Maggie shuddered at the thought of Rose Montoya Hightower being buried for so long in the grave in the concealed portion of the basement. For so long, she had called and called for someone to help her. And finally Rance had heard.
Why was it that so many people had heard her, but only one had known what to do? Was it the power of a mother’s love, reaching out beyond the grave? Had her power been only strong enough to reach her son?
But no, Maggie had heard that voice, too. First as a teenager, when she been dared to spend the night in the abandoned home. Then again, the night she had kept vigil over Rance’s injured body. She had heard, but she hadn’t understood. Though she wished she had, she couldn’t fault herself for not understanding.
She hadn’t been the only one to hear her all those years ago. A succession of people had lived in the house, heard Rose calling, and fled. If only one of them had understood and found her....
But then, if Rose’s body had been found years ago, would Rance Montoya be here today? Would he have grown into the man who had to come back to his roots, looking for his past? Probably not. Maggie consoled herself with the notion that the delay in discovery had been meant to be.
Rance would not be lying beside her. Would never have made love to her. And she would never have met him and fallen in love. Maggie rolled to her back and sighed. She had to admit it—she had fallen in love with the man.
And she had no idea whether what he felt for her was anything more than friendship or gratitude. Or basic need.
With that disquieting notion nagging at her brain, she finally settled into shallow, restless sleep.
Rance rolled over and settled on his back, spent and happy. He propped his arm beneath his head and stared up at the ceiling. He had given Maggie all the love and passion he had to give, and she had given him the same in return. If only for this one night. Did he dare think there would be others? That yesterday and tonight could lead to a tomorrow?
He lay in the warm darkness, listening to the gentle rhythm of her breathing. Maggie snuggled closer and found a spot in his arms. With her nestled in the crook of his elbow, it was possible to believe that she’d been there forever. That she belonged to him. Was meant for him.
Maggie’s eyes were closed in sleep, and she couldn’t know how that shaft of moonlight found her face and lit on it, giving it an unworldly beauty only the night could. Rance brushed a tendril of tangled hair from her forehead and leaned over to kiss the silky-smooth skin of her brow. She murmured in her sleep, and Rance’s heart swelled at the trusting sound.
“I love you, Margaret Rose,” he whispered more to the night than to her.
“Hmm?” Maggie’s sleepy voice responded, sounding warmly contented from within her restless slumber. She nuzzled his chest, and her fingers found his chin and then explored his lips.
Rance kissed her clumsy fingers and lowered his head to find her mouth. He covered her lips with his.
Maggie made a mewling sound way back in her throat, kittenish and soft. Then she returned the kiss, all the while still wrapped in sleep, snug in Rance’s arms.
How easy it would have been to stay that way forever. Rance hugged Maggie to him, careful not to wake her. As he pressed her to his heart, his loins tightened, and he felt a resurgence of his need for her.
He resisted the urge to wake her. Maggie looked so unguarded and trusting lying there asleep, it would be a crime to disturb her. She’d had as long a day as he; at least one of them should sleep.
. The phone rang, and Rance was instantly alert. It could only mean one thing at that time of the morning. Rance reached across Maggie’s sleeping form and silenced the phone before it could ring again and wake her. But he’d forgotten that her kids were away from home; her maternal ears would be as attuned to the phone as his. She was awake as he.
“Yes,” he said softly into the mouthpiece. Then he listened. “I’ll be right there.”
He placed the receiver carefully back on the cradle and eased himself out of Maggie’s tender grasp. “It was for me. You go back to sleep.”
She murmured a protest, but Rance placated her with a gentle kiss.
“I’ll come back in the morning and tell you what Sheriff Potts found,” he whispered, brushing a soft strand of hair away from her ear.
“I’ll be waiting,” Maggie murmured. Then she sighed, settled, and curled into a childlike ball.
