The Reckoning (12 page)

“He's a dark man,” she said, half to herself. “He's seen things that have made him retreat to the shadows.”

“You're right,” Nan answered. “But you can take his hand and pull him out. That's what people do who care about each other. What lovers do. They lift each other up.”

Could she really do that for Emmett? Did she have what it took?

Your bravery, your fortitude make me believe in goodness again. That it can win.
Emmett had said that to her. And that was what Nan was talking about.

But it was scary to take on the job for a lifetime, wasn't it? As scary as taking on the care of Ricky.

“It's frightening to love someone,” she whispered aloud. “What if…what if I mess it up?”

“The bad news is, you're right, it's frightening.” Nan's
smile was gentle. “The good news is, a woman doesn't have any choice.”

Linda frowned. “That's the
good
news?”

“It takes the angst out of the situation, don't you think? If you are destined to love, you might as well get used to it.”

Destined to love? Where did destiny fit into all of this?

Somewhere, she thought. For a woman who had been “woken” by way of a miracle—no one had another explanation—she had to believe in the touch of something larger than herself…didn't she?

A phone rang. “I'll get it,” Nan said to the cook, and reached for the wireless phone on the countertop.

So if she was bound to love Emmett, Linda thought, then there was no reason to stew about it. That he was setting some sort of trap for his brother…now
that
she could stew about. And more. She'd talk to him about it. Share her concerns, her fears, maybe even her love.

This evening, in the quiet privacy of the guest house, she'd share her true feelings with him.

“Oh, no!”

The distress in Nan's voice gave Linda a jolt. She jerked her head toward the older woman, trying to read the trouble in the expression on her face.

“Which hospital?” Nan asked, her cheeks pale.

Hospital?
The word grabbed Linda's heart and shook it like a dog with a bone.

“Is he conscious?”

He who? Her heart rattled inside her chest again. Ricky? She tried to say his name aloud, but nothing came out of her dry mouth with its thick, heavy tongue. Had something happened to Ricky?

No, no. Paralyzed by something she'd never felt before, she stared at Nan. Is this what motherhood was, then? This
dry throat and shuddering heart and sudden outcry from the soul that said,
Please, if something is wrong, take me instead!

The call ended, and Nan placed the phone back in its cradle. Linda stared at her, desperate to hear the news.

She turned toward Linda. “It's Dean's brother. He's had an accident.”

Air whooshed out of Linda's lungs. “Oh. I'm sorry.” She put her hand over her calming heart. “What happened?”

“They think he broke his leg and injured his spleen, but they're running some other tests.” She hesitated. “His wife wants Dean and me at the hospital.”

“Of course,” Linda said, already rising from the table. “Can I help you in any way?”

“They live in Utah,” Nan explained. “We're going to have to be away from the house for at least a few days.”

“Oh, okay.”

Nan met Linda's gaze. “Can Ricky stay with you while we're gone?”

“Certainly.” It was an automatic response. It was what she had to say, right? But her heart was jumping around again. If Ricky stayed with her in the guest house for a few days, with her and Emmett…

She'd see just how maternal she was.

She'd see how she and Emmett and Ricky could operate as a family.

She wouldn't be alone with Emmett, which would give her time to reconsider telling him how she really felt about his plan to lure his brother…and how she really felt about him.

Funny how she could be so nervous and so relieved all at the same time.

 

Jason kept going farther afield for his morning cup of coffee. In a small café, he ordered an extra—he'd drink it cold
midmorning during his Fortune TX, Ltd. stakeout—then took them both toward the grouping of tables. All of them were taken, but knowing there might be long hours ahead in the Buick, he opted to share an open space on a ratty loveseat. He had a free hour before he figured he needed to be watching the high-rise headquarters.

The flabby fortysomething man beside him was reading the
San Antonio Express-News
's local section. Jason sipped at his coffee and glanced over, then coughed as the hot liquid went down wrong.

Emmett's photo was on the front page. And Ryan Fortune's.

The two people he hated most in the world.

He shot a look at the newsstand by the first register, but it was empty of newspapers. The one by the second held only the friggin'
New York Times.
Who cared about the Big Apple when the Big Pain in Jason's Ass was featured front and center on the Texas paper?

Shifting in his seat, he tried to get a look at the text beneath the photo. He could only make out a word here and there—
Lily Fortune, foundation, federal agent.

