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“What about Taylor?”
“What about her?”
“Don’t try acting indifferent with me. I lived those years right beside the two of you. I had eyes, and there’s nothing wrong with them yet. Will you be able to cope, to deal with seeing her every day?”
Just the idea of that made him feel as if he’d swallowed a plateful of broken glass, but he managed a one-shouldered shrug. “We’ll find out that, as well.”
“But—”
“Mother,” he said with quiet warning. “Enough for now.”
His mother sighed, and once again glanced outside. “I wonder why she never married. Did you notice? She’s not wearing a ring.”
He’d noticed. And his heart continued its assault on his ribs thanks to that brief but intimate contact with her. Thanks to a lack of female companionship over the years, he knew he would have reacted to almost any woman; that it was Taylor who had reawakened his sexual appetite had to be the cruelest of jokes. So was finding himself pleased that she remained single.
“We aren’t going to get past this if we keep talking about it,” he muttered. He flung a fifty-pound sack onto the new pile with a little too much energy. As it landed, the multilayered brown paper split as though it was the finest wrapping.
Brown oblong pellets poured across the concrete floor. Hugh swore.
His mother eyed the mess and nodded. “I’d better go make some iced tea. You’re going to need some cooling down. Are you getting hungry yet?”
“No!” he snapped, glaring at what constituted several dollars of wasted feed. But he quickly checked his temper. “No, thanks. The tea will be fine for now.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Hugh didn’t reply and didn’t watch her head back toward the office. But once he heard the door shut, he walked out onto the dock—not in search of more air than was available in the stifling warehouse, although he did rub his forearm across his sweaty brow—to look farther down the road.
The Blazer was gone. For the time being. However, it would be back, and he and Taylor would cross paths again. For both of their sakes, he hoped it wasn’t soon.
“So what did he say?”
The screen door barely had time to shut behind her, yet Taylor’s father was already sitting up on the couch and lowering the volume on the TV. She looked from him to her son sprawled on the armchair beside him. Kyle’s open curiosity made her wish he’d waited until she’d sent the boy from the room.
“Use your imagination. It certainly wasn’t, ‘Gee, I’m glad to see you again. What? You want me to leave town? Sure, no problem.’”
Her father grimaced and scratched carefully at the two-inch scar beneath his chin where days ago stitches had been. Fingernails against several days’ growth of beard stubble sounded like sand being crushed under the sole of a boot. “Guess I deserved that, but can I help it if the suspense is killing me? Will he or won’t he cooperate?”
“My gut hunch is that I doubt it. At the same time, he doesn’t want trouble. I came away with the feeling that if people leave him alone he’ll reciprocate in kind.”
Her father didn’t look pleased. “That’s not going to satisfy Murdock or his allies.”
“Then you’re going to have to talk to Mr. Marsden,” Taylor replied, slipping off the borrowed hat. “Because I happen to believe that if the parole board saw fit to release Hugh, he has a right to try to start his life over wherever he pleases.”
She set the hat on the coffee table and retreated to the kitchen, as much to get a badly needed drink of something cool as to regroup. Being surrounded by familiar, nostalgic things helped.
The two-story house was an old friend, the kitchen still blue and white and in desperate need of repainting. No doubt the whole house did at this point, she mused, having already noticed the peeling paint on the outer walls. If her father didn’t do something soon, the place was going to look like a giant dalmatian dog.
After filling a glass with ice and water and taking several deep swallows, she refilled her glass from the tap and returned to the living room. Along the way she caught sight of her hair. Flattened and damp from wearing her father’s hat, it left her looking about as attractive as a wet rat. No wonder it had been so easy for Hugh to act so coldly toward her. She wished she could say she’d been indifferent.
“Mom?” Kyle leaned forward when she returned to the living room. “Is this Blackstone guy dangerous or not?”
Taylor eyed her father, wondering what he’d been saying while she’d been taking care of his dirty work. While it was inevitable that Kyle would hear of Hugh, not to mention meet him, she wished she could spare him any of that.
“I’m not sure it matters what I think,” she told him. “What does is that there are people in town who are afraid he might be.”
“So tell them to take a hike. You’re the law and what you say goes, right?”
