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Chapter 16

Deacon barked.

The sound was so alien that for several seconds it didn't penetrate Megan's consciousness. Then she jerked awake.

She was in Jake Kenyon's bed. In his arms. And he was smiling at her, a lazy, good-morning, everything's-right-with-the-world, rested smile. As though it was the most natural thing in the world, she lifted her hand to caress his jaw and let her fingers trail over the dark stubble of his morning beard and the lower edges of the upward-cutting scar.

Deacon barked again from somewhere inside the house, and Megan heard the sound of a distant engine groaning its way up the hill.

"Someone's coming," she warned, although Jake didn't look the least upset.

"Probably Patrick," he told her. "He does have lousy timing, doesn't he? Good morning."

Jake also didn't seem upset that she had practically crawled on top of him during the night. Megan felt a flush beginning with her toes and climbing all the way to the roots of her horrible hair.

Now both her hands rested on his chest, but when she tried to pull away he captured them, holding her still. "Not yet," he said. "Not when this seems so right."

And it did. Megan stopped her efforts to move and absorbed that knowledge. Everything about them had seemed right since he had come to her last night—everything but that one moment when memories of Lydia had intruded, and that hadn't been Jake's fault.

"How can you tell?"

"That this seems right?" he asked, still smiling contentedly, still holding her hands against his chest.

"No. That it's Patrick who's coming."

He released one of her hands and traced a gentle pattern along her cheek. "Because you haven't managed to completely ruin my dog yet." He said. "That's not his warning bark; that's a demand: 'Let me out so I can go play.' And the only other person he ever played with, before you, is Patrick Phillips. Besides, I'm expecting him."

As she turned her cheek to his touch, warming to it, welcoming it, she felt Jake's breath catch. She tilted her head and saw his eyes darken, saw his smile fade.

"Megan," he said, all seriousness as his hand captured her face and held her still. "In about five seconds, I'm going to kiss you. So if the thought frightens you or repulses you, you'd better tell me now."

Now her breath caught, and the flush that warmed her was not from embarrassment but from something much more elemental. She felt her heart pounding in her chest, felt the answering rhythm of his heart beneath her hands. Felt his hesitancy as he waited for her answer.

"Never, Jake," she whispered.

She saw the doubt in his eyes and knew what she had done to cause it. In a moment that been tenderness and giving, she had cringed away from him. She didn't know yet why she had done it, other than because of those fleeting images of Lydia that had crowded in on her, but she knew this man had done nothing to deserve that reaction.

"Never you," she insisted. Still he hesitated. Once again she lifted her hand to his cheek. "Never you," she repeated.

The touch of Jake's lips on hers was like coming home, Megan closed her eyes, sighed a welcome, and slid her hand around to the nape of his neck, urging him closer as she moved, impossibly, closer to him.

She had thought her response to their kiss last night was a fluke, a reaction to all the shocks of the day, that nothing could be so right. She had been wrong. She belonged with this man as she had never belonged with anyone else. She wanted this man as she had never wanted anyone else. She loved—

She heard the roar of an engine and the blare of a horn. Jake shuddered once, moved his lips to her throat in a sensual assault that had her heart spinning, and lifted his head. His hand trembled when he cupped her cheek.

"Damn," he said in a breathless whisper. "I'm going to have to have a talk with our friend Patrick, maybe even send him back to eastern Europe."

She saw frustration in his eyes, but he dragged up a smile for her.

"It's too soon for us, Megan, I know that. But I also know there is something between us and we are going to have to explore it." He pulled away and stood up, tucking his shirt into his jeans. "If you want to make a run for the guest room and your clothes, I'll keep Patrick outside for a while. Or if you want to stay in bed a while longer, I'll try and keep him quiet so you can rest."

She knew the frustration he felt; she felt it too. What she wanted to do was stay there in his bed and in his arms and begin the exploration he spoke of. What she wanted to do was forget about the reason Patrick Phillips had come, forget about why it was too soon for the two of them, forget about all the problems that faced them. But she wasn't going to do that. Not ever again. That was the promise she had made to herself in the dark of the night while she sat on a cold stone hearth hugging Jake's dog. That was the promise she was going to keep, if she could—regardless of how painful it became to do so.

