After dinner, J.T. slipped off. Lucy and Madison were out driving, and Sebastian made the mistake of not locking the kid in his room. J.T. had been quiet through dinner, eating his chicken and salad and pushing the grilled vegetables around his plate. Then all of a sudden—no J.T.
Sebastian checked the garage. The kid’s fishing pole was missing.
He went around the back of the barn and took a gently sloping but more roundabout footpath down to the brook. There was a steeper path on the other side of the barn that led straight down the embankment. It was short and direct, and if he hadn’t fallen into a waterfall yesterday, Sebastian would have taken it because it would get him more quickly to the brook’s best fishing spot.
The air was cool, damp and still, the brook shaded with hemlock and pine, the coppery water shallow and clear. He headed downstream. He was sore and stiff, but it felt good to move.
He spotted J.T. on a rock at the edge of the brook. His fishing pole lay on the ground beside him. He glanced up as Sebastian came toward him, then quickly tucked his face back in his hands.
Sebastian swore under his breath. What did he know to say to a crying kid?
“Catch anything?” he asked, coming closer.
J.T. shook his head without looking up.
“Mind if I share your rock? Tramping down here’s given me a headache. Blood’s rushed to my head.”
The shoulders went up and down again.
Sebastian took that as a yes, and lowered himself onto the rock. It was big, unchanged from when he was a boy. The trees and undergrowth were thicker, reminding him of the passage of time.
“This was my favorite fishing spot as a kid,” he said. “I never caught much. Mostly, I came down here to get away by myself.”
No response.
“J.T.” Sebastian sighed. He hated this. “It’s this father-son canoe trip, isn’t it? Rob told me about it. He wants to take you. But he’s not your father.”
The boy looked up. Tears streamed down his cheeks, carving a path through the dirt. He smelled like Deet and sweat, and he’d been crying for a while. “I want—I want to go with Rob.”
And therein lies the rub, Sebastian thought. “Then why don’t you? Your mother would let you.”
The kid cried harder.
Damn, Sebastian thought. This time, he hated being right. He leaned back against his arms and gazed at the constant stream of water over rock and mud. “J.T., your father was my friend. We didn’t see as much of each other as we’d have liked before he died, but one thing I know. He would want you to have men like Rob in your life.”
“I know—that’s not it.”
Sebastian knew it wasn’t. He said quietly, “You won’t forget him, J.T. You won’t ever forget him.”
The kid tucked up his knees and buried his face in them, sobbing loudly. Sebastian had known such inconsolable grief. As a boy, he, too, had come here to cry, where no one could find him, where no one could ever know.
“If I stop missing him...”
He couldn’t finish. Sebastian sat up and brushed a mosquito off a scab on his forearm. This was why he avoided victim work. He never knew what the hell to say. Daisy had pretty much left him alone to sort things out.
J.T. Swift was a deceptively intense and introspective boy, already thinking deep thoughts at twelve. Sebastian hadn’t thought such deep thoughts at that age. He’d cry his heart out and then push the deep thoughts away, as far away as he could.
“Wounds heal,” he said lamely. “If they’re deep, like losing a father, they take time, and they leave a scar. After a while, the scar may not hurt anymore, but it reminds you of what you lost. And of your courage in facing that loss.”
The boy shook his head. “I’m not brave.”
“J.T., I’ve done a lot of things. I’ve been shot and shot at, and I’ve gone after kidnappers, extortionists, terrorists and every kind of creep and scum and mad zealot you can imagine.” He paused, then gave it to the kid as straight as he could. “But I think the hardest thing I ever did was watch my grandmother cry after my parents died.”
J.T. sat up, sniffled. “How did they die?”
“They were hit by a car right in front of me. That was hard, too, but it was Daisy’s tears that did me in, that reminded me of what I’d lost. My grandfather was killed when she was young, and she only had me left.”
“What happened to your grandfather?”
“His name was Joshua,” Sebastian said.
“He was named after the falls?”
“No, the falls were named after him. He fell into the falls and drowned saving a little boy—Rob’s father.”
“He did? Georgie never said!”
“Georgie might not know. People around here are pretty stoic. They don’t like to talk about these things, dump it on kids. It was March, in the midst of the snowmelt. The water was high and cold. The kid was going after his dog. He fell in. My grandfather jumped in and saved him.”
“My mom won’t let us near the falls in the winter.”
“You listen to her,” Sebastian said.
“Did your grandmother blame Rob’s dad for killing your grandfather?” J.T. asked in a hushed voice. His eyes were wide and fascinated in a good way, taking on the best of both his parents.
