The Prodigal Groom. Karen Leabo

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СКАЧАТЬ said with a shrug, dismissing the incident far more casually than she would have believed possible. “