"Thirty seconds," she said.

Jake raised an eyebrow in silent question.

"I need thirty seconds to get down the hall," she explained, "and five minutes to throw on some clothes. Then I'll help you with breakfast."

He smiled, leaned over and brushed a lingering kiss on her cheek. "Good girl," he said.

At the door, Deacon went scrambling outside when Jake unlatched and opened the screen, skidding to a halt and waiting for Patrick to scratch that special place beneath his chin that only Patrick could find. Jake followed more slowly and leaned against the fender of Patrick's pickup. Finally Patrick reached into the open cab of his truck, retrieved a foot-long twisted rawhide chew bone, and sent it sailing across the yard with Deacon in hot pursuit. Then he turned to look at Jake.

"Don't you know the Miami Vice look went out of style a long time ago?"

Jake ran his hand over the stubble on his chin and grinned. "Maybe if you hadn't gotten out here at the crack of dawn, I'd have had time to shave. Don't you have to work?"

Patrick chuckled. "It's Saturday, my friend; I don't have another edition to get out for two days. And dawn's been cracked for several hours."

"So you thought you'd just run on out here, check on us, and finish spoiling my dog."

"Yep." Patrick gave him a quick, remorseless grin before turning solemn. "Bad night?"

Jake nodded. "Bad enough."

"How is she?"

Soft. Tempting. More than he'd ever thought he'd find. All that he'd ever want.

"Okay," Jake said. "As well as can be expected."

"Good." Patrick slammed the truck door. "I left the window glass at her place. I didn't think it would be too smart to risk hauling it all the way up your road and then back down. And I brought the dead-bolt lock set, so we can get that on today too. After you pour some coffee down me. I haven't had nearly enough caffeine this morning.

"Good morning, Megan. You're looking lovely today."

Jake turned toward the porch. Megan had dressed in what had to be record-breaking time and stood there in jeans and a cotton sweater with her face scrubbed clean and her hair whipped into a semblance of a style. Her reddened eyes bore silent witness to her grief of the night before, but to him she looked brave and valiant and, yes, lovely.

She grimaced and shrugged. "I look like death warmed over and you know it, Patrick Phillips, " she said, but without heat.

Patrick stopped on the step below her, leering and twisting an imaginary mustache. "But on you, pretty lady, even that looks good."

"Ha!" She threw a glance at Jake. "He's your friend; can't you do something about him?"

"Yeah." Jake growled the word, only half in humor, crossed the yard, and mounted the porch. There he threw his arm over Megan's shoulder, ignoring her start of surprise other than to give her a slight hug. "Patrick, old man," he said, "you're poaching."

Silently Patrick looked at the two of them. Then a wide grin lighted his face. "Good," he said. "Now can I please have some coffee?"

Megan surrendered the old-fashioned stove-top percolator to Jake but immediately lighted the oven and began gathering bacon and eggs and frozen biscuit dough while he built the pot and put it on the burner to perk. The actions were familiar enough so that he was able to turn his attention to Patrick's reason for being there and to the events of the night before.

"Did you have any trouble getting enough window glass?" he asked.

Patrick shook his head. "No, but the new fellow at the lumberyard—what's his name, Mack?"

"Yeah," Jake said.

"What's his story? He asked so many questions I may have to hire him as a reporter."

"If Walt Harrison runs true to form," Jake told him, "he'll be needing a job soon. Maybe you can cut a deal."

"Yeah, sure. Anyway, I finally told him a part of the truth, that I was closing in a sleeping porch. Don't know why I didn't just come out and spill the whole story. I'm perverse, I guess. Wanted to see how long this story takes to circulate and what version finally prevails. Young Charley's bound to talk to his family. And you know the Harrisons—all of them, not just Walt—can't keep a secret. If God told them their salvation depended upon keeping one, they'd sell the story of His appearance to the National Enquirer and then sell the secret.

"Oh, by the way," Patrick said, as Jake grabbed the coffeepot just as it began to boil over. "Speaking of secrets, I've got one the two of you should know about."

Jake lowered the flame on the burner and set the pot back. He looked up to see Megan watching Patrick with something like dread in her eyes. "Spill it," he said.

