Revenge (31 page)

The door swung open to reveal a tall blond woman who looked bone weary. Her hair was damp from a recent shower and she was wearing a pink-and-gray sweat suit. Without a trace of makeup, she was still beautiful. “Can I help you?”

“I—I'm looking for Jenner McKee.”

The woman's eyes moved from Beth's face to Cody's and she managed a smile that didn't quite touch her eyes. “You must be Beth Crandall. I'm Skye Donahue.” She extended her hand.

Juggling Cody, Beth took the long fingers in her own. “Should I know you?”

“I'm engaged to Max and—” She yawned and placed her hand over her mouth. “Forgive me, I spent the last twenty-four hours on my feet at the clinic and then worked the emergency room at Dawson Memorial Hospital. Jenner's downstairs in the basement. He doesn't know it yet, but I intend to evict him, at least until the place is finished. I think the board of health and the city wouldn't much like it if they knew he took up residence in a half-finished set of rooms.” She let her eyes stray to Cody again. “So this is Jenner's boy?”

“You already know?” Beth asked, and something akin to fear stole through her heart.

Her concern must have registered on her face because Skye said, “Don't worry, it's not common knowledge—not yet. Except for the McKees. I don't think the rest of the town knows anything. But it will. It's just a matter of time. I only know because Max and Jenner spoke earlier today, and I talked to Max on the phone when I went off duty.” She stretched and sighed, her gaze lingering on Cody, and a sadness seemed to come over her. “Go on downstairs—the door's over there on the other side of the foyer. I think Jenner's expecting you.”

With Cody still in her arms, Beth steeled herself for another confrontation with Jenner and hurried down the stairs. Before she could knock, the door at the base of the steps was thrown open. Jenner stood in front of her, leaning against the wall. She watched his throat tighten when he gazed upon his son.

“So you're Cody,” he said as she walked into the room. She felt Cody cling to her a little more tightly.

“He's a little...nervous about being here,” Beth said. The apartment wasn't small, as it had once housed a reception area, an office and three examining rooms. But it had been gutted and now was one room devoid of any kind of flooring except old tile that showed the outlines of the former rooms.

“Don't blame you, Cody,” Jenner said. “Makes me nervous, too.”

“Who are you?” Cody asked, his face a mask of concentration, as if he, though only two, could feel the tension between his mother and this stranger. Jenner's eyes held Beth's an instant.

“A friend of your ma's. You can call me...” His brows drew over his eyes. “Just call me Jenner.”

“Funny name.”

Jenner's lips twisted into a smile. “That it is. Actually, my name's General, can you beat that? My dad...” He lost his train of thought again, but cleared his throat. “He gave me that god-awful handle, but Mom, she changed it to Jenner. Not much better, but I can live with it.”

“General's in the army.”

Jenner snorted. “What do you know about the army?”

“Television,” Beth supplied as Cody, relaxing a little, wiggled to be let down.

“Don't watch too much of that,” Jenner warned. “It'll rot your brain. A boy like you... well, you need to be out playing in the creek, building forts, riding ponies—”

“He's only two.” Beth bristled a little. Jenner had no right whatsoever to insinuate that she was depriving her boy.

“Yeah, but he should start young.”

“Cody and I live in an apartment, Jenner, not even as big as this one.” She glanced around. “It does have more than one room and it is finished, but there's no yard or barn or creek. The nearest water is the Willamette River, where the water rushes over the falls in Oregon City, and when he needs to go outside we go to the park or over to his baby-sitter's house. She's got a fenced yard and—”

“Puppies!” Cody supplied. “Lots! A new one. Barney.”

“Is that right?” Jenner's smile suddenly seemed tight. “You ever ridden a horse?”

Cody shook his head.

“Ever caught a tadpole?”

“I told you he's too young,” Beth insisted, exasperated now.

“You know what a crawdad is?”

Cody's little lips pursed together in concentration. “Nor.”

This was worse than Beth had expected. Jenner didn't bother to hide the censure in his gaze. “We live in the city,” she explained.

“That's a problem.”

“I don't think so. And it looks to me like you're in town now, too.”

“It's only temporary.”

“That's what I tell myself.” She felt her blood begin to boil. Jenner McKee could be the most maddening man in the world. She knew that much about him. He lived by his own code, threw convention to the wind, and didn't give a damn about what anyone else thought about him. Including her.

His jaw muscles tightened and he shoved a hand into his back pocket. “You had breakfast?”

