Kentucky Flame

by Jan Scarbrough

“Sorry thing to happen to old Pop. To all of you folks.” The sheriff shook his head. “This business at the farm is bad news. Bad news.”

  “Have you found out anything more?” Vanessa wanted to know.

  “That’s why I’ve come to talk to you folks. As you know, my office has been working with the state police on this case.” He nodded at Jake. “That shovel you found, Mr. Hendricks, may have been the weapon. Unfortunately, we are unable to know for sure. With the chemical and bacterial interaction of the manure, we were unable to identify the stains as blood stains. Then of course, the latent prints on the handle belonged to several of your grooms. No conclusive evidence there.”

  “What a shame,” Vanessa mumbled.

  “Seems like it’s time for us to consider the motives for these crimes.” Vickers rubbed his chin. “Now, the motive for arson usually falls into three categories. First we take a look at arson for profit. Did someone commit the crime to collect the insurance?”

  Vanessa shifted uneasily. “I know you considered me.”

  “Mighty logical.” He nodded. “But you know we ruled you out right away. Although you have some money difficulties, your insurance won’t even cover the cost of your reconstruction, so burning down the barn with all the horses in it would have been a stupid thing for you to do.”

  “I’m glad you realized that, Sheriff,” Vanessa said dryly.

  Mel swallowed hard. She hadn’t understood Vanessa was that bad off financially. It made the win at Louisville doubly important for the future of the farm.

  “And we checked out that realtor you told us about. He could profit from your bad luck, but he has an alibi. He may not be the most popular guy in these parts, but he’s clean, Miss Noble. Come to find out he’s bought the property on your other side. He can build his subdivision without buying Royalty Farm.”

  The sheriff leaned forward. “Now, the second thing we’ve got to think about is them nut cases. No logic here. These are the folks that burn down the place because they like to see a fire.”

  “But other things were done here. Not just the fire,” Mel brought out.

  “I’m getting to that,” the sheriff said. “The third motive we have to consider is revenge.”

  Mel’s breath caught. Could Lenny be involved? Revenge seemed too complex a motive for her ex-husband. She glanced at Vanessa. She’d come to the farm to make sure Pop and Cory were happy and healthy. Instead, problems seemed to have come with her, problems that threatened the existence of the way of life she loved.

  “You folks think someone on your staff done the deed.” The sheriff fiddled with his fingers. “Now, let’s count what happened. First the fire, then the slashed saddle girth.”

  “Someone tampered with the jog cart,” Mel reminded.

  “We couldn’t prove that, though.” Jake glanced at her.

  Mel held his gaze for a split second before he looked away. “But we couldn’t not prove it.”

  “Then someone turned them mares out,” the sheriff continued. “And vandalized your-all’s tack. It’s our guess Pop surprised that person and the guy attacked him.”

  “It’s too bad Pop hasn’t been able to remember anything about it,” Vanessa reflected.

  “Now, all these things that have happened leads us to believe that someone has easy access to your all’s place. Someone’s familiar with your movements, knows just what to do to cause a little trouble.”

  “But he’s caused more than a little trouble.” Mel put her foot down from the wall and began to pace. “He could have killed my father.”

  “What have you done, Sheriff, to interview my employees?” Vanessa asked.

  “Well, we talked to all of them. Your man Dave, there, is clean. All the others. But there’s something strange about Sam Samson.”

  “Like what?” Mel stood behind Vanessa’s chair and gripped the cloth back.

  “Found to have been spending a bit more money than usual at the local bar. Checked out his bank records. Come to find out he’s put a lot of money in his checking account recently. Drew some of it out to buy a new car.”

  “He had enough money to buy a new car?” Jake asked.

  “Yep. Brand spanking new car.”

  “Oh, my gosh.” Mel’s throat was dry.

  “The fellows from the state police are heading out to your place right now to pick him up. We want to talk to the boy one more time.”

  “Well, thank goodness.” Vanessa rolled her eyes in relief.