Patrick seemed to notice Megan's expression too. "Right. It's bad enough," he said to her, "but not, I think, as bad as you're expecting. Why don't the two of you stop and sit down for a minute?"

Jake raised an eyebrow, but he held a chair for Megan and dropped a hand onto her shoulder.

"I found an anonymous letter under my door when I went by the office last night," Patrick told them. "All it said was that I should contact the police department in Knoxville, Tennessee, about Max Renfro. Now I don't have any connections with the Knoxville P.D., but it just so happens I shared a couple of assignments with the man who now heads the journalism department at the University of Tennessee. He's the one who ought to complain about crack-of- dawn—"

"Patrick," Jake warned.

"Yeah." Patrick fumbled in his shirt pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. "He faxed me this police report. It seems our buddy Max was run down by a hit-and-run driver last Sunday night."

"How bad was he hurt?"

"How bad is dead?"

Megan gasped, and Jake tightened his hand on her shoulder. "Sunday night?" he asked. "Two nights before the search warrant? Our local people didn't know by then?"

Patrick unfolded the paper and read from it.

"A routine check for warrants showed an outstanding warrant for possession with intent to deliver from Pitchlyn County, Oklahoma. The sheriff's office at Fairview was notified of Renfro's death at 9:07 P.M. but the deputy on duty was unable to give any information as to the warrant. This officer was advised that Pitchlyn County would contact us Monday A.M."

"And did they?"

Patrick folded the paper. "Don't know. What do you think?"

"I think it would be interesting to find out. And interesting to know how Knoxville found the information so quickly on a state charge on a two-bit hood like Renfro. Could your buddy look into that for us?"

"He could," Patrick said. "As a matter of fact, he already is. But I was thinking we might get more results if we called in some of your buddies."

Jake shook his head. "I don't think they're going to be interested in a botched search warrant, a dead small-time dealer, and a corrupt sheriff."

"Not even with one of their own, still recuperating from being shot up, sitting right in the middle of this mess?"

He felt Megan's shoulder jerk beneath his hand as she turned to look up at him and he saw the quick flash of fear in her eyes. For him? Damn!

"But I'm not one of their own, Patrick," he said, looking at Megan while he spoke. "Not anymore except in the strictest interpretation. And I'm not going back when my leave of absence is up. I'd made my mind up before I left; I don't know why I let them talk me out of quitting outright."

"Coffee."

Tensed for an argument, Jake only stared at Patrick for a moment. "What?"

Patrick smiled. "The coffee is ready. I know what it means to come home, my friend. And I know how unsure I was that I was making the right decision. So unsure that I left myself an escape hatch too. So let's drink our coffee, eat our breakfast, and fix our windows. There's no need to fight old fights over again. We're both where we want to be, even if our little version of Eden does appear to have a few serpents in it."

 

"You're sure you won't come with us?"

Megan tried to ignore the concern in Jake's eyes; it too closely echoed her own.

"I'm sure. You don't need me getting in your way. And I need to do this."

"You're sure you'll be all right?"

Because she wasn't sure, she smiled. "That sounds amazingly like our favorite question."

"Don't," he said. "This is too important for jokes. You're too important."

She looked through the open door to where Patrick waited beside his truck. "You two will be between me and the road. You've left me a guard dog and a pistol big enough to use as a club if I can't bear to pull the trigger. Nothing can possibly hurt me."

"Except what you find in that damned journal."

"Please don't," she said. "Not when I've finally decided I must do this. Dr. Kent was right, Jake. I have to put all the pieces of myself back together. If what I've found so far seems alien to me, I have to think it's an allegory, even some dreamlike symbolism. It can't hurt me—unless I don't follow it through to the hidden meaning."

"Megan."

She shook her head and stepped back from him. "Go. Please. And remember: you two are there to fix the windows and the lock only. Don't even think about starting the cleanup."

After Jake and Patrick left, Megan wandered around Jake's house with the brown leather notebook clutched to her, trying to find a place that felt right to delve into her mysteries. Finally convinced there was no right place, she dumped her few toiletries out of the tote she'd packed them in and replaced them with the notebook, an apple, a small plastic jug of water, and reluctantly, Jake's pistol.