“He was an eight-year-old boy, and he made a mistake. Joshua had two choices. He could let the boy drown, or he could do what he could to save him.”
“Mom knows about swift-water rescue. She’s going to teach me someday. I don’t think you’re supposed to jump in after someone.”
Sebastian nodded. “Sometimes life doesn’t present you with a good choice and a bad choice. Sometimes you just have bad choices. You do the best you can.”
The boy gave that some thought. Finally, he jumped to his feet and grabbed his fishing pole. “Bugs’re bothering me.”
And that was that. Their conversation was over.
J.T. bounded up the steep path. Good, Sebastian thought. He was exhausted. If someone had tried to talk to him at twelve the way he’d just talked to J.T., he wouldn’t have known what the hell he was talking about. J.T. had followed right along.
Neither he nor J.T. mentioned their conversation to Lucy when she and Madison returned. “If it’s run over the chipmunk or lose control of your car,” Lucy was saying, “you run over the chipmunk.”
“I couldn’t,” Madison said. “I’d just die.”
J.T. leaned toward Sebastian and whispered, “Two bad choices?”
“Tougher to have to run over a chipmunk than go on a father-son canoe trip with Rob and Georgie, don’t you think?”
J.T. grinned, and Sebastian retired to his room. Lucy’s room, he amended. He surveyed the bed, the furnishings, the rug for anything out of the ordinary—dead bats, bullet holes, live rounds. He dropped down and checked under the bed. Nothing.
He kicked off his shoes and fell back onto the worn, soft quilt.
Lucy knocked. “I need to get a few things.”
“Be my guest.”
She went straight to her dresser and opened drawers, discreetly pulling out a nightgown—no black silky thing tonight—and underthings, socks, an outfit for tomorrow. Her back was to him. He observed the curve of her hips, the shape of her legs, the way her hair fell carelessly past her shoulders. Without looking at him, she said, “I hope today wasn’t too deadly for you.”
“I’ve had worse. You could use a couple of horses, though.”
She turned to him. “I can barely manage two kids, a company and this place. What would I do with horses?”
“Loan me one. I’d rather ride a horse than pick squash.” Except he’d enjoyed picking squash. He couldn’t explain it and didn’t want to try.
“You’re in no condition to go horseback riding.”
“Nah.” He was stretched out on her bed, watching her. The scene struck him as scarily intimate. “I’m right as rain. Or close to it.”
“Sure,” she said dubiously, and breezed to the door. But she stopped, one hand on the knob. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“J.T. He told me he’s decided to go on the father-son canoe trip.”
“That was his doing, not mine.”
“You talked to him.”
He sighed. “I should have just fished with him. Kids are too intense these days. It’s this damn therapeutic culture.”
“Right. Nevertheless, thank you.”
“Lucy.” He let his gaze settle on her, felt her change in mood. “Don’t let today fool you. I needed a day or two to recover from my fall. I talked to J.T., picked squash and fired up the grill to kill time.”
“Are you trying to tell me you’re not a nice man?”
He said nothing, and she smiled.
“I already knew that,” she said, and left.
Moron, Sebastian thought. He’d had her right here in his room, thinking kindly toward him, and he’d had to remind her of what a son of a bitch he was. It was Daisy’s ghost, he decided.
Back in Wyoming, he’d have had Lucy Blacker Swift in bed with him by now.
* * *
A noise woke Sebastian early, just after daylight. It came from outside. He glanced at the bedside clock: five twenty. This was an early family, but not a crack-of-dawn family. So who—or what—was in the backyard?
He rolled out of bed and peered through the window as he pulled on his pants.
Madison was climbing over the stone wall on the other side of the vegetable garden. She jumped down and, ducking low, ran up through the field.
Sebastian swore under his breath. What would get a fifteen-year-old out of bed at five in the morning?
“A secret,” he said to himself.
He ducked down the hall and made his way soundlessly up the stairs to Lucy’s room. The door was open a crack. He slipped inside and dropped beside her bed. “Lucy.”
She bolted upright, sank her fingers into his arm. “What is it?”
“Madison’s sneaking out across the field,” he said. “You know how teenagers love their secrets. I’ll go after her. You stay here with J.T.”
“What?” She was half asleep, trying to figure out what was going on. “Madison’s where?”
She pushed back the covers. Sebastian felt his mouth go dry. Her nightgown wasn’t silky, but it was little. The V-neckline was askew, revealing almost her entire breast. The fabric was pulled tight across the nipple. He tried not to stare, but something in his expression tipped her off—she looked down, sucked in a breath and adjusted her position.
