Nightingale Way: An Eternity Springs Novel (4 page)

Stop. Don’t go there
.

Cat halted beside Sarah’s car and glanced inside.
Oh, crap
. Frowning, Jack asked, “You didn’t leave your keys in the ignition, did you?”

“No.”

“Good.”

Cat continued on, but instead of turning toward the house, she walked in the opposite direction, toward the gate. Sarah asked, “Where is your friend going?”

Jack smiled with honest amusement. “Not as far as she thinks. She doesn’t realize how isolated we are up here. The exercise will do me good.”

“Do
you
good?” Lori repeated.

“We’ve been cooped up together traveling for a while. She’s not very happy with me. I’ll let her walk off some of her steam, then I’ll go pick her up.” Glancing toward the house, he added, “So where’s Cam?”

Sarah relayed a story about some trouble that Cam’s son, Devin, had landed in. They discussed that situation for a few minutes before Sarah looped her arm through Lori’s and said, “We’re going to head back to town now. How long will you be in Colorado this time? Will we see you in Eternity Springs?”

Jack considered Sarah’s question. When he’d first built the house, Jack’s trips to Eagle’s Way had involved his work and thus demanded secrecy. He’d rarely paid a visit to town, and Cat had never visited when they were married. In fact, she hadn’t known this place existed.
More recently, he’d begun using the estate as a personal retreat rather than a safe house, so he’d started going in to Eternity Springs more often, and he’d made friends—as much as a man like him ever made friends.

Jack’s gaze trailed back to Cat, who had stopped and released the dog from its carrier. Once Peanut did her business, Cat scooped her up into her arms, abandoned the pet purse in the field, and continued her march away from him.

Sarah continued to wait for his response. Until Melinda or the local authorities or the private talent he’d hired to investigate the incident determined who had tossed that flaming bottle into Cat’s dining room, they needed to keep a low profile, even in a place as small and out of the way as Eternity Springs. Eagle’s Way had top-of-the-line security. She was safe here at the estate. She probably would be safe in Eternity Springs, too.

But he couldn’t be certain.

“I’m not quite sure, but I’ll ask a favor of you. It’s fine if you mention that you were here when I arrived, but please don’t tell anyone that I have a guest.”

“Why not?” Lori blurted out, then blushed in chagrin at her temerity.

Jack rolled his tongue around his mouth as he watched Cat’s little Yorkie-mix dog scare a rabbit from its hole. He could duck the question or lie to Lori, but he hated to do that. She was family, after all. “It’s a long explanation, but technically, I kidnapped her.”

Lori’s eyes bugged in surprise and Sarah exclaimed, “You what!”

“Don’t worry. She’s my ex-wife.” And if everyone in town knew her as Catherine Davenport—a name she’d never used, a fact that still stuck in his craw—who would connect her with Cat Blackburn, the blogger? A satisfied smile spread across his face as he added, “Besides, her mother asked me to do it.”

* * *

Cat turned her back on the huge log house nestled against the base of a mountain and started across an alpine meadow blanketed with wildflowers in a rainbow of hues. She wasn’t walking
to
anywhere. She was headed away. Away from Jack. Away from her interfering parents. Away from incompetent bodyguards and firebombers.

She had reached her limit at six twenty-three this morning. That’s when she’d awakened in her room of the two-bedroom cottage at the Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs and upon hearing the murmur of her ex-husband’s voice coming from the patio, had eavesdropped on the telephone conversation between him and her mother.

Listening to them talk about her had been humiliating. They spoke as if she were a child in need of babysitting. All the old resentments and insecurities that had plagued her through the years about Jack’s work with her mother revived as if they were brand-new. It was bad enough having a mother whose job always seemed to be more important than her daughter, but entering into a relationship with Melinda Blackburn’s right-hand man had been failure waiting to happen.

But oh, how she’d fallen for Jack Davenport—against her better judgment, against her own self-interest, against her mother’s wishes—she’d tumbled head over teacup for the man the first day she met him.

And today, twelve years later, she could walk away from the man, but she couldn’t outrun her memories.

