Forever After (27 page)

Once at the department, Heath turned Sammy over into the care of Deputy Helen Bowyer. The mother of four, Helen had a wonderful way with kids, and Heath trusted her to make this ordeal as easy for Sammy as possible.

Tugging uselessly against the restraints on her wrists, Meredith blanched when Helen came to take her child
away. She turned an imploring gaze on Heath. “Please,” she whispered so Sammy wouldn’t overhear. “She’ll get so upset.”

The way Heath saw it, Meredith should have thought about how her daughter might react to this separation
before
she broke the law. “She’ll be fine.”

As gently as possible, he grasped Meredith’s arm and forced her into a walk. Even then, she hung back, craning her neck to keep her daughter in sight.

“She’ll be all right, Meredith. For right now, Goliath’s with her.”

Once inside his office, Heath locked the door and drew the blinds so they had some privacy. After depositing Meredith on the chair in front of his desk, he stepped around to face her. Folding his arms, he locked gazes with her, giving no quarter.

“I think it’s time you start talking. Sammy can’t hear you now. No excuses.”

Meredith gulped, the sound making a hollow plunk at the base of her throat. She was so nervous that she wasn’t sure she could talk, even if she could figure out what to say. At the best of times, Heath Masters was a lot of man to contend with, well over six feet tall, every inch of him roped with muscle. And right now, there was no mistaking that he was coldly furious.

He stood with his booted feet set apart, his arms folded over his broad chest, his body so rigid that in places his khaki shirt was stretched tight over bunched tendons. The stormy expression on his face, coupled with the stare of his relentless blue-gray eyes, made her mouth go dry.

“What, exactly, do you want to know?” she asked, stalling for time. She had no idea how to begin. The story sounded crazy, even to her. He would probably never believe it.

A muscle began to tick along his jaw. “Goddammit, Meredith, don’t play games with me. I want to know it all, from start to finish.”

He grabbed a straight-backed chair and dragged it over
to her. When he sat down, he was so close, he would have been nose to nose with her if he hadn’t been so tall. He corrected that problem by leaning forward and bracing his arms on his knees, the position thrusting his face so close to hers that she jerked away. Unfortunately, the back of her chair only allowed her to retreat a scant few inches.

“Start talking.”

She tried to moisten her lips with a tongue that felt like parchment. “I, um…I’m not playing games. Honestly. I just don’t know where to start.”

He narrowed his eyes, clearly not convinced she was being up front with him. With her wrists handcuffed behind her back, she felt vulnerable in a way that brought back memories she’d tried hard to forget, and suddenly she found it difficult to breathe.

After regarding her relentlessly for a moment, he reached up, jerked off her wig, and tossed it on his desk, his firm mouth thinned into a sneer. Then, with a harsh glint in his eyes, he hooked a fingertip under the strap of her bra, tracing its length to the cup where he tested the thickness of the padding. Meredith did stop breathing then, her heart pounding at the base of her throat.

The dread that Heath saw in Meredith’s eyes stopped him cold and forced him to take stock of what he was doing. He glanced down and stared at his hand, feeling as if it belonged to someone else. His fingers were plunged inside the cup of her bra, his knuckles pressed intimately against soft flesh, the only barrier between his skin and hers the well-worn cotton of her shirt.
Christ
. She was in restraints, her arms angled sharply behind her back. He shouldn’t even be touching her.

He jerked his hand away. Rubbed his face. Rocked back in his chair. When he had regrouped and felt in control, he leaned forward again to brace his arms on his knees.

“Everything about you is a lie,” he whispered. “One great big lie, from start to finish. Why don’t you start with that? Has there been any honesty at all between us, Meredith? On your part, I don’t think so. I found you on the
computer tonight. I know everything, your real name, that you blatantly disregarded a court order and left New York, that you’re wanted for kidnapping. I’d like some kind of explanation. I think I deserve at least that much.”

When she didn’t speak, he sighed.

“Start with—what was his name?—Ben? Who the hell is he, and why would he send those men to kill you?”