Jason was surprised they were talking about Emmett and federal agent in the same article. What kind of federal agent could Emmett be? He had to be crying himself to sleep every night, wondering where his older, smarter, wilier brother had got to. Emmett hadn't been able to find him. Emmett couldn't find his ass with both his hands.

Feeling smug, Jason leaned back against the cushions and sipped at his coffee. Whatever the article said, it wouldn't change a thing. Jason was going to be the one to find Emmett and then…
kaboom.

Still, his curiosity was piqued. He squinted at the article again, then looked up when the paper rattled. Over the top, the fat guy holding the thing was staring at Jason.

Not letting a beat go by, Jason smiled, then gestured at the newspaper with his cup. “Sorry, I was intrigued by the front page article. Something about the Fortunes?”

The man folded the paper over to look at the story in question. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Ryan Fortune's widow and some of his relatives are creating a charitable foundation in his name.”

“A charitable foundation?” Jason's voice was mild, but inside he felt the rage start simmering again. The Fortunes were planning on handing money out to the sniveling and to the stupid, when the old bastard Kingston hadn't been moved to give so much as a penny to his Grandpa Farley! “Must be nice to have so much extra cash.”

Jason's two mil was looking punier and punier. They'd probably give twice that much to a bunch of Girl Scouts or some goddamn endangered eggplant.

“They're good people, all right,” Fatty said. “They bought all new band uniforms and instruments for my kid's middle school music program.”

See?
See?
The Fortunes were playing the role of Harold Hill for a bunch of loser kids, when they could have funded a political dynasty by backing Farley all those years ago. How much had been stolen from his grandfather! How much had been stolen from Jason himself!

“So who's heading up this foundation?” Jason asked, though he knew the answer already.

The man held up the newspaper to display the front page photo. “Emmett Jamison. Some connection of the Fortunes.”

“Ah.” Jason nodded, his eyes roaming over the photo. “Does the article say where this Emmett is living?” Not that he'd take Fatty's word for it. He was going to get his own copy and search the article himself.

The other man shrugged. “I didn't see nothin' about it.”

Jason stopped himself, just barely, from rolling his eyes. The fathead had “nothin'” for brains, that was obvious.

Fatty was lifting his big butt off the sofa. “You want?” he said, holding out the paper to Jason.

He shrugged. “Sure. Thanks.” Then he watched the other man waddle through the café doors before he gave his attention to the article. Despite his obvious dimness, the fat man hadn't been wrong. It was a charitable foundation that Emmett was putting together and there wasn't any mention of his brother's current residence.

Jason stared down at the photo of his younger brother. “Damn it,” he muttered under his breath. There wasn't a clue in the photo, either. Emmett stood with one hand on a wooden railing. The only thing even halfway distinctive was—Jason leaned closer—half of an old wooden carousel horse. The way the photo was cropped didn't show anything else.

He tapped his fingers on the page. Maybe P.I. Jason had some investigating to do.

 

It was a woman manning the classifieds desk at the
San Antonio Express-News
. Jason had gambled on it, and he smiled to himself as he pushed a handful of pink bubblegum cigars into his shirt pocket so that their ends peeked out.

Then he mussed his hair a little, pulled out a shirttail, and finally approached the plain, thirtyish woman across the counter.

“Can I help you?” she asked. There was a stack of forms in front of her, as well as a jar of sharpened pencils.

“I hope so,” Jason said. He gave her a wide, yet tired smile. “Congratulate me. I just had a baby last night. Well, not me, of course, but my wonderful wife.”

God, he was good. The woman melted, her shoulders going soft. “Oh, how terrific. Congratulations.”

His gaze flicked behind her, to the neat desk and its fake wood nameplate with gold-toned letters. “She's perfect. Ten fingers, ten toes, a whole bunch of hair. We named her Katherine.”

The counter lady's eyes rounded. “That's my name!”

Jason let his eyes widen as if he couldn't believe what he'd heard. “You're kidding! We're thinking of shortening it to—”

“Katie. That's what I've been called since I came home from the hospital.”

“Katie.” Jason pretended to try it out. “I like it. Katie.” He reached into his pocket for one of the bubblegum cigars. “Here you go. From my Katie to you.”

The woman beamed at him. “Thank you. Now, what can I do for you?”

“Have you ever had a baby, Katie?” She wasn't wearing a ring and she was plain enough for him to believe she never would.