“Pancakes at Grandma's!”

“Well then, how about I buy you two some lunch? It's nearly noon.”

“I don't know—”

“Hell, Beth, that's why you're here, isn't it? For us to get to know each other?”

“I'm here because I was threatened,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. My eighty-seven-year-old grandma scared the living hell out of you and you hightailed it right over here.”

“No say hell,” Cody said, and Jenner's gaze narrowed on his son.

“Seems your boy has himself some manners.”

“I hope so.”

“Maybe I can change that. Come on, Cody, let's have a hamburger and French fries and a milk shake, then we'll go out to the ranch and you can ride a horse.”

“A what? No way!” Beth said.

Jenner turned and his eyes sparked with determination. “You gonna fight me on this, Beth?” he drawled.

“He's too little.”

“Bullsh—” He caught Cody staring at him and bit off the rest of his curse. “I was in the saddle at his age.”

“He's not you!”

Jenner's expression turned to granite. “Isn't he? Well, well, Ms. Crandall. You'd better make up your mind.” He reached for his Stetson, which hung from a nail near one of the ground-level windows offering only a rodent's view of shrubbery. With a cold smile he added, “Either this here boy is mine, or he ain't, but I'm damn sure he isn't both. So, Lady, you'd better decide which it is and get your story straight.”

B
eth couldn't decide whether to hate the man or love him.

From her side of the booth at the Shady Grove Café, she slid a glance in his direction. His hair was mussed, his hat hung on the post at the end of the bench seat. He still looked as hard and dangerous as the outcropping of red rock that rimmed the mountains surrounding the town.

She decided that hating him was a whole lot easier and safer than loving him. Ever since she'd shown up at the Rocking M, he'd berated and degraded her and she was getting fed up. She didn't need or want the abuse.

As for loving him—it was a fool's dream, an old, silly notion that she kept rekindling because of the stupid reason that he was Cody's father. Big deal. So he'd sired her boy; that was no reason for childish fantasies about him.

An ancient air-conditioning unit rattled and wheezed, losing the battle with the smoke and heat that wafted from the kitchen. Beth swirled a straw in her diet soda and watched as Cody, his little face beaming with delight, wiggled happily in a booster seat set on the worn Naugahyde. He alternately sipped from his strawberry milk shake and dunked French fries in a glob of catsup Jenner had plopped onto his plate.

For Cody's sake, Beth managed a tight smile, but her nerves were stretched as tight as newly strung barbed wire. Jenner, one long leg stretched into the aisle, regarded his son with an amicable enough expression, outwardly seeming to enjoy himself. But his cold blue eyes betrayed him. He regarded the boy carefully as if looking for flaws, and studied Cody's facial features as if trying to find clues to the boy's parentage.

Only when Jenner glanced at Beth, when his gaze pierced hers, did she see the anger, the accusations, the repressed fury that boiled inside.

Beth ignored the hostile glare even though Jenner seemed to be silently warning her that if Cody did prove to be his son, she was in for the battle of her life. Playing idly with her straw, she worried that it was a battle she might lose. Her heart shredded a little when she noticed how easily Cody responded to this man he'd never met before.

Jenner taught Cody how to blow the paper off his straw and make a foam mustache by drinking the milk shake right from the glass. He even let Cody wear his cowboy hat.

“That's right, Cody,” Jenner said, his eyes moving from the boy to Beth. “Maybe I'll take you riding, and someday we can even go camping out by the stream at the ranch.”

“Don't,” Beth said under her breath as Cody picked up his child-size burger. “There are no maybes when you're two years old. Either you make a promise you intend to keep or you hold your tongue.”

“I keep all my promises.” His voice was low and steady, his eyes so intense that her stomach seemed to be suddenly filled with a swarm of restless butterflies.

“Do you?” she asked.

“Every last one.” His jaw was set, his lips a thin line of determination, and Beth was swept away as the memory of making love to him flashed into her mind.

She remembered the heat, the raw passion that seemed to surge through his blood, the way he'd made their mating an urgent, savage event that still, even three years later, sucked the breath from her lungs. She glanced away and cleared her throat. “Then I guess that makes you a hero,” she said sarcastically.

His eyes narrowed and he reached across the table, knocking over the catsup bottle as he grabbed her arm. “Let's get one thing straight, okay? I am not a hero. Got it?”