She just sat there, staring at him, her platinum-streaked honey-colored hair forming a shimmering tangle around her face, which was still as pale as wax. Dimly, Heath wondered why in the hell she had chosen to wear a wig instead of dying her hair. Probably, he decided, because she’d had no idea how long she might be able to stay in Wynema Falls.

As if it mattered? He was losing it. Really losing it. He’d just shoved his hand inside her bra, for Christ’s sake. And now his thoughts were racing, none of them making sense. He’d always prided himself on being level-headed, on keeping his emotions in check. Not so tonight. He wanted to shake her, and judging by her pallor, she knew it.

She fixed her gaze on the floor, her posture rigid. No tears. More importantly, no explanations. Just an awful, brittle self-control, as if she were barely managing to ward off hysteria. Her resolute silence frustrated him.

“Meredith, for God’s sake, talk to me. How can you expect me to help you, if all you do is lie to me? Has it gotten to be second nature for you, or something? Lie, lie, lie? I have to know what the hell is going on.”

With a suddenness that startled him, she looked up, her eyes blazing. “I
lied
to you, yes! No honesty, from the very beginning. Just one lie right after another. If you want to condemn me for that, go right ahead. I did what I had to do to protect my daughter. Nothing more, nothing less! As far as I’m concerned, Sheriff Masters, you can take your sanctimonious attitude and go straight to hell!”

This, from the lady who wouldn’t say “shit” if she had a mouthful? Heath was so startled by her outburst that he blinked. Nothing changed. She was still glaring at him with
a fierceness that was totally uncharacteristic, her small chin thrust forward, her cheekbones flagged with angry color.

“As for my being wanted for kidnapping? I hate to tell you this, but your precious judicial system isn’t always fair! And neither is life. Do you think I
asked
for any of this? That I made choices, hoping that one day I’d be sitting here, about to be put in prison? I’m going to lose my
child
, damn you!” She gestured toward the door with a swing of her head. “She’s out there, right this minute, scared to death! Not
just
because she’s been separated from me, as you seem bent on believing, but because she knows what’s in store for her if we can’t get out of here!”

Her voice broke at the last, and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip. The pain he saw etched into every line of her face was no lie. He would have bet his life on that.

“Then talk to me. Let me try to help you. If you don’t tell me everything, Meredith, how can I do anything, except my job?”

Her shoulders shook. For a moment he thought she was sobbing. Then he realized she was laughing. “Help me?” she finally said. “You just don’t get it, do you? Those men who broke into my house weren’t your dime store variety burglars. They were professionals. Thugs, for want of a better word. They do stuff like this for a living.”

“Thugs,” he repeated. “And they work for this guy, Ben?”

“
Glen!
Glen Calendri, my
esteemed
ex-father-in-law. He’s an international union official. He has criminal connections.”

Heath couldn’t believe he had heard her right. “Criminal connections.”

“Organized crime, for want of a better word.”

For a moment, all Heath could do was stare at her. “Meredith, the term ‘organized crime’ is generally used only in reference to widespread and very sophisticated crime rings.”

“I realize that.”

“Then don’t use the term loosely.”

She looked up, her eyes shimmering with tears. “I’m not. That’s why you can’t help me. No one can.”

Heath saw that she was serious. He raked a hand through his hair. “Organized crime,” he repeated. “Your father-in-law?”

“Yes,” she said faintly.

“How in the hell did you get tied up with people like that?”

“I did an incredibly stupid thing.”

“What?”

“I got married.”

“Married? Millions of women get married.”

She let her head fall forward, her hair forming a curtain that hid her face. “I guess you could say I have lousy taste in men.”

“So your husband had criminal connections?”

“Yes.”

“And you married him?”

“I didn’t know when I married him. I found out soon after, but then it was too late.”

“You expect me to believe you married a guy, and you had no clue he was a slimeball?”

“I honestly didn’t.”

“That’s a little hard for me to swallow. You sure as hell didn’t have any trouble being suspicious of me.”

“Yes, well, I’ve learned a lot since then. I don’t trust as easily as I once did.”

That was an understatement. “So you
accidentally
married a hoodlum,” he capsulized. “What then? How did you get from wedded bliss to kidnapping your own child and being a target for murder?”