  “Question is, ma’am, where did he get that money? Was somebody paying him to do what he did, supposing he did it—which we haven’t proven, by the way.”

  “So, you’re saying that you may have found the person who set the barn on fire and attacked Pop, but there may have been someone behind him?” Jake tried to clarify the situation.

  “That’s the look of it. And we ain’t tied this to Sam. He’s just mighty damn suspicious.” Sheriff Vickers nodded his head and climbed to his feet. “Just wanted you folks to know. And I’d keep an eye on old Pop when he gets home. Wouldn’t want someone surprising him again, thinking he can identify his attacker.”

  A chill coursed through Mel’s veins. She hadn’t thought of that possibility. Was Pop still in danger? She glanced at Jake, who had risen to shake the sheriff’s hand one more time. She longed for his hand to stray to hers. She longed for the comforting connection of her hand in his. She needed him now. She needed his support and his caring. The very essence of him was what she wanted. A look of love. A smile of happiness. She yearned to see the affection in his eyes as he watched her mere movements.

  She had taken them for granted this past month, thinking he didn’t care for her, never had cared for her. His leaving ten years earlier had been a festering wound, staining her life and influencing her actions. Now she knew he’d cared about her and left Royalty Farm because he cared about her. He hadn’t known about the baby. It had been her fault Jake had left, because she hadn’t told him.

  “Well, at least we know something,” Vanessa said and stood up to look at Mel.

  “Do you think I should have told the sheriff about Lenny?” Mel felt guilty, as if she had kept another secret.

  Vanessa’s gaze roamed over her. “Let’s see what they find out from Sam. We can always tell him tomorrow.”

  Jake joined them. “What about Lenny?”

  Mel couldn’t answer him, could hardly look at him.

  Vanessa answered instead. “Mel’s ex wants her to sign over property in Missouri.”

  “Has he done something to you?” Jake demanded.

  Mel met his gaze. “Not really. I had dinner with him and he wanted me to give up my share of the house we owned. He said he needed the money.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this dinner?”

  “We were busy. It slipped my mind.”

  “Seems like a lot of things slip your mind.” Jake swung away from them and headed into the barn. “We’ve got to get the horses loaded.”

  “Well.” Vanessa lifted her brows.

  Mel could tell she was curious about Jake’s manner. “I guess I’d better help out.”

  “And I guess I better take Cory home to bed,” Vanessa said.

  Together they headed into the barn. “Don’t worry, Mel.” Vanessa patted her arm. “Things have a way of working out.”

  How? Things had never worked out for her. Although she’d fought to get her college degree and build her reputation as a trainer, her personal life had always been a shambles. She’d given up her baby and her only love. She’d married a selfish liar. Now Pop had been attacked, and his dream of the world’s best show stable at Royalty Farm was in jeopardy. And it might be her fault.

  The “poor me” voice in her head drilled and drilled the scenarios of her life over and over again. She fought the immobility of self-pity. How could she make things turn out happily ever after? How could she make her dreams come true?

  “Come on, sweetheart, we’ve got to go home,” Vanessa said to the p
erky Cory, who had come out of a stall with a bridle in hand.

  “Now? I’m helping Dave.”

  “I’m sure your absence will help him too,” Vanessa said with a smile.

  “Meany.” Cory lifted her nose in air. “I think I’ll get myself another mother.”

  Breath caught in Mel’s throat. Absolutely motionless with dread, she watched the little girl until she realized Cory was just kidding.

  “You scamp! Give that bridle to Dave and get going.”

  “Okay, Vanessa.” Cory grinned. “Thanks, Dave. See ya, Jake and Mel.” With a wave of her hand, the little girl pulled Vanessa away from the stalls.

  The next hour was busy. Mel, Jake and Dave packed away all the equipment and then loaded the three horses onto the Royalty Farm truck.

  “I think I’ll ride with Dave,” Jake said as the little groom climbed into the truck cab.

