The Gazebo

  “Don’t go philosophical on me now, Stone,” Deirdre said, looking pale and worn. “I don’t have the energy.”

  “Yeah, well, how about I play good cop, then? And you tell me what this whole blow-up between you and Emma is really about?”

  Deirdre hugged herself. “If I did, I’m afraid I’d have to kill you. Or you’d have to go into the witness protection program. Trula would never forgive me.”

  Thank God. A little humor. “I knew my Deirdre was in there somewhere.”

  My Deirdre? What the hell was he thinking? And yet, somewhere in his gut he’d felt that way about her forever. From the first time he’d seen her, he’d wanted…Things to be different. Impossible snarls smoothed away. Wanted her fire and courage and passion in his bed. But in the past weeks, he’d found he wanted something else even more—the places inside Deirdre where her wounds lived, wanted her heart wide-open with loving him.

  Loving him.

  Hell, he was in big trouble here.

  He laid his hand against her cheek, savoring the soft of her, the warm. Wishing he could kiss her eyelids and smooth away all her fears. Wishing she would be brave enough to let him in.

  “I know I act like a real hard-ass,” Stone confessed. “A son of a bitch with a heart like steel. But it’s pretty much bullshit, at least where the people I care about are concerned. That’s why I keep the list to a bare minimum. Trula, my old partner on the force and his wife and kids. My dog.”

  Deirdre rolled her eyes heavenward and shook her head. “Stone, I’m honored to be on the same list as your dog. Really. But—”

  “Actually you and Emma have edged poor Ellie May down a couple of notches. She would have been heart-broken if I hadn’t bribed her with a really big bone.”

  He couldn’t help himself. He drew Deirdre into his arms for just a moment. She was stiff, her whole body tense. He tried to rub the isolation out of her, smoothing his hand up and down her back.

  She stilled for a moment. He could feel the second that need won out over wariness. She melted against him, her face buried against his chest. Her arms folded up between their bodies, not holding him, but burrowing into him, as if she were trying to bury herself deep.

  The trust she offered shook Stone. Elated him, terrified him. God, she felt so fragile in his arms.

  “Hey, did I tell you one of the great rules about being a private eye?” Stone murmured into the fragrant silk of her hair. “In this case, I mean. With you?”

  He felt her shake her head no.

  “I can’t tell a soul anything you say to me in confidence. It’s privileged information.”

  He was trying to draw her in. Feeling like a bastard for using what he knew of Deirdre McDaniel against her. A trust he knew in his gut was incredibly rare.

  Why didn’t he just say it? Spill his guts now. I can’t figure you out and, crazy as this sounds, I really need to know, see, because I…love you.

  Oh, yeah. That would send the woman screaming into the night.

  He hooked his finger beneath her chin, gently urged her to meet his gaze. Her eyes were so blue he could swim in them. Filled with secrets.

  Don’t hide from me, Deirdre. I’m strong enough to handle whatever is torturing you. Let me help you. Stone feathered the pad of his thumb over her cheek, savoring the softness of her skin, the stark vulnerability in her eyes he knew few men had seen.

  “It’s obvious that stuff Emma said about her father shook you up,” Stone said. “You’ve got to admit that seems kind of strange, since you’re so dead set on tracking Jimmy Rivermont down.”

  Deirdre went rigid in his arms and pulled away. He hated letting her go.

  She paced a few steps away from him, putting distance between them. Her mouth twisted, a strange mixture of bitterness and resignation. “So I’m a hypocrite. Just ask Emma.”

  “Bull. You need to be able to lie to yourself to be a hypocrite. And you’re the most up-front person I’ve ever known—except for Trula, that is. Whatever you’re thinking usually spills right out of that pretty mouth of yours. That’s why this whole case isn’t making sense to me. You’re holding back, and that’s damned well not in your nature.”

  “Looks like you’re not nearly as gifted a detective as I thought you were. If you only knew.” She stopped, rubbed her eyes, her voice dropping low. “I’ve never—never talked about…”

  “The man who made you pregnant?”