She had found the perfect gift for her mom in a Georgetown antiques store earlier that afternoon, and she’d decided she simply couldn’t wait the five days to her mother’s birthday to give it to her. She knew the chances of actually finding Mom at home were slim
,
but since she was close to their Wesley Heights house, she thought she’d give it a shot
.

It was a beautiful afternoon in the fall of her junior year at GWU, and she walked from the bus stop with a spring in her step. Her journalism professor had returned papers today. She had two bright and shiny A’s in the folder in her backpack. That was another reason she’d decided to pay this unscheduled visit to her parents. She didn’t think she’d ever outgrow the need to preen about grades to her computer-science-professor dad
.

As she turned a corner and her parents’ home came into view, she saw something that told her that her father, at least, was home. The Geek Fleet was back, embroiled in a driveway basketball game
.

Cat had been in middle school when she bestowed the Geek Fleet moniker on the group of students her dad tended to collect and bring home like lost puppies each year. Cat usually liked the students that George Blackburn befriended. Computer nerds, they were always brilliant, often awkward, and usually nice as could be. Cat had enjoyed those times when “Prof B” invited his students home to work on a project or watch a ballgame on TV or play a game of cards. It had been nice to have people in the house. With her mother at work almost all the time and just Cat and her dad roaming around the house, she’d been happy to have company—even if they were science geeks
.

She drew closer and got a better look at the fleet, divided into shirts and skins for the game. Cat did a double-take. This year’s Geek Fleet had a new member. Wow oh wow, what a member! Wasn’t it lucky for her that he happened to be on the skins!

He was tall, well over six feet, she guessed. Whipcord lean with broad shoulders and tanned skin glistening with sweat, he moved with fluid grace as he drove to the
basket, feigning left, moving right, jumping. Gym shorts rode low on his hips and framed his butt, and Cat’s mouth went dry at the sight as his hook shot found nothing but net
.

Then he turned around and she got her first good look at his face. Mercy! Maybe she should start hanging around the computer labs at school. The guy was drop-dead gorgeous with a thin blade of a nose and ice-blue eyes. He must be a grad student rather than an undergrad, because he was older than the other players, older than she by at least a couple of years, she’d guess. He’d had a haircut recently, too, because he had whitewalls around his ears and the back of his neck. For some reason, Cat found that cute. Maybe because it was all that kept him from perfection
.

She didn’t miss the quick once-over he gave her when she approached. She told herself to play it cool, to treat him no differently than she did the other guys. In an effort to act as she would if he weren’t there, she called out hello to one of the guys who she already knew and asked, “Can I play?”

“You can be on our team,” Studly Nerd quipped, flashing her a flirtatious grin as he held the basketball. “I’ll be glad to help you with the uniform.”

“Very funny.” She swayed her hips a little as she walked up to him and smiled sweetly. “I choose shirts.”

Then she stole the basketball right out of his hands and headed for the goal, scoring two points before anyone touched her
.

He laughed. She shot him a smug look and felt a secret thrill at the admiration she spied in his eyes
.

The basketball game continued and so did their flirtation. His name was Jack, he told her as he intercepted the pass she meant for a teammate. He teased her. She taunted him. Cat was a good athlete and she’d played basketball in high school. Her parents had installed the
goal for her when she was ten, so this was her home court, after all. She knew every crack and dip in the driveway and she took full advantage of it
.

Cat hadn’t had this much fun playing ball since her team won the midwinter tournament her junior year
.

The game ended abruptly when her father walked out of the house carrying a metal tub filled with ice and soft drinks and accompanied by two more students toting platters filled with sandwiches and bowls of chips. Upon seeing her, George Blackburn beamed with delight. “Sweetheart, I didn’t know you were stopping by today.”

“Hi, Daddy,” she replied. “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“Daddy?” Jack murmured, the grin fading from his face. “You’re Cathy Blackburn?”

“Cat. I go by Cat.” Cathy was what her mother called her. Her easy smile dimmed when he took a physical step away from her. What was that all about?

Her father continued, “This is a wonderful surprise. Come have a sandwich with us. Have you met everyone?”

“Not everyone.”

“Let me introduce you, then. Guys, this is my daughter, Catherine. Cat, meet my students. You know Brandon, Will, and Reid from last year, of course.”

