“I’m glad you didn’t. Stick around,” Jarrod invited.
“Please. Stay. I’m sure this clan is going to be clamoring for food at any second,” Katie agreed.
“I’m already taking care of it.” John joined them in the foyer. “Everyone’s invited out to the ranch. I know it’s late, but we need to celebrate. Brynnie and I’ll pick up ribs and chicken down at Mel’s Barbecue. Meet us at the ranch in an hour.”
Luke started to protest, but John put on his I-won’t-take-no-for-an-answer smile. “It isn’t every day someone saves my daughter’s life, though it has happened in the past.” His gaze slid to Mason for a second, before returning to Luke. “Please, son. It’s the least we all can do.” He stuck out his hand, and Luke clasped it firmly. “All right. I’ll be there.”
“Good.” John turned toward the parlor and announced that the entire family was invited.
“It’s so late,” Tiffany said, blushing as Christina yawned and rubbed her eyes. “We need to get her home.”
“She can bunk down on one of the beds in the guest rooms,” Brynnie offered.
“I don’t know…” Tiffany looked at Katie, then, moistening her lips, glanced in Bliss’s direction. “Okay,” she finally said, her shoulders straightening a bit as she seemed, for the first time, to accept her position in John Cawthorne’s family. “We’ll be there.”
Katie could have dropped through the floor. Never would she have believed Tiffany could capitulate.
“Good! Good!” John said, practically beaming. “Come on, Brynnie, we’d better get a move on. We’ll see you all in an hour.”
Katie was stunned. Every member of the family had agreed to show up at Cawthorne Acres. In a flurry of activity, they left, climbing into individual cars and trucks that roared away from the apartment house, leaving Josh, Katie and Luke standing in the moon-washed backyard.
“Who would’ve thought?” she said, tousling Josh’s hair.
“What d’ya mean?”
“I never thought this family would get together. Never. This is a red-letter day,” she said to Luke as everyone dispersed.
“I’m just glad you’re okay, Mom,” Josh admitted.
“Me, too.”
“Why don’t you go check on Blue, and we’ll get ready to go?”
Josh hesitated, as if he were about to argue, then lifted a shoulder. “Sure.”
“Good.” She turned back to face Luke. “Now,” she said as a cloud shifted over the moon, “you and I need to talk.”
“Do we?” In the half light his teeth flashed white, and she reminded herself that despite everything she was still angry with him. That he’d deceived her.
“Yep. Just because you probably saved my life today,” she continued, “doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, Gates.” She angled her face up to his and said, “There’s still that little matter of your deal with Ralph Sorenson. No matter what happened with Ray Dean, I think you used me and my son. For your own purposes.”
He stared down at her so intensely she had trouble meeting his gaze. For a brief second she thought he might kiss her, but then she changed her mind when he looked away. His eyes narrowed as he stared into the distance, but, she suspected, he saw only what was deep in his own mind.
“I guess you have the right to think anything you damned well please,” he finally muttered. “Can’t say as I blame you.” He turned on his heel and started toward the carriage house. “Give my regrets to your father and Brynnie.”
“But—no. Wait.” She caught up with him, touched his arm, and he spun again, facing her with an expression of exhaustion and pain.
“Just for the record, Katie,” he said slowly, his gaze drilling into hers as if he could somehow find her soul, “I never intended to hurt you.” With that, he turned and walked out of her life.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I don’t want the money.”
Luke had never thought he’d say those particular words. Since he’d grown up poor, he’d thought, for as long as he could remember, that money could buy him happiness. Not that he needed a lot. Just enough to get by and give himself a little nest egg so he wouldn’t have to work until he was ninety. But he’d changed his mind. Katie Kinkaid had seen to that.
Ralph Sorenson, on the other end of the line and woken from what must have been a deep sleep, wasn’t in the mood for Luke’s change of heart. “You earned it, boy. It’s yours.”
“No.”
“What the devil happened to you?”