  “No, ride with me.” Mel reached a hand out and touched his sleeve. “I’d like to talk to you.”

  He didn’t say a word but slammed the door of the truck, and followed Mel to her Jeep. The fairgrounds had cleared out quickly. Only workers from barns like theirs were left, packing up and loading horses. The lights in the arena blazed in the distance. Yet in the field where Mel had parked, it was quiet and dark.

  “Why have you been giving me the silent treatment?” Mel asked when she reached her side of the Jeep. She wanted to get it over with. Her nerves were too jumbled to wait any longer.

  Jake looked at her across the roof. She couldn’t see his eyes or read his mood.

  “Something has happened, and I don’t know what it is.” Her breathing sounded like pounding horses’ hooves. She swallowed once. Thinking he wouldn’t answer, Mel reached for the door handle.

  “I can’t figure you out.”

  Mel paused. “What do you mean?” Her question was hushed.

  “I don’t think you tell me the truth.”

  She held her breath.

  “It makes me wonder if you’ve ever been honest with me.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Get in the car and I’ll show you.” His order sounded ominous.

  Mel slid into the driver’s seat and Jake entered the opposite side. He left his door open so the overhead light cast a cruel glow around them. Grim-faced, Jake fumbled in the pocket of his white dress shirt and pulled out a folded piece of paper. His gaze fastened on hers. Mel could see the question and hurt in his eyes, but she didn’t understand.

  “Someone sent this picture to me in the mail.”

  “Who?” She was breathless.

  “There was nothing in the envelope but this photograph.”

  Mel didn’t have to guess who had sent whatever was in Jake’s hands. Lenny.

  “Take a look at this and tell me who this is.” Jake unfolded the rumpled picture and thrust it at her.

  She took it in her trembling hands. There was a crease obscuring the face. She slanted the photograph to better catch the light. When she did, her heart stopped in her chest. How had Lenny gotten this picture? She’d even forgotten it existed, because she’d lost it years ago. Or maybe, Lenny had stolen it years ago.

  Mel didn’t know how to answer Jake. She couldn’t speak, even if she knew what to say, because her mouth felt full of cotton balls. Her worst nightmare had come true.

  Jake grabbed her wrists and shook them once. His features hardened with anger. “Tell me that’s not a picture of you! Tell me you were never pregnant!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mel’s face paled. With her wide hazel eyes, she stared at him as if he were a monster. Jake felt the pulse points of her wrists, the steady ta-dum, ta-dum seeming to mingle with the throbbing pulse in his fingertips.

  “Take your hands off me.”

  “Gladly.” He dropped her wrists.

  Her gaze didn’t drop. She held his with a defiant look, and even lifted her chin aggressively. Jake wanted to shake more than her wrists. He wanted to shake her whole body so the truth would tumble out of her reluctant mouth.

  Gripping his hands into fists, he fought back the urge to hurt her, just as he had been hurting all week. The thought that she’d been pregnant and not told him was a festering wound.

  “Are you going to answer me?” He controlled his voice with effort.

  “I think you know the answer.”

  “No, I don’t know the answer,” he snapped. “Why do you suppose I’ve been so distant this week? I don’t know the answer.”

  Her eyes grew wary, but Mel continued to resist him with her silence.

  “I believe you know the answer, and I want the truth from you.” Jake looked away, a crushing sense of defeat in his heart.

  “That’s me.”

  He hardly heard her. She’d put the photograph on the seat between them. The narrow space separating them was like a vast gulf. Intense agony in his soul, Jake picked up the crumpled picture and held it under the overhead light as if seeing it one more time would make the truth go away.

  “Where was it taken?”

  “At college.”

  “How old were you?” He was afraid to hear the answer.

  “I had just turned nineteen,” she said in a weary voice.

  “You weren’t married until you were twenty. You and Lenny didn’t have any children, did you? So did you abort this child?” Jake glared at her and placed the photo once more between them, hesitant to touch it any longer.

  “No.”

