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Their contents stunned him. He closed his eyes, lowered his head. “Oh, God,” he muttered.
Victoria paused halfway up the stairs. He heard her steps cease, heard her whisper, “Darling? I couldn’t hear. What is it?”
He lifted his head, met her eyes. “It’s River.”
Her hand flew to her lips.
“He’s…he’s dead, baby.”
“Oh, Ethan!” Victoria ran back down the stairs and flung herself into her husband’s arms, wrapping her own tight around his neck. He let the phone fall to the floor and held her, felt her body jerking softly with her sobs. “How? Why?”
“Looks like an accident. Apparently, he fell in the bathroom. Hit his skull.”
She shook her head where it rested against his shoulder. He felt her tears soaking through the fabric of his shirt. “Poor River. God, poor River.”
Ethan nodded. “At least…at least he’s not suffering anymore,” he told her.
She sniffled. “Maybe…maybe he and Steph can both rest in peace now. Maybe…maybe they’ll find each other again—somewhere.”
“God, I hope so,” he said.
She lifted her head from his shoulder. “Do you have to go in?”
He shook his head. “In the morning. There will be an inquest, an autopsy. But in the morning.” He turned her to the side, put his arm around her shoulders and held her close beside him as he started up the stairs.
“I miss them,” she said. “The four of us, we used to be so close. We haven’t had friends like them since—since Stephanie…”
“I know. I miss them, too.”
She lowered her head to his shoulder. “Why do you suppose such terrible things happen to such wonderful people?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know, baby. I wish I did.”
Jax had no intention of closing her eyes, but at some point she must have, because when she opened them again, the sun was beaming in through the living room windows and the steady, if distant, call of the alarm clock was chirping away in the upstairs bedroom. The fire had died down, though the mound of glowing hot coals still threw off a lot of heat. The makeshift bed on the floor was empty, and the blanket that had been over the stranger was tucked snugly around her instead. The shoes he’d left on the hearthstone to dry were gone. So, she realized, were his clothes.
Her sweatpants, and the nightshirt she’d loaned him, were folded and stacked atop the bedding. He’d kept the socks and the hooded sweatshirt. She was glad of it. He’d freeze his ass off outside without so much as a jacket.
She searched the house, just for the hell of it, even though she knew the man was long gone. He hadn’t even told her his name.
Jax wanted to know who he was, and what he was running from. She really ought to report his presence to Frankie when she saw her this morning, she thought. But she hadn’t made up her mind to do so. Having her own private mystery to solve was invigorating, and something deep inside her was telling her to hold off, to learn a little more before blowing the stranger’s cover. The memory of the way he’d held her, of the sight of him nude by firelight, may have contributed to that notion, but not a lot. She wasn’t a guy, after all.
She gathered up the blankets and pillows, and the still-damp towels, and carried the pile upstairs, hanging the towels on the racks in the bathroom, and making up the bed. Then she grabbed some clean clothes, clothes suitable for work in a small-town police department, or at least clothes she hoped were suitable. She wasn’t on duty, so she couldn’t really show up in her uniform. So she picked out a pair of navy trousers with a neat crease, a white cotton button-down blouse and a navy blazer. She tucked the clothes into a bag, along with fresh undergarments, her shoulder holster and her .45, then was ready to head over to her parents’ place for breakfast and a shower.
As she stepped out onto the porch, a noise made her jump a little, but a quick look under the porch told her it was only the big dog, downing the entire bowl of dog food she’d left for him. “You’re a noisy eater,” she quipped, and glanced at his backside. “Figures. You’re a male.”
He stopped eating when she spoke, looking at her as warily as—as the stranger had last night, she thought.
“Hey there, fella,” Jax said softly. “You don’t have to be afraid. It’s all right.” She held out a hand, figuring it might be more appealing if there was a steak clutched in her grip, but tried anyway. “Come on. Come say hello.”
The dog stared at her, even took a single step forward. But then he lunged past her and loped away, out of sight.
Jax shrugged, put her things in the car and popped the trunk. Then she went back to get the dish—the dog had eaten every last crumb—and refilled it with fresh dog food.
“At least he’s getting fed,” she muttered, and thought briefly how malnourished her stranger from last night had looked, sitting naked in front of the fire. That “naked in front of the fire” image just wasn’t going to quit, was it? she wondered with a smile. What the hell. She was human and straight, and he…he was something. Even though she could see his ribs, his shoulder blades, he was something.
