Zeke grasped her chin and forced her to look at him. “You can’t think a man to death, darlin’, and that’s as far as you would have taken it. No cop in his right mind will try to pin this on you. Monroe may be sniffing at your back trail right now, but he’ll eventually circle around to where he was yesterday. You didn’t do it.”
“I’m scared, Zeke. I don’t think I’ve ever been this scared.”
“I know.” He hooked a hand over the back of her neck, slid off the stool, and enfolded her in the safe circle of his arms. As he tightened his hold, Natalie found the solace she’d been seeking—an indescribable sense of rightness and peace. “But don’t worry, all right? If that detective is crazy enough to come after you, I’ll fight him with everything I’ve got.”
Natalie pressed her nose against the collar of his shirt. As much as she enjoyed feeling his strength curled so warmly around her, she loved the essence of him even more. “Fighting him would cost a fortune. I can’t let you do that. You’d lose everything.”
“Try stopping me. Five years ago, all I had was a pocketful of dreams. Easy come, easy go. I’m not hung up on material things. Never have been. Fortunes are made and lost in a day. You can’t let possessions rule your life.”
“And what if, despite everything, they still convict me?”
He slid his hand into her hair and made a tight fist. “We’ll run,” he whispered huskily. “How do you feel about Brazil?”
“Where?”
“Colombia, then. Where is it criminals go? Someplace tropical where we can live like kings and lie under a palm tree, sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them. Rosie will love it—hundreds of parasols for Barbie.”
Natalie laughed in spite of herself. “Would you really do that for me?”
His voice gravelly with heartfelt sincerity, he said, “In a bronc rider’s minute, darlin’.”
It was a silly response, and yet, for reasons beyond her, it was all she needed to hear. “What, exactly, is a bronc rider’s minute?”
“You ever been on a bronc?”
She giggled again. “No.”
“Well, you are flat anxious for sixty seconds to elapse, let’s put it like that. If a bronc rider were to watch his own clock, he’d shave off seconds, thus the term. In short order, in other words. Before you could take a deep breath and yell howdy, we’d be out of here.”
Natalie felt better just knowing he loved her that much. “I am so lucky to have met you,” she whispered.
“I’m the lucky one,” he replied. “Just don’t hit on my baby brother anymore. Okay?”
Natalie dissolved into a fit of laughter. It made no sense. She’d been terrified when she came. But that was the miracle of it, she decided, being with someone who could make her laugh when her whole world was falling apart.
“If that bastard wasn’t already dead, I’d castrate him and hang him from a hay hook,” Naomi vowed when Natalie told her the latest news.
Pete slapped his coffee mug down on the kitchen table. “To hell with castrating the son of a bitch, I’d blow his goddamned head off.”
For once over the last ten years, Natalie’s parents seemed to be in perfect agreement on something, that being that they’d both love to do Robert physical injury if he were still alive. Natalie sat at the table, too drained to add a word to the exchange. She was just glad her kids were out of earshot, Chad in the barn feeding Chester, and Rosie upstairs playing with a new Barbie dune buggy that had mysteriously appeared on the back stoop. No one in Natalie’s family had confessed to buying the doll accessory, which led Natalie to suspect that the second-story man next door might be responsible.
“Well, don’t you worry, honey,” Pop said as he patted Natalie’s shoulder. “We Westfields stick together. If those damned cops think they’re going to pin this on you, they’ve got another think coming.”
“That’s exactly right,” Naomi seconded. She looked at Pete and smiled. “They won’t know what hit them.”
Valerie entered the kitchen just then, waving her freshly painted fingernails. “Well, now, ain’t this a cozy picture of family unity.”
“Oh, be quiet,” Natalie’s parents said in unison. Naomi added, “This is no time for smart-aleck remarks, Valerie. Your sister is in trouble.”
Valerie plopped down on a kitchen chair. “For once it’s her and not me. That’s cause to celebrate.” She grinned at her folks. “It’s good to see you guys teaming up on the same side for a change.”