  “Boy. He was a boy. And I was so stupid…” Self-loathing burned in her face. Hell, was she still beating herself up inside after seventeen years? Why hadn’t she let it go? Because whoever this boy was, he’d left Deirdre full of guilt and self-recrimination, left her somehow broken.

  Stone seethed at the very thought of what some jerk had done to her. He had to struggle to keep from slamming his fist into the wall. He tried to keep his voice level, keep from spooking her, but even he could hear his outrage leaking through.

  “Emma’s father hurt you, whoever he was,” Stone insisted. “Damn it, Dee, I can see the scars he left every time I touch you, kiss you. Fear is so strange in a woman brave as you that I can’t help wanting to know why.”

  “No. What’s strange is that…that I want to tell you.”

  Stone took a step toward her, wanting to hold her while she ripped open her heart. Deirdre held splayed hands up in front of her, warning him off. “Don’t…don’t touch me. I don’t want you touching me….” she said, wedging herself into a chair. He sank down across from her.

  “Okay,” Stone soothed. “We do this your way. Whatever you want.”

  “I want it to go away,” Deirdre said. “I want it never to have happened.”

  “But then you wouldn’t have Emma,” Stone said gently.

  “Emma,” Deirdre echoed, the pain softening a little. “I was just sixteen. Emma’s age. I was a baby myself. I just didn’t know it.” Deirdre clasped her hands together, stared at them as if she were trying to gather enough courage to open them, and let her secrets go.

  Stone watched her, listened, begging silently for her to trust. Him? He was the last person any woman should have faith in. He didn’t even trust himself.

  “I kept thinking it was a mistake,” Deirdre began softly. “I took three pregnancy tests, desperately praying the other two had been wrong.”

  Stone fell into Deirdre McDaniel’s eyes, and she carried him back until he could feel the fear in her. How young she was. How damned alone.…

  THE CAPTAIN WAS MOVING AROUND downstairs. Deirdre listened, terrified she’d hear his footsteps on the stairs, his knock on the door demanding he be able to use the only bathroom in the house. The bathroom where she’d been throwing up every morning.

  She couldn’t be pregnant, she assured herself. This whole big scare was just some crazy reaction to stress. With Mom dead just three weeks past, the Captain drowning himself in Jack Daniels and Cade keeping the skies of America safe, it was no wonder she was such a mess.

  As for her period—it had always been screwed up, just like she was, never behaving itself and holding to a schedule like the other girls’ did.

  Deirdre shivered, her hand touching the swell of her stomach tentatively, as if it belonged to someone else. She hadn’t been eating, so she sure shouldn’t been gaining weight. It was just her imagination that her clothes were getting tight.

  Oh, God. Please don’t make me pregnant, she’d pleaded. I know this was all my fault, but I’m so scared. What do I know about babies?

  She was the least maternal girl she knew. When they’d had to lug around eggs in junior high, take care of them like babies, she’d dropped hers and smashed it all over the music room floor. She’d been playing the piano, working on a new song. The vibrations had jiggled the egg off the glossy ebony edge and splat, she’d failed home ec.

  She stared at her watch, the seconds ticking by so slowly she wanted to tear out her hair. If Cade was here, she could have told him. He would have waited with her, waiting for the plastic stick to show its
colors. He would have hugged her and told her everything was going to be all right. He would have been her rock, just like he had when she was small and confused and trying to figure out why her parents didn’t love her as much as they loved him.

  Just by loving her, Cade would have made everything okay. Deirdre blinked back tears. Who was she kidding? The Cade who had been her dragon slayer, her hero, her best friend was as dead as their mother.

  No matter how desperate Deirdre was, she’d lost that invisible connection a family full of secrets had forged between them. The accident had changed everything and there was no going back. Grief ripped through her. Cade was rid of her and the Captain and the craziness at the house on Linden Lane, just like he’d always wanted to be. He’d have to be out of his mind to come back.

  But she needed him. Needed somebody.

  Suck it up, she shamed herself. You’ve spent your whole life saying you don’t need anybody.

  I lied.

  Her eyes filled with tears, her hands aching for somebody to hold on to.

