Running Scared (19 page)

“And you think Daegan O’Rourke’s a good candidate,” Kate ventured testily. “You haven’t even met him.”

“Okay, not O’Rourke—maybe this guy is bad news—but
someone,
Kate. If not for Jon, then for yourself. You’ve dedicated your life to that kid and he’s gonna be gone in a few years. What then?”

“I don’t know,” Kate admitted. She’d worried about Jon’s leaving herself. Not only for her. But for her boy.

“Quit trying to be such a damned saint and live a little.”

Live a little.
Laura’s personal credo. Where Kate had always looked to the future, planned her life, kept an eye over her shoulder hoping the past wouldn’t catch up with her, Laura had lived for the moment, unconcerned about the thunderclouds gathering in the distance.

“This guy bothers me, Laura.”

“You let him bother you. Because Jon had a bad dream. Slow down and take a deep breath. You’re borrowing trouble.”

Kate ignored the jab. For years Laura had called her a worrywart. “Okay, okay, but listen to this. I noticed something else about O’Rourke. One of his earlobes, his left one, I think, isn’t as big as the other.”

“Geez, Kate, haven’t you noticed? No one’s perfectly balanced.”

“I know, but this guy’s ear looks like it was sliced.”

“Like in a knife fight?” Laura was clearly skeptical.

“I suppose.”

“So what? Was it bleeding all over your living room carpet?”

“No, I mean it might have happened a long time ago.”

“For the love of God, Kate, listen to yourself. So he lost part of his ear. Big deal. Remember, Dad was minus a couple of toes because of some accident when he was a kid. And O’Rourke admitted to the fight with his cousin, didn’t he? Maybe he was cut then. You’re beginning, no, I take that back, this isn’t the beginning, you’ve always been this way.”

“Which is?”

“Paranoid. For nearly fifteen years nothing has happened, and Jon’s been wrong with his premonitions before, hasn’t he?”

“Yes, but—”

“So don’t worry about the new neighbor and I’ll run some checks, see what I can find out. Luckily, he has a somewhat unusual name.”

“If it’s his real one.”

“Well, if it isn’t, then we’re in trouble,” Laura said, “but let’s not think about that, not just yet, okay? I have a couple of friends in another department who have access to the prison records, but I bet this guy never set one foot east of the Great Divide. So take it easy. Have a glass of wine, take a hot bath, do whatever it is you do to unwind and I’ll call you back in a few days. Everything’s going to be all right,” Laura said as she hung up.

“I hope you’re right,” Kate replied to the empty line. “Oh, Laura, I hope to God you’re right.”

But she didn’t believe her sister for a minute. There was trouble brewing, big trouble, and Kate would bet her last dollar that it had something to do with Daegan O’Rourke.

Jon sneaked through the trees and hiked his collar up around his neck. The moon was riding high and a jillion stars spangled the sky, but it was cold, colder than a well digger’s butt, as Eli used to say. At the thought of the old geezer, Jon gritted his teeth as he made his way through the trees and across a field of dry grass and weeds. He’d walked this way a hundred times before when Eli was alive, and now, since meeting O’Rourke, he couldn’t stay away. Oh, sure he’d promised his mother that he’d keep off the McIntyre spread, but he hadn’t. Three times since O’Rourke had first shown up, Jon had made a nocturnal visit. He’d sat in the shadows, petting Roscoe, watching O’Rourke through the shade-less windows. The guy read a lot, had himself a laptop computer that he used, talked on the phone, watched a little television, the news and Letterman, before turning out the lights after one.

He didn’t do anything all that suspicious and seemed to be taking good enough care of Eli’s old hound. Yet…there was something about him, something that wasn’t quite right.

He snapped on a twig and Roscoe let out a quiet “woof” before scrambling from beneath the porch and loping toward Jon.

“Here ya go,” Jon said, digging in his pocket and giving the dog a biscuit. Carefully, he wandered around the house. The lights were on in the kitchen, and O’Rourke was pouring himself a beer. From the darkness, Jon watched him move from the kitchen to the living room, where, without bothering to snap on a light, he propped a stockinged foot on a battle-scarred coffee table, sipped his beer, and watched the tube. Bluish flashes illuminated his angular face, and if Jon were prone to believing in such nonsense, he would have thought O’Rourke looked like a devil.

