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Jeremy watched her catch a fish before he picked up the rod and tried his luck. He lost a half dozen worms before he caught on. When he brought his first fish in and removed it from the hook, she saw a different person, one who was laughing and excited and happy, the way a youngster his age should be.
“Hey, that’s a big one, a seven- or eight-incher. I think we’ll have fresh fish for supper tonight.”
The sober expression returned. “I don’t know if my dad knows how to cook fish.”
“No reason for him to have to. A person should be able to cook his own catch, my dad always said. We’ll fry ’em up at my place and invite your father to join us. Okay?”
His grin was huge. She saw the father reflected in the son, when Jess Fargo had been young and idealistic and enthusiastic about life. A sense of sorrow overcame her. She shook it off. Jess Fargo wasn’t her problem.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jeremy said. “Yeah, that would be great.”
“I’m Kate to my friends.”
No matter what she told herself for the next hour, she knew she was being pulled in like the fish on the end of her line. But there was a kid involved, and where kids were concerned, well, she couldn’t help but worry. So maybe she and Jeremy could be friends while he was there.
She counted the fish on their stringer. “We have enough. Let’s clean them.”
The boy followed as she led the way back to the garden and the compost heap. She removed a knife from her pocket and, on a big flat rock, cleaned her share of the catch, tossing the fish heads into a hole she dug at the edge of the compost. When she handed the knife to him, he followed her example.
At the house she dipped her fish into egg beaten with milk, then into cornmeal. While he got his share ready, she fried her catch in oil, then let him do the same.
“You want to invite your dad to join us?” she asked when she had fries and a salad ready to go with the fish.
Jeremy looked doubtful. “He was taking a nap when I went down to the lake. I think his leg was hurting awfully bad. He took two pain killers, then went to sleep on the sofa.”
“Shall I get him while you set the table under the oak tree?” She pointed at the picnic table through the window.
“Sure.”
“Paper plates are in here, forks in this drawer.” She pointed them out, then left, feeling quite irritated with the tough cop who didn’t want anything from anyone.
She marched up the steps and knocked sharply on the door frame. Through the screen, she could see Jess’s reclining form on the sofa. The television was on, the sound low.
He sat up abruptly, then swore as he swung his legs to the floor and put a hand on his injured knee.
“Supper,” she called out, keeping her tone cheerful.
“What?” He glared toward the door.
“Jeremy and I caught some bluegills. They’re ready to eat. At the picnic table,” she added, then hurried down the steps and back to her house.
“Is Dad coming?” Jeremy asked when she joined him.
“He’ll be along in a minute. He was still asleep. I had to wake him up.” She prepared glasses of raspberry iced tea. Handing one to Jeremy, she carried the other two outside.
She and Jeremy were seated when Jess came out of the apartment and limped down the steps with the aid of the cane. She pretended not to see his scowl. “Come and get it,” she advised, “before they get cold. We each get three.”
“Kate caught five and I caught four,” Jeremy told his father, surprising her with the use of her name.
Jess stood at the end of the table, taking in the food, then his son’s somewhat defiant expression. His hostess was busily spooning salad into a bowl. She didn’t glance his way. Which irritated the hell out of him.
Logic told him she had simply offered his son a chance to fish, then had let the kid enjoy the fruits of his labor. That’s what logic told him. His feelings were something else.
He was angry, as if she had entered into some conspiracy to win his son away from him. Guilt ate at him. He should have taken the boy fishing instead of going to sleep. The widow was probably trying to do a good deed for a lonely kid. He wished she would leave them the hell alone.
Her eyes became guarded when he took a seat next to his son, across the wooden table from her. He realized something of his feelings must have shown in his eyes. He forced a smile on his face and heartiness into his voice.
“Now this is what I call a real meal. You two caught these in the lake in—” He glanced at this watch “—couldn’t have taken more than an hour or so.”
“That’s right, Dad. You shoulda come down. The fish were really biting. I caught two with the same worm.”
Looking at Jeremy’s eager face, Jess felt the familiar twist of regret. He’d neglected his son since the divorce. It had been easier to stay away than fight with the boy’s mother over every single thing.
Excuses were a poor substitute for fathering, his conscience brusquely reminded him. Glancing up, he stared into eyes that were bluer than the summer sky. She saw too much, this reclusive widow who took the time to show a kid how to catch their supper. He bit back a curse at life’s complications, then helped himself to fish and fries.