She pushed the thought from her mind and took the dog’s bowl back to the porch, only this time, instead of putting it underneath, she set it on the porch itself, hoping to lure the animal closer.
Then she took one last look around, unsure which stray she sought. Seeing no sign of either one of them, she got into her car and drove to her parents’ place.
River had awakened groggy, to find himself warm as toast in a bundle of blankets on the floor, in front of a dying fire. As he sat up, searching his memory for clues what he was doing there, his gaze fell on the woman in the corner. She leaned back against the wall, a pillow cushioning her, her head cocked at an angle that would probably result in her having a stiff neck all day. The red-orange rays of the rising sun painted her face in brushstrokes of light and shadow. Long blond hair framed her face. She had a small nose, round high cheekbones, and the neck of a swan. Deceptive, her fragile looks. She’d knocked him flat on his ass last night. As his gaze slid over her small form, it stopped on the place where her hand rested atop her folded legs, because it held a gun. A .45.
He closed his eyes slowly, and his memory of the night before returned. He examined that memory thoroughly, in search of gaps. He remembered taking refuge here, in his former home. He’d thought it was empty. He remembered waking to find her standing in the bedroom shining a flashlight in his face, demanding to know who he was. And he remembered, vividly, the way she’d taken him out when he’d tried to lunge past her.
He’d escaped into the cold, snowy night, only to hunch in the woods, wondering where the hell he was going to go. And then he’d seen her, creeping out of the house, looking for him, shining that damn light around.
He’d backed off, got out of her range and started to walk away. He still hadn’t known where he would go—he only knew he needed to put some distance between himself and the curious woman. But then he’d made the mistake of glancing back, just once more, and he’d seen her walking out across the frozen pond as if she didn’t even know what it was. And then he realized she probably didn’t.
When she went through the ice, every instinct he’d ever possessed kicked into high gear. He didn’t think, he simply reacted, the way any veteran cop would. By the time he stopped to think, he was already on his belly, arms plunging into the icy water in search of the woman.
God, when he thought about how close it had been…He got her out, only to go through himself. And she’d refused to leave him—pulled him out, her tiny body showing its hidden strength and power. Then she’d insisted he come into the house with her to get warm, even brought him dry clothes to put on.
He’d looked down at himself as he remembered, noting the too-small sweatpants he wore. Then he looked again at the woman, and another memory came. The rush of emotion that had swamped him in his drugged, overwrought state, probably aggravated by nearly freezing to death, and by exhaustion and by hunger, and by being there in that house again. He’d clung to the woman. He might even have wept.
He remembered her hesitation and then slow acceptance. The way her hands had moved through his hair and her voice, deep and comforting somehow, had told him it was okay.
It wasn’t, of course. It never would be. But it had been nice to be in a woman’s arms. Human contact, physical touch had vanished from his life. It had been limited to being manhandled by orderlies or injected by nurses. No one touched mental patients any more than was absolutely necessary. He hadn’t been aware how much he’d missed that, being touched, touching back.
Even now, something in him whispered that he could touch her again. That if he sat there beside her, and wrapped her in his arms, she might not turn away. Amazing, to think she wouldn’t—that she hadn’t. He was a stranger to her, and she wasn’t gullible or naive enough to trust a stranger just because he’d pulled her from the icy jaws of certain death. The gun she held was proof enough of that.
He slid slowly out of the bundle of blankets and took his own clothing from the fireplace screen. It was dry. The knife he’d taken from the orderly was still tucked deep in the pocket of the thin pants. She hadn’t found it. His brain was functioning at a better level than it had been last night, and it occurred to him that he ought to stash that blade somewhere, in case it still had the dead orderly’s prints on it. It would be the only proof, beyond his word, that he’d killed the man in self-defense. The longer he carried the blade around, the more likely the prints would get rubbed off.
He left it where it was, for the moment, in the pocket of the pants as he removed his borrowed ones and put them on. He took off the hooded sweatshirt and the nightshirt she’d loaned him. Put on his own T-shirt, then the uniform shirt over it, and after a moment’s hesitation, pulled the hood back on over them both. The shoes were dry, so he put them on, as well. He added two blocks of wood to the fire and set the screen in place. Then he took the blanket she’d left wrapped around him, walked across the room to where she lay, and bent low to spread it gently over her.