I fell in love. “I just had a change of heart.” That wasn’t a lie.
“You’re just mad ‘cause I called my grandson’s mother before squarin’ it with you,” Ralph said. “Well, I admit I was a little impatient, but then you’ve got to understand there’s no reason to wait. That boy is Dave’s son. Our grandson. It’s time we met.”
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”
“So you’ll get paid.”
“Give it to Josh,” Luke said. “I’m out of this. Good night, Ralph.”
“Well, ain’t that a fine howdy-do?” The old man hung up, and Luke felt only slightly better than he had a while before. He strode to the window and stared into the night. He’d never gotten used to living in town, and the blue glare of the streetlights seemed harsh and unforgiving.
Just the way he felt. Staring at the huge apartment house as if it were an enemy, he tilted back his bottle of beer and took a long swallow. He thought of Katie, and deep inside there was an ache—something primal and painful and, in his estimation, way out of line. So she was a beautiful woman. So she had an outlook on life he found fascinating. So what? Disgusted with himself, he drained his longneck, considered another, then tossed the idea aside.
Alcohol wouldn’t help. Not that it ever had.
His conscience was eating him alive. What he’d done to her was unforgivable, and calling and telling Ralph that he was out of the deal was hardly compensation enough. Nope, his refusal of Ralph’s bribe was just another incidence of too little, too late.
Which seemed to be the story of his life.
* * *
“Where’s Luke?” Bliss had asked.
Tiffany, too, hadn’t let Luke’s absence go unnoticed. “I thought he was coming.”
“I specifically invited him,” John Cawthorne had grumbled. “Helluva way to act, if ya ask me.”
Of course no one had asked John’s opinion; John was just forever willing to offer it. While the rest of her family had laughed and talked, eating ribs, chicken, bread and coleslaw, Katie had scarcely been able to take a bite. Everyone had assumed it was from the trauma she’d suffered earlier in the day, but the truth of the matter was that no matter what she did, her thoughts turned back to the rangy cowboy with the Texas drawl and easy smile. Dammit, she’d missed him.
As soon as it was polite, she’d located Josh and said her goodbyes. All of her brothers had warned her to be more careful, whether while renting the house or chasing down stories. Her sisters had told her how great they thought Luke was.
As if they were a couple. What a laugh—a miserable, heart-wrenching laugh. Driving through the darkened streets of Bittersweet, she told herself that she couldn’t love a man like Luke Gates. She wouldn’t. It was just too painful.
He used you, she reminded herself as she shifted down and turned into the drive of the apartment house. The beams of her headlights washed up against the tailgate of Luke’s truck. He was home. Only a few yards away. She told herself it didn’t matter if he was living next door or in the middle of the North Pole.
But of course that was a lie. “Lord help me,” she whispered under her breath.
“Huh?” Josh, eyes closed, stirred in the passenger seat.
She parked and set the emergency brake. “Come on, bud,” she said. “Time for bed.”
“I can’t make it.” He yawned and let his head loll back against the seat again.
“Sure you can. Just try.” She managed to help him out of the Jeep, then guided him
toward the house and upstairs to his room. He managed to make it as far as his bed, then flopped, facedown, onto the mattress.
She brushed a kiss across the top of his head. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
As she snapped off the light and closed the door, Josh lifted his head and tried to stifle a yawn. “I’m really glad you’re okay, Mom.”
“Thanks, kid.” Her heart swelled. “I love you.”
“Me, too. And Mom? You know what I said about Luke before, that I didn’t like him?”
She nodded, vaguely recalling a conversation when Josh had sprained his ankle. “Yeah.”
“I changed my mind. He’s okay.”
“Good.” Why it mattered she didn’t know, because Luke had used her. And Josh. “See ya in the morning.” She closed the door and went down the hallway to her room. It seemed empty and dark. Even after she turned on the bedside lamp and pulled down the quilt, it felt cold somehow, vacuous and barren.