Rance found his jeans and slid them on as quietly as he could. He groped for his shoes and socks, retrieved his shirt and then rose. He stood for a long moment, clothing clutched haphazardly in his arms, gazing down at Maggie. She was beautiful, even half asleep.
Deep inside him, Rance felt the urge to kiss her awake and make love again. Anything to postpone what he knew he was about to learn. What he already knew. But he resisted. He knew that if he touched her again, he would never be able to go. She would understand why he had to leave. And as much as he wanted to stay, Potts’s summons drew him even more strongly.
Chapter 15
“Goodbye, my Margaret Rose,” he whispered. “I have to go, but I’ll be back soon.” He turned to leave.
Maggie murmured something, and he turned back to her. She didn’t repeat it, and he had to go. “I love you, Maggie,” Rance told her, one more time. Then he slipped quietly out of the room, closed the door and crept down the hall, as silently as the fog drifting in on the night air. He stopped in the living room long enough to finish dressing, then let himself out the door.
After all that had happened the night before at his house and here at Maggie’s, it seemed remarkable that the earth still turned and night still became day. Darkness was just beginning to give way, and the sky was no longer black, but a misty gray that outlined the ghostly silhouettes of the trees.
Rance took a deep breath of the fresh morning air and looked around. When he failed to find his truck, he remembered that he had come in Maggie’s minivan. He shrugged. It was only a half mile; the walk would do him good.
He took one last look at the window behind which Maggie lay sleeping. How could one night have made so much difference in his life? He’d found his mother and the love he’d lost. And he’d found new love in the form of Margaret Rose. Or so he hoped.
Odd. Even her name held part of the past he’d known so little about. Margaret Rose.
After so many years of not knowing, the tangled threads of his life were finally coming undone. Potts still hadn’t confirmed it, but Rance had no doubt that the grave in his cellar contained Rose Montoya Hightower’s body.
The walk to his house was short, due more to Rance’s rapidly working mind than to the length of his strides. As he mulled over the implications of Potts’s summons, the distance between Maggie’s home and his house disappeared. Before he had a chance to work it all out, he turned into the lane.
Rusty greeted him at the mailbox with an excited bark. He had forgotten about the dog in all the excitement of the night’s developments. Rance paused to scratch her head. “I don’t have time for you now, girl,” he said as he drew his hand away from her coppery, silken fur and hurried toward the house.
Potts hadn’t said anything about finding a body, but he had told Rance about finding some effects. Effects that he wanted Rance to identify. That was the only other reason that could have dragged Rance away from Maggie so soon. And if Potts had found effects, he would find Rose, too. Rance just knew it.
Several more vehicles had arrived. There were two unfamiliar civilian cars, and another that bore the markings of the Alabama Special Investigations Branch. As he threaded his way through the jam of cars, another vehicle pulled in, a hearse bearing the legend of the Pitt County coroner.
The hearse confirmed his certainty and his worst fear. They had found her.
“Potts! Higgins!” he shouted as he jogged the rest of the way to the house. No one answered, and he made it up to the porch in two long steps.
The front room was empty, and Rance hurried beyond to the kitchen. Higgins and two men Ran
ce had never seen before were sitting at the table. Spread out in front of them on a sheet of plastic were a woman’s purse and its contents. One of the strangers was sorting through the items and describing each, while the other compiled a list. Truman Higgins was overseeing the process.
Rance was torn. Should he stay to find out what Higgins had? Or should he seek out Sheriff Potts? Higgins solved the dilemma for him.
“You ever seen this before, Montoya?” Higgins indicated the purse.
It looked familiar. But it had been thirty years, and he hadn’t spent much time scrutinizing ladies’ handbags at age nine. Rance couldn’t be sure. “I don’t know. Maybe. What about identification?”
Deputy Higgins indicated a woman’s wallet encased in plastic beside his elbow. “I got a billfold. I’m waiting for Sheriff Potts to come back up before I go into it. And he ain’t coming up until the coroner gets here.”