“It was
never
wedded bliss,” she said bitterly. “It was a nightmare, from start to finish! And I
didn’t
realize! Get that right out of your head. I would have had to be crazy to marry him if I had. Until after the wedding, I thought he was wonderful!”

Heath could see that he’d poked at a real sore spot. Knowing her—hell, maybe she actually had been that na
ïve. He couldn’t count the times that he’d sensed she felt out of her depth with him, and he would have wagered his last dollar that she had little experience with men.

“Hey, look,” he said gently. “I’m sorry. That was a rotten shot for me to take. Of course you didn’t realize.”

“I honestly didn’t. The only other man I knew well was my dad, and he’s so—” Her voice caught, and she looked up again, her expression softening. “He’s so
good
. You know? Kind and honest and God-fearing. I thought
all
men were like him. Now I know better. Every other man I’ve ever met has been a skunk in one way or another.”

“Ouch.”

“I don’t mean you.”

He could hope. “So you were very sheltered growing up, in other words.”

“On a farm in Mississippi. And not sheltered, exactly. It’s a world apart down there. A sleepy little place, where neighbor helps neighbor. My parents didn’t shield me. There was nothing in their little world to shield me from.”

“How about television and public school? It’s a little difficult to be all that insulated from the harsh realities these days.”

“Not down there. We were poor. A television was a luxury we couldn’t afford, and the school was small, all the kids there just like me, with folks who were poor dirt farmers. Up until November, none of the kids wore shoes. I had one store-bought school dress. My mother made everything else, when we could afford material. I was sixteen before we ever had a refrigerator. I dipped my milk from a bucket in the ice box.”

Heath tried to imagine a place so completely segregated from his reality and couldn’t. “It sounds sort of backward.”

“It
was
backward. Is still is. It’s also wonderful. I miss it.”

That last admission was so heartfelt that Heath knew she really did miss it. Meredith, the lady with no VCR. “You don’t strike me as backward. In fact, I’ve thought more than
once that you must have quite an education under your belt.”

“I do. Computer programming.”

“No refrigerator or television, and you’re a computer expert?”

“My dad never got past the sixth grade, so he worked himself half to death to send me to college, thinking he was doing me a big favor. I attended Old Miss.”

“So what happened at Old Miss? No boyfriends to clue you in?”

She met his gaze, hers reflecting bitterness. “Forget it! Just lock me up. You’re not going to believe anything I say, so why bother?”

“That’s not true. I do believe you. I’m just trying to get a picture of who you are, Meredith. And how you landed yourself in such a hell of a mess.”

“I was an ignorant hillbilly. Does that synopsize it clearly enough for you? I thought
everyone
went barefoot until the rainy season, all right? As for boyfriends, I didn’t have any. They were probably afraid I’d belch and pick my nose in public. Just put me in a cell and leave me alone! I’ve lied to you about everything else. Why should you believe me now?”

Heath leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Not until I hear the story. And don’t try to snow me, honey. There had to be guys who panted after you in college. I sure as hell would have, and I wouldn’t have been put off by cultural differences.”

She avoided his gaze. “I didn’t choose to date very much. All right?”

“Why? You’ve never liked men, I take it?”

“I liked them fine.
Then!
It was only later I developed what you might call an avid distaste.”

“Avid distaste” didn’t say it by half. Heath couldn’t count the times when he’d entered a room and sensed that she couldn’t wait to get away from him. “So why didn’t you date back then?”

“It didn’t seem right to goof off when I knew how hard
my dad was working to pay my tuition. And my mother went without. One month, she didn’t fill her blood pressure prescription to buy one of my text books. How do you think that made me feel?”

“Not very good. And obligated to study. I guess I would have been a bookworm, too. It sounds like one hell of a set of parents you have.”

“The salt of the earth. They would die for me.” She blinked. “I can’t even call them now. I’m afraid the connection will be traced. I know they must be worried. But all of this is so far beyond them, they could never comprehend. Knowing Dad, he’d drive to New York in the hay truck and knock on Glen’s front door. He’s not very savvy, my father.”