Slinging the tote over her shoulder she scooped up the two black cats, which had returned to curl up on the bed.

"Come on, you two. I've neglected you shamelessly the last few days, but I know a place you're going to love."

But as she reached the front door, the telephone rang—as alien a sound in this comfortable old house as it was in her own—surprising her so that she tightened her grip on the kittens she held cuddled in her arms, sending then into a startled frenzy to escape her hold.

"Oh, all right!," she said, releasing them to let them drop down onto the back of Jake's sofa.

Should she answer it or ignore it? No one knew she was there except Jake. What if he was calling to check on her? Or Barbara, looking for Patrick? No, she couldn't ignore it. Once again she was stuck answering a mechanical summons.

She circled the couch and picked up the receiver of the plain black desk phone. "Hello?"

Static-filled silence greeted her and held her quiet and still for a long count of five, before a harsh whisper grated over the line. "You bitch. Go back where you belong before more than a bedroom wall gets blown to pieces."

Megan gripped the phone long after the dial tone hummed in her ear, not truly believing what she had heard. When the electronic squawk signaling a phone off the hook sounded, she jumped, looked at the receiver, and carefully replaced it.

Just as carefully she curled into the chair where Jake had held her only hours before, comforting her, making her feel as though she could face just about anything.

If she worked at it really hard, she could convince herself that all the violence in her life so far, even the damage to her home, had been random, not really directed at her.

But this? Who would threaten her? Why?

All she wanted was to live a quiet, peaceful life. Was that too much to ask?

With a whine, Deacon thrust his nose into her lap and up under her fisted hands.

 

Jake stopped in the doorway to Megan's bedroom. The travesty inside didn't look any better in the light of day; it looked worse. Rain had lashed in through the shattered windows during the night, mixing with the plaster dust and soaking the strewn clothing.

He heard Patrick stop behind him and sigh. "Does she really think we can ignore this and not try to put it back in some semblance of order?"

"Probably," Jake told him. "It seems she's been surrounded by the kind of people who could do just that most of her life."

He stepped a little farther into the room and bent to retrieve a once-white garment from a pile on the floor. The nightgown he had found Megan wearing—had it just been the morning before? He touched it with a gentleness at war with the rage running through him at the careless hands that had thrown it down. What would have happened if whoever had destroyed this room had found her alone as he had?

It didn't bear thinking of.

"I'm worried about her," he said instead.

"Probably with good reason," Patrick told him. "This is enough to shake anyone up, even without all that's gone before."

"Yeah. Where's Barbara?"

"She was going to wind up at Mattie's after she took care of some errands. Do you think she needs to come on out now? I know she was planning to later, but I can call her if you want."

"It's that damned journal," Jake admitted. "As if all this isn't enough, something strange has been happening to Megan with that infernal thing." And to him, without benefit of the book, he admitted to himself as a vision of Megan, yet not Megan, sitting in front of the fire combing her long hair ran through his memory. He found he was clutching the soft, damp fabric of the nightgown. "Yeah. I think you'd better call her."

He scooped up a pile of the tumbled clothing.

"This stuff will mildew by tomorrow if we just leave it here. I think I'll hang the things that are still on hangers over the shower curtain rod to dry and start a load of the washable stuff through the washer and dryer while you're tracking Barbara down."

A few minutes later Patrick carried another load of wet clothing into the small utility room and dumped it in the basket Jake indicated. "Mattie said she hasn't gotten there yet, but she'll have her call the minute she does."

Jake grunted a nonverbal response as he closed the lid on the washing machine and gathered up broom, dustpan, mop, and bucket. "It's a good thing we know how to batch, isn't it? He asked, thrusting the broom and mop at Patrick.

"Jake."

Damn. It had been a long time since he had heard Patrick use that voice. It was the one he'd used when he'd come to Jake's dorm room at college to tell him Aunt Sally was dead. It was the one he'd used when Jake had awakened in the hospital and Patrick had to tell him that not only was he facing more surgery but the whole plan to trap the drug traffickers had been shot to hell almost as bad as he had. No arrests, no contraband. Nada. Zip. Nil. It was the same voice he had used in that same hospital to tell him Helen had been killed in a village in South America. And he didn't want to hear it now.

