Day of Reckoning
She nodded and tried to smile.
“Mother went all out on dinner tonight.”
“Do you know who the guest is?” she asked, getting to her feet to see Drew out. She needed some time alone. Pretending she was all right was exhausting.
“It’s a surprise.” He shrugged as if to say, “You know Mother.”
Except she didn’t know Emily. She suspected though that the woman was big on surprises. She’d certainly surprised Roz by somehow getting Liam to marry her.
“Buzz me on the intercom if you need anything. Two buzzes, okay?”
She nodded. “Thanks.” Closing the door behind him, she turned to look at the room again, fighting tears of grief and worry and anger. How could her father bring his new wife back to this house? This house so filled with memories of Roz’s mother? The room seemed to echo all the unanswered questions Roz had been asking herself for the past ten years.
First her mother and now there was the chance that her father—
She brushed at her tears, refusing to let herself even think that she might lose him, too. Cold, her clothing still damp, she went to the large antique bureau. In the third drawer she found what she’d been looking for. The thick rust-colored sweater her mother had knitted for her. It was the last thing her mother had made her. The sweater still fit.
She pulled on a pair of jeans from her suitcase and hiking boots, needing to get out of the house for a few minutes. She took the back stairs, exiting through a door that opened into her mother’s garden.
The night felt cold and damp but for the moment the rain had stopped. Only the faint tingle of electricity in the air foretold of an approaching storm. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she started down the stone path to the rear of the property.
Like the house, her father had seen that the garden had been maintained. But in this part of the country, it was a constant battle to hold back the rainforest and no one had a way with plants like Anna Sawyer had. Roz could see where there had been recent digging. Emily must have hired someone to redo the garden as well as the house.
Roz walked down the winding overgrown path as far as the rock arch where a tangle of vines and tree limbs had left only a narrow opening. Quiet settled over her as she stood in the shadowed darkness. From here she could barely see the house through the trees and vines.
She no longer felt like crying, which was good. She needed to be strong now—for her father. She felt like she was the only person here who was worried about him.
“What does that tell you?” she asked the night as she looked back at the house. “I can’t understand how you could have gotten involved with someone like her.” A younger, good-looking woman? “Okay, maybe I can understand the attraction—at first. You were lonely.” The thought broke her heart. “Of course you were lonely. But something happened, didn’t it?” She knew her father. He wouldn’t just stay away like this. He’d called her the night before last and hadn’t tried to get back to her. “What happened? What was it you needed to talk to me about?”
A breeze stirred the tops of the trees in a low moan. She took another deep breath and looked up at the night sky as if it held all the answers. Clouds skimmed over the faint glitter of distant stars. No moon. She tried to fight back her growing panic. Her every instinct told her that her father needed her, and it was imperative that she find him. Was it too much to hope that this mystery dinner guest and friend of her father’s might know something?
Mist rose from the wet ground around her. She hugged herself against the dampness, not ready to go back inside. Not yet. She took another deep breath, the air scented with cedar and rainwater and damp fertile earth, and so wonderfully familiar except for—She took another sniff. A chill skittered across her bare arms. Her heart began to knock as she picked up a scent that didn’t belong on the night breeze—and, eyes adjusting to the darkness, she saw a large, still shape that didn’t belong in the garden.
Someone was hiding just inches from her on the other side of the rock arch.
Chapter Three
“Wait!” Ford reached for her, hoping to stop her before she panicked and did something crazy. Like scream bloody murder. Too late. She got out one startled cry as she stumbled back from him, then she let out a bloodcurdling shriek that he knew could be heard in three counties.
He cursed himself for not warning her he was out here. At first he hadn’t wanted to scare her. Once he recognized her voice, he wasn’t about to open his mouth. What the hell was she doing here, anyway?
He caught her arm and spun her around, figuring once she recognized him she’d at least quit screaming. But her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, her mouth open, a shriek coming out.
Behind them, twenty yards away through the trees, the back porch light blinked on. Any moment the lady of the house would be calling the sheriff and—
He did the first thing that came to mind short of throttling the woman. When she took a breath, he kissed her, covering any future screams as his mouth dropped to hers. She gasped in surprise, eyes fluttering open for an instant, then shuttering closed again.
She had a great mouth, and for a few seconds, he got lost in her lush lips, in the warmth of her breath mingling with his, in the taste of her.