“She doesn’t have much of a head start,” he said. “We’ll probably be back before you and J.T. are even up. I didn’t want to chance your waking up and not finding us.”
The covers dropped off her legs; the nightgown just barely covered her hips. Her thighs were smooth and tanned. If her daughter wasn’t charging off to God-knew-where, there’d be no stopping him. Desire fired through him, stealing his breath, his senses.
“It’ll be okay, Lucy,” he whispered, and kissed her, but held back, giving just a hint of how badly he wanted her. She fell against her pillow, her short nightgown riding up to her hips. He pulled away, every fiber of him throbbing with the need to make love to her, now. It was all he could do not to leave Madison to whatever mischief she was making. “I’ll be back.”
She slipped her sheet over herself. “You’ll find her?”
“Yes. Lucy—”
“Go.”
He nodded without a word and went.
The morning dew was cold, soaking his shoes and pants below the knee as he tore up through the field. He could distinguish mourning doves and crows in the flurry of bird calls, saw a bluebird swoop toward a bluebird house he’d put up for Daisy years ago at the edge of the field.
He felt better. A good night’s sleep and a morning kiss had helped. His head was clear, and the pain of his bruises had lessened. He was stiff, but the soreness wasn’t as raw-edged.
He wasn’t worried about following Madison’s trail. He knew the route she was taking, and wasn’t surprised when he found her footprint in a low, muddy spot just into the woods beyond the stone wall. He took the narrow path up a hill, moving carefully and quietly but not making an effort to make no sound at all. If Madison heard him and scurried home, all the better.
The path ended at the dirt road. Sebastian had already investigated the occupants of the homes up on the ridge: a Boston optometrist, two New York florists. A local real estate woman rented out the third.
He found Madison at this last house, a glass-and-wood contemporary.
She was talking to someone on the screened porch. Sebastian couldn’t see who it was as he crept under the sweeping branches of a huge, gnarled hemlock.
“Madison, you can’t sneak up here at this hour.” A woman’s voice, low and urgent. “It’s wrong. What would your grandfather think?”
“I know—but I had this terrible nightmare, and I had to get out of the house. I couldn’t breathe! And my mother’s not herself since...” The girl coughed, as if she were choking on her own drama. “I can’t explain.”
“Try,” the woman said calmly.
“Do you know Sebastian Redwing?”
Sebastian remained very still. Who was this woman Madison had snuck out to see?
“Not personally. I know he saved your father and grandfather from an assassin some years ago and has his own investigative and security firm. He’s widely respected in that community.”
“Well, he’s here,” Madison said, pumping each word full of as much drama as she could.
“Sebastian Redwing?” The woman remained cool. “Really? Why?”
“Mom took us to see him when we were in Wyoming, and—and I didn’t think he liked us at all. He was such a jerk.”
Actually, Sebastian thought, he didn’t think he’d been that bad.
“Now he’s here,” Madison went on, “and I don’t know, I just think it’s so weird. He almost killed himself at the falls the other night. He slipped or something, and Mom found him.”
“Sebastian sold your mother your house, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, it used to belong to his grandmother.”
“Perhaps your visit in Wyoming got him thinking about Vermont, and he decided he wanted to see his grandmother’s house again.”
“But Mom—she doesn’t want J.T. or me going off into the woods alone. She’d kill me if she knew I was up here.”
Sebastian knew this to be untrue. If Madison really thought her mother would “kill” her for disobeying, she wouldn’t have sneaked off. He wasn’t sure if this meant mother and daughter really did trust each other or that the kid was a spoiled brat.
“Does your grandfather know Sebastian’s visiting your mother?” the woman asked.
The criticism in her voice was almost undetectable, but still unmistakable. Sebastian frowned. This was someone who believed she had Jack Swift’s best interests at heart—and believed Lucy didn’t.
Madison, however, was oblivious. “I don’t think so. She doesn’t tell Grandpa much.”
“No. I’m sure she doesn’t.”
Whoever this woman was, she didn’t like Lucy Blacker Swift.
“Mom’s very independent,” the girl said in grudging defense of her mother.
“That she is. Well, you should be running along before she wakes up and doesn’t find you. She’ll worry.”
Sebastian ducked deeper under the branches of the hemlock. He could hear creaking floorboards as Madison and the woman walked, presumably toward the door of the screened porch.
“I can’t wait for Grandpa to come up this summer,” Madison said. “It’ll be so cool. None of my friends believe I have a grandfather who’s a United States senator.”
“Your friends in Washington did, didn’t they?”
“I mean up here.”
Madison went out onto the deck and took the steps down to the driveway, which was on the opposite side of the house from where Sebastian was hidden.
