One Night in Weaver... (11 page)

“Is there even a dealership in the state?”

Vivian dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. “I leave those details to Stewart.” She reached Hayley and tucked her arm through hers. “Stewart St. James,” she added. “My attorney.”

“There’s an attorney here named Stewart St. James?”

“Don’t be dense, dear. He’s in Pittsburgh, naturally. He’s handled my affairs since the dawn of time.”

“I thought, um, Montrose told me you were at an appointment with your attorney.”

“An attorney.” Vivian made a face. “I would hardly call Tom Hook
my
attorney. I had to meet him in a barn. I feel certain he had cow dung on his boots.”

“Then why were you meeting with him?” Hayley pushed open the front door again for Vivian to enter the house.

“To sign my new will. Stewart sent Mr. Hook all of the details.” Vivian sailed into the kitchen. “Montrose, dear. Are you making yourself comfortable?”

Hayley winced at the response Vivian received to that. But Vivian just laughed as if she were used to him. And, Hayley supposed, after employing the man for twenty years, she probably was.

Nevertheless, Hayley chose not to follow Vivian into the kitchen. One brief dose of the chef was enough to last her for a while. She flipped disinterestedly through her mail until Vivian returned bearing one of Hayley’s fat coffee mugs that seemed even fatter with Vivian holding it as if it were a fine china cup.

“Sit,” Vivian bid, waving at the couch and chairs. “I’m glad you’re here. I have a lot of news.”

Hayley sank down on her usual chair. “A chef and a Rolls-Royce aren’t enough?”

“The Phantom is nothing.” Vivian dismissed the car as if it had come out of a Cracker Jack box. She sat on the couch and set down the mug. “About my will. Stewart, of course, will act as executor and he will continue to advise you when—”

“Whoa.” Hayley waved her hands. “Hold on. What do
I
have to do with your will?”

“I told you I would be leaving everything to you. Lock, stock and barrel, as Mr. Hook put it.” Vivian peered at her. “Are you certain you’re not under some effect from your young man leaving town?”

Hayley was certain that she
was
but she had no desire to discuss with her grandmother the fact that she kept imagining Seth was nearby, even though she had proof otherwise. Vivian would likely tell her that she was as crazy as she was beginning to feel.

“I remember you saying that, Vivian, but I didn’t think you were serious.”

“I would hardly joke about the matter,” Vivian assured her dryly. “At last estimate, my estate was well over seventy—”

“—I don’t want to know!” Feeling alarmed, Hayley pushed to her feet.

“For a psychologist, you’re doing a good job of acting like an ostrich,” Vivian pointed out. “But fine. If you don’t want to know yet what you’ll be worth, that’s your decision.” She shook her head as if the idea was unfathomable. “You’ll know soon enough.”

“Don’t even talk that way, Vivian. You’re going to be around for a long time.” She looked out the window at the carelessly parked luxury car. “Just, um, don’t drive any more than you have to, okay?”

“I haven’t enjoyed driving for years. I’ve been trying to find a driver, but so far, the few people I’ve spoken with have been entirely unsuitable.”

A chef. A driver. And Hayley also couldn’t forget the housekeeper that Vivian had mentioned wanting. Along with a “suitable” house.

“How are you advertising for this driver?”

“Mr. Bumble has been referring people to me.”

Bubba. The cook at Ruby’s was referring applicants to her grandmother.

“This is all quite...interesting,” Hayley said. “I’m a little concerned that you’re making a lot of plans so quickly. Are you that certain you want to go to such expense just to stay in Weaver when you already have everything you’re used to back in Pittsburgh?”

“Will you come home to Pittsburgh with me?” Vivian smiled slightly, obviously getting her answer from Hayley’s slack-jawed expression. “I thought not. You, like your father and all of the Templeton men before him, clearly have some fascination with the
Wild West
.” She emphasized the phrase with a good dollop of disdain. “It’s unfathomable to me, but there’s no accounting for taste.” She stood, smoothing the back of her short hair. “This is very simple, dear. I don’t care about Wyoming. I care to have my granddaughter near me. I will make things suitable here so that I may be near
you
.”

She couldn’t help but be touched, regardless of Vivian’s snootiness. It wasn’t up to Hayley to say how or where her grandmother should use her money. So she rose and gave her a quick hug. “Give some thought to keeping the Rolls,” she suggested. “I’m not sure how well it will perform come wintertime when there are a few feet of snow on the ground and the plow hasn’t made it through yet.”

“Perhaps.” Vivian tapped her lips, looking thoughtful. “We can discuss it over dinner.” She gave Hayley a droll look.