For those few seconds, he forgot whom he was kissing. He loosened his hold on her as the kiss deepened.
The right hook came out of nowhere. He managed to duck that one. But he hadn’t been expecting the kick. Her boot connected with his shin.
“Damn.” He should have been the one screaming.
She turned to run, mouth open, ready to let out another shriek. He grabbed her around the waist, dragged her back to his chest and clamped a hand over her mouth.
They were both breathing hard now, hidden in the dark shadows of the trees out of sight of whoever was now on the porch calling, “Rozalyn?”
“Listen,” he whispered next to her ear. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She tried to slug him again in answer.
“I’m just trying to get to dinner, dammit,” he whispered in exasperation.
THE INSTANT his words registered, Roz stopped struggling and groaned. She could hear Emily calling her name, and saw through the tree limbs the dim glow of the porch light in the distance. This man in the dark was no crazed killer hiding in the backyard. Just the dinner guest. She kicked herself mentally and wished the ground would open up and swallow her whole.
He slowly removed his hand from her mouth, obviously afraid she’d scream again. Behind her, she heard him clear his throat and step back almost as if he were afraid she’d kick him again.
She turned, an apology on the tip of her tongue. It never made it to her lips as she got her first good look at him.
“You?!” she whispered in horror. His face was bathed in the mottled pattern of light coming through the trees from the porch lamp. Her first impression earlier at the waterfall had been true. He was tall, broad-shouldered and dark except for his eyes, which were an eerie, pale blue-green.
He wasn’t even handsome. His expression was too severe, brows pinched together, full mouth a grim line between the rough stubble of his designer beard. But he was definitely the man who’d almost killed her at Lost Creek Falls. “You can’t be the dinner guest.”
“Emily invited me,” he said, obviously also trying to keep his voice down. “Anyway, why can’t I?”
“Because you were sneaking in the back way!” she hissed.
“I’m staying in the guest house. What other way should I be coming from for dinner?” he whispered back.
“You’re staying in the guest house?”
“Emily was kind enough to offer it.”
“Emily is so thoughtful.” Roz couldn’t believe her stepmother would let a perfect stranger stay in the guest house. But this man wasn’t a perfect stranger—not to her father and maybe not to Emily.
She could not believe her father would befriend such an obnoxious man. “So when was the last time you saw Liam?” she asked.
“It’s been a while. Any chance we could discuss this after dinner? I’m hungry.”
“Rozalyn!” Emily called again. “Is that you out there?” She sounded as if she were straining to see into the trees and darkness.
“Answer her,” he whispered. “I would, but then she’d think I was the one who was screaming.”
“Rozalyn?” Emily’s tone had an almost hysterical edge to it.
He gave Roz a pleading look.
She groaned. “Yes, it’s me,” she called back through the trees and the distance between her and the house.
“Well, why in heaven’s name were you screaming?” Emily yelled.
Roz sighed. “There was a big disgusting rat by the stone arch.”
“Cute,” he whispered.
“Ohhhhhhhh,” Emily cried. “Rats? Oh! Please come in. Our guest will be arriving any moment now for dinner. I don’t want you scaring him out of his wits.”
“Too late for that,” he muttered under his breath and narrowed his gaze at her. “You’re having dinner, too, I take it?” He didn’t sound any happier about that than she was. “So, this must be the family you said you had here.”
“This is not my family,” she snapped.
“Whatever.” He glanced toward the house. “But don’t you think we should go in to dinner? Emily is going to wonder what’s keeping me if not you.”
Let her wonder, Roz thought. “Why didn’t you say something to let me know you were by the arch?” What had he overheard? She hated to think.
“I didn’t want to interrupt the conversation you were having with yourself. I thought you might lose your train of thought.”
Funny.
“Rozalyn, who are you talking to out there?” Emily called.
“And the kiss?” Roz whispered, ignoring Emily. “What was that about?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I just wanted to shut you up before you got the whole household out here.”
Flatterer. She fought the urge to kick him again.
“Are you finished interrogating me?” he asked quietly. “I’m going in even if you aren’t.” He stepped past her.
She let him lead the way to the house, not trusting him behind her anyway. While she could think of nothing she wanted to do less than to have dinner with this man, she didn’t feel like hiding in the garden all night. And now she was curious as to how Emily knew this man well enough to invite him to stay in the guest house. Especially with her husband gone. Especially since this man was closer to Emily’s age than Liam was. Especially since Emily would find him attractive, Roz would just bet on that.