Why he kept coming over here, he didn’t understand. It was one thing when Eli was alive. They’d spent hours together talking, gazing at the ever-changing sky, playing guitar and harmonica, and telling stories—Old Man McIntyre had more stories about growing up poor on the Great Plains than anyone. Jon had confided in Eli, admitting that he had a crush on Jennifer Caruso and that’s why Todd Neider was always trying to beat him up. Because of Jennifer. Eli had chuckled, telling him there was no fool like a fool for a woman.

God, he missed the old coot. That’s why he probably kept hanging out, that and the new colt that had suddenly appeared in the paddock two days before. Jon had always had a thing about horses, but his mother had refused to let him have one. Though indulgent in about every other way, she’d put her foot down when it came to buying a horse. They’d had plenty of arguments and he’d offered to buy one with his own money, but she’d been adamant, saying that he’d no sooner get the animal than want a car and that, he admitted, was probably true.

But O’Rourke’s colt fascinated him. Jon knew enough about horses to tell that the chestnut-colored quarter-horse was worth some money while the other nag—a gray gelding—was just a work horse, sure-footed and easy-tempered, without the fire of the colt.

Whistling softly, he reached into his pocket and found an apple that he cut into two pieces with his jack knife. The trusting gray ambled over, eagerly nuzzling Jon’s palm, but the colt shook his head and snorted nervously, his two white stockings flashing.

“Come on,” Jon whispered. “Otherwise you’re going to lose out to Greedy again.” Extending a hand, he felt a smile play upon his features as the temperamental animal flattened his ears but reluctantly edged closer. “That’s it.”

The colt stretched his neck and swept the apple from Jon’s open palm in one quick movement. Teeth grinding the apple, he backed away.

“His name is Buckshot.”

Jon nearly jumped out of his skin! Heart pumping wildly, he whirled and found O’Rourke standing less than ten feet away from him. He’d managed to slide into his boots but hadn’t bothered with a jacket, and his arms were crossed firmly over his chest.

“Jesus!” Jon whispered.

“You like the horse?”

Jon was thinking fast. Now that he was caught, what could he do? Run? But O’Rourke could call his mom. His mouth was dry as dust, his palms sweaty. “He’s…okay,”

“You want to ride him?”

“No!” Jon lied. He had to get out of here and fast.

“Too bad. He could use the exercise.” Was this guy for real? Jon’s teeth began to chatter. “Cold?”

“Yeah.”

“You want to come into the house and warm up? I got coffee and maybe some of that instant cocoa.”

“No…oh, no.” Jon shook his head vehemently. This guy was still the enemy; he knew it in his bones, and yet he seemed decent enough.

“What’re you doing here?” O’Rourke asked, and any hopes Jon had of getting away with this without his mother finding out disappeared.

“I, uh, used to come and visit Eli. And Roscoe.”

Daegan glanced at the dog sitting obediently by Jon’s sneaker. “He likes you a helluva lot more than he likes me.” His gaze moved up to study Jon’s face. “You weren’t spying on me, were ya?”

“What? No way!” Jon’s heart began to pump wildly again. Shit! Why hadn’t he heard the guy approach? He’d been so into getting Buckshot to respond that he hadn’t heard the door open, the screen creak, boots on the porch, or the snap of a twig. It was like the guy just willed himself out here like a damned ghost or something.

“But you have been here before?”

“No, I swear…” The look on O’Rourke’s face called him a liar. “Well, yeah, a couple of times.”

“Your mom know you’re here?”

“No!”

“And you’d like to keep it that way?”

Jon shrugged. “She wouldn’t like it.”

“’Cause you called me a murderer.”

“And she doesn’t like me sneakin’ around at night.”

“It could be dangerous.” O’Rourke rubbed his jaw and stared at the moon. “You want your stuff back?”

“Oh.” Jon shook his head. “If Mom found it, she’d kill me.”

“I doubt it.” O’Rourke shook his head. “I’d guess she’d do just about anything for you.”

“’Cept buy me a horse.”

O’Rourke’s laughter thundered through the night and Jon physically jumped. “Your mother’s a smart woman, Jon. These animals are nothing but trouble.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

“But you have ’em.”

“’Cause I’m a fool, I guess. They can’t go the miles of a pickup, need to be fed and groomed, kept healthy, and are general pains in the butt, but, yeah, I like ’em.”

“I, uh, better get going,” Jon said.

“Next time you want to see the horse, stop by and talk to me first.”

“Sure,” Jon said, knowing there wouldn’t be a next time.