"After we get this little clean-up chore finished, which do you want, inside or out for the windows?" he said.

"Jake. It seems to me that Megan isn't the only one having trouble confronting reality. This has gone way beyond dirty politics. Call the agency. Or let me. It's time to get someone else involved."

"And wind up owing them my soul after all?" Jake asked. "I barely escaped with it the first time I got out."

"Not true, my friend. You had some serious chips and cracks when you came home, but the essential you was still intact. Is still intact."

"How much longer would it have been? What if I hadn't come home in time?"

"But you did."

"If I call them in on this, I'll owe them, Patrick. And they want me back."

Patrick took the broom and mop. He sighed and gave a lopsided grin. "I'll take inside," he said. "There's no way I'm risking this body ten feet off the ground with sheets of glass in my hands. But while you're out there climbing around on the ladder, you might give some serious thought to what your not calling in your crew could mean to Megan."

 

Megan had no idea how long she had been sitting in Jake's chair, holding his dog, when she heard a car horn honking as it approached the house. A horn. And she hadn't heard the noises of the engine coming up the hill.

She looked up, distracted. Some time had passed, maybe a great deal of time. For a moment she was frightened, not by the approaching car, but the missing time. Then Deacon whined, gave her wrist a wet sloppy swipe of his tongue, and thumped his tail against the floor.

"A friend, hm?" she asked him. Even to her, her voice sounded rusty and unused. She released her hold on the dog, smoothed her hair, and scrubbed at her eyes with unsteady hands, acknowledging as she did that she couldn't look any worse than she had already appeared that morning to Patrick.

Megan heard the car pull to a stop in the drive and forced herself to get up out of the chair and walk to the door.

Yes. A friend.

She recognized Barbara just before her new friend bent toward the open passenger door to help someone out.

Granny Rogers?

Megan stared open-mouthed at the tiny woman emerging from the car. Her hair was totally silvered, and she was much older, but she bore an amazing resemblance to the woman Megan had seen twice now at the quilt frame in this house. She bore an amazing resemblance—to Barbara.

Megan sighed and sank against the door facing Barbara's mother. Jake's beloved Mattie. She felt as though a huge piece of a puzzle she had been slaving over had just dropped into place. Her conscious mind might not have remembered Barbara the morning after the raid, but obviously her subconscious had and had embellished that memory, aging it and placing it in a scenario that one day she might understand as well as she understood now from where she had drawn the image of the older woman.

Now Barbara was bent over the open rear door into the back seat. She straightened and turned, holding a large split-reed basket that from the way she held it appeared to have some weight.

"Hi!" she called. "The fellows will be here in a bit, but they said to come on up."

Megan stepped onto the porch and smiled at Barbara, but her attention was really on Barbara's mother. She found Mattie's dark eyes focused on her with what appeared to be a sad, knowing smile.

Well, that's just great, she thought. Someone else to feel sorry for me. She gave herself a mental shake. None of these people felt sorry for her. What they felt was compassion and friendship, and while these had been missing from her life for so long, she did recognize them as something infinitely precious.

She stepped off the porch and met her visitors in the yard. "Here, let me help you with that basket."

Barbara shook her head. "Thanks anyway. Let me introduce the two of you. Mother, this is Megan. Megan, my mother, Mattie Hinkle."

Mattie's once-slender hand was gnarled and paper dry in Megan's, but her grasp was firm.

"I'm so happy to meet you," Megan told her. "Jake thinks very highly of you."

"And my daughter thinks highly of you, child. I hope you don't mind that I came without an invitation."

"Mind? I've been looking forward to meeting you, and to telling you how much I've enjoyed your bread. Besides, this is Jake's house, and I'm sure you don't need an invitation to visit him."

Mattie smiled at her as she patted her hand. Then she rested her hand on Megan's arm and turned to look at the house. "Yes," she said softly. "Yes!"

Megan looked up in question and caught Barbara's eye. Barbara shrugged and shook her head. "Patrick had talked to Mom before I got there, but the gist of his end of the conversation seemed to be 'Bring food; Jake's working me into the ground.' Anyway, Mom had this ready by the time I arrived."