If he was telling the truth and he really was a friend of her father’s, she was dying to know how they’d met and what they could possibly have in common.
As she followed him along the winding path through the thick vegetation, she realized she didn’t even know his name. Not that she really cared. She’d already found out one important thing about the man: he lied. The kiss was hardly nothing.
If he’d lie about a kiss… Who knew what else he’d lied about? And how much of a coincidence was it that the two of them had met at Lost Creek Falls earlier tonight under very strange circumstances only to have him turn up here?
FORD COULDN’T BELIEVE his bad luck. Running into the woman not once tonight but twice. Worse, it seemed Emily had invited her to dinner. He swore under his breath as he neared the house. Why hadn’t this Rozalyn gone to her own family for dinner? Whoever she was, she was obviously nuts even if she really hadn’t been trying to leap off the waterfall earlier.
She was a looker, too. That wild head of strawberry-blond curls, those big brown eyes and that obviously nicely put together body. Why were the great-looking ones the most cuckoo? And this one was unpredictable to boot.
A deadly combination.
He shook his head at his misfortune. But he could get through one dinner with this bunch. After all, he didn’t have much choice if he hoped to accomplish what he’d come here for.
“Rozalyn?” Emily called again.
“We were just coming in,” she answered behind him, adding an irritated sigh.
“We?” Emily inquired as he and Rozalyn came into view. “Oh. I see you’ve met.”
“We were just getting acquainted,” he said.
“You look like you’ve been wrestling in the weeds,” Emily said, eyeing them both.
Rozalyn plucked a leaf from his hair and smiled at him with a devilish gleam in her eyes. She was actually enjoying ticking off her host.
“Let’s go right on into the dining room. The rest are already seated,” Emily said, clearly annoyed.
“I hope I didn’t hold up dinner,” he said. Rozalyn, he noticed, hung back as he mounted the steps of the back porch to Emily.
“Oh, no, you’re right on time,” Emily said, gracing him with a smile as she took his arm and led him toward the back door. “We’re just delighted that you could join us.”
“As am I,” he said, the tension between the two women like sloughing through neck-deep mud, as Rozalyn followed them inside.
Emily still had hold of his arm as they stepped through a set of French doors into a large dining room.
He thought for a moment that Rozalyn had changed her mind about joining them for dinner, but when he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that she’d stopped in the wide French doorway and was now watching him with obvious suspicion.
“I just realized—”
“I hope you’re hungry,” Emily said as if Rozalyn hadn’t spoken.
“—that I didn’t catch your—”
“Starved,” he said.
“—name,” Rozalyn finished.
“I’d like you to meet my daughter,” Emily said. A woman in her late twenties was seated at the round dining room table. She and a young man who resembled her had had their heads together when he and Emily had come in. Now the two looked up in surprise, cutting off an obviously intimate conversation in midsentence and appearing almost…guilty.
“This is my daughter Suzanne and my son Drew,” Emily said. “Mr. Lancaster has graciously accepted my invitation to dine with us tonight.”
“Lancaster?” Rozalyn said behind him in the doorway.
He turned to look at her and felt himself tense at the frown on her face. Clearly, she was trying to place the name.
Drew, who appeared to be a few years older than his sister, had gotten to his feet and was holding out his hand. Ford took it but noticed the young man’s attention was more on Rozalyn.
“Mr. Lancaster is staying in our guest house for a while,” Emily was saying.
“Really?” Suzanne was a younger version of her mother. Slim, blond and blue-eyed. Her eyes seemed a little glazed, and he noticed that not only was her dirty wineglass empty, but also the bottle in front of her was almost spent.
“Lancaster?” Rozalyn repeated from the doorway.
“Why don’t you sit by my daughter,” Emily said to him.
He went around the table, aware that Rozalyn still hadn’t joined them. Emily had left a chair between Suzanne and Drew for her other guest.
“Rozalyn, if you’d care to join us,” Emily said, her tone as sharp as a glass shard. “Let’s not have a scene in front of Liam’s friend and our dinner guest.”
Rozalyn didn’t seem to hear her. Nor was she looking at the older woman. Instead, her gaze was locked on Ford. “I missed your first name, Mr. Lancaster.”