“And Jon?”

Here it comes. This is the part where he’s going to let me know that it’s his duty, hard as it might be, to call Ma and tell her that I snuck over here.
“Yeah?”

“You’re too young to drink.”

“Oh.”

“And cut back on the smokes.” His eyes were sharp and fixed on Jon. “You’d better get back home before your mom figures out that you’re gone. Then both of us will have a lot of explainin’ to do. I don’t know about you, but I’m not in the mood for a lecture.”

With that he turned and headed back to the house, and Jon was left with the bad need for a smoke and the dawning realization that Daegan O’Rourke might not be so bad after all.

Kate didn’t expect to see Daegan again, especially not at the local coffee shop where she usually stopped on her way back from the college, but there he was big as life, smiling at the waitress who was refilling his cup. One long jean-clad leg stretched into the aisle by the table and the sleeves of his cotton work shirt were rolled up, showing off tanned, muscular arms. A five o’clock shadow darkened his jaw, and he seemed at ease in the worn mock-leather booth.

She nearly hesitated at the door, but as if he’d sensed her arrival, he swiveled his head at the sound of the door opening and sent her a crooked half-smile, one that suggested they shared a secret—a private secret. Her stupid heart fluttered and she called herself six kinds of fool. This was the one man—the only man in all of Hopewell—that she should avoid at all costs.

“Kate!” His voice was friendly and smooth, his gray eyes warmer than she remembered. “Have a seat.”

The last thing she wanted to do was to be trapped in a booth with him and be caught trying to make idle conversation. He was too full of restless energy for her, too starkly rugged, too damned male. It had been nearly a week since she’d last seen him, and in that time she’d calmed a bit. Laura hadn’t called with any mind-numbing news that he was a serial killer or child molester or even traffic violator, but still she had to be wary. He’d admitted that his cousin had died as the result of some kind of fight—who knew what other secrets he kept hidden behind his easy smile?

Before she could take another seat, other customers in the little café had twisted their necks to view her. Rather than give them more room for gossip—it was hard enough knowing that most of the townspeople viewed her as an oddity because of Jon and his strange premonitions—she walked up to O’Rourke’s booth and plopped down on the opposite seat. She didn’t even protest when he motioned for a waitress to bring her a cup of coffee.

“Small world,” he said with a devilish glint in his eye.

“Small
town,
or haven’t you noticed?”

A corner of his mouth lifted. “Just the way I like ’em.”

“You’ve lived in the city?” she asked innocently, though her nerves were stretched tighter than fence wire. What was she doing pumping him for information? What could she possibly expect to learn?

“Nah, but I’ve been in enough of ’em to know that I’m a country boy at heart.” Again that country-boy charm.

“Are you?” She leaned back in the seat and was about to ask him where he was from when the waitress, Tami Lynde, daughter of the shop’s owner, brought a cup of coffee and asked Kate if she’d like anything else.

Wishing she’d never stepped foot in the door, Kate declined and then felt her back stiffen when she spied Carl Neider, Todd’s father, saunter through the door. He was a huge bear of a man with hands like meat hooks, the start of a beer belly, and a flat face covered by a dark beard beginning to streak with gray. His eyes were wide-spaced, small and mean, and when he smiled, he showed off a mouthful of gold crowns.

“Friend of yours?” Daegan asked when she watched Neider take a booth on the other side of the café.

“Hardly.” She poured a thin stream of cream into her cup and listened to the sounds of quiet conversation, rattling utensils, and the squeaking of a slow-turning ceiling fan mounted high over head. “His son Todd is a big kid who’s taken delight in humiliating Jon. Called him names, picked fights with him, bullied him—you name it. All the usual.” Watching the clouds roll up in her brew, she sighed. “I can’t just blame him, of course. Sometimes Jon asks for it.”

“No one asks to be humiliated.” O’Rourke’s eyes narrowed on Neider as he sipped from his cup, and again Kate felt that underlying current of energy, that raw force that was a part of this man. His jaw clamped tight and Kate decided she wouldn’t want to cross him. Not ever.

From the back behind the counter, the short-order cook yelled at Tami over the sizzle of the fryer.

When Daegan focused on Kate again, all the warmth had evaporated from his eyes and she felt that same premonition of fear—of danger that seemed to lurk just beneath his “good ol’ ranchin’ boy” surface.