“Be quiet,” Naomi and Pete said again. Then they promptly dispersed, Naomi to the sink where she’d been peeling potatoes and Pete to the stove for another mug of coffee. “It’s the Westfield blood in her veins,” Naomi said over her shoulder to Pete. “No one on my side was ever so lippy.”
“Westfield blood, my ass,” he shot back. “Girl’s the spittin’ image of you, inside and out, and she came by the smart mouth naturally. Just look at her mama.”
Valerie fluttered her eyelashes. “Maybe I’m a changeling, dumped on the stoop, kind of like the dune buggy. Is that how it happened, Pop?”
“Shut up,” he grumbled.
Valerie flashed Natalie a mischievous grin. “That had to be it. Don’t you agree, sis? We must have been dropped on the porch by the stork.” Valerie propped her elbows on the table to blow on her nails. The color of the day was psychedelic purple with silver and red glitter. “I can’t imagine the two of them actually—well, you know—doing it. They’d kill each other first.”
“Valerie Lynn!” Naomi cried, chucking a half-peeled potato across the kitchen.
Valerie ducked and laughed. “Was that a potato that just sailed past my head? No wonder I’m a mess. My family is completely dysfunctional.”
Naomi’s mouth twitched. She quickly showed her daughters her back to hide her smile. “I’d have nailed you if I meant to hit you, you little twerp. Ask your father about my aim. He’ll tell you.”
Pete turned from the stove and gave his ex-wife’s backside a meandering appraisal. “She can definitely hit her target with deadly accuracy,” he said with a reminiscent smile.
Naomi giggled. “Right between the eyes, if I remember right.”
“Damn near coldcocked me.”
“Served you right. Came home drunk and feeling your oats. I told you to sleep it off in the barn, and you refused.”
Pete winked at his daughters. “Had her jealous up. Thought I’d been squeezing the fruit down at Chester’s Hideaway. When I walked in the door, she bonked me with a spud before I could say hello and what’s for supper.”
Natalie leaned back on her chair. “Were you guilty as charged, Pop?”
Pete grinned. “Hell no. But there wasn’t no convincing her of that.”
Naomi turned from the sink. In one hand, she held another partly peeled potato. “You want to test my aim again, Pete Westfield?”
“No, ma’am.”
Pete made a hasty retreat to the living room, once again exhibiting a miraculous recovery from his back pain. Natalie sent her sister a wondering look. Valerie grinned and puffed on her nails again. Naomi turned, caught her daughters smiling, and said, “Wipe those smirks off your faces.”
Valerie’s expression went dead serious except for the dimple in her cheek. “So, Mom, is that how we came to have a gander named Chester, because Pop was fond of squeezing the fruit down at Chester’s Hideaway?”
“Damn bird,” Naomi said under her breath. “He named him Chester just to get my goat. Knew very well I’d grind my teeth every time I came out here.”
Valerie waggled her eyebrows at Natalie. “Men,” she said with a theatrical sigh. “Can’t live with ’em, and can’t live without ’em.”
“You can’t live with them, that’s for darned sure,” Naomi replied. She rinsed the potato she’d just peeled and tossed it in the colander. “I’m much happier in my nice condo. Would you just look at this kitchen? Hasn’t changed one thing in the last ten years, and it was ugly as sin back then.” She grabbed another
spud. “Valerie Lynn, get off your fanny and help me.”
“My nails are wet.”
“Run them under cold water. The chicken needs flouring.”
Valerie groaned and touched a nail to test it for dryness. Then she pushed up from the chair to advance on the chicken, which was already cut up and waiting on a board. “This is enough to make me become a vegetarian.” She touched a slippery thigh. “I like precut frozen. It doesn’t gross me out.”
“You’ll survive. Flour the damned chicken.”
Natalie smiled and rubbed her aching forehead. Naomi dried her hands and came to the table with the jug of burgundy. “You look like you need some happy juice, sweetie.”
Natalie sighed. “I don’t think it’ll help, Mom. My mind is circling. Nothing seems real. I honestly can’t believe this is happening to me.”