“No.” She shrugged, going a little pink in the face. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Well, I realize now that birthing is a big job—and one that I could never do. You women have all my admiration.”

More smiles from plain Kate.

“So I want to give my wife a very special thank-you gift. A special thank-you for my perfect, very special Katie.”

The real Katie was lapping this stuff up. “Something you've seen in the classifieds?”

“Oh. The classifieds?” He looked around as if he wasn't aware what department he'd wandered into. Playing the dumbass didn't come natural, but he'd do what he had to. “I didn't realize…”

“Well, maybe I can still help you,” the woman offered. “Is it something you saw in one our advertisements?”

“No. In one of the photos accompanying an article.” He pulled the folded sheet out of his back pant's pocket and spread it out on the counter. “My wife saw this carousel horse and decided she just has to have one for our Katie. I was hoping you could tell me where this photo was taken so I could talk to whoever owns it. If they don't want to sell theirs, maybe they could tell me where I could purchase one just like it.”

The woman squinted at the grainy image of the half horse. “It's kind of hard to see.”

“Not to my wife it's not,” Jason assured her. “She thinks it's the most perfect thing for our most perfect daughter.”

Newspaper Katie bit her lip. “We're not supposed to give out that kind of information. Not that our department would even know the address you're looking for.”

“Oh.” Jason put a crestfallen expression on his face. “I was
so
looking forward to telling my wife that I had a lead on the gift she wants most of all in the world—after our little girl, of course. Our Katie.”

This Katie bit her lip again. “I could call a friend of mine in Editorial,” she said, lowering her voice. Her gaze shifted left, right. “You couldn't tell anyone how you found out.”

Jason took one of the bubblegum cigars and with it crossed his heart. “Don't worry. I'll make up some story.”

L
inda knocked lightly on Emmett's door on her hurried path to the kitchen. “Ricky, wake up and get dressed for school. I'll have your breakfast ready in just a few minutes.”

There was a mumbled response, and Linda grimaced. He'd stayed up much too late the night before; she could hear it in his grumpy voice. She'd known it then, too, but nervous around Emmett and her awareness of her feelings for him, nervous about her responsibilities as Ricky's full-time mother for the next few days, she'd been hesitant to cause any friction.

Instead of putting her foot down, she'd given in to his
pleas. The boy had fallen asleep in a chair and Emmett had carried him to the foam mattress and sleeping bag set up in one corner of his room. Linda had hidden away in her own room at the same time. Her poor night's rest—so different from the previous nights when she'd slumbered in Emmett's arms—had caused her to sleep past her usual wake-up time. They were already running late.

She started the coffee and then retrieved the newspaper that one of the main household staff placed on their small front porch every morning. Hesitating a moment there, Linda put her hand on the weathered carousel horse and took a few calming breaths of the warm morning air. Juice and cereal. A brown bag with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, banana, some chips, Oreo cookies and a box of juice. She could remember these things.

Ironing! She'd almost forgotten that. She'd promised Ricky she would iron his shirt before school this morning. Anxiety set in as a low-level headache at the base of her skull. She ignored it as she dumped the newspaper on the kitchen table and then tapped on Emmett's door again.

“Ricky? Are you up? I'm going to iron your shirt now.” At his next grunt of response, she hurried back to the kitchen and set up the ironing board and plugged in the iron. His shirt was hung over one of the kitchen chairs.

As she waited for the iron to heat up, she poured the OJ and a bowl of cereal and set them on the kitchen table, then quickly made Ricky's lunch. Next, she attacked the shirt. And attacked was the right word. It was so small, with a little collar and a three-inch bumpy button placket at the neckline. The side seams wouldn't lay straight. She struggled on, however, the heat of the iron making her feel flushed and sweaty.

Just as she decided she'd done her best, Ricky walked
into the room in his long khaki shorts, socks and sneakers. “Your shirt,” she said, holding it up.

He looked at her through his long blond bangs. And scowled. “I hate that shirt. It's dumb.”

Linda blinked. “This is the shirt you laid out last night. The one Nan packed for you. It's the shirt you wanted me to iron.”

“Well, I hate it. I look dumb in it. Everybody will say I look dumb in it.” There was a surly curl to his upper lip.

The headache at the base of her skull started pounding like a tom-tom. “Did you bring a different one? Or you could go up to the house—”

“There's no time! You got me up late.” He grabbed the shirt and shoved his head through the neck opening.