  She needed…needed her mom. Needed Cade. Needed Spot. She would have traded everything she owned for the chance to bury her face in the stray’s mangy coat, feel the dog lick the tears off her cheeks like Spot had so many times before. He’d loved her madly, unconditionally, from the first day she’d taken him in. Her solid black dog. Her one soft spot. But he was gone, too, buried under the oak tree out back.

  Deirdre closed her eyes tight, trying to remember how soft Spot was, how sweet. She’d loved the dog desperately. Did that mean she could love a baby?

  She glanced at her watch again, her stomach knotting. It was time. Whatever the results were, they were there on the little white stick for all the world to see. No, just for her to see if it read negative. That way nobody else would have to know how close she’d come to disaster, how scared she’d been.

  She wouldn’t have to tell her father, write to Cade, hear the kids gossiping about her at school. She knotted her hands so tight her fingernails cut into her palms. She sucked in a deep breath, feeling as if she was juggling a live hand grenade, not knowing if fate had pulled the pin.

  Mustering the last scrap of her courage, she turned to the windowsill where she’d placed the test minutes before. She swallowed hard, uttered one last desperate prayer, then forced her gaze inexorably down.

  The bright pink plus sign hit her like a baseball bat. Positive.

  No! Let this be a bad dream! I’ll be better from now on. I won’t fight with Dad or sneak out or break rules. I won’t be hateful to Cade so he’ll stay away. I won’t care what the cheerleaders think of me or believe I might be pretty enough, talented enough, interesting enough for a boy like Adam to love. I won’t ever try to pretend I’m like the other girls. I promise, God. Never again.

  She stared at her ice-white face in the bathroom mirror, cold sweat dampening her skin. Terrified.

  For a heartbeat, she imagined just walking into the river, floating away where nothing else could hurt her.

  Coward! She could hear her father’s disgusted voice in her head as he watched the neighbor cat perched on the yowling Spot’s back.

  Two hot spots of shame burned Deirdre’s cheeks. Why should she care if he thought that about her? She wouldn’t be around to listen to his raging.

  But Cade…Cade would be so sad. Feel as if he should have fixed her. As if anyone on earth was strong enough for that!

  Think, she could hear Cade urging her when she’d gotten in deep trouble as a kid. Come on, Dee, think your way out of this! You’re the smartest kid I’ve ever known!

  Right. There were things she could do, ways for girls like her to get out of trouble. She could sell that emerald ring that had been her great-grandmother’s. Tell the Captain she’d taken it out just to wear for a little while and lost it. He’d be furious, but it wasn’t like she’d be stealing. The ring was supposed to be hers someday.

  She could take the money, go to one of those clinics where the baby inside her could just disappear, and no one would ever have to know.

  Deirdre pressed her hand against her stomach, wondering if it would hurt, imagining the relief she’d feel making this nightmare go away.

  I’m sorry, baby, she cried to the tiny life inside her. I’m going to cut platinum records, be on every radio station in the world. I’m going to be famous. Don’t you understand? I can’t be just a mom.

  But awareness shivered through her.

  A baby. Her baby. Alive in there…

  Someone who would love her back. Love her better than Cade or the Captain. Better than anyone in the world.

  Deirdre walked downstairs in a daze, saw the haphazard decorations she’d stuck around the house, so different from her mother’s delight in making the place look like House Beautiful. She’d do better next year when the baby came.

  She bumped her chin up a notch as she faced her father.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said. “Merry fucking Christmas.”

  The Captain staggered back a step, color draining from his face, shock giving way to fury. “What the hell are you going to do with a baby, missy? You can’t even take care of yourself!”

  She tried so hard to look like she didn’t give a damn as she slid past her father and began to assemble the traditional Christmas-morning cup of cocoa.

  “Who the hell did this to you?” He demanded. “Tell me his name!”

  “I can’t.” She fought to keep from spilling the hot chocolate, her hands shaking as she squirted whipped cream into the Santa Claus mug.

  Anguish blazed in her father’s eyes. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  She forced her lips into the smart-alec smile he hated. “What do you think that means?”

  The Captain reeled as if she’d kicked him in the gut. “You don’t even know who the father is?”

  She didn’t answer.

  She didn’t have to.