“I saw the hearse outside. The coroner isn’t here?”
“No. Jimmy Shelton drove it over. We’re waiting for Ollie Patterson to make it back in town from a fishing trip down to Cahaba.”
Rance was damn sure tired of hearing people toss around names and excuses he didn’t have time for.
“I don’t give a damn about procedure,” Rance muttered, and grabbed for the wallet. “I want to look.”
Then he spotted it.
A pearl-handled revolver. Small, compact. A woman’s gun. Rance had definitely seen it before. Had held it. And it was definitely something that would stick in a small boy’s mind. He had found the pistol in his mother’s room the day she disappeared. He’d thought it was a toy. A present for him, for his birthday the next week. But it hadn’t been a toy; it had been very real.
He picked up the small, white-handled revolver and held it carefully in his hands. What was Mama doing with a gun? he wondered as he examined it, his childish curiosity piqued. His birthday was coming soon. Could it be for...?
“Rance Hightower! Put that down right nowl!”
He dropped the gun back to his mama’s bed and whirled around guiltily to see his mama swoop down upon him and snatch him into her arms.
“I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t go into your purse, ” Rance said from his position tight in his mother’s arms. “It was on your bed. I was just looking.”
Rose Montoya Hightower released her tight grip and held her son at arm’s length. “It’s all right, hijo. I shouldn’t have left it there for you to see. ”
“But what is it for? Is it for my birthday next week?” Rance squirmed under his mother’s grave scrutiny.
“No,” she replied sharply. “You forget that you ever saw it,” she continued as she swept the gun into her opened purse and closed it tightly.
He hung his head in shame. “I’m sorry, Mama.”
Rose ruffled her son’s hair and sighed. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” She drew a deep breath. “Come, help me take this bag to the car.”
Rance sucked in a deep breath. “I’ve seen that gun before. My mother had it.”
“You sure?”
“Positive as I can be after thirty years.”
Somebody banged on the front door, probably the coroner, and Higgins went to answer it. The sound of feet on the stairs and in the hall ended Rance’s wait for the sheriff and the discussion about the gun.
“You know, Margaret Rose always claimed that she’d heard a ghost in this house,” Truman Higgins said as the coroner’s men made their way past with the gurney that carried his mother, zipped into a black, plastic body bag.
Rance didn’t know what he expected to feel after finally finding out what had happened to his mother. What was he supposed to feel?
Grief? No. Through the years his grief had long been spent. There was sadness, but not the debilitating anguish he had felt as a child when the emotion was still strange and new. Rather, sad because in spite of it all he’d held out a tiny hope that he would find her some day.
Anger? Oh, yes. There was anger. Anger that Drake—whoever he was—had taken everything from him that had made his young life happy and safe. And he would bet that Drake was out there somewhere. Fat, happy. Living, while everyone Rance cared about was dead and gone.
Maybe not everyone. Rance remembered the warm, vibrant woman who had comforted him last night. He drew in a breath of relief that he still had someone.
Regret? How could he mourn for something he’d never really had? He hadn’t had a mother for thirty years. He had learned to live without one.
Relief? Why wasn’t he relieved? It was finally over, wasn’t it?
Rance swallowed and focused on Higgins. “Did you say something?”
The deputy shook his head. “It wasn’t important.”
What was important, Rance realized, was that he still didn’t have all the answers.
He forced himself to watch the gurney being wheeled out.
He still had questions. And as sure as he was standing here, he knew one man had the answers.
Drake.
Sun streaming through the opened curtains poked at Maggie late in the morning. She tried to brush the warm, teasing sunbeam away, but it persisted, kissing her cheek as if it were a new lover.
Maggie woke slowly, stretching languidly, mildly surprised to discover that she was naked beneath the sheets. Then she smiled, remembering the feel of Rance’s strong hands on her trembling body and what had happened the night before. Sighing contentedly, she stretched and yawned.
How nice to wake with Rance lying beside her.