By the time he stuck his skinny arms though the holes and jerked down the hem, she was holding out his juice. “Here you go.” Maybe the Vitamin C would put him in a better mood.

“I don't drink juice.” He kicked out the chair and sat in front of the cereal. “I'll just eat this.”

Linda swallowed down the glass of juice herself. Maybe it would put
her
in a better mood. While she knew it was Ricky's tiredness that was talking, it didn't help that she knew she was the one to blame for it. She should have sent him to bed earlier. Would she ever get this mother thing right?

Ricky had only a few minutes to get going in order to meet the bus. He wolfed down his Cheerios, brushed his teeth with such speed that certainly potential cavities had to be snickering with glee, then tried to grab his lunch off the countertop. His swipe sent the bag and its contents tumbling to the floor. The juice box exploded. The sandwich slid out of its plastic bag, landing on the growing puddle of juice, where it gathered up the liquid like a sponge.

She knelt down to tend to the mess. “This will just take a second to clean up. Then I'll make another lunch.”

“I don't have time!” Ricky snarled. “Can't you bring it to me later? At school?”

“I don't know. You know I can't drive and I'm not sure if Emmett will be able to—”

“What kind of mom are you?” Ricky's eyes glittered with tears. “You can't get me up on time. You can't make a good breakfast. You can't bring a lunch to school. You know what? As a mom, you…you…you suck!”

Then he ran out of the house, slamming the front door behind him.

Linda stared after him, then stared down at the mess on the floor.
Bam, bam, bam
went the thump in her head.

Bam-bam, bam-bam, bam-bam.
It doubled its primitive rhythm. Over its thudding beat, she heard the shower going in the bathroom. So that was where Emmett was. Good. She didn't want another witness to the scene between her and Ricky. She wished to God that she hadn't been there herself.

She wished…she wished…

As a mom, you…you…you suck!

“I wish I wasn't Ricky's mother.”

There. She'd said it. Out loud, even. And Linda held her breath, waiting for lightning to strike.

No woman should even think such a thing, should she?

Still waiting for a cataclysm, she cleaned up the mess on the floor, made another lunch for Ricky, then poured a cup of coffee. Not knowing what else to do, she sat down at the kitchen table with it, and by habit, unfolded the newspaper. There was Emmett, front and center, looking less like a foundation director and more like the forbidding federal agent he still was. Then she read the article and figured out why. Emmett wasn't just setting a trap and setting himself up as bait for his brother Jason; he was taunting the other man.

A sidebar about the case against Jason was peppered with
quotes from Emmett, all which could be summed up in four simple words—
come and get me.

Staring at the paper, she didn't hear the footsteps over the tattoo of the drums in her head. When a hand touched her shoulder, she whirled and stood in all one motion, her back slamming against the nearby wall.

Her stomach jittered and her heart pounded along with the ache in her head. The threat from the man confronting her was undeniable. “No,” she said.
“No.”

 

Emmett pushed his hand through his damp hair. “No, what?” he asked Linda. She was hugging herself, and her face was pale. “I'm sorry I startled you.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“What's the matter, honey?” Emmett stepped toward her, ready to pull her into his arms.

Her head shook again, and she sidled farther away. “Stay away from me.”

He frowned. “What's going on? What happened?”

“You happened to me, and I don't like it anymore. I don't want it. I don't want you.”

Stunned, he stepped back. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I want you out of the guest house. Today. Now.”

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. This wasn't the woman who had been spending night after night in his arms. The woman who had shone the sun into the corners of the darkness inside of him. “What is it? What's changed everything?”

She gestured at the table and the newspaper spread upon it. “You're going to hurt me.”

His gaze flicked to the page she'd been reading, then back to her face. “Linda, honey, you're going to be all right. Jason
isn't going to hurt you. He doesn't know about you. He doesn't know where we're living.”

“I'm afraid of
you.
It's time for me to think about myself. To protect myself. I've been through one disastrous relationship and lost ten years of my life because I fell for the wrong man. I'm not going to take that chance again.”

Emmett tried to clamp down on his own rising temper. “Don't compare me to Cameron Fortune. He was an egotistical opportunist. Hell, I'm not out to take advantage of your innocence and your trust. I think I might lo—”

“Don't say it!” She recoiled. “Don't say that word.”