She couldn’t help but smile. When she was in favor with her son, he was prone to think her too capable. “Police uphold the law, dear heart, we don’t make it.” She gestured upstairs. “Would you do me a favor and start unpacking? I need a few minutes to speak with your grandfather about business matters.”
As expected, his expression turned wounded. “Can’t I stay? I won’t tell anyone. You’ve let me listen before when you discussed cases on the phone.”
“And will again. Sometimes. But I’m afraid this isn’t one of them.”
When she was serious, she always spoke quietly, choosing her words with care to let him know she saw him, not as her equal but definitely as someone she respected. The gesture worked as it usually did. Although he didn’t like being shut out, he pushed himself up from his chair.
“I’ll turn on the TV, too, so you don’t have to worry about me overhearing anything.”
“Is he terrific or what?” Taylor asked her father. “He reminds me of me at that age.”
“Lucky for you, he inherited his father’s big feet.”
Everyone groaned and Kyle stomped upstairs. When Taylor heard him noisily shut the door to his room, she slumped into the chair he had vacated. She shifted again as the revolver pinched into her waist.
Her father watched her, his expression growing sympathetic. “It was bad, huh?”
“You have to ask?”
“At least you’re not bleeding externally. How’re you doing on the inside? I see you resisted that beer.”
“Barely. Since I am all the law that’s available for the foreseeable future, I thought it best to abstain.”
“I’m sorry, hon. This is some mess I’m bringing you back into.”
Talk about understatements. “You have no idea.”
“So he refuses to leave, huh?”
“Can you blame him? Jane has a business. He won’t abandon her.” She shrugged to indicate the rest was moot.
“Then you’re right We’ll have to convince Murdock to behave himself until things change.”
“I said you’ll have to convince him.” Taylor pointed her thumb at herself. “You know he’s going to laugh in my face if I try to strong-arm him. All he’s going to see is the girl who used to be crazy about Hugh Blackstone.”
“Am I hearing this correctly? What happened to the sharp cookie who took on gang members in Detroit and wasn’t afraid to face off a two-hundred-pound mugger?”
“Don’t start with that kind of nonsense. You know it’s an entirely different situation when you’re carrying the clout of a huge department and that backup is on the way, than compared to paying a social call to someone who knew you when you were in diapers.” She thought of the tough and resilient rancher who’d once survived a winter night in the elements after the fall and tragic death of his mount as he hunted a poacher. “Besides, no one tells Murdock Marsden what to do. If he wants Hugh out of town, he’ll do what he thinks is necessary to make that happen.”
“Well. he won’t listen to you dressed like that, that’s for sure.”
How typical. When he’d been in a hurry to get her to talk to Hugh, he’d dismissed her attire as unimportant, but now he was a fashion critic. “Speaking of uniforms and psychological clout, what do you expect me to wear?”
Her father frowned. “Good question. I can’t blame the town for being tightfisted with my budget because they’re keeping taxes low in order to draw in more entrepreneurs. But it’s embarrassing that we can’t afford two patrol cars, let alone salary someone to man the office during regular hours. If Orrin wasn’t content to accept that cell to sleep in as trade for his services, I’d be in a real bind.”
No small truth there, except that Taylor suspected Orrin would be as happy to sleep at his desk if a cell was unavailable. What’s more, if someone ever complained about the trade-off, no doubt her father’s longtime sidekick would be camped out in one of the spare bedrooms here. Still, her question hadn’t been answered.
“Lew used to wear what you did, right?” She’d always done her best to avoid any contact with the ex-cop who’d grown increasingly arrogant and difficult to control over the years.
“Same as me, a blue shirt and jeans.”
“Okay, then...I brought along a few of my summer uniform shirts. I’d planned to take off the patches and wear them around the house, but will they and my jeans suffice?”
“Shoot, sure. And you’d better dig out your old straw hat from your closet. That sun out there’s more brutal as ever.”
Taylor had thought the same thing herself this morning when she and Kyle were on the interstate. The whole world was talking about the depleting ozone layer and the increasing threat of skin cancer, but in the southwest precautions had been a way of life for ages.