She snuck a look toward the kitchen doorway, beyond which she could hear Montrose’s occasional exclamations.

Not joyful ones, either.

“What sort of dinner did you have in mind?”

As if on cue, Montrose stormed into the living room. “I
cannot
cook in this kitchen. It is an atrocity.”

Hayley grimaced, wondering how much poor taste she’d be showing if she offered up the use of Casey and Jane’s gourmet kitchen. Jane had nearly bent over backward ensuring that Hayley felt at home there. But that was because she was a dear friend. And Jane had been desperate to find someone to watch their wayward puppy because everyone else in Casey’s family had refused.

“I’ve already made plans to meet Sam at Colbys,” she said. “Come with us.”

Montrose huffed and fled back to the kitchen, obviously offended.

Hayley lowered her voice to a whisper. “Vivian, are you sure you wouldn’t rather just hire Bubba on a permanent basis?”

Vivian laughed merrily. If anything, it seemed to Hayley that the more outrageous Montrose sounded, the happier her grandmother was. “In my day an attractive young woman didn’t voluntarily go around using a man’s name. But I suppose Colbys will do.”

Vivian’s capitulation was almost stunning. “Okay,” Hayley said, trying to cover her surprise. “I need to check in at my office for an hour or so. You won’t change your mind before I come back to get you?”

Vivian waved her hand. “I have a car now, remember? There’s no need to come back to get me when I can meet you there.”

Hayley eyed her grandmother. At least one person in Hayley’s family seemed to be making positive progress. “All right, then. We’ll meet at Colbys.”

Chapter Ten

“W
ho’s the old lady?”

Hayley eyed Jason. She’d just spent the past two hours attempting hypnosis with him—and failing as miserably as he’d warned her she would. “I beg your pardon?”

“The one with the expensive car when you and your cop friend went out last night.”

She wasn’t even aware that she’d slid her hand into her pocket until she felt the hard outline of the panic button. She couldn’t carry the thing into the room without hearing Seth’s parting words to her.

“The gorillas talking again?”

As usual, Jason sat on the bed with his back against the wall. It wasn’t so he could look at her where she was standing. It was so he never had his sight away from the door, which was directly behind her. “They’re always talking.”

And she didn’t want to be the subject of the guard’s chatter. Yes, it was people’s nature to talk. But it seemed to her that given their responsibilities, they could be a little more discreet around the man they were guarding. “She’s my grandmother.”

“Why are you playing around in the dungeon with me if you’re rich?”

“I’m not rich.” She didn’t want to think about Vivian’s intentions where her will was concerned. “And I’m not playing around.” She might as well have been, considering how little she was helping Jason. Though Jason had seemed calmed by the park outing—talking about simple things like the books she’d delivered to him and his craving for lemon meringue pie—it hadn’t been as productive as she’d hoped. The fresh air certainly hadn’t helped him sleep any better than usual. And this afternoon, trying to guide him back to what should have been simple childhood memories had been an outright failure.

“Then why are you here? Why keep coming? The money they pay you that good?”

She resisted the urge to look at her watch and sat back down in her chair. “What are you hoping to hear, Jason? That I’m here for the paycheck? That I’m inherently nosy and like poking a stick at people’s minds and emotions? Or that I’m here because I believe in you?”

He looked away and she sighed, knowing she’d hit on the truth. “I believe you experienced something so deeply traumatic in Central America that your mind isn’t ready yet to let those memories back in. I can’t tell you that I believe you’re innocent, Jason. But I
also
can’t tell you I believe you were responsible for your colleagues’ deaths. My purpose here is to help you regain the memories. Not only of what happened then, but of the rest of your life, as well. The sister who is only a name to you. The woman you married. The parents who raised you. You had a life. When the need to let all of that back in surpasses the need to suppress it, you’ll remember.”

“Who is Banyon?”

She felt herself pale and wanted to curse because, of course, her patient noticed. “What have you heard about him?”

“He’s AWOL.”

She started. “What?”

“Didn’t know that, did you?” He waited a beat. “He was supposed to go to Denver. Never showed.”

Her mouth felt dry. “And that’s of interest to you because...?”

“Because he’s of interest to you.” Jason swung his legs off the bed so abruptly that she was startled. But all he did was sit forward, his hands clenched between his thighs. “Don’t worry,” he muttered. “I’m not the proverbial freaking patient falling for his doctor. But you’re the only friend I’ve got.”

“I’m not your friend. Nor am I your enemy.” And despite all of her best efforts, there was something about the troubled man that tugged at her sympathy. She stood and pulled her hand from her pocket—and the button. “You have more people trying to help you than you know, Jason.” Tristan Clay and Coleman Black being the most important. As for Seth...she wasn’t going to be foolish enough to assume anything about him.