Megan laughed and turned to help Mattie up onto the porch. "I think Patrick must have two hollow legs. How does he eat so much and still manage to stay slender?"

Inside the house, Megan waited while Mattie settled into a smaller version of Jake's big chair, at the opposite end of the sofa. But when she excused herself to join Barbara, who had carried the basket into the kitchen, Mattie stopped her with a gentle shake of her head and an equally gentle hand on her arm.

"Sit with me, please,"

Wanting to stay but feeling she ought to be helping, Megan looked toward the kitchen door.

"Barbara's all right, child. She knows her way around that kitchen."

"Yes, of course. But can I—" Realizing she was comfortable acting as hostess in Jake's house, Megan bit off her words. If anyone was qualified to act as hostess, surely it was Mattie Hinkle, second love of Jake's life. With a rueful grin, Megan settled on the end of the sofa near Mattie.

"Mom, what's this doing in the picnic basket?" Barbara asked as she rounded the corner from the kitchen carrying a large book.

Mattie reached for it, and Megan saw it was an ornate old photograph album. "I brought some of my special herb-blend tea. Please put the kettle on, dear, while Megan and I visit."

Barbara frowned, but Megan saw at once that it was from confusion. Again she shrugged. "Sure, Mom."

When Barbara left the room, Mattie smoothed her hands over the cover of the album in her lap. "My daughter tells me you are interested in my grandfather's family."

Pictures, perhaps of Lydia? But no. She had already accepted that her dreams, the journal, all the events with Lydia were only her, Megan's, way of dealing with the turmoil in her own life. Still, she clasped her hands together to keep from reaching for the book.

Her throat tightened. Her voice almost deserted her. "You have pictures?" she asked.

"Not many. Most were lost with the house. These, by what appears now to be an almost unbelievable coincidence, were here, in this house, when Grandfather Tanner's house burned."

After she spoke, Mattie remained quiet with her hands folded and still on the album, holding it closed while she studied Megan intently, once again with that sad, knowing smile.

Eventually, though, she seemed to rouse herself from her own version of the mini-vacations Jake and Patrick accused Megan of. She lifted the heavy book and offered it to Megan.

Almost hesitantly, Megan took it. For a moment she just held it, running her hands over the worn padded-velvet cover and tracing her fingers along the edge of the lavishly embossed clasp. Then, with a questioning look at Mattie, who waited, still smiling that smile, she unfastened the clasp and opened the cover.

It was the kind of album designed to showcase valuable and at that time costly photographs. The pages were mats, holding the portraits in place, one, occasionally two, to a page. The first photograph, studio posed, was of a stern, prosperous-looking man with light- colored hair and a high, tight collar; the next, of a gentle, almost ethereally beautiful young woman. Both were white; both were unfamiliar to Megan. She began to breathe a little easier.

The next was of a Choctaw woman, a little older than the first woman but dressed in the same expensive fashion.

Smiling at the unaccustomed fashion and poses, Megan turned the page.

Her fingers froze on the book.

Two poses, both portrait quality, showed him slightly younger than she had first seen him at the creek and again a few years older.

"Peter," she said on a quiet breath.

She heard Mattie moving in the chair and sensed she was reaching out to her. Hesitantly she turned the page. Lydia looked up from the old portrait in all her youthful innocence.

Megan sank back against the sofa cushions, eyes closed, gripping the book.

"You know who she is."

Megan looked at her. Mattie's words carried not one hint of question. That was all right. She had plenty of questions of her own. Soon. Just as soon as her heart stopped trying to pound its way out of her chest.

Mattie reached over and drew an unmounted photograph from the back of the book. She placed it across the page in front of Megan and waited.

Lydia as she had become, too old for her years, stood side by side with, but not touching, a tall, lean, infinitely weary Sam Hooker on the front porch of what was probably this house. Beside them, almost as a guard of honor, stood a too-mature adolescent Peter Tanner and the woman Megan knew only as Granny Rogers.

She looked up at Barbara's mother and knew she was dangerously close to hysteria. "Why?" she whispered, knowing no one, least of all this aged woman, could know the answer. "Why?"

 

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