“What has you spooked?” He couldn't figure out what had happened. “We've been so good together. Why is the woman who has been so courageous, day after day after day, backing away from what we could have now?”

“Who is that woman? I know for sure she's not any good at motherhood. I only know for certain who I used to be. A bad secret agent accountant. A lousy judge of men.”

“You were a lonely kid who made a mistake!” Emmett would like to yank Cameron Fortune out of his grave and make the man abase himself to this beautiful woman who was still reeling from all the ways he'd hurt her. “But it doesn't have to affect
us.
”

“Aren't you listening? How do we know I won't screw this up, too, just as I've screwed up everything else? There won't be any ‘us.' How can there be, when I don't even know
me?
”

Oh, God! Oh, God! Emmett froze, his anger dying. That was it, then. That was really it.

An aching sense of loss rushed in to take its place, filling the void that he'd just begun to think might actually hold a heart after all.

He'd worried about this when they'd moved so quickly into each other's arms. He'd worried that what she'd felt for
him would turn out not to be real, but a figment of her recovery. But damn, it hurt to be right this time. It hurt so much.

She was truly awake now, though, and she was seeing that the dark and desolate wasteland inside Emmett wasn't a landscape she wanted to live with for the rest of her life.

Who could blame her?

It seemed like a hell of a sentence to him, too.

 

Linda didn't remember ever having liked housework, but it gave her something to do during the long morning and endless afternoon. Working with a determined frenzy, she cleaned the entire guest house, including the room where Emmett had slept when he wasn't in her bed. His belongings were gone from the closet and the dresser drawers, and she changed the sheets, trying not to think of his hard muscles and tanned skin.

In the bathroom, she was distracted by the forgotten bottle of shampoo he'd left on the high window ledge in the shower. She climbed inside the porcelain tub and wrapped her fingers around it, then uncapped the bottle and brought it to her nose.

Emmett. Oh, Emmett.

Closing her eyes, she breathed in the memories. His kindness in the grocery store that very first day, his patience on the mat in the workout room, the way he laughed with Ricky and rooted on the boy's soccer team.
He'd make an excellent father,
Nan had said. Linda hoped he'd get that chance.

It was hard to let go of her own hopes for him, but she recapped the shampoo and put them away as she put away the bottle beneath the sink. Someday he'd find another woman—a woman who could be a good mother, a woman who was whole, instead of the mess of parts that was Linda. The mess of parts who couldn't risk not loving well enough and then losing her heart when she lost him.

That was all she'd been able to think of when she read the article in the newspaper. Her fear for him had demonstrated just how much she loved him. She'd realized that her love for Emmett was so intense that this half-broken Linda wasn't strong enough to withstand potential heartbreak. He was bound to get tired of her weakness and disability eventually. It was better to break it off clean and quick, or else the pain would only get worse.

Though she didn't know if it could get any worse. She sank onto the living room couch and buried her face in her hands.

A knock on the door startled her out of her reverie. She jerked her hands away from her face and automatically started for the door. Then her steps slowed. Emmett coming back?

Her hands pulled open the door without her permission. No one was there, until she dropped her gaze. Gleaming blond hair. A streak of dirt across one cheek.

“School's out already?” she asked Ricky.

He brushed past her. “It's after three.”

She checked her watch. The day had gone quicker than she'd thought. Sheesh. She couldn't even keep track of the time. “Did you get lunch?” she asked, following him toward the kitchen.

His backpack landed on the middle of the table with a big
thwump.
“Yeah, my teacher said you'd called the office and made sure I could buy lunch even though I didn't have any money with me.”

“I'll send the cash with you tomorrow.” She reached for the brown bag still sitting on the countertop and held it up. “Do you want to eat any of this now?”

He frowned. “What's that?”

“The lunch I made after you ran out of the house.”

“Oh.” His hand swiped it from hers. “Thanks. But why didn't you bring it to school?”

A real mother would do that,
she finished for him. “You know I can't drive. Not yet.”

He fished out the cookies, naturally. Linda bit her bottom lip. The school lunch had likely been less than nutritious. And there was the childhood obesity epidemic. She'd heard about that on TV just the other day. It seemed that during the ten years she had been out to lunch, so had everyone else. Fat-and sugar-laden foods and supersize portions had helped Americans become overweight.

But Ricky was rail thin. He spent so much time with the soccer ball that she didn't think a calorie had time to settle on his growing little-boy body.

And, after all, she sucked at being a mother.