“Come see me again,” the woman called from the deck. “You’ll keep our secret, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
Sebastian didn’t like secrets. It was one thing to keep your own mouth shut about something, another thing to ask someone else to keep their mouth shut. Especially a fifteen-year-old. A sure sign of something afoot was an adult telling a child to keep a secret. If it didn’t involve Christmas or birthday presents, it usually wasn’t good.
He wanted to know about the woman on the deck, but his first priority was seeing Madison Swift safely home. He eased down the wooded hill, making as little noise as possible, and came onto the path several yards behind her. She was walking briskly, practically skipping. Whoever this woman was, Madison certainly thought she was something.
They were almost to the field when Sebastian announced his presence. The girl jumped, startled, then turned sullen. “You followed me?”
“Yep. A kid sneaking out of the house at the crack of dawn is asking to be followed.”
“That’s not true.”
She looked as if she might throw a fit. They were out of earshot of the rented house, but not if the kid started screaming and stomping around. Sebastian sighed. “Now don’t start yelling bloody murder. It won’t go over well if you do.”
Madison snorted at him, out of breath and furious at being caught. “What’ll you do, tie me to a tree?”
“It’s a thought.”
“My mother—”
“Your mother would tie you to an anthill.”
The girl’s mouth snapped shut.
“Who’s the woman at the house?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
“Okay, I’ll just go up there, knock on her door and ask her myself—”
“No! She’ll get in trouble!”
“Is that what she told you?”
Madison obviously didn’t care for his tone of voice. “It’s what I know,” she said snottily and marched a few steps ahead of him.
He was still feeling pretty good—she couldn’t outrun him. He thought of his hammock in Wyoming. His horses. His dogs. He could pull together a poker game with the ranch hands. Five-card stud, cigars and a couple of six-packs.
Damn, what was he doing here?
“The woman works for your grandfather,” he said to the girl’s retreating back.
She refused to answer, kept walking.
Sebastian easily caught up with her. “I can call him, find out who’s out of town—”
She stopped abruptly and spun around at him, her face pale. “No, don’t. Please. I promised.”
“Promised what? Your firstborn?”
“No, but I gave my word—”
“Well, you can un-give your word and tell me what’s going on.”
“Why should I?”
“Two reasons. One, if you don’t, I’ll still find out, but I won’t be as pissed off if you go ahead and tell me yourself. Two, if you do tell me, I can tell your mother and hold her down and let her cool off before she tans your hide.”
“My mother doesn’t believe in corporal punishment.”
This was no surprise. Sebastian kept his cool. “I was speaking metaphorically.”
She licked her lips. “Barbara’s here renting a house for my grandfather. He’s spending August in Vermont. He asked her not to tell Mom. He wanted to make sure everything worked out first, then tell her himself.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, that’s the way he is. It’s a surprise, I guess.”
“Barbara who?”
“Barbara Allen. She’s my grandfather’s personal assistant. She’s worked for him forever, since even before you saved his life.”
So, as far as Madison was concerned, Barbara had seniority on him, and he wasn’t such a big deal. Sebastian was amused. Little snot. But there was real fear in her eyes, not for herself but for a woman to whom she’d given her word. That mix of loyalty and kindness was more like her mother than Madison would probably want to know.
“I accidentally saw her the other day,” Madison went on, “and she asked me not to tell.”
“Madison, Barbara Allen isn’t going to get fired because you caught her renting a vacation house for your grandfather. She must know that.” And if she did, he thought, she was deliberately manipulating a fifteen-year-old girl. Why?
Madison nodded, not happy about having to tell him anything. Her blue eyes fastened on him. She wasn’t afraid of him any more than anyone else in her damn family was. He was out of practice. People used to be afraid of him.
“Anything else?” she asked sarcastically, as if he were the inquisitioner.
“Nope. Now we can go back and tell your mother.”
She said something under her breath. He was pretty sure it was “bastard,” but she was only fifteen and shouldn’t be using that kind of language. He let it go. Then she said something about being glad he’d tumbled into Joshua Falls. She spoke a little louder, wanting him to hear, wanting him to react. He didn’t. In her place, he’d be pissed, too.
Which was nothing compared to what Lucy was.
She greeted Madison at the door, white-faced and scared and too angry to speak. She had on shorts, a T-shirt and sandals. No more little nightgown. She pointed at the ceiling. “Upstairs.”
“Mom, I can explain. I—”
Lucy held up her hand, and the girl shut up and flounced off, pounding up the stairs.