“Here, Jeremy. This is the big one you brought in. You get to have him,” Kate said.
Their hostess forked the serving onto his son’s plate with an easy manner that implied a friendship was already established between the two.
He wondered how friendly she’d feel if she discovered he was there to investigate her family. One thing she didn’t know—her aunt, Megan’s mother, had been his sister. Half sister, actually.
Bunny and he had shared the same mother, but different fathers. His had been the drunk, hers the nice guy. But the good die young, and Bunny’s dad had died. Their mom had married his father a year later. His old man had been a loser.
Bunny had left home as soon as she got out of high school. She’d never returned. He didn’t blame her for that.
For the first year after her departure, he’d been so lonely he’d thought he would die. He’d loved her more than anyone. Later, he’d realized his big sis had been the one who had raised him. She’d sung songs and told him stories. Before she left, she had told him she would always love him better than anyone in the whole world. He’d lived on that love for years after his mom had died.
One thing—he’d always had doubts about that drowning accident. His sister had been an excellent swimmer. She’d taught him how, too, in the creek near their broken-down house. Also, there had been a man who had died, as well. Not her husband.
He couldn’t imagine Bunny not being faithful. She’d hated his father—her stepfather—for not being true to their mother.
There was a mystery tied to the scandal. He intended to find out what it was and what had really happened to Bunny, the only person he had ever trusted completely—
“Salad?” the widow asked sweetly, breaking into the dark thoughts that haunted him.
Kate would have been around nineteen, maybe twenty, when his sister and the man with her had died. He hadn’t learned about the deaths until he’d become a cop and started a search to find his missing relative. It was a shame Bunny’s husband, Sean Windom, had gotten himself killed in a car accident a few years later. Damned bad luck all around.
Jess wondered what Kate knew about the accident, but he wouldn’t ask. Not yet. First he wanted to do some undercover investigating before word got around and everyone closed up like clams at a change in the tide. He knew what these small-town people were like. They all banded together when trouble brewed and one of their own was involved. He wasn’t sure he suspected skullduggery, but it paid to be cautious.
“Thanks.” He managed a tight smile and took the bowl from her. She returned his smile in the same vein. It was as if she were taunting his determination to keep a careful distance.
She should have been inside his head last night. She might not be so smug if she knew the erotic thoughts that had run through his dreams, all of them about her and him.
“Good, huh, Dad?”
Jess relaxed somewhat when Jeremy broke the dangerous trend of thought with his innocent question. “Delicious.”
“I cooked the one you’re eating. Kate showed me how.”
“Well, that was…neighborly.”
He caught the smile she held back, and realized she knew he was fighting a totally irrational fury as well as an equally irrational attraction. He cursed silently, letting the bitterness flow, wanting it to drown the need this woman aroused, which he didn’t understand.
She was just a woman with gorgeous eyes that made him think of things he hadn’t let himself think on in years. He glanced around the yard, the garden, the supper the three of them were sharing in the warmth of the last rays of the sun. To an outsider he was sure they looked like the ideal family. Mom and dad and sonny makes three.
He had once wanted those very things, had dreamed of them, yearned for them, worked at making his life fit that ideal. That was when he’d been a stupid kid, one who thought he could make the world right. He knew better.
Kate and Jeremy were discussing the big ones that got away and arguing over whose had been the largest. He felt the pull of her deep within, in that place where he allowed no one.
No one.
He didn’t want any interference in his life, not at this stage of the game. He had all he needed to contend with at present, thank you very much.
Not that fate had ever cared much about his wishes.
Chapter Three
Kate heard the truck engine stop. Jeremy, turning the compost heap, looked up, too.
“That must be Dad.”
“Uh-huh.” She continued pulling weeds out of the row of lettuce while wondering about the detective’s trips. After four days of sleeping and lounging around, he had started leaving the ranch each morning at nine and returning around noon. This was the third day in a row for this behavior. She realized it was Thursday, and her guests had been in residence for a week.
And she was certainly no closer to knowing more about them. She refrained from questioning the son. It seemed sneaky.
For the past couple of days, the boy, instead of watching television, had taken to helping her in the garden while his father was gone. In the afternoons the two males fished or rowed around the lake in the john boat she and Jeremy had moved from the barn at the big house down to the lake at Megan’s urging. Her cousin had invited Jeremy to come up and ride with her when he felt like it.
