man two days out of a coma? And for what? You’re innocent. I know it. And, dammit, so does he.”
“I have good lawyers, Courtney. I’ll be all right. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Jack hates you. He’s always hated you.”
“With good reason I’m afraid.”
She blinked. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m never going to be a big fan of Jack Sullivan’s. We’re too much alike, he and I. Two stubborn, hotheaded fools, who never knew how to tell a certain young lady how much we loved her.”
“He’s not going to get away with—” She stopped. “What did you say?”
“I said I love you.” He trailed the back of one frail hand across her cheek. “When your mother died, I was lost without her. I didn’t know anything about raising children, especially a little girl. I made so many mistakes, Courtney. I don’t expect you to forgive me. One of the biggest mistakes I ever made just walked out that door.”
“What are you talking about?”
He gestured weakly toward a chair. “Sit down, sweetheart. Please. While a foolish old man tries to figure out a way to pay off a ten-year-old debt without having my daughter hate my guts.”
Her heart thudding, Courtney sat.
Quentin Hamilton took a deep breath. “Jack Sullivan has every right in the world to hate me. It’s time you knew that. It’s time I told you the kind of man Jack Sullivan really is.”
* * *
Courtney reined in the roan gelding beneath her and let the horse crop a sprig of newly sprouted grass from the sun-drenched hillside. Here and there snow still huddled in the deeper shadows, but nearly everywhere else spring was edging out the receding winter. By her calculations she and Jack were a half hour away from Pete’s old cabin in the Sapphires. It was getting on toward late afternoon. Jack rode astride a bay several yards ahead of her.
It had taken some doing, but she’d convinced him she needed to revisit the cabin, work out some of her fears about her kidnapping and its aftermath. What she really needed to do was get him to sit down and work out what was going on between them. It had been three days since she’d lashed out at him in her father’s hospital room. She had yet to tell him anything about what her father had said to her. In fact, except for their exchange about returning to the cabin, they’d spoken hardly at all.
When they reached the cabin, Courtney felt an odd sense of coming home. While Jack saw to the horses, Courtney went inside and started a fire.
“What are you doing?” Jack asked when he came inside.
“It’s a bit chilly.”
“It doesn’t matter, we’re not staying that long.”
“We can’t go back down the mountain in the dark. The horses could break a leg.”
He scowled. “You had this planned all along, didn’t you?”
She feigned an innocent look, but said, “Of course. Tell me you don’t want to spend the night here.”
“I want to. You know that. But...”
“But what?”
“Nothing.”
She studied him in the dim light—her dark haired, blue eyed guardian angel. He was suddenly as tense and nervous as she was. They both knew what was at stake here. She arranged another log on the fire. “I heard Mark flew back to D.C. yesterday.”
“Yeah. I hope he’s going to be okay.”
He wasn’t talking about Mark’s physical injuries. “I do too.” But it wasn’t really Mark who concerned her right now. It was Jack Sullivan. This man she had loved for ten years now. “Do you know why I really wanted to come here, Jack?” she asked.
“To make peace with what happened.”
“No,” she said softly. “I wanted to make peace with you. Make love with you.”
He swallowed hard. “You can’t know how much I want that too.”
“I’m sorry about what I said the other day. I should have known you’d never use your job to avenge yourself on anyone, not even Quentin Hamilton.”
“I’m not going to lie to you, Courtney. There was a time in my life arresting your father would have given me a great deal of pleasure. But now...” He shook his head. “I’d never do anything to hurt you. Not even to get back at your father.”
“God knows, you have plenty to get back at him for.”
He blinked, disconcerted. “What do you mean?”
She walked over to him, put her hand on his chest, reveled in the strong, measured beating of his heart. “You know exactly what I mean.”
“I don’t think—”
“You don’t need to protect him anymore. That is, protect me, by not telling me what he did.”
Jack sighed. “It was a long time ago.”
“Ten years.” She took his hand and together they sat down in front of the hearth. “That night we made love in your bedroom—it wasn’t some old drinking buddy who phoned—it was my father.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters a helluva lot,” she said fiercely. “Roger called him in Japan, told him his daughter had her eye on a certain carpenter. Well, the great and powerful Quentin Hamilton couldn’t have that. So he called you, told you that if you so much as looked my way, you’d never work again in the state of Montana.” She kissed the backs of his fingers. “And when that threat had no effect, he took it a step further, didn’t he?”
Jack said nothing.
“He’d done his homework. He knew that you had a pregnant sister in Seattle. A pregnant sister whose husband worked for a logging company, which just happened to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Winthrop-Hamilton. How did he put it? Your sister and her husband would be living in a tent inside of twenty-four hours if he ever caught you near me.” Her whole body trembled. “I’ve never been so angry. If he hadn’t been in that hospital bed, I don’t know what I would’ve said.”
Jack cupped her face in his hands. “He’s your father. He was doing what he thought was best for you. A bit high-handedly, sure, but that doesn’t change the bottom line. He was right.”
“What?”
“It never would have worked between us back then, princess. I was too much of a pride-bound jerk.”
She could’ve argued, but decided against it. The ten years were gone. There was no going back. “I guess I had a little growing up to do myself,” she conceded. “Maybe ten years was just about right.”
He kissed her, hot, hungry in front of the fire. And then they made love—fierce, tender, gentle, wild.
Afterward, they slept. Then Jack cooked supper. Toward midnight, they were again snuggled in front of the fire.
“Life can be pretty amazing, can’t it?” Courtney murmured, planting teasing kisses along Jack’s beard-stubbled neck.
“I’ll say.” He caressed her breast.
She giggled, then again grew serious. “I want you to know something, Jack Sullivan. As painful as some parts of my life have been, I wouldn’t trade it in on anyone else’s. Because the road I’ve been on with all of its twists and turns led me right back here...to you. I love you. I always have. I always will.”
His eyes were overbright. “I love you, Courtney. More than my life.”
She kissed him hard, then reached down and picked up the wood carving she’d retrieved from his workroom during supper. Her own eyes brimmed with tears as she trailed her fingers over the trapped wolf. “I wish there was a way to set him free.”
“Maybe there is.” Jack got up and padded to the workroom. A minute later he returned with a tiny carving tool.
> Courtney handed him the wolf, then watched with fascination as the trap disappeared under Jack’s masterful touch, transformed into tufts of grass. With delicate precision he then altered the animal’s expression. When he’d finished, he handed the wolf back to her. Tears slid down her cheeks.
“He’s free,” she whispered.
Jack nodded. “We both are,” he said hoarsely. “Thanks to you.”
They made love again in front of the fire, sealing their trust, their love, forever.
Outside, high in the mountains snow began to fall. Somewhere a wolf howled to its mate.
* * * * *
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8737-2
Montana Rogue
Copyright © 1995 by Linda Hender Wallerich
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and™are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Montana Rogue Page 20