“You’re right,” she said. “Anyway, Jon’s bigger now, able to take care of himself better. Hopefully he’s smarter, too.”

“Is he picked on for no reason or is it because of that sight he’s got—because he sees things others don’t?”

She didn’t move and the cup she’d been raising to her lips stopped in midair. Clearing her throat, she set the steaming mug down and frowned. “You’re very direct.”

“You brought it up.”

She couldn’t argue the point. Resting her elbows on the table, she folded her hands and dropped her chin on her linked fingers so that she could hold his gaze without flinching. “That I did, Mr. O’Rourke, and the reason I did is because the things that have been said to Jon, the cruel remarks, the vicious jokes, the hateful names wound deep. It doesn’t matter that the person who hurls the taunts his way is jealous or scared or feeling inferior. All those ugly words are painful. They scar. Not only him, but me, too, because I love him.”

All through her tirade Daegan stared at her. His gaze never once moved from her face, and his lips, already thin, creased into a hard, uncompromising line.

“Do you know what it feels like to be called names—to feel out of place—to think that you’re not as good as the rest of the kids?”

A shadow passed behind his eyes, a pain-filled shadow that quickly disappeared. “Afraid so,” he drawled. “Maybe it’s a rite of passage. Part of growin’ up.”

“It shouldn’t be.”

“Amen.”

She lifted a shoulder and sighed. “So that’s why I get a little defensive and overprotective. My mother bear claws begin to show and my instincts tend to work overtime and get me into trouble with my son.”

“Why?”

“He seems to think that I’m in his way,” she admitted, though she knew she shouldn’t confide in him, shouldn’t trust him with any secrets close to her heart. “He’s convinced that I should keep my nose out of his business.”

“Maybe you should.”

“He’s only fifteen.”

“How does his dad figure in?”

She nearly choked on a swallow of coffee. “His father?” she repeated, astounded that this man would bring him up. “His father’s gone. Jim died before Jon was born.”

“I didn’t know…and he had no stepfather?”

“I never remarried,” Kate admitted, then drained her cup. This conversation was getting personal—too personal.

“Why not?”

“What about you?” she said, turning the tables on him. “Is there a Mrs. O’Rourke?”

He shook his head. “I’m not the marrying kind.”

That, she believed. “Neither am I,” she said, fishing in her purse. “I mean I was, with Jim, but…well…” She found her wallet and pulled out a couple of bills. “I guess he was just a hard act to follow and I didn’t have all that many offers. Lots of men—at least some of the ones I dated—considered Jon extra baggage. Can you imagine? The fact that he has this sight made it all the worse. But it’s worked out just fine,” she assured him. “Jon and I are all right.” She slapped the bills on the table.

“I’ll buy,” he insisted.

“Thanks, but I’m used to paying my own way,” she replied. “Fact is, I like it that way.” With that she swung out of the restaurant and made a beeline to her car. Being around O’Rourke was just too unsettling. He was too direct, too restless, and too damned sexy. His eyes, so deep and gray, his hands, big, calloused, the backs dusted with dark hair, his jaw firm and square. For crying out loud, she’d never, never looked at a man so intently since Jim.

Calm down
, she told herself and ignored the pounding of her pulse. He was just a man. Nothing to be afraid of. At least not yet. She climbed into her station wagon and jammed her key into the ignition. Her new neighbor had learned more than she’d intended to tell him about Jon today, but now it was her turn. As she checked her rearview mirror to back out of her parking spot, she made a note to call Laura tonight and find out what her sister had dredged up on a would-be cowboy named Daegan O’Rourke.

So now what are you going to do, O’Rourke, kidnap the boy?

Daegan dug his heels into the old gray he’d bought at a local auction and glowered at the fence line, as if he gave a good goddamned what happened to this place. The sorry rusted wire and rotted posts weren’t any of his concern—just part of the lie, a lie he was getting damned sick of.

The truth of the matter was he was looking beyond the fence and through a scraggly thicket of pine and spruce, to Kate Summers’s house. The trees veiled his view, but he caught glimpses of the white 1920s vintage cottage with its wide back porch and blue trim. The yard, dry and spotty, was partially obscured by a row of raspberry canes and a vegetable garden. An apple tree stood near a weathered building that was probably a pump house or woodshed, and a long, sun-bleached rope dangled from one of the lower branches. He spied the path Jon used to sneak over here and couldn’t stop a smile. The kid was sly, but Daegan had felt the boy’s eyes on him while he was watching television, known he was being observed. He’d let it go on long enough for Jon to trust him and see that he was just another lonely bachelor rancher.