What had Jarrod said—that she needed a man? She’d never believed him. Until now. Because of Luke Gates. “Oh, Katie, you’ve got it bad,” she said, realizing the aching truth that she loved Luke Gates.
“I never intended to hurt you.” His final words had rattled through her brain all night long. But it didn’t matter what his intentions had been. He had hurt her. And loving him only made it worse.
* * *
“Okay, Katie, I should be shot for this, but I think I made the rash promise to let you know anything I found out about the Isaac Wells case,” Jarrod said when she answered the phone the next morning.
“Sounds like you’ve had a change of heart.” She poured herself a cup of coffee and looked through the back window only to discover that Luke’s pickup was missing.
“No way. You be careful. But I figure someone down at that rag you work for is going to write the story, so it may as well be you.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Holding the receiver between her shoulder and ear, she scrounged in a top drawer for a pen and a notepad. “Okay, brother. Shoot.” She sat at the table and listened.
“Okay, the deal is this. It seems that Isaac isn’t quite the loner everyone thought. In fact, he was a crook, or the guy behind the scenes with all the brains. The police don’t know for sure, but they suspect Isaac was involved in a string of burglaries that happened around Medford and Ashland a few years back. Ray Dean was his accomplice, the actual thief. Ray took all the risks and got most of the money. Except for one job—the big one.”
“Which one was that?”
“When Octavia Nesbitt was robbed.”
Katie stopped writing. Her hand froze over the paper. “Wells and Dean were involved in that one?”
“It looks that way. They got away with it and were about to split the loot when Dean was caught for his part in an earlier break-in. He was convicted and, as they say, sent up the river. All that time in prison he kept his mouth shut about the Nesbitt job because it was the biggest one he’d ever pulled off. He had some phony alibi, so the police were thrown off. No one suspected that Isaac Wells might be involved, and eventually Dean ended up paroled. The problem was that Isaac had used all the money—either gambled it away, paid off back taxes, used it to keep up that car collection of his, whatever.”
“He told them this.”
“Not everything, of course, but it’s what the police have pieced together. So when Ray was about to be released, Isaac decided to disappear rather than face him. Ray has a track record of being thrown back in jail within months of being paroled, but this time it didn’t happen. Isaac began to get worried that Ray would talk, so he turned himself in yesterday and is cooperating with the authorities.”
Dumbstruck, Katie leaned back in her chair. “So what about Octavia’s jewels?”
“Pawned.”
“And her cat?”
“I don’t think anyone asked him about her cat. He’s probably long gone by now.”
“Wow.” Katie scribbled as fast as she could. “Why was Stephen a suspect?” she asked, remembering that her nephew had been questioned.
“Never a suspect, but he did have a set of keys that belonged to Isaac Wells—keys that Ray Dean hoped would lead him to the loot. The police didn’t know the connection, of course. Not until now.”
“So what happens now?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I think Ray will be sent back to prison, and Isaac will get a lesser sentence for turning himself in. I think Octavia’s insurance company will probably sue, and Isaac will have to give up whatever he has left to pay off the claim. But I’m not sure. That’s just conjecture.”
Katie chewed on the end of her pencil. “So how did they break into Octavia’s home?”
“Isaac knew someone who had once cleaned Octavia’s house and knew where she kept the extra keys. The old lady was foolish, I think.”
Katie stared out the window toward Luke’s apartment. A squirrel was racing along the gutter, then scrambled into the overhanging bows of a pine tree. Blue was barking, running along the edge of the carriage house, his nose tilted into the air, his eyes trained on his quarry. But Katie didn’t pay any attention to the squirrel’s antics or Blue’s frustrated cries. In her mind’s eye she saw her story forming, but some of the joy she’d expected to feel—the satisfaction of getting her big scoop—was missing. “I owe you, Jarrod.”
“Just take care of yourself.”
“I will. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“You know I’ll have to talk to Ray Dean,” she ventured, ready for her brother’s temper to explode.
“Go ahead. As long as he’s behind bars.”