“I’ll go up and get it in a minute.” She would also take the scissors to a shirt right away so she could change. “I thought after that I’d pick up some lunch and, after we eat, head back to town to start saying hello to everyone.”
“You take care of you, don’t worry about us. We have a whole plate of chicken and potato salad in the refrigerator. I had Lola make it for that exact reason.”
His consideration came as a pleasant surprise, as was the revelation that he and café owner Lola Langtry sounded like more of an item. Growing up, and even when she would visit, he’d tended to take advantage of having a female in the house. She didn’t mind; she simply had wanted him to know that she’d noted it.
“Thanks. I was afraid I was going to have to train you before you realized I wasn’t about to play superwoman around here. I barely have Kyle broken in. You’d require a serious five-year plan.”
“You want me to really dazzle you? I drafted Lola to get her kin to move my things down to the back bedroom, so I wouldn’t have to deal with those damned stairs, and you two would have more space and privacy up there.”
Not only was that safer for him, but Taylor was touched by his awareness that she wanted to retain a bit of her independence, and her sole parental control over her son. But almost as interesting was the repeated mention of Lola Langtry. “Why haven’t you married her yet, Dad? You two have been an item for...what? It’s been at least ten years since her husband died.”
“Things are fine as they are, thank you very much. In case you haven’t noticed, we Bennings don’t do so great in the romance department. Look what happened with me and your mother. Then there’s you and Hugh. And we won’t even get into you and Jim.”
Taylor winced. She’d long gotten over her mother, who’d been an ambitious and restless woman who left them when Taylor was a baby. The last she’d heard of her was back when she’d first gone to Detroit and had played with the idea of reacquainting herself with the woman who’d given birth to her. It hadn’t been difficult to track her down—Ruth Grace Taylor hadn’t attempted to hide. By then a high-powered business executive in New York, she also wasn’t interested in a reunion. Polite but firm, she’d made it clear during the brief phone conversation. “It wouldn’t work out, Taylor. I do wish you all the best life has to offer, but you’d be disappointed in the morsels I have to offer. Seek your own destiny.”
This second rejection had hurt, but not as much as her brief relationship with Jim Patrick continued to eat at her conscience. She’d never explained what happened, the whys, to her father, and considering what was inevitably going to happen she knew it was time.
“Dad, I need to tell you something.”
He waved away her hesitant statement. “There’s nothing you can say about that jerk. Any guy who won’t even give his son his name—”
“That wasn’t Jim’s fault. I made the decision for Kyle to have only my name.”
“Sure. Because Patrick was a two-timing bum.”
“No, because he fell in love. Really in love and not the sham our marriage was.”
Her father clearly didn’t know where to go with that. “Okay...maybe...you two did put the cart before the horse as the saying goes and were forced to get married, but that’s no reason to excuse his behavior with that...that—”
“Dad.” Taylor sat forward, willing him to listen and understand. “I was already pregnant when I met Jim.”
That finally silenced him. She could see him doing some counting and coming up with an answer he didn’t like.
She’d been so careful, so clever, so afraid. She’d told so many lies. Before he found out the truth in a less sensitive way, which was bound to happen now that she was here again. Taylor decided her father should hear it from her first. Of course, he was a bright man; she could see he was already drawing conclusions.
“Wait a minute...you two met the day you arrived in Detroit to move in with your old school friend, Ally.”
“That’s true. I was about to jaywalk and Jim grabbed me, saving me from getting killed. One thing led to another and...”
Her father held up a hand. “Don’t tell me details.”
“I didn’t intend to.”
“But you were pregnant when you arrived in Detroit?”
She nodded.
“Hugh? Kyle is Hugh’s son!”
“Shh!” she whispered at his outraged cry. Anxious, she glanced toward the stairs. “Kyle has to be told, too, but not like that.”
Her father wasn’t listening. His face diffused with color, he glared at her as if she’d just announced she’d stolen a nuclear warhead and had it tucked away in their garage freezer. “Why didn’t you tell me? I didn’t have a right to know? You lied! You lied when I asked if you two had been...well, you know.”
“I know. And, Dad, if you want to be honest, you knew, too. But I didn’t come out and announce anything for the simple reason that the one person who needed to know about my condition refused to talk to me. Had I said something to you, you would have turned right around and told him.”