  “Then what happened to the child?” Her reluctance to give him any information irritated him. If he had to drag it out of her question by question, he would.

  “I gave the baby up for adoption.”

  “Adoption?”

  “Well, my options were few because I wasn’t married. I refused to have an abortion. What else was I to do with the child?” Mel turned the questions on him, her voice rigid with a growing anger.

  “You could have raised the child yourself,” Jake said, his eyes narrow.

  “How could I do that? I had to go to college, remember? You told me I had to get my degree. You said I was too young to be married, remember? So, I was certainly too young to raise a child alone. Besides, I didn’t want to deprive the child of a complete, two parent family.”

  “You thought solely of yourself and gave up the child?” Jake’s breath came in irate gasps. He would never give up his own child. “You put your own selfish welfare ahead of the child?”

  “Selfish? Like you were selfish, I guess, to go off to California and pursue your great career,” she spat out.

  A wind of realization blew through Jake’s clouded brain. He was the father. Somehow he’d known it from the moment he’d seen the photograph. Mel’s anger made sense. Years ago she’d thought he didn’t love her, and so she’d kept quiet about the child. His child.

  “It’s my child, isn’t it?” he asked.

  She glanced away. Jake grabbed her chin and drew her back to look at him. The delicate bones of her jaw were like putty in his grip. Her skin was soft as new sunshine on a quiet spring day. Her eyes were wide with an unspoken fear, but he sensed something more. A raw hurt...a determined defiance...a shattered love.

  “Isn’t it?”

  Her gaze never left his face, searching it, caressing it. “Yes.”

  “Was it a boy or a girl?”

  Mel tried to drag her eyes away. He wouldn’t let her. In fact, he pinched her so hard, she winced. He was almost glad. Glad to hurt her as he had hurt, as he was hurting.

  “It is a girl.”

  “Damn.” His curse was almost a prayer. Jake removed his hand from her face, the contact between them severed once more.

  “Don’t worry, she’s all right.”

  Jake’s head snapped up, and he glared at Mel. “How do you know?”

  She looked out the window. “I just know.”

  “You know who adopted her. Where is she?” he demanded.

  Mel’s silence stretched forever. His heart began to har
den toward her. She didn’t care about his feelings. He’d lost a chance to know his daughter, and it didn’t seem to bother her.

  “You know but you won’t tell me.”

  “No, I won’t tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you don’t need to know.”

  Jake was furious. He’d never felt such fire running through his blood as he felt now. He wanted to put his fist through a wooden board. He wanted to smash a thousand Halloween pumpkins. He wanted to shout to the top of his lungs so the whole world would know his frustration and his fury.

  “What makes you believe I don’t need to know?” He curbed his voice to a moderate tenor.

  “Because she is healthy and happy, and she’s got a family, and we’re not going to mess that up.”

  “Why would seeing for myself mess things up?”

  “You might be tempted to tell her who you are,” Mel said, her gaze uneasy.

  “I suppose you don’t trust me to do the best for the child? You hurt my feelings, Mel.”

  “So? You don’t think I haven’t been hurt?” she shot back.

  “You run off and have my baby and don’t even tell me.”

  “You were in California.”

  “I was in California because you didn’t tell me the truth.”

  “You wouldn’t marry me. We were too young.” It was Mel’s turn to repeat his words. “If we were too young to get married, we were too young to parent a child.”

  “But you didn’t give me a choice. You didn’t let me decide.”

  “It seems we’ve had this argument before,” Mel said quietly.

  Jake took a deep breath and looked away. She was right. They argued about his decision to go to California. He hadn’t told her the truth then. He’d been afraid she’d talk him into doing something stupid like getting married while they were both too young and before she’d gotten her college degree.

  But he’d had her best interests at heart. This wasn’t the same. Mel had taken away something precious from him. His own daughter. This was something that could never be replaced. Mel’s actions were out of spite, because he wouldn’t marry her. She’d taken out her anger and hurt on him in the worst way imaginable.