Kate thought he was too bashful to go alone, but she hadn’t volunteered to accompany him. Jess didn’t seem to like seeing his son with her.
She felt the disapproving stare before she turned and met his eyes. Again she was reminded of shadows in a forest, deep green and filled with mysteries she knew nothing of.
“Hi,” she called out brightly, putting dazzle in her smile just because his expression was so dour.
He nodded. “Jeremy, I brought you a couple of burgers and some fries. You’d better eat while they’re still warm. The bag is in the truck.”
Jeremy leaned the shovel against the shed and loped off, casting a thanks to his father over his shoulder. Kate picked up the mound of weeds and tossed them on the compost heap. She realized she was hungry, too.
“Food sounds good. I ate a light breakfast.”
“You don’t need to skimp on food. You aren’t fat,” he said, his gaze harsh as he looked her over.
“I didn’t mean to indicate I was dieting.”
He raised one eyebrow as if questioning just what she did mean.
“What have I done to make you so disapproving?” she asked out of the blue, not realizing, until she spoke the words, how much his attitude irked her. “You look at me as if I’m a gangster who got off on a technicality.”
He shrugged. One hand rested on his right hip. He shifted his weight to that leg and rested the left one while he continued to peruse her old work shirt and the jeans which were out at the knees and full of holes elsewhere.
“Stay away from my son,” he said finally and turned his back on her, limping as he headed toward the apartment.
“What?” she said in disbelief. She jumped across three rows of vegetables, caught up with him and grabbed his arm. “Just what the heck did you mean by that?”
He rounded on her. “I mean neither I nor my kid needs you. We don’t need nurturing—”
“Maybe you don’t, but he does.”
“We’ll be gone as soon as I…” He stopped and eyed her with distaste. “By the end of the month,” he finished. “There’s no use in building attachments that won’t mean a damned thing.”
“You don’t want your son to have friends?” she demanded, incredulous at the idea. “Is that what you’re saying? You leave him here alone day after day and think he doesn’t need someone to talk to?”
A faint flush spread over his neck. “Staying here is his choice. As far as socializing goes, there’s no point in it, not with you or anyone here. We won’t be here that long.” He moved his arm, dislodging her grip.
“Maybe you don’t need friends, but he does.”
At his derisive snort, a devil took hold of her tongue. “Maybe he and Megan and I will become friends for life. Maybe he’ll come visit us in the summer—”
She got no further. He gripped her collar as if she were a suspect being brought to justice and yanked her on her toes until they were within kissing distance. But that wasn’t on his mind. He looked dangerous, threatening.
“If any of you does anything to hurt that boy, I’ll be all over you like a case of hives, you got that?”
She nodded slowly.
Jess saw fear flicker through her eyes before she tossed her head and flashed him an insolent smile.
“That was real original,” she drawled. “Something from an old detective movie you watched on TV this week?”
He had to give her credit for holding her ground, but that crack about his son needing friends got to him. He didn’t want Jeremy facing the same disappointments in life he had.
“I don’t want any expectations built up in the kid that won’t be met. Life is tough enough for the young.”
“The way it was for you?”
He cursed at the pity in her eyes even as he felt like crawling into those blue depths and drowning in the promise of fulfillment there. Damn. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. She made him think of things…well, he knew better.
Life held no surprises for him, good or bad. It served up the usual fare. He didn’t want his son to expect too much, then have his heart broken by lies and promises not kept.
“Just leave me and mine alone,” he reiterated and pushed away from her before he forgot the anger and yielded to the demands of his flesh. Need was in him, mixing with the pain of each step, driving him to fury….
He sighed and wiped the sweat from his face. Life had taken another swipe at him. He wanted Kate Mulholland with every fiber of his being. He wondered if she felt the same.
What the hell was he thinking?
Women. They made a man crazy. That’s what he needed to remember. That’s all. Nothing else.
Kate showered and dressed in a pair of old sweats and thick socks. The mountain air had grown chilly as soon as the sun had set. She dried her hair and slipped a terry-cloth band around her head to hold it back from her face.
Going downstairs, she padded out on the porch and sat in the swing. The fresh nip in the air toyed with her senses. The quarter moon was up. The western sky wasn’t quite dark. Touches of magenta and purple mingled with the blue of twilight.