For a long moment he knelt there, looking at her. She’d given him something last night. A couple of things. A chance to call up the cop that still lived deep inside him—the man he’d believed was long dead. A chance to prove to himself that he was still a human being, and maybe not an entirely bad one.
And her touch. Her embrace. Her warmth and her soothing voice.
He wondered if she would ever know how much those things had meant.
Finally, he turned away from her and crept out of the house. He had work to do. A long-buried truth to uncover. And he was damned if he even knew where to begin, but he supposed the first thing was to find a hideaway. A place to live, to sleep, to heal. And food. Damn, he needed food. And clothes to wear. Those would be today’s missions, he thought. Today, he would work on covering his basic human needs while the drugs worked their way out of his system.
After that, he’d begin digging into the secrets of his past.
So he walked—walked for hours over back roads, in search of an empty barn or hovel he where he could hole up—but he didn’t find anything. Giving that up, he walked to the very edge of town, thought about lingering in the laundromat until someone left some clothes unattended, and maybe snatching a pair of jeans or an outing shirt that would fit him. But he didn’t dare get any closer to town than that. He didn’t know if they were looking for him yet. And there was nowhere he’d be able to go where people in this town wouldn’t recognize him. His story had been a big one almost two years ago. God, had it really been that long? Retired NYPD cop goes bad. Everyone in town must have been talking about it.
Hell, he didn’t have a dime to his name. Nowhere to go. If his bloodstream wasn’t so clogged up with a year’s worth of psychotropic drugs, he might be able to come up with a way to scam a meal, but as it was, it was useless.
It’s not useless, dammit. I can do this. Hell, I have to do this.
Swallowing his uncertainty, he pulled the hood up over his head and walked into the town of Blackberry. He would do what he needed to do, make it fast and get back out of town as quickly as possible.
Dawn rose early, and crept through the house while everyone was still asleep. There were no guests at the inn this week. She had the place to herself. Bryan was sound asleep in his room, Beth and Joshua asleep in theirs. She’d been given the guest room of her choice, and she’d deliberately chosen one at the far end of the hall, away from everyone else. Aside from a few raised eyebrows, no one had commented on her pick. She needed privacy. She never knew when they would show up.
Nothing so far today. That was good. A day without them was a good day. As good a day as she got anymore.
She padded downstairs, into the kitchen in her gorilla slippers and plush powder-blue robe, made a pot of coffee and sat at the table to watch it brew. The sun was shining. That couldn’t be a bad thing.
When she heard footsteps, she thought someone else was up, and hoped it wasn’t Bryan. The two of them alone in the kitchen of the sleepy inn would be too intimate. He didn’t understand her withdrawal. How could he?
She stiffened her resolve—it wasn’t easy—as she filled a cup with the heavenly smelling brew, and turned to see who was about to join her in the kitchen.
He stood in the doorway, staring at her, and though he didn’t look the same way he had the last time she’d seen him, as he’d drawn his last breaths, she knew him. She knew his eyes. He had the most piercing, deep brown eyes she’d ever seen. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. He lifted a hand, took a single step toward her, and the cup fell from her boneless hand. The sound of it shattering seemed to break the paralysis, and her scream broke free of its prison in her chest.
She turned her back, covered her eyes. “No, no, no. I won’t see you, I don’t want you. Go away, dammit, go away!”
A hand fell on her shoulder, and she lurched away from it so fast she tumbled over a chair, tipping it sideways and landing on the floor beside it.
“Dawn, it’s okay. It’s okay, babe.”
Blinking through her tears, she looked up. It was Bryan, bending over her, looking terrified and sleepy and disheveled. And behind him, Beth and Josh came running into the kitchen, and Josh appeared ready for battle.
“What happened?” Beth asked. “Dawnie, are you okay?”
She blinked, looking past them, her gaze darting from one end of the kitchen to the other. But he wasn’t there. Mordecai Young, her father, wasn’t there. He was dead. Gone.
“I…I think I was sleepwalking,” she managed to say.
She saw them, saw them all looking from the broken cup and spilled coffee on the floor to the nearly full pot on the counter, to the robe and slippers she had put on. They didn’t believe her.
She didn’t blame them.
4
Jax sipped her coffee and actively resisted the temptation to revisit the platter of sausage links on her mother’s perfectly set kitchen table.
“Have some more, hon. You’re too thin.”