“Am I missing something? What would have been wrong with that? You were a kid. You needed all the help you could get.”
“Great. Then he would have done the right thing, even though he hated me. Do you think I could have survived that? Would it have benefited Kyle to have a convicted felon as a father? No, it was better to take Ally up on her invitation and leave Redoubt.” Her old school friend’s gesture had been a lifesaver. “As for Jim, you’re being too hard on him. He has a big noble streak in him and he did fall a little in love with me. Enough to want to help me. But just as he realized he couldn’t be the cop his father and grandfather had wanted him to be, he learned he couldn’t stay married to me. A short time before Kyle was born he met Janet. I wasn’t blind. I could see how it was between them—maybe better than I otherwise would have, because I had experienced something equally strong with Hugh. There was no way I was going to stand between them. Even as I was packing to go to the hospital to deliver Kyle, I told Jim that he needed to divorce me and marry her.”
“And to think I believed you when you told me that you and Kyle kept your maiden name to simplify paperwork.”
Taylor saw emotion work on her father’s face and felt another pang of regret. “I’m sorry, Dad. I played it the way I thought fair and easiest on everyone.”
“Damn it, I should have known,” he replied, now more angry with himself. “I should have. You were a wreck before you left. But I thought you were upset because Hugh refused to see you after his arrest. Then learning he would be sent away for up to twenty years...”
“That’s all true.”
“And the boy did bear a strong resemblance to Jim.”
Jim’s Irish background had been an asset, and had their relationship worked out, it’s doubtful anyone would have ever guessed. What’s more, his father’s middle name had been Thomas. Thinking of the Patrick family, she felt a wave of amusement and sorrow; they had been a lively bunch to be around, and were disappointed when she and Jim discreetly met with them to admit their dilemma, and that they were divorcing.
“At first glance, Kyle did look like Jim,” she told her father. “But all you have to do is compare his baby pictures with Hugh’s, or have them stand side by side now....” She bit her lip. “That’s why I was so upset when I first heard he was here. Dad, he’s going to know the instant he sees the boy.”
Her father struck the coffee table with his fist. “Good! I hope it knocks his feet out from under him.”
“Prison did that more than enough.”
“Hey, you tried to tell him, but he acted the stubborn mule!”
“And here for a moment I’d begun to suspect you were plotting to get us back together.”
He did well at ignoring her gentle sarcasm. “One has nothing to do with the other. Only, what if I was? You two were nuts about each other. Don’t tell me feelings that strong die easily?”
Her father was turning into a sweetheart in his senior years. Potentially a troublemaker where her head and heart were concerned, but a sweetheart. “Do you hear what you’re saying? One minute you sound as if you believe he did deserve to go to prison, and the next you’re aglow with the idea of a family reunion.” When her father guiltily avoided her gaze, she grew more exasperated. “Dad, regardless of what I think, my decisions can’t be based on what I might want. I have to consider Kyle. He’s at a vulnerable stage. How can I announce that his real father missed his birth and all thirteen of his birthdays because of a murder rap?”
“It would be a helluva lot more sensible than what you have been telling him.”
“What? That I’d made a mistake once that had nothing to do with Jim, and that I was sorry for shortchanging him? That’s the truth.”
“Is it? Hugh was a mistake?”
“You know who I was referring to,” Taylor said with a speaking look. “In any case, Kyle has taken our divorce well.”
“Give him a bit more credit. He might take the rest well, too.”
“You’re romanticizing things again. All he’ll hear is that I lied to him—and that I’ve been a hypocrite because I’ve always been hard on him when he’s lied to me.” She exhaled as a whole swarm of possibilities spawned to attack her conscience. “I don’t know who’s going to end up being more upset—Kyle, Hugh or Murdock Marsden.”
“I don’t get a spot in this?”
“No. Because you triggered this whole disaster. You know. Dad, I meant what I said before. When Mr. Marsden finds out that my son is also Hugh’s child, he’s going to see a conflict of interest and demand you fire me.”
“Let him try. He’ll have to explain why a cop I fired for excessive behavior is now a valued addition to his crew.”