  He’d already made up his mind.

  So had the rest of this stinking little town, at least when it came to wild child Deirdre McDaniel.

  CHAPTER 12

  STONE REACHED OUT, took Deirdre’s hand, shaking her out of the past, bringing her back into the living room at March Winds again. Into the path of Jacob Stone’s laser-sharp eyes. That mouth, so drop-dead sexy, ridiculously sensitive at the moment, as if he were the one hurting.

  What in heaven’s name was she doing, baring her life to him? A warning shrilled in Deirdre’s head. She’d been so close to spilling the rest…. Shame seared her cheeks, her stomach roiling. She pressed her fingers to her lips.

  Don’t fall apart, she told herself. You can’t fall apart. You have to hold yourself together or how on God’s earth are you going to help Emma?

  “There’s more to this whole thing than you’re telling me, isn’t there?” Stone prodded, his gaze so disarming part of her wanted to tell him he was right.

  She levered herself out of the chair, paced to the window to escape the irresistible pull of Jake Stone. Moonlight filtered through the trees, tangled black webs as twisted as the secrets she’d kept for so long.

  Don’t touch me, she’d told Stone. I don’t want you to touch me.

  She’d lied. She wanted his hands on her, wanted his mouth eager and hot on her skin. Wondered if he’d possess some kind of magic that could make her forget…

  She could feel his gaze like a touch, blunt, callused fingertips peeling any covering away, leaving her heart naked, the way some crazy, fatalistic part of her wanted him to make her body.

  “You know who Emma’s father is, Deirdre,” Stone pressed her. “Otherwise the things she said wouldn’t have shaken you up so badly.”

  Deirdre tried to draw her tattered defenses around her, closing her eyes, shaking her chin-length hair back from her face. “Don’t be so greedy,” she said. “I told you all the best parts.”

  “What about the worst?”

  “My story isn’t bad enough for you?” Deirdre wheeled on him, eyes blazing. “You need all t
he gritty details? The Captain went crazy. Cade came back home to keep us from killing each other. He’d been in Whitewater when Mom died. Some kind of leave you can get when your family’s dying. But he’d headed back to the Air Force before I came up pregnant. One of my greatest achievements is that I single-handedly ruined my big brother’s life.”

  “His life looks pretty damned good to me.” Stone looked a little surprised as he said so.

  “Sure it does. His life’s terrific now that he has Finn and his babies. If you’d known him before that you’d realize how bad things got. God, Jake, you should have seen him the night I broke into his house and surprised him. I’d been gone five years. Left him to handle the Captain alone. I just cut out of town, stranded Cade in a place he hated.”

  “Your brother seems to me the kind of man who makes his own decisions.”

  “He sure decided he didn’t want his sister’s kid to raise. He told me that in no uncertain terms. Cade promised he’d help me, give Emma and me a home until I worked things out. But he didn’t know anything about kids. Truth to tell, Emma scared the life out of him.” Deirdre grimaced. “But then it’s easy to see why. She is my daughter.”

  “He adores Emma.”

  “What choice did he have? I dumped Emma on his doorstep and ran off.” Deirdre laughed, a harsh, tortured sound. “You want to know the funniest part of this whole blasted fiasco, Stone? Deirdre McDaniel, the wild child of Whitewater, the bad girl of the senior class…You know that roll in the hay that got me knocked up? The sex stunk so badly I haven’t been able to get it right since.”

  Empathy welled up in Stone’s eyes, and something more: something that scared her, enthralled her. “Damn it, Dee, I’m so sorry.”

  “Me, too. But that doesn’t change anything. Emma’s right. I’m dried up inside. Barely even a woman. It’s not that I didn’t try to work through it—at least when I was on the road. But what can I say? I crashed and burned every time. I haven’t even wanted to bother with sex since then, until…you bullied your way into my life.”

  Stone froze. She wanted to have sex with him? And he’d thought he was in deep shit before. He had to be careful. She was half a second from being major league spooked and fleeing up the stairs. That was no surprise. What shocked the hell out of him was realizing that some part of her wished he’d come up the stairs after her and take the whole thing out of her hands, show her what she’d been missing.