Valerie glanced over her shoulder. “I can believe it. Robert’s been messing up your life ever since you met him. This is his coup de grâce, delivered from beyond the grave. He couldn’t rest in peace knowing you might live happily ever after.”
Naomi took three goblets from the cupboard, all of which had been freshly scrubbed, and set them on the table. “Get the spuds and chicken on, Valerie Lynn. While supper’s cooking, the three of us will share a nip or two.”
Valerie came to the table, waited for her mother to pour a glass of wine, and then took it with her to the counter. “When all else fails, get drunk.”
Natalie accepted the wine her mother pushed toward her. “I just want all of this to go away.”
Naomi took a sip of wine. “Can’t blame you there. Drink enough of this, and it will.”
“That’s no solution,” Natalie said hopelessly. “I don’t think there is a solution. Monroe has his sights trained on me. Unless something happens to make him suspect someone else, I’m going to be toast.”
Naomi grabbed a notepad and pen from the telephone stand. “Let’s give him another suspect, then. Who, besides you, had a reason to want the son of a bitch dead?”
He came to Natalie that night as if in a dream—slipping silently into the bed beside her, running his fingertips lightly over her body, then kissing her throat and upper chest until she moaned and surfaced from sleep. She tried to say his name, but he covered her mouth with his and laid claim to her with hard, masterful hands that seemed to know every secret of her body. She went from black oblivion to ecstasy before her head could clear, then drifted with him on sensation, quivering at his every touch.
“I love you,” he whispered as he plunged deep and filled her with his hardness. “I love you, Nattie girl.”
She clung to his broad shoulders, her mouth trembling beneath his, her body undulating to meet his thrusts, her mind exploding in a kaleidoscope of fragmented color as her body pitched in the throes of orgasm.
Afterward he held her against him and stroked her trembling body until she melted contentedly into his heat and once again became lost in the swirling black veils of sleep. Zeke. She took him with her into her dreams and felt safe even when Detective Monroe’s face leered at her from the shadows.
Toward dawn, Natalie was roused from sleep by a faint beeping sound. She lifted her lashes to see Zeke sitting up and pushing at a button on his wristwatch. She smiled and ran a hand down his bare back. He didn’t speak, and neither did she. He just kissed her deeply and then vanished into the predawn gloom as if he’d never been there.
Late the following afternoon, Natalie got a call from Grace Patterson. Immediately after ending the conversation, she went to find her son. Chad was nowhere to be found inside the house, so Natalie broadened her search, combing the yard first, then venturing farther afield to check the outbuildings.
The August heat lay over the farm like a blanket that sucked all the moisture from the air. Normally Natalie appreciated the low humidity in Central Oregon, but today even her throat felt parched when she took a deep breath, and her skin felt scratchy where her clothing touched. She missed having central air, she decided. Pop didn’t believe in air-conditioning. When the house grew hot and stuffy, his only solution was to open the windows and use a fan.
Natalie squinted against the slanting afternoon sun as she passed the chicken coop. “Chad?” she called.
“Out here, Mom.”
She circled the barn and spied her son behind the building, sitting forlornly on a dilapidated section of fence that had once served as a paddock. Dressed in jeans and sneakers, her usual at-home attire, Natalie swung up to sit beside him. Sensing his morose mood, she didn’t speak for a while. Grasshoppers whirred in the tall grass clumped around the fence posts. Hens clucked and fluttered in the lean-to behind them. Occasionally Daisy and Marigold added lowing to the mix.
“I used to sit out here when I wanted to be alone,” Natalie finally said. “I hope I’m not intruding.”
“No, not really. I just like it out here sometimes.”
Chad bent his ebony head and swung his feet. Natalie remembered all the hours she’d spent teaching him how to tie his shoes. Now his laces dangled like drool from a hound’s jowls, and the crotch of his shorts drooped between his knees. She didn’t understand the fashions nowadays, but then she doubted that her parents had appreciated her look as a youngster, either.
“I, um, need to talk to you, Chad,” Natalie began. “Your grandma Grace just called.”