She tapped her knuckles on the door. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“They’re saying he’s AWOL because of you.”

She didn’t react. But she did vow then and there to suggest to Tristan that he remind his guards to mind their tongues.

“Watch out for him.”

Hayley wished the guard would hurry up and open the door. She knocked on it again. “He said the same about you.” The door finally opened.

“Then maybe he’s smarter than both of us.” Jason’s dark voice followed her as she left.

She didn’t wait to hear the heavy door shut again as she went into the observation room. “I want to see the log,” she told Adam, who was manning the room.

He looked surprised but immediately handed the book to her. She flipped back through the pages. Seth’s name was there several times; his scrawl seemed to scream impatience on the white sheets. His sign-ins stopped, though, a week ago. She traced her finger over the last of his entries. The rest of the lines were filled, more or less neatly, with the comings and goings of the guards and, less often, Tristan Clay.

“Bring your guest a steak from Colbys for dinner tonight,” she told Adam. “And lemon meringue for dessert.” She retrieved her briefcase and left, not particularly caring what the guard would make of her uncharacteristic orders.

She returned to her office and wrote up her notes on her session with Jason, held her usual weeknight support group and finally locked up the office for the day and headed to Casey and Jane’s.

She let herself in through the front door. Moose didn’t greet her as he usually did, and alarm raced through her. Torn between calling for him—just to prove she was being nervous over nothing when he would come bounding toward her with his ears and tongue flopping—and retreating to her car, all she could do was stand there in the dark foyer, frozen.

“It’s all right, Doc.” The deep, soft voice came out of the shadows, and her knees went weak.

From out of the shadows, Seth took shape in front of her. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She fumbled with the light switches on the wall; finally finding the one that controlled the lamp on the entry table against the wall, she flipped it and sucked in another breath.

He was dressed in camouflage pants and shirt. But it was his expression that looked hellish. As if he hadn’t slept a minute since he’d left her in this very house with Tristan and Coleman Black. “What are you doing here?” Her tone was abrupt. “How’d you get in?”

Where have you been?

Why did you leave?

She asked neither.

“You left the back door unlocked.” He didn’t smile. “You shouldn’t do that.”

She was fairly certain that a locked door wouldn’t keep Seth from entering anywhere he wanted to go.

Or from exiting.

She carefully set her briefcase on the table. “Where’s Moose?”

“Out back. I ran him around the yard for a while to tire him out. He was pretty excited when I got here.”

The puppy wasn’t the only one. She swallowed. Her mouth felt unaccountably dry. “What are you doing here?” she asked again.

“You’re running out of time with Jason.”

“Of course,” she murmured. “Everything keeps coming back to Jason. That’s why you’re back as unexpectedly as you disappeared. Not...not because of me, but—”

Seth’s hands suddenly latched around her arms and he yanked her close, covering her mouth with his in a hard, fast kiss.

Just as abruptly, he set her away from him again. “Everything is about you,” he said flatly.

Her lips were stinging and her legs were shaking, but she forced herself to walk past him into the kitchen as if her world weren’t careening around in utter confusion. “You’re supposed to be in Denver. At least that’s what I’ve heard.” From her patient, which was a painful irony as far as she was concerned. “So why aren’t you?”

“Because if I’m in Denver, I can’t keep you safe.”

“You left,” she said flatly. “The only one I need to feel safe from is you.”

The shadows under his eyes seemed to get darker. “I didn’t leave.”

She gaped. “You don’t expect me to take that seriously, do you?”

“I’ve been in Weaver all along,” he said evenly. “I just needed to make sure it looked like I’d left. So nobody can later suggest your judgment about McGregor had been influenced.”

She shook her head. “You’re warning me about him. He’s warning me about you.” She ignored the way Seth’s jaw tightened even more at that. “What do you mean I’m running out of time?”

“Tristan’s...custody...of McGregor has an expiration date. The federal government wants him back, and they’re getting impatient.”

“Tristan hasn’t told me that. You expect me to believe he told
you
when you’re not supposed to be involved in any of this at all?”

“There are other sources than Tristan.”

“Comforting,” she said facetiously.

“This time next week, McGregor will be gone. So whatever magic tricks you’ve got in your bag, you’d better pull them out now.”

“There’s no magic. With time—” She broke off and turned away. She flipped on the outside light and spotted Moose sleeping in the bed of petunias. “Were you in the park yesterday?”

He waited a beat. “I was nearby.”