She lay there in the moment between sleep and waking, with her eyes closed against the bright light of day, and remembered each kiss, and the feel of his skin against hers. She could still feel the way his hands had caressed her, making her skin tingle and her pulse throb.
Maggie nuzzled her pillow and recognized a vague hint of wintergreen that clung to the smooth cotton fabric. The liniment. Would he need more this morning? She smiled. More liniment, or more of what had come after?
She finally opened her eyes and reached for Rance. But her fingers encountered the empty pillow. She moved them lower, to the rumpled sheets, but they were cool and bare.
Rance sat alone in the kitchen, a half-empty cup of black coffee in front of him. For the first time since he’d been back at Hightower’s Haven, he felt truly alone. Not just because the horde of investigators was finally gone, but because Rose Montoya was no longer here. The presence he’d felt since the first day of July was gone. He listened for the voice that had called to him, but there was only silence.
There had been a body in the grave in the cellar. Or what was left of one. Skeletal remains, the coroner had called them. They had yet to be officially identified, but Rance knew who the small female skeleton belonged to. The wallet had contained Rose Montoya’s driver’s license; the comparison of the local dental records still on file would only make it official.
His mission should be over, but Rance felt no sense of closure. Every time he thought he’d solved the puzzle, he would find another piece missing. He’d thought he would be able to end his search for roots and home when he reclaimed Hightower’s Haven. He’d thought when he discovered why his father had taken his life it would be over. He’d thought that finally finding what had happened to his mother all those years ago would put an end to his uncertainty. It hadn’t.
He still didn’t have all the answers. He had finally found his mother, true, but Rance knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it had been murder, and he was pretty sure he knew who had done it.
The mysterious Drake.
He just didn’t know why. It had to have something to do with the way Drake had gotten his hands on Hightower property. And Rance would have bet anything that Drake was the one who was living at Hightower’s Haven when his mother had returned.
People had only begun to talk about the house being haunted after the first owner left. Rance had gotten that much out of the few people who’d told him about the place. He was more certain than ever that Drake wa
s that first owner, and the final part of the puzzle.
Rance wondered if the man was still alive, and something deep inside him assured him that he was. Now all he had to do was find him.
He rubbed his eyes and realized that he hadn’t slept. It was midday, and he was tired, hungry and heartsick. He could eat and he could sleep, but his heart would not mend until he knew the whole truth. He reached for the coffee cup.
The coffee was cold and bitter, but Rance drank it anyway. The noxious taste made him grimace, but the caffeine would give him enough energy to do what he needed to do. He downed the rest of the horrible black stuff.
There had to be someone who knew how to find this Drake, but in Rance’s fatigued condition, he was too muddled to dredge up a name. He dumped out the contents of the coffeemaker and started a fresh pot. He needed lots of coffee, black and strong, to clear his head and help him make it through the day. It didn’t matter that it was already ninety degrees in the room and would probably get hotter. He needed the coffee.
And he needed a shower.
Rance forced himself from the kitchen, rummaged in his room for fresh clothes and hurried down the hall. Only then did he notice the bright yellow police tape that had been stretched across the cellar door. Why were there so many reminders? When would he be able to put it all to rest? When would his life go back to normal?
His life had never been normal, he realized painfully. Would it ever be that way? he wondered, trying to ignore the yellow tape as he passed it on the way to the bathroom.
The stinging spray did much to clear his head, but the hot water hit the welts on his chest and reminded him of what else had happened the night before. After he found the grave and before the sheriffs crew uncovered the body, there had been Maggie. The hot water irritated the wounds and reminded Rance of the way Maggie’s gentle hands had stroked and caressed his aching flesh and tried to ease his pain.
How much he had needed her last night. Maggie had made the long night bearable. She had eased his suffering, body and soul. He owed her more than he could ever express. Maybe he owed her his life. And he wanted to share that life with her forever.
Montoya's Heart Page 20