“What did she want?”
Natalie stared off at the towering pines that bordered the back quarter of their land. As a girl, she’d often gone walking in those woods on hot summer days, craving the silence and deep shade that only the trees could offer.
“She’s very upset,” she replied honestly. “Your dad was her only child. Grandpa Herbert is gone now, too. I think she’s very lonely.”
“Maybe I should call her,” Chad said huskily.
“That would be nice.”
“I don’t like her very well.”
Natalie shared that sentiment, but she refrained from saying so. “She has her good moments.”
Chad gave her a sidelong glance. “When?”
Natalie laughed softly. “Okay, not often, but she’s your grandmother. I don’t want to say bad things about her.”
Chad nodded. “I shouldn’t either, I guess. It’s just—”
“Just what?” Natalie pressed gently.
“I don’t know. Take Gramps, for instance. All he does is gripe and carry on about one thing or another, but I love him anyway. Every once in a while when he stops grumping to take a breath, he’ll pat me on the arm or give me a hug, like he’s telling me not to take him seriously.”
Natalie smiled. She’d seen her grandfather hugging her kids. “He does gripe a lot,” she agreed. “That’s just his nature, I guess.”
“Grandma Grace never gives hugs like that. Only when she says hello and good-bye, and then she’s all stiff, like she’s afraid I’ll get her clothes dirty. And she never kisses me. She just makes smacking noises in the air.”
“She does have a formal way about her,” Natalie conceded.
“When I go see her, I wish she’d be more normal. I can’t relax when I’m with her. Even when she offers me a treat, I’m nervous about making a mess on her tablecloth. One time I laid out paper towels around my bowl of ice cream so I wouldn’t have to worry about it, and she got all bent out of shape, turning it into this big thing about practicing my manners so they’d be second nature.”
“I’m sorry she’s that way. You don’t have to call her if you’d rather not.”
Chad sighed. “I’ll call her. It’s not like I hate her or anything. Maybe it’ll make her feel better.”
Natalie’s heart filled with pride. “That would be very kind of you. She needs to feel loved right now.”
He straightened his legs to stare at his shoes. “She called once, right after we heard about Dad. It was while you were gone to the police station. All she wanted to talk about was me inheriting the Patterson money someday.”
“I suppose you will i
nherit now that your father’s gone.”
“But she’s, like, totally stuck on it,” Chad replied. “She cried a little about Dad, but mainly she wanted to talk about the responsibility that had fallen to me and how I should take more pride in the Patterson name now.” He began swinging his feet, his movements agitated. “It’s like—I don’t know. This will sound really mean, but she acts like she owns me now or something.”
Natalie couldn’t count the times that she’d seen Grace and Herbert use the Patterson wealth as leverage against Robert to make him toe the mark. She hated to see her son go through that, but she could do nothing to stop it. Chad was a Patterson, and he was next in line to inherit. She couldn’t prevent Grace from making Robert’s son her heir.
“A large amount of money is a wonderful blessing,” Natalie said carefully. “It enables those who have it to please themselves in ways other people can’t. You can own a beautiful home and wear fine clothes and drive fancy cars. You can help the disadvantaged by giving generously to charities. In some instances, money can even buy you prestige and power. But there’s also a downside.”
“What’s that?” Chad asked.
“Money can become a god to some people, and it’s more important than anything else.” Natalie looked over at her son. “I can’t tell you how to feel about one day inheriting the Patterson money—or how to deal with your grandma when you feel that she’s trying to control you. But I can tell you that people are seldom happy if they let money become the most important thing in their lives.”
“It’s not that important to me,” the boy replied. “I never want to be like that.”
“Then don’t be. Own the money, but never let it own you. Does that make sense?”
Chad nodded. “And don’t let Grandma Grace own me because she has control of the money I’ll inherit someday?”
Natalie felt the tension ease from her shoulders. “Exactly. When she brings up your inheritance, one way you might handle it is to say you don’t want to think about losing her someday. That will make her feel nice, and it will let her know in a very kind way that her money isn’t that important to you.”