“A wonder she doesn’t get shin splints.” Sebastian slid onto a chair at the table. He was breathing hard; his head was pounding. He needed coffee and food, maybe one more day before he was fit to tackle desperadoes instead of Lucy’s kids. “It wasn’t a guy, if that makes you feel any better.”
Lucy was slightly less pale. “Who was it?”
“A woman named Barbara Allen. She’s renting a house on the sly for your father-in-law. He wants to come up in August. Know her?”
Lucy nodded. “Damn Jack. He’s always doing things in secret. He says it’s because he likes surprises and wants to avoid publicity. He thinks he’s the president, I swear.”
“What about Barbara Allen?”
“Barbara? She’s been Jack’s personal assistant for—I don’t know, twenty years or so. She’s devoted to him. If he says, ‘Jump,’ she says, ‘How high?’ She’s always been fond of the kids—she’s wonderful to us whenever we’re in Washington. Gets us tickets, restaurant reservations, things like that.”
“She shouldn’t have told Madison not to tell you—”
“I know.” Lucy took two mugs down from a cabinet, her movements jerky, betraying her agitation. “But that’s Jack, and Barbara would want to please him. She probably didn’t think. And she wouldn’t know about the incidents.”
Sebastian made no comment.
She set the mugs on the counter and looked around at him. “Sebastian, don’t even think it. Not Barbara.” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to spend ten seconds inside your brain.”
He leaned back and kicked out his legs. The trek up into the woods had done him good, but he could feel it. He smiled. “No, you wouldn’t. Tell me what you know about Barbara Allen.”
“I just did.”
“Her personality,” he said, “her sense of loyalty, what she thinks of you, your children, your move to Vermont. Anything.”
“I don’t know a lot. My contact with her over the years has been mostly about Jack, not her. She’s very professional—she’s never said much about her personal life around me. I think she has an apartment on the river.”
“Not married?”
Lucy shook her head. “She’s about my age, maybe a year or two older. Now, don’t be thinking she’s your weird, mousy, stereotypical spinster, because she’s not.”
“I wasn’t thinking that. I wonder why you did?”
“I didn’t. I was just—”
“The thought was there, Lucy. Something about this woman made you think ‘weird, mousy, stereotypical spinster.’ Think of how many single women in their late thirties and forties you know. Would you immediately warn someone not to think of them in stereotypical terms?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“I doubt it. Something about Barbara Allen made you want to defend her against stereotype.”
Lucy frowned. “I suppose there is a neediness about her. You’d never notice it right off, but I’ve known her for years. Who knows, I could be projecting.”
“There’s nothing needy about you.”
“I don’t know. After you left this morning—”
He grinned. “That’s different.”
She filled the two mugs with coffee, and with her back to him, said, “Sebastian, I can’t be attracted to you. It’ll never work, and the timing couldn’t be worse.”
“I agree.”
She spun around to face him. “You agree?”
“Bad timing. Won’t work. Can’t be attracted. That’s pretty much what I was thinking, too.”
“After what happened upstairs.”
“No, before, actually. I thought about it all night.” He walked over to her and picked up one of the mugs, sipped the hot, black coffee. “Obviously I wasn’t convinced.”
“I am.”
“Good. That’ll give me ammo for talking myself out of kissing you again.”
She nodded. “Right. We can’t—” She turned, facing him, and leaned against the counter with her coffee. “I have a sneaky daughter and a son who’s worried about forgetting his father, and a business to run, and this person to find—and now Jack Swift coming for August. So, yes, please talk yourself out of kissing me again.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“About what?”
“Kissing me. Because if you know I want to kiss you, and would at the drop of a pin, then you don’t have the kind of ammo I have. I know you don’t want me to kiss you. You don’t know that about me.”
She stared at him. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Sure I am. I want to kiss you again. Very much.” He touched her hair. “I have for a long, long time.”
“How long?”
And suddenly she seemed to know. He could feel it. “Years,” he said, and he touched her mouth, traced her lower lip with his thumb.
Her gaze held steady, but he could see her swallow. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” He smiled. “Now go see about your daughter.”
“She’s a good kid, Sebastian.”
“I know.”
He moved aside, and she crossed the kitchen with her mug of coffee. At the doorway, she turned back to him and smiled. “But I am going to lock her in her room for the next hundred years.”
While mother and daughter had it out, Sebastian took his coffee to the back steps. J.T. was still asleep; outside the air was warm and still, and the birds were twittering. He thought about Barbara Allen and Jack Swift, a rented house, a dead bat in Lucy’s bed, a landslide that had nearly killed him, Darren Mowery, the August congressional recess and blackmail.
And kissing Lucy. He thought about that, too.