Running Scared (22 page)

“Jon?” Her gaze traveled to O’Rourke before landing with full, worried impact on her son. “What happened? Jon, oh, honey, are you all right?” The pup came over to greet her, but she barely noticed and turned frosty eyes on O’Rourke. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll be fine,” Jon growled back. “And it wasn’t his fault.” He motioned to Daegan. “He saved me.”

“But—”

“I said I’ll be fine.” She tried to reach for him but he stood back and blinked fiercely, as if just the sight of her caused his eyes to fill.

“We’ve got to get you to a doctor.”

Jon grimaced.

“I would’ve taken him, but thought we should round you up first,” O’Rourke said. His expression was dark and grim.

“What happened?” She couldn’t hide the censure in her voice.

“The town bully seemed to want to use Jon as a punching bag. I caught up with them down the road a piece.”

“Yeah and he gave ’em hell!” Jon said proudly.

“That Todd Neider again?” Kate asked and her blood began to boil.

That kid had been giving Jon fits for months and now the arguments and shoves had escalated to a full-fledged beating.

“A foul-mouthed sucker if there ever was one,” Daegan observed.

“Yeah, it was Neider,” Jon admitted, leaning heavily against the side of O’Rourke’s truck. “And his friends. I’ll…I’ll be okay.”

“This isn’t going to end, is it? We have to stop it.”

“Can’t argue with that,” O’Rourke agreed.

She tried to reach for her son again. “Where does it hurt?”

“Where doesn’t it?” Jon asked through cracked, swollen lips. His face was bruised and he held his already-injured arm around his middle.

“He’s been lucid, never fell asleep, so I doubt if he’s concussed. But he might have a cracked rib or two.”

“Nothin’s broke,” Jon insisted.

“I think we should let Dr. Wenzler determine that. I’ll get a wet towel and some bandages so you can clean up, then we’ll go.” She was halfway up the steps to the front porch.

“Where?” Jon asked.

“To the clinic, of course.”

“I don’t need to go—”

“I don’t know where you get this aversion to medical treatment, but it’s not working with me. I’m taking you to see the doctor.” She sighed loudly. “I’ve been worried sick about you and now look…Please, Jon, don’t give me any grief about this. We’re going to the doctor and that’s that.”

“She’s right,” Daegan said, staring at Jon with eyes that seemed to see past the teenage barriers her son had so recently and painstakingly erected, the barriers that forced her to keep her distance. “See what the doctor says.”

Jon hesitated, running his tongue around the inside of his mouth, seeming to weigh things in his mind. Sullenly, he asked, “You comin’?”

“Not my place.”

“It wasn’t your place to bust up the fight, either. But you did.” Jon was laying down a challenge—testing O’Rourke. Why?

“Your mom and you can handle this.”

Jon’s lips rolled in on themselves, the way they always did when he fought tears. With a proud lift of his chin, he said, “I’d like you to be there.”

Thunderstruck, Kate was at a loss for words. In all her born days, she would never have expected Jon, who only a few days ago had insisted this man was dangerous, that he’d killed someone, to invite him to join them on a trip to the clinic. “You guys decide.” Her eyes met O’Rourke’s for an instant and she caught a glimpse of something more than just neighborly concern—a deeper unspoken emotion—a glimmer he hid all too quickly. “Your call,” she told him, knowing instinctively that getting closer to him was a mistake of immense proportions. But what could she say? He’d saved Jon, hadn’t he? “I’ll be right back.” She unlocked the door, headed for the bathroom on the first floor, and found a clean towel in the linen cupboard. What were they getting into with O’Rourke? she wondered as she twisted on the faucet and dampened the rag.

Grabbing a second dry towel, disinfectant, and some bandages, she tried to shake the worry that had been with her the past hour. Though Jon was hurt, none of his injuries appeared life-threatening. Finding Jon with Daegan was upsetting, but it seemed as if the guy had actually saved her son from getting the living tar beat out of him.

“Let’s go.”

Jon’s intense gaze landed on their new neighbor. “Well?”

“Don’t force Mr. O’Rourke, Jon. He just moved in and has a ranch to run and—”

“I’ll tag along. If it’s okay with your ma.”

“Sure. Fine, whatever,” she said, lying. She didn’t want this man anywhere near her or her son, but now was not the time to wage that particular battle. “Here, Jon, let me clean you up—”

“I can do it.” He snatched the towel out of her hand and refused to let her touch him.