Good grief! Was there any news that wasn’t a potential land mine? “In other words, any way you look at this, there are going to be explosions going on around here from now on.”
“We’ll cope. You tell Hugh, honey, before he finds out from someone else. Tell him...and Kyle. They need time to get used to the idea before the rest of the community hears about them.”
Taylor saw a bigger hurdle. “You swore me in, Dad. Redoubt might not have the crime ratio of Detroit, but I have a responsibility to this community. The first thing I need to do is to get downtown and reassure everyone that there’s someone on the job. The rest has waited thirteen-plus years. It will have to wait a few more days.”
It had to.
Her father considered that. “I see your point...and for your sake I hope you have the time, but hurry, Gracie. If either Hugh or Kyle hear about this first, it might cause a break between you—”
Before he could finish there was a slam and a crash upstairs. Both Taylor and her father were startled by the violent sound. Taylor recovered first and hurried upstairs.
“Kyle? Are you okay? Kyle?” His bedroom door was locked. There was no sound coming from beyond the thin plywood, either. “Kyle! I need to know you’re in there, son, otherwise I’m going to have to force the lock.”
“Taylor...you’d better get, down here!” her father called from below.
Something in his voice told her that there was a good reason to put off forcing her way inside. Wondering what else would go wrong today, she hurried downstairs to see that her father had hobbled to the dinette window.
He pointed. “Look.”
Taylor crossed to him and saw her son racing down the road, heading toward town as if a pack of ravenous wild dogs was chasing him. “Heaven help me,” she breathed. “He heard.”
“He’s your son all right, Gracie. You used to be a grade-A sneak, too.”
Did she need this? “Where do you think he’s going?” she asked, already retracing her steps to get the car keys she’d thrown onto the coffee table along with the hat.
“If I was thirteen and had finally found out who my father was...?”
Taylor didn’t wait to hear more, she simply burst out the kitchen door and ran for her father’s truck.
Three
“It wasn’t the smartest thing you could do. But at the same time I don’t blame you. That rooster deserved becoming soup.”
Hugh attached Esmerelda Calderone’s loading receipt to the clipboard on the wall and reached for a brown grocery sack sturdy enough to hold five pounds of chicken scratch. He began scooping from the larger bins framing both sides of the warehouse doors, while trying to-shut out the feeble crone’s voice. She might be only their fourth customer of the day, but at the same time she was the fourth to think she had a right to comment upon his return to Redoubt.
“You were always a good boy, Hugh Blackstone. And everyone knows who was the bad hombre when young Marsden died. Bad, bad blood in that one.”
Hugh kept measuring and scooping. Before long the sun was going to be inching into the warehouse; and the temperatures would climb high enough to slow-bake his brains. He hoped the humpbacked woman was gone by then, otherwise he couldn’t guarantee to hold his tongue. As it was, he was tempted to tell her that she should save her breath because he didn’t give a damn what anyone thought anymore.
“How are your grandsons, Mrs. C.?” If he couldn’t stop her one way, at least he could redirect her focus.
She raised an arm that was almost as thin as the handle on the push broom he’d set aside to wait on her. “Eiyeeee. Little Manuel is wonderful. He’s with the archdiocese in Philadelphia. Can you believe that? My Emilio’s firstborn becoming an important man in the church. As for Roberto—” her expression grew more whimsical “—he’s now Mr. Rob at the Crimson Curl in San Francisco and paints people’s hair purple and green. A strange boy. I think maybe chickens are easier to raise.”
She could say that again. Hugh didn’t weigh the sack he’d filled almost full. It would register way over, but he knew the old woman lived on social security and what her kids could afford to give her on the side, so he simply taped the sack as though that was normal procedure. Maybe Blackstone Feed and Supplies would go bankrupt, but it wouldn’t be as a result of giving away a few cents worth of extra grain.
“That should fix you up. Let me put this into your truck, and I’ll help you off the dock,” he told her.
After setting her purchase on the front seat of the dilapidated vehicle, he took hold of the crone’s tiny waist and lifted her from the concrete platform. She tittered like a schoolgirl as she hurried into the truck, her dark eyes twinkling with delight.