He met Rozalyn’s brown-eyed gaze, almost afraid to tell her but not sure why. Emily hadn’t even raised an eyebrow when he’d told her. “Ford. Ford Lancaster.”
“Ford Lancaster?!” Roz spat and stepped toward him as if she planned to leap the table and go for his throat. She definitely looked like she wanted to. “You lying bastard. You’re no friend of my father’s. What the hell are you doing here?”
SHERIFF MITCH TANNER sat in his patrol car outside the Timber Falls Courier trying to decide what to do about Charity. A few weeks ago he’d almost lost her to a killer. Bud Farnsworth was dead, but Mitch feared that the man who killed him was even more dangerous.
Whatever Charity wrote in her newspaper would set Wade Dennison off. The owner of Dennison Ducks was a powerful man in this town and he used that power and money to get his way. Men like that often thought they were above the law.
One thing was for certain, Bud would never have come up with the idea of kidnapping the Dennison baby by himself. Mitch suspected he’d been paid. That’s why Mitch had subpoenaed Wade Dennison’s and Bud Farnsworth’s financial records. Wade’s attorney had held up the process for two weeks, arguing the case was closed. The kidnapper was dead.
But Mitch wasn’t giving up because he knew in his heart that the true kidnapper, the person who’d planned the whole thing and paid Bud Farnsworth to snatch Angela Dennison, was still out there. Still walking around thinking he’d gotten away with it.
A tap on the glass made Mitch jump. “Jesse,” he said rolling down his window. “I wish you’d quit sneaking around in the dark.”
Jesse’s smile was all Tanner dimples. He was just a little shorter than Mitch, stockier though, with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail, a gold earring in his right ear and handsome to a fault. “Hey, little bro. Spying on your woman?”
Mitch shook his head, not wanting to talk about Charity, especially with his brother. It was no secret that Jesse wished Charity had fallen for him. Mitch was just getting used to having his brother back in town. There’d been a time when he believed his wild, older brother was headed straight for a life of crime.
But Jesse had come back to Timber Falls a few weeks ago and really seemed to be trying to make up for his past mistakes. Mitch couldn’t help but respect his brother for that. Jesse had also brought Mitch and their father closer.
“I thought you’d like to know,” Jesse said now. “I just saw Wade Dennison move lock, stock and barrel into one of the units out at Florie’s.”
Mitch stared at him. “Nina’s old unit? Aries?” Florie, a self-proclaimed psychic, had turned her motel into bungalow rentals years ago and named each of the twelve for the signs of the Zodiac. “What’s up with that?” Mitch asked.
“Looks like Daisy threw him out.”
What were the chances of that? Nil. Unless Daisy had something on Wade that she was holding over his head. Like she knew he was behind the kidnapping of their daughter, Angela. Or Daisy and her lover’s daughter.
Mitch looked at Jesse, both of them no doubt thinking the same thing. If Angela had been a love child, then the father of that baby might very well be their own father, Lee Tanner. Lee and Daisy had had an affair in the year before Angela was born.
“How’d Wade seem?” Mitch asked, even more worried about Charity now.
Jesse shook his head. “He didn’t look good. I’d say the man was about at the end of his rope. Can you imagine what will happen when this gets around town?”
And it wouldn’t take long for that to happen given that Charity’s Aunt Florie was one of the biggest gossips in town. And then there was Charity.
Mitch groaned at the thought of Charity’s newspaper hitting the streets in the morning. There would be fireworks, sure as hell. He just hoped no one got killed.
“Damn,” he swore, wondering if he should pay Wade a visit tonight. By the next day, Mitch was pretty sure he’d have the financial reports on Wade Dennison and Bud Farnsworth. And he figured he’d be paying Wade a visit once he had proof in hand anyway. No reason to court trouble tonight.
The patrol car radio squawked. Mitch took the call. A man had been found unconscious at the bottom of a cliff, not far from the recent Bigfoot sighting spot, and dropped off at the hospital. No ID.
Mitch turned to his brother. “Sounds like one of those damned Bigfoot hunters fell off a cliff and is over at the hospital.”
“You need any help? I was headed home but I could tag along.”
Mitch shook his head. In remote areas of Oregon, sheriffs worked alone—unless they needed to call in state investigators for help—or they could deputize someone locally for the short term.
“Later, then,” Jesse said and headed toward his motorcycle parked in the alley.
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