“Oh, that's not what I heard,” Sarah, the heavyset waitress with a crown of frizzy curls, interrupted as she refilled Jenner's coffee cup. “The way I heard it, you saved your brother's little kid, and if it wasn't for you, the Rocking M would've lost all its livestock. Without you, Dani Stewart might not have made it. That girl has had a string of bad luck, let me tell you—not like her sister at all—but she lucked out this time.”

Irritation pinched the corners of Jenner's mouth and the fingers of steel that had tightened over Beth's arm loosened their grip. “You've been talking to Max,” he said as he let go.

“No way. Heard it from the fire chief, himself. Fred has breakfast here every morning and he thinks you saved lives. Course he's cussin' you, too, 'cause you and Max got in the way. Max wouldn't do what he was told, and you, you nearly ended up dyin' just to save some horses.”

Jenner glowered up at the waitress. “It wasn't a big deal.”

Sarah shrugged a hefty shoulder. “Whatever you say.” She righted the bottle of catsup as she eyed Cody. “This your boy?” Beth's heart nearly stopped until she realized the woman was speaking to her.

“Uh, yes. Cody.” She whispered in her son's ear, “Say hello.”

“'Lo,” Cody replied, staring warily at the friendly waitress.

“He's sure a looker.” Sarah grinned at him and reached into her pocket. She found a mint and set in on the table in front of Cody. “You're gonna break your share of hearts, son, believe you me.”

“Thank you,” Beth said, feeling a lump form in her throat. Jenner hadn't said a word, just leaned back against the seat and watched the exchange.

“Is there anything else I can get you?”

“Not for me,” Beth said.

“Thanks, anyway, Sarah,” Jenner drawled.

Sarah's gaze sharpened just a tad. “Is it true what I've been hearin' around here—that your pa might've been murdered?”

“Looks that way,” Jenner admitted with a scowl.

“Good Lord A‘mighty. Why, no one's been murdered in Rimrock before—I mean, unless you count Elvin Green runnin' down Indian Joe ten years ago, but that was just an accident, I guess.”

“That's the way I heard it.”

“Anyway, I don't s'pose they have any idea who's behind it.”

“Not that I know,” Jenner said, wishing the nosy waitress would just disappear and leave him alone. He wasn't going to confide that Rex Stone had at first come up with the brainstorm that someone in the family might be responsible. He seemed to have given up on that ludicrous assumption, and if he had any other suspects, he hadn't shared his suspicions with Jenner.

Sarah moved closer to the table and whispered, “I hear your family's offering a reward.”

“A what?” Jenner's head snapped up and he saw a gleam of greed in the waitress's gaze.

“Twenty-five thousand dollars for information leading to the arrest of the person responsible for your dad's death and the fire at the ranch.”

“I don't know a thing about it.”

“Heard it this mornin'. Two deputies were talkin' about it while eatin' breakfast.”

“This is the first I've heard of it,” Jenner said, hoping to hide the fact that he was furious. It was all he could do to remain at the table. Why hadn't anyone told him? Then he remembered. Mavis and Virginia had been at a meeting with Rex Stone last night. They must've made the decision at that time and never bothered to tell him—not that they had the chance, really, considering the conversation. But Max hadn't said a word this morning. It looked as if his family was still trying to protect him—keep him calm so that he could heal—or they were holding out on him. Either way, he was going to find out the truth. His jaw clamped so hard it hurt.

“Hey, how about a refill, Sarah?” At a table on the other side of the entrance, Cyrus Kellogg held up his empty coffee cup. He caught Jenner's attention and gave a sketchy wave. “Glad to see ya up and around, McKee. Helluva thing, that fire.”

Jenner nodded to the weathered rancher who owned the spread just north of the Rocking M. Cyrus, smoking a cigarette, was seated with three other men from around the area. One was Ned Jansen, who once owned the old copper mine in the hills surrounding the town. Jenner's father, Jonah, had bought the mine for a song a few years back when Ned had needed the cash to pay back alimony to his two ex-wives. The mine was rumored to be worthless, but Jonah had taken a chance and eventually found a mother lode. Wouldn't you know? The old man had been blessed—or cursed—with the Midas touch.

Len Marchant sat with his back to Jenner. A short, lively man, Len, too, had done business with Jonah. Once the town baker, Len had sold out at a loss to Jonah, who had remodeled and converted the old bakery into a mini-mall that now supported five small shops. The third man was Otis Purcell, a rancher with a mean streak whose single claim to fame was that he raised wolf pups and, to Jenner's knowledge, had never been swindled by Jonah McKee. That alone was some kind of record.