* * *
The next couple of days were busy. Too busy. Somehow Katie avoided Luke, though she suspected he was the one doing the avoiding. By the time she got up each morning and peeked out the window, his pickup was gone; she didn’t hear it return until after midnight. She’d talked to Ralph Sorenson a couple of times, and Josh had tentatively gotten on the phone and spoken to his grandfather. Things were still tense but working out. Eventually they would all meet.
So close and yet so far away, she thought on the second day after Josh had flown out the door, his backpack draped over one shoulder, his hair flopping as he raced up the street to meet the school bus.
She finished cleaning the kitchen, then, against the wishes of everyone in the family, drove to the jail where she planned to interview Ray Dean. She’d already written the story about his arrest and how she was involved. Her editor was impressed, but he wanted more.
Ray, seated on his cot, looked at her through the bars. She sat in a folding chair and listened as he smoked and told his side of the story in painstaking detail. In the end, it seemed, his version only backed up Isaac’s rendition. They were both crooks. But Ray, she assumed, because of his record and the fact that he’d actually done the deed, would draw a much longer sentence.
Nonetheless, she got her story.
So where was that overwhelming sense of satisfaction she’d been certain she would feel? Where was her emotional payoff? Instead of a feeling of elation, she experienced a sense of loss. The mystery was over, and, though she would probably get to work on more interesting stories in the months to come, she was still the same woman she’d always been—just with a different set of problems.
She drove home and found a bouquet of flowers on the front step. She bit her lip as she carried the roses, chrysanthemums and baby’s breath inside. Her fingers trembled, and she mentally crossed her fingers that the bouquet was from Luke.
The card was simple: “We’re proud of you. Congratulations. Mom and Dad.”
“How nice,” she said, but couldn’t ignore the overwhelming sense of disappointment that dwelled deep in her heart. Though she’d pushed Luke away, now she missed him. “Yeah, well, you’re an idiot,” she said as she mounted the stairs, started removing her earrings and, once in her bedroom, checked the clock. Josh wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours, so she just had time
to—
The phone rang shrilly. She snatched up the receiver before it had a chance to ring again. “Hello?”
“Katie Kinkaid?”
The voice was familiar. “Yes?”
“It’s Ralph Sorenson again. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and even though we’ve talked a few times, I didn’t really tell you what I’m thinking. Mainly that I guess I owe you an apology for the first time I called, and I don’t want there to be any bad blood between us.”
“There isn’t—”
“Just hear me out,” he insisted, on a roll he didn’t want to stop. “When I first called you I was just so damned anxious to get to know Josh, you know, because of Dave’s death and all. Anyway, I made that deal with Luke, offered him money to find the boy, because I was so damned lonely.”
Her throat ached all over again, as he explained how empty his life was without Dave but that he’d decided that Katie, as Josh’s mother, knew what was best when it came to his grandson. He and his estranged wife only wanted what was best for Josh, and to that end they planned to set up a trust fund for him with the money he’d set aside for Luke.
Katie was thunderstruck. Her fingers clamped over the receiver. “But I thought Luke already got the money.”
“No way.” The old man chuckled sadly. “That boy taught me a little bit about what being a family and putting other people’s needs before your own is all about. It’s funny, really. Luke never really had a family, didn’t know much about his folks, and then his own marriage was a mistake from the get-go, what with his wife running around on him and all.”
Katie felt a tear slide down her cheek. What a fool she’d been.
“Listen, Mr. Sorenson—”
“Call me Ralph. We are like family whether we want to be or not.”
“I want you to come and visit Josh. I’ve talked with him, and we need to all get together.”
There was a moment’s hesitation. “You’re certain about this?”
“Positive.”
“Well…sure. I’ll let you know. Thank you, Katie.”
“And thank you.” She hung up, wrote Josh a quick note in case he got home before she returned, then flew out to the car. She needed to talk to Luke and tell him how she felt. She had to swallow her pride and, no matter what happened, admit that she loved him.