Her stomach hollowed out a little. “I can’t decide what’s more disturbing. Thinking that I was imagining you there or knowing that I wasn’t. Have you been following me all this time? Watching me?”

“I’ve been watching him.” His voice was flat. “Yes. I could see you in the park yesterday. I was prepared to take him out if he made a move against you.”

She trembled. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I was there with a sniper’s rifle, Doc. And I don’t miss.”

The image that hurtled into her mind stole her breath. “Jason’s not a danger to me,” she whispered.

“I know you think that. But I’m still not willing to take that on faith. I’m not going to rest until he’s gone from here once and for all.”

“Then you should be glad my time with him is running out,” she said huskily. “So why warn me at all?”

“Because you’re his shrink. You deserve to know.”

“So you’ll tell me the truth, even though you’re prepared to shoot him?”

“I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to keep you safe. If I could stop you from ever getting within five feet of him, I would. But I know that’s not going to happen. So, instead...I...watch.” His voice went hoarse. “And hope to hell I don’t miss if it comes down to that.”

She shuddered wildly. “You’re scaring me.”

“Then that makes two of us.” He stepped forward and gently wrapped his arms around her. He didn’t try to tell her that everything was fine when it was so patently obvious that it wasn’t. He just held her. Until her shaking stopped and her resistance ebbed and she simply leaned into him. Into this man whose basic need was to protect.

And then he drew her upstairs and into the guest bathroom. Wordlessly, he turned on the shower, letting the water heat up while he unzipped her skirt and pushed it to her feet, and then worked the buttons down the front of her blouse free and slid it from her shoulders. When he turned to check the water, she stepped out of her flats as well as the skirt around her feet and pulled her bedraggled ponytail loose. He stepped behind her and she felt his wet fingers undoing the hooks of her bra. He tugged her panties down and without looking at her, pulled back the clear shower glass door and urged her beneath the hot, soothing spray.

But when he went to close the shower door again she stopped him. “You, too.”

His jaw canted slightly. “You need—”

“—you,” she cut him off. “I need you.” The admission flowed out of her as surely as the water flowed over her shoulders, with no hope of being shut off as easily. “You don’t have to make love to me. I just don’t want you to go.”

In answer, he tugged his T-shirt over his head. Unlaced his combat boots and pulled them off. Then came his socks. Then the camouflage pants, which on him were part of his history and not some macho fashion choice. When his clothes were piled among hers, he stepped into the shower with her and closed the door.

“You looked like a soldier,” she murmured.

“I was a soldier. Now I’m just a man.” His arm brushed hers as he reached for her bottle of shampoo and moved around her until his broad back blunted most of the shower spray. “Turn around.”

She turned, swiping her hand over her wet face, and went still when she felt his hands on her head.

He wasn’t washing his own hair. He was washing hers.

She blinked hard against a sudden rush of tears. “You were young when you enlisted.”

“Eighteen.” His fingertips massaged her scalp.

He’d told her he’d served for fifteen years and been out for five. “So you’re thirty-eight?”

“Yep.”

He worked his way lower, around her occipital, and she let out a long breath of pleasure.

“After the past week,” he murmured, “I feel a helluva lot older.”

Her head fell back a little. “When you were a ranger did you—” She broke off, not sure she should even ask. “Travel a lot?” she finished instead.

His hands moved to her shoulders, and he switched spots with her to rinse the suds from her hair. Which also left them facing one another. “Ask what you really want to ask, Doc.”

She stared up into his face. His eyelashes were spiked with water, making them seem even darker. “How do you know that’s not what I was going to ask?”

His fingers finally slid away from her hair. “I traveled a lot.” He reached for the bar of soap and began working up a lather, but his eyes stayed on hers. “And yesterday wasn’t the first time I’ve been prepared to put a bullet in somebody. It wasn’t the first time I didn’t have to. Unfortunately, more often than not, I did have to.”

“How did you cope?”

He slid his sudsy hands over her shoulders. Down her arms, up the insides of her elbows. “You’re the shrink. How does a soldier cope when they’ve killed another?”

“You weren’t just a soldier. You’re a person. I want to know how
you
coped.”

“By knowing I did what needed to be done to keep somebody else from dying. By completing the mission.” He slid the bar of soap over her hips. Worked it down the outsides of her thighs. Her calves. Then he turned her again to face the water and worked his way up again.

When he reached the small of her back, his hands slowed. “Move your hair.”

She pulled her wet hair in front of her shoulder and his soapy hands slid slowly up her back. Steam was rising around them, curling up the glass enclosure and sneaking out above the top. Even though his touch was gentle, as carefully unprovocative as it could ever be, she still felt steam rising inside her.