“Come on, let's go,” Jenner said. He realized that he'd run out of conversation with Beth and didn't like the sidelong glances cast in his direction from the other patrons. The Shady Grove was half-filled with customers looking for a simple, cheap meal. Most of the people tucked into the booths and seated at the tables were ranchers and townspeople Jenner had known most of his life. But there were a few strangers, as well. His gut clutched into a tight knot as his thoughts ran in a new and frightening path. What if Rex Stone was right? What if Jonah had been murdered? And what if whoever was behind the murder and the arson at the stables wasn't satisfied? What if he wanted to do more damage? What if, instead of holding a grudge against Jonah, the psycho behind the crimes wanted to get back at Max...or Jenner?

He sliced a look at Cody innocently sipping his shake. Beth was dabbing at the corners of his little face with a cloth, completely unaware of any danger.

Using the crutches for support, Jenner climbed to his feet just as Beth gathered Cody into her arms. What if the kid really was his and whoever was gunning for the McKees found out about him? Jenner's throat turned to dust. Cody could unwittingly become a target—as could Beth.

Cold sweat beaded on his forehead, and for the first time in his life, Jenner McKee felt vulnerable.

 

Beth expected Jenner to take her back to his apartment where she'd parked her car. When he'd insisted on driving his truck earlier, she'd argued, remembering how his pickup had careered down the street the night before. Eventually, after extracting a promise from Jenner that he'd be careful, she'd given in, and they'd survived, though the ride to the Shady Grove had been a little harrowing as Jenner had been forced to work gas, clutch and brake with his right leg. She hadn't complained, only held on to the armrest in a death grip with her other arm tightly wrapped around Cody. The toddler had only laughed when the truck had lurched into slow-moving traffic.

“I thought you might want to meet my grandmother,” Jenner explained as he drove north and passed the city limits.

“That's not necessary.”

“Sure it is, Beth,” he said, looking over Cody's head to capture her in his cynical gaze before turning his attention back to the road. “You started this, so you're going to play it out.”

“We started this,” she said, unable to hold her tongue a minute longer. “You and I both. I'm sick of women always having to take the blame as well as the responsibility for their kids.” She wanted to add that without men there would be no children, but she managed to swallow her words for Cody's sake. She never wanted him to hear anything that might suggest that he was unwanted or that she considered him a mistake. Because that wasn't true. She loved him more than life itself, and if given the choice again, she would gladly go through the pregnancy alone and accept the hard choices that followed. Smiling, she grabbed one of his chubby hands in hers.

“We go to Grandma's?” Cody asked, all innocence and smiles.

That
was a tough one. “Not to Grandma Harriet's, honey. We're going to Mr. McKee's—”

“Jenner.”

“Jenner's ranch.”

“I see horses?”

“You bet you will,” Jenner said.

“I ride one?”

Beth cleared her throat. “I don't think that would be such a good idea—”

“Of course you can. Got a little pony that would be perfect.”

Beth shot Jenner a warning glance silently telling him to back off, but if he noticed her aggravation, he ignored it and reached into the glove compartment for a pair of aviator sunglasses. He slipped them over his nose and now he seemed more remote than ever, the dark shades hiding his eyes, his mouth set in a harsh, uncompromising line.

He seemed to be getting the hang of driving with only one leg. He managed to work the clutch smoothly enough and the old Dodge hummed over the county road that rose along the contour of the hill, but always followed the winding path of Wildcat Creek as it slashed through the land a hundred feet below. Beth rolled down the window, smelled the dust and dry grass and felt the sun warm her shoulder as the wind streamed through her hair.

How many times had she ridden this very road, listening to the radio, laughing and thinking of Jenner McKee? All those years ago, she'd never met him, but he'd been a local legend, a rebel son rebuffing his father by turning his nose up at the old man's money and striking out on his own.

She ran her fingers along the edge of the window that peaked up from the door. Yes, she'd dreamed about him, never daring to guess that someday she'd run into him, that she'd let him buy her a couple of glasses of wine and she'd end up sleeping with him and bearing his son. She chanced a look at her boy, but he'd fallen asleep in the warm cab of the truck and was blissfully unaware of the reasons she'd been forced back to Rimrock.

Jenner pulled off at a narrow spot in the road where the old guardrail had been hit and given way completely. A new piece had been fitted between two posts right at a sharp curve, nearly a hundred feet above the canyon. Beth didn't have to be told that this was where Jonah McKee had lost his life.