Ha! Another lie. Daegan couldn’t hardly open his mouth without veering from the truth these days.

He needed to approach Kate again, but he hadn’t figured out how. After lucking out and meeting her in the café, he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Ms. Summers, so now it was his move. If he could come up with one. Flattening her tire, pretending to need the use of her phone, waiting at the coffee shop where he knew she stopped after work—he’d played out all his “coincidences.” Now he’d just have to call her up and pretend to be interested in her. Trouble was, he might not be pretending. She was starting to get to him, Kate Summers was. Complicated and pretty, she wasn’t the type of woman who usually attracted him. Smart women with sharp tongues, deep thoughts, and stormy pasts were usually too much trouble. But Kate was different. And she was the adoptive mother of his son.

He gritted his teeth and fought a headache. Christ, what a mess!

Usually riding cleared his head, though he rarely saddled up an aging plow horse that he’d saved from the glue factory such as this gray. Years ago, he’d discovered the thrill of racing across acres of open land astride a swift horse. In his early twenties, after his brush with the law, a hitch in the army, and a brief career as a private investigator, he’d pointed his nose toward the western horizon. He’d landed in Albuquerque, then drifted through Laramie before ending up in western Montana, where he served as a guide to tenderfoots. Eventually he’d saved enough money to buy his spread in the foothills of the Bitterroots, the first place he’d ever felt was home.

And now he was here, astride an old nag, glaring at a ridiculous excuse for a fence while contemplating just what to do about the boy. His son.

So now what?

He could just wash his hands of the whole situation, but then he remembered Robert and Frank Sullivan. His back teeth ground together. There was no way, no way on this earth, they were going to get their pampered, rich hands on the boy. His boy. Kate’s boy.

For the first time in six years he hungered for a smoke.

Who would have thought he would have ended up here, staring past the swaying branches of scraggly pine trees, wondering how he was going to approach a woman about giving up her son?

“Son of a bitch,” he grumbled, yanking on the reins and heading back toward old McIntyre’s house.

Ever since meeting Kate at the cafe and admitting to himself that, yes, Bibi’s wild story about Jon’s conception was beginning to hold water, he’d picked his way carefully. Kate had obviously been shaken by Jon’s insistence that Daegan had murdered someone and she was still wary when he’d met her in the restaurant.

In the meantime, while thinking up an excuse to see her and Jon again, he’d kept busy. He’d set things up here—cleaned the place, made room for his fax machine, files, and computer to keep linked with his ranch in Montana, while ordering feed and veterinary supplies for the animals he’d bought. The old dog had deigned to stick his nose out from under the porch, but snarled every time Daegan came a little too close.

Now, Daegan clucked to the horse and ignored the blast of arctic wind that ripped down from the mountains. He needed more information, the kind he could only get from her. A jab of guilt pricked at his mind when he thought of how he was going to use her, how he hoped that she would learn to trust him, so that he could strip her emotions bare to her bones when he stole her boy from her. She’d never trust a living soul again. That thought shouldn’t have bothered him. She deserved it, didn’t she? She’d asked for it when she’d taken money and a child that didn’t belong to her.

But she loved the boy. Done right by him.

Maybe he was going soft inside, but no matter what she’d done in the past, how many laws she’d broken to end up with Jon, she obviously would walk through hell for him. What more could a mother do? “Shit,” he growled, imagining himself as the cause of a gut-wrenching agony that was soon to darken her whiskey gold eyes.

Nudging the gray, he decided that somehow, some way, he’d have to speak with Kate alone; try and find out if her son was really adopted, even though she’d already claimed the boy was sired by her dead husband.

He knew that she’d grown up on a Midwest farm until the death of her father, then, because of her mother’s neglect, she and her younger sister, Laura, were cared for by an aunt and uncle. Kate married her high school sweetheart and they moved to Boston, where she worked as a receptionist/secretary for Tyrell Clark, the attorney Bibi had mentioned. Tragedy had struck swiftly. Soon after her one-year-old daughter and husband were killed, Kate had left Boston and moved to Seattle, where she worked part-time, took care of her young son, and managed to earn herself a master’s degree in English.

From Seattle, Kate had headed south to Oregon and ended up in this miserable small town. Now an English professor, she taught writing to freshmen at a community college in Bend.