She smiled. Her mother would say she was too thin no matter what her current weight was. Though, in Jax’s considered opinion, her mom could use a few pounds of padding. The woman had the body of a thirty-year-old. Only her face showed the signs of her age—or, more likely, the stresses of her past. You didn’t see it in her blond hair. She kept it colored, cut and styled to perfection.
“I couldn’t eat another bite, Mom. Besides, I have to get into town. Don’t want to be late my first day.”
“Oh.” Mariah frowned. “Oh, well, then, never mind.”
Jax slanted a look from her mother to her father, who shook his head. “Don’t bother Cassie today, hon. I told you, I can take that stuff over for her and drop the other things off, as well.”
Frowning, and curious, Jax said, “What stuff?”
“Your mother has an ice chest packed full of food for you, is all,” her father said. “Thinks you might starve to death in a house without groceries, and a whole mile from the nearest store.” He pointed to a cooler in the corner of the room. It sat right beside a box of clothing.
Jax smiled, because he’d nailed her mom so well. “I can take it for you.”
“No, I won’t hear of it,” Ben said. “I’ve got to go into town anyway, take that box of castoffs to the Goodwill.”
An idea crept into her brain as she followed his gaze to the huge cardboard box that sat in the corner near the cooler. Piles of folded clothes filled it. She tried to ignore the notion, and couldn’t. “What sorts of castoffs?”
“Clothes. Shoes. Your mother didn’t throw a thing of mine out the entire time I was…away. Kept everything. Most of those don’t even fit me anymore. Came across them in the attic, when we were going through it looking for things you could use for the house.”
Mariah shot him a look. “Ben, I asked you a dozen times to sort those things before we ever moved out here. Had you got around to it when you should have, we wouldn’t have ended up packing them and moving them with us.”
“I told you I didn’t need them.”
“There were perfectly good things in there!”
Jax held up a hand. Even though their bickering was good-natured, she didn’t like it. And she supposed it was silly, after all this time, for her to still be afraid they’d end up splitting like so many couples did after a tragedy. But silly or not, she did worry. Her mother seemed to have recovered, for the most part. But her father—God, there was still something dark and enormous that haunted her father.
Those two had lost a daughter. They’d survived her father’s lengthy prison sentence. And yet they’d stayed together. But they were not the same. Neither of them was.
Jax wasn’t, either. She’d been the youngest daughter, a tough little hellion, but still…She had become the oldest, abandoned by her big sister, and by her dad, whom she’d thought would always be there for her. She’d become a caregiver to her mother—and there had been no one left to be a caregiver to her. So she’d grown up and she’d done it fast. Hadn’t done her a bit of harm, either, she reminded herself, just in case a hint of self-pity tried to creep in. She didn’t believe in that kind of garbage.
Hell, it amazed her how solid her parents’ relationship must be to have weathered so much. And yet there was something lurking underneath. Something waiting, ready to pounce and ruin it all. And she thought they both sensed it, even if they didn’t know what it was.
“I’ll be glad to take those things for you,” she said, breaking free of the silence into which she’d fallen. “Really. It’s no trouble.”
Her father frowned. “Only if you’re sure.”
“Do you need me to phone Frankie for you, hon?” her mother asked. “I could explain you might be a few minutes late.”
Jax laughed. She couldn’t help it. She lowered her head and laughed.
“Well…what did I say that’s so funny?” Mariah demanded, sounding defensive.
Ben patted her hand. “Honey, our daughter is a grown-up woman. She doesn’t need you to write an excuse to her teacher.”
Mariah pressed her lips together.
“It’ll be fine, Mom. If I leave right now, I can still make it on time. That Taurus knows what to do when I stomp on the gas, and the roads are blessedly bare.”
“Don’t you even think about breaking any speed limits, Cassie,” her mother warned.
Jax got to her feet, gave her mom a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for breakfast. It was fabulous.”
“You barely touched it.”
One egg, two sausage links, a scoop of home fries and a pancake were apparently her mother’s idea of barely touching. “I’ll see you later, Mom.”
Her father grabbed the ice chest and carried it out to her car, sliding it into the back seat. Jax carried the box of clothes, and even as she loaded them in and closed the door, she knew she wasn’t going to take them to the Goodwill in town.
She was going to leave them on the porch of her home, right beside the cooler of food. It was stupid. The scrawny hunk was long gone, and she would probably never see him again. Then again, she couldn’t very well justify leaving a warm bed and food for a stray dog and not doing as much for a stray human being. Particularly one who’d saved her life.