Cat waved to the guys she already knew, then shook hands with four newcomers when he presented them. He introduced Jack last. “And this is Jack Davenport. He’s not officially one of my students, but he soaks up information like a sponge. Jack works with your mother.”

He works with Mom, hence the “Cathy.” Well, great
.

Jack had taken a small physical step away when he’d learned her name. Upon discovering his occupation, Cat took an enormous mental step backward
.

The last thing she needed, the very last thing she wanted, was to get tangled up in any way, shape, or form with an associate of her mother
.

Cat Blackburn drew the line at dating spies
.

“If only I’d listened to myself,” she muttered to Peanut, whose ears perked at the sound. Cat stooped to pluck a goldenrod from the field of flowers and blinked away tears.

She hadn’t listened. She’d told herself that he wasn’t really a spy but a bureaucrat. Washington was full of bureaucrats, and most of them went home to their families every night. Just because her mother worked all the time didn’t mean that Jack would, too. She told herself that he could be as attentive as any other boyfriend, and then husband, and for a time, that’s how their relationship had been.

Then they decided to have a baby and couldn’t get pregnant and he was working more and more, had more and more out-of-town trips. She’d wanted him to quit. He’d gained access to his trust fund on his twenty-eighth birthday and the man was filthy rich. He didn’t
have
to work. He
wanted
to work. Just like her mother wanted to work.

Somewhere during that time, he had gone from bureaucrat to agent.

She’d known better, but she hadn’t listened to herself. She’d been the moth and Jack Davenport the flame, and eventually he’d burned her.

Cat sucked in a deep breath. She would not cry over the man. She’d sworn off doing that four years ago when she signed his divorce papers. She refused to backslide now.

At the sound of an engine starting, she glanced over her shoulder to see the woman and her daughter driving away. Jack was climbing the steps to the front door of his house.

Good. He was giving her some time to herself. Cat needed that more than anything. Ever since she broke the dogfighting ring story, her life had been a storm.

She heard the bubbling rush of water over rocks from off to her right and turned toward the sound. She had noticed the creek snaking through the valley as they’d flown over. The thought of sitting beside a flowing stream with only the dog for company sounded wonderful.

Determined to clear her mind of worry and concern, she followed the sound of water to the bank of a clear mountain stream. It was a beautiful spot. She spied a boulder with a nice flat surface a short distance upstream on the opposite bank. She slipped off her shoes and gingerly tested the crystal-clear water with her bare toes.

“Brrr …” Cold, but bearable. Holding her shoes by the heels in one hand and the dog in the other, she picked her way carefully around slippery stones, through icy water that at its deepest hit her just below the knees. Upon reaching the opposite bank, she climbed out of the water and up onto the flat-topped rock. It was big enough to lie down on, so she did exactly that.

With her hands beneath her head and Peanut snuggled up against her side, Cat stared up at the bright blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds. Sunshine toasted her skin, chasing away the chill that lingered as much from her memories as from crossing the mountain stream. Slowly, the tension gripping her began to seep away.

Maybe having been kidnapped wasn’t such a bad thing after all, she decided. Since being laid off from the newspaper, she’d adopted the attitude that every problem had an upside if one looked for it. This situation was no different. The weather was gorgeous. The accommodations were certain to be first class—this was Jack’s home, after all. As long as he had Internet
access, she could work from here as well as from home.

Maybe she’d stumble across something new and exciting to investigate while she was here in Colorado. Something that had nothing to do with abused animals or sleazy politicians or false American idols. Maybe she’d find a good illegal drug supplier to look into or some misdirected public funds to explore. Or maybe not.

For the first time in memory, she hadn’t enjoyed the hunt while investigating the dogfighting ring, and she didn’t know precisely why. She’d done a good job on the investigation. Some of the men she’d connected to the ring had held positions of public trust—cops and congressmen. The story had been an important piece of investigative journalism. The public had the right to know what kind of man they’d entrusted with their tax dollars. So why didn’t she feel the sense of satisfaction that her job ordinarily brought her? For the past eight years or so, she’d lived for this sort of thing.