Hot embarrassment climbed up her neck. “All right, you handle it, but let’s get a move on.” She was already on her way to the still-open door of her car. “As soon as we get back from the clinic, I’m going to call Carl Neider and—”

“No!” Jon was vehement.

“What? You want to take a chance on this happening again?” She looked across the roof of her Buick and stared flabbergasted at her son, who was still bleeding, his eyes swollen. No telling what else was wrong with him and he was arguing with her about ratting out the beast who had done the damage! “You bet I’m going to call him.”

“You can’t do it, Mom,” Jon insisted.

“But look at you—”

“It’ll only make it worse. Mr. O’Rourke already shook him up, flung his keys into Henson’s field, and told him to lay off, so just leave it at that.” He hobbled to the car, yanked open the back door, and rolled into the seat. “Let me take care of it.”

“I’m not sure I can do that.”

Daegan stretched into the front seat next to her and she wished he would disappear. The last thing she needed was this tall, raw-boned cowboy seated close to her, destroying her concentration and, whether intentionally or not, wedging himself between Jon and her.

Doors slammed and she backed the Buick around O’Rourke’s pickup, wondering if her life—hers and Jon’s—would ever be the same.

“For the love of Mike, what happened to you?” Dr. Wenzler, a petite woman with graying hair and kind eyes, asked Jon. She wore a lab coat two sizes too big with a stethoscope stuffed into a front pocket. “Get into a fight with a grizzly?”

“No,” Jon said, squirming a little.

“Another boy—another bigger boy,” Kate said, grateful that Jon hadn’t insisted Daegan accompany them into the examining room. It was bad enough that he was waiting for them in the reception area, though, surprisingly, the thought wasn’t all that unpleasant. He was probably thumbing through an old copy of
Parenting
and wondering how he’d ended up in the pediatric wing of the clinic.

“I ’spose you gave as good as you got,” Dr. Wenzler said as she gently touched the swelling on his face.

Jon was seated on the examination table, dressed only in his boxer shorts, and he was obviously embarrassed that Kate was in the room. “I did okay,” he replied, avoiding the doctor’s probing gaze.

“So I should be expecting another patient?” she teased, flashing the beam of a penlight into Jon’s eyes. “Here—look over my shoulder to that dot on the wall. That’s it.” Once finished with his face, she ran experienced hands over his shoulder and ribs. “Lucky for you nothing appears to be broken, but we should take some X-rays over in the lab building just to be sure.” She glanced up at Kate. “Linda will walk you over and then bring back the films. I don’t think we’ll find anything, he looks fine, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

“Me, too.”

“I’ll meet you back in this room in a few minutes,” she said, then was gone, her voluminous lab coat billowing out behind her like a sail catching the wind.

“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal of this,” Jon grumbled, wincing as he struggled with his sweatshirt.

“Because it is, Jon. When someone starts causing you bodily harm, believe me, it’s a big deal.”

He pulled on his jeans. “Just promise me that you won’t call Neider’s dad.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Sure you can. If you loved me, you would.”

“I’m not going to get into this;” she said, her nerves strung tight as bow strings. She wasn’t going to allow a fifteen-year-old kid to manipulate her. “You know I love you.”

There was a knock on the door and Linda escorted them through a labyrinthine maze of corridors, out a back door, and past a lab to the X-ray room. “It’ll be just a little while,” Linda assured them and Kate picked up a battered magazine while Jon fidgeted in the chair beside her. She couldn’t help wondering how O’Rourke was enjoying himself.

Pretending interest in a year-old edition of
Field and Stream,
Daegan watched the hallway through which Jon and Kate had disappeared. It had taken forever for the tiny woman he assumed to be the doctor to take the chart from the basket on the door of Jon’s room and enter. A little while later she’d returned, without the chart, and issued instructions to a pudgy blond nurse who immediately thereafter shepherded Jon and Kate down the hallway and out the back. Probably for tests or X-rays.

He glanced at his watch. He hated clinics, emergency rooms, and anything that had to do with medicine. Sitting around waiting, smelling antiseptic, watching people in white scurry around behind glass partitions, bothered him.

When the hallway was clear, he stretched, saw that no one behind the window separating the secretarial staff from those waiting to be admitted was paying him any mind, and on the pretense of searching for a bathroom, he ambled down the hall. But he paused at the door from which Kate and Jon had emerged then slipped inside.

The chart was on a counter. Without a moment’s hesitation or sting of guilt, he picked the file up and started scanning it.

Date and place of birth? His heart stopped. The date in February was close enough and the kid had been born in Boston, Massachusetts. His stomach clenched. That information fit into Bibi’s story.

Blood type? B negative. The same as Daegan’s. Only about 15 percent of the population had Type B, throw in the negative, and that made it even more rare. Yep, it looked as if Jon was his son.

He scanned the file and ignored the rage of emotion that blasted through him. The chances were downright slim that, given all his information, the boy was fathered by someone else. There was no more denying it. Bibi’s blood type was O positive; he’d already checked.

He read the entire file quickly, thinking it was his right as a father.
A father.
Oh, God. He dropped the file back where he’d found it, sneaked out of the room, found the restroom, and still reeling with the knowledge that there were no more doubts, he finally returned to the waiting area.

Impatiently, Daegan checked his watch, drummed his fingers on the arm of the plastic couch, and wondered what would be his next move.

Now that he was certain of the truth, the game had just changed.

“I swear to God, Mom, if you call the police, I’ll leave,” Jon said, his voice deep with conviction. He swept his algebra book off the dining room table and it flew, pages fluttering, old assignments littering the floor as the book skidded across the floor.

“Pick it up.” Kate couldn’t stand the out-and-out rebellion from her son. It seemed that as each day passed, he became more vocal.

“Not until you promise that you won’t call the police or Neider’s dad.”

“Pick it up, Jon. The book belongs to the school and even if it didn’t—”

“Geez, Mom, you can’t be getting the police involved in this,” he said, but reached down and scooped up the mess. Houndog cowered under a chair in the living room and whined pitifully.

Kate gritted her teeth and slowly counted to ten. Deliberately she removed her reading glasses and placed them on the table next to her stack of unread essays. They’d found an uncomfortable peace since returning from the clinic, but Kate had sensed that the calm was temporary, that beneath her boy’s battered body a storm of emotions was raging, ready to explode.

The battlefield was the dining room table, she seated on one side, he on the other. While he attempted homework, she read a stack of essays that needed to be graded. For years they’d been able to work this way, together but independently, at the old table, sharing a bowl of popcorn or a joke, but no longer; it seemed they fought more than they agreed. And the tension was only getting worse.

Kicking back his chair, Jon struggled to his feet. His face was discolored, nose broken, two black eyes making him appear to be wearing a mask. His shoulder was strained, but no ribs had cracked, so Jon was bruised and battered but not yet broken. He’d miss at least a couple of days of school. “Neider’s old man beats him.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she said, anger surging through her blood. Carl Neider was a foul-mouthed blowhard who spent more than his share of hours on a stool in the local watering hole. “Maybe children’s services should be called.”

“Oh, Mom, no! Don’t you get it? Just leave him alone.”

“Like he left you alone?” With as much patience as she could muster, she leveled her eyes at her boy and said, “You were beat up, Jon, but you lucked out. You could have been seriously hurt, even maimed and crippled for life—”

“But I wasn’t! I hit him once too, y’know.”

She bit back the urge to yell at her son with his bruised face and black eyes. “He stalked you in his car. If it’s not you, it’ll be someone else. He has a history of violence and he has to be held accountable, or helped if that’s possible.”

“Daegan’ll make him stop.”

Kate nearly laughed. If the situation weren’t so dire, the consequences so great, she might have allowed herself a smile. As it was, she couldn’t. Stretching out of her chair, she crossed through the living room to the dark fireplace. “I thought you were so sure that O’Rourke murdered someone,” she said, sorting through the few dry logs in the basket on the hearth. “Weren’t you convinced a couple of weeks ago that there was trouble and danger coming our way, that a man, a good man or an evil man, was coming?”

“Daegan’s good.” Jon crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes, deep in bruised sockets, sparking defiance.

“Since when? Because he saved you from getting pulverized?”

“Yeah! What would have happened if he hadn’t been there?” Jon demanded and Kate felt cold as death inside. Jon was right. Ever since Daegan had stepped foot in Hopewell, he’d done nothing suspicious, been nothing but neighborly and well intentioned. So what if he seemed charged with a restless energy, like a man who was constantly on the run and looking over his shoulder? What did it matter that he was sexy as all get-out and realized it? Even if he had some skeletons buried deep in his closets, who knew and who cared? Jon was right. So far O’Rourke had proved a trustworthy and concerned neighbor. Nothing more.

She tossed a chunk of mossy oak onto the blackened andirons and searched the mantel for a match.

Jon edged into the living room. “Why do you hate him so much?”

“I don’t hate him. He just worries me, that’s all.”

“Well, I like him.”

“Do you?” Her heart sank. Until recently, Jon had never attached himself to anyone but her. He’d had his share of teachers who had been fond of him and a coach or two—usually fathers of other boys—who had been kind to him when a lot of people in town treated him as a pariah, but she’d never heard that ring of conviction and awe in his voice when he’d spoken of another adult.

Daegan O’Rourke, whether he intended to be or not, was now a rival for her child’s affections.

“It’s because of me, isn’t it?” Jon said. “Because of what I said about him. About him killing someone.”

She found a match, struck it against a brick in the fire box, and held the sizzling flame to kindling she’d stacked earlier. “I just don’t know him, Jon,” she said.

“Well, maybe you should.”

Her head snapped up and she met her son’s pained, hostile gaze. The same thought had been nagging her, though she’d been loath to admit it. She just hadn’t faced the truth because it scared her and not just a little. Daegan and her reaction to him were all wrong. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—get involved with him and yet she’d felt it more than once, a simmering attraction that was downright dangerous with the wrong man. And Daegan was definitely the wrong man.

But Jon’s point was well taken and there was no reason she couldn’t be more neighborly than she had been, less suspicious. “All right.” She stood and dusted her hands. “If you handle all the ghosts and goblins that knock on our door tonight, I’ll visit Mr. O’Rourke.”

Jon snorted in disgust and eyed the platter of cupcakes, decorated with orange frosting and candy corn that sat, at the ready, on the table near the door. Houndog had moved, plopping himself directly underneath the table, hoping that a scrap would fall. “We don’t ever have any trick or treaters, Mom. I don’t know why you bother.”

“Because the year I wasn’t ready, we’d have legions of kids ringing the bell.”

“In your dreams,” he muttered under his breath.

It’s not my dreams that worry me,
she thought as the fire sputtered and hissed.
It’s yours.

As he walked down the icy streets of Boston, Neils VanHorn was a man on a mission. He believed firmly that opportunity knocked only once on a man’s door and right now opportunity was trying to beat his damned door down. This was it. The big time. His hands itched at the thought of how much money he was going to make in the next month or so. Bending his head against a blast of raw wind, he ground his teeth together. Soon he’d give up this frigid climate, buy himself a thirty-foot sailboat, and spend his time in the Caribbean.

He found the Irish pub, a dark cavern-like den where whiskey and ale were served with raucous noise and great fanfare. Darts zipped through the air in one corner of the establishment, and glasses clicked behind the bar. Waitresses in white blouses that showed off enough cleavage to give every guy in the place a hard-on swung through the crowded tables. Smoke clouded the air and laughter and gravelly voices vied for air time with muffled music—ballads of some sort.

VanHorn took a corner booth in the back away from most of the noise and other patrons. He ordered a pitcher of the house’s special ale and waited, dropping his gloves into the pockets of his coat and unwinding his scarf before hanging everything on a wooden peg sprouting from one of the support posts.

By the time his companion arrived, he was sipping from his second glass, warm inside and bolder than he should have been. “Have a seat,” he invited, eyeing the woman in her mohair jacket and expensive perfume. Even in the dinginess of the pub, she remained wearing tinted glasses, her makeup flawless, her expensive jewelry in sharp contrast to the ambiance of the surroundings.

“Remind me why I’m here,” she said, sliding a glance around the room with obvious disdain. She was still standing, as if deciding if he was worth her time.

“Because you want to be informed,” he said evenly. He enjoyed playing both ends to the middle even though it was dangerous. “You don’t like it when other people are manipulating you.”

“As you are now?”

“I’m just here with information.” He took a swallow and let that settle with her.

“When you called, you said Robert was up to something.” “That’s right.” He enjoyed seeing her try to wrestle the information from him and in a quick instant he saw a trade in the future. What he knew exchanged for a night in her bed. He bet she slept on perfumed satin sheets. In his mind’s eye he caught a glimpse of her long legs strapped around his torso.

“What is it you think is so valuable?” She didn’t bother hiding the irritation in her usually well-modulated voice.

He played with a matchbook, tapping each corner on the table, watching her nearly squirm out of her skin while she pretended to have the patience of Job. “You know that his daughter had a bastard son about fifteen years ago. She gave him up for adoption.”

The full, red lips pinched ever so slightly.

“Of course Robert, he didn’t want the kid, nor did Bibi. Now, it seems, he’s changed his mind.”

A beat. She touched the edge of the table, and her eyes, behind those dark shades, never left his face, as if she was trying to figure out if he was lying to her. “So?”

“So he’s paying me to find the boy.”

“Why?”

“Seems as if he’s had a grandfatherly change of heart. Thinks it’s time the kid took his rightful place as a Sullivan. You know, inherit everything that should have gone to Stuart.”

Carefully, she slid into the booth opposite him. He filled the empty glass the waitress had left for her.

“Why are you telling me all this?” she asked. “What’s in it for you?”

“Robert’s paying me well.”

“To betray him? I don’t think so. If I called him now, you’d be off the case like that.” She snapped her fingers.

“But you won’t call, will you?” He settled back against the seats. “Because I’ll let you know what’s going on.”

“For a fee.”

His gaze skated down her slim figure. What would it feel like to have some uppercrust woman in bed? Were they ice-cold statues, or did they breathe living fire? This one, he was certain, was definitely hot-blooded.

“How much?” she asked, and without so much as blinking behind her four-hundred-dollar dark glasses, she dug in her purse and withdrew her checkbook.

The oldest trick in the book. “Uh-uh. Shame on you.” The leather book was halfway out of her purse, but she paused. “I only deal in cash. Small, unmarked, untraceable bills, lots of them, preferably with Alex Hamilton’s face printed on them, though I’m partial to Andy Jackson’s as well.”

Her mouth twisted into a seductive smile that he found impossible to resist. She settled back against the tufted seat and licked her lips. “Why Mr. VanHorn,” she breathed and he was instantly so hot he wanted to pull on his tie. “It looks like you’re a man after my own heart.”

“Okay, so I believe you.” Daegan rubbed an ache from his shoulder and winced as he held the receiver to his ear “The boy’s mine. I saw a chart with his blood type.”

Bibi sighed gratefully. “Thanks for all your faith. Now, what’re you going to do about him?” Daegan heard the worry edging her voice and he wondered how he’d ever found her vaguely attractive. It wasn’t so much a matter of looks as of attitude. The fact that she wasn’t interested in her own child was unnatural.

“I figure I’ve got several options. I can tell everyone the truth and—”

“Oh, God, don’t do that. If that woman finds out that Jon stands to inherit a fortune, then she’d let Dad claim him or try and blackmail me or—”

“She won’t do either,” Daegan said with conviction. In his encounters with Kate, he’d started to change his opinion of her. She didn’t seem the least bit concerned about money. “I don’t know why she got involved in the first place, but I can tell you firsthand that she loves that kid more than anything.”

“I didn’t say she didn’t care about him, but just because she loves him doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a mercenary streak in her. Face it, Daegan, we all do. My guess is she split the eighty thousand dollars Dad gave Tyrell. Maybe she got the short end of the stick, but don’t make her out like she’s some kind of goddamned saint.”

“None of us are.”

“Just so we understand each other,” Bibi said and he heard her click a lighter. She let out a long breath. “Option one’s out, what’s number two?”

“I stake my claim as the natural father.”

“That’s worse yet. You’ll have to name me as the mother and Kyle will never forgive me.”

Now we were getting to the nitty-gritty.
“How is lover boy?” Daegan asked, not even remotely curious.

“Fine, so far. He adores me, Daegan. For the first time in my life someone really loves me, but if he found out that the baby I’d given up was…was conceived with my cousin, I think…I think I’d lose him.” Her voice actually shook with emotion and Daegan felt like a heel, as he did each time he was reminded of his one night with Bibi.

“If he loves you, he won’t care what happened in the past.”

“You’re a great one to talk,” she said, sarcasm lacing her words. “The original ‘love ’em and leave ’em’ guy.”

He bit back a hot retort and decided she had the right to her bitterness. “Now that I’m in this, Bibi, I won’t be able to leave it alone.”

“Your job was to find the boy and come up with some idea of how to thwart Daddy.”

“It may not be possible.”

“Oh, Christ, Daegan, anything’s possible, don’t you know that by now?”

He glared out the window to the dark night, caught his reflection staring harshly at himself, and wished to heaven that there was an easy answer. “What do you want from me, Bibi?”

She let out a long-suffering sigh. “I want the same thing I gave you for fifteen years. My life. With no complications.”

“I don’t think I can promise that.”

“Well, do
some
thing. Find out what secrets the Summers woman is hiding, get some dirt on her so that we have some leverage.”

“In case we have to resort to blackmail or extortion?” The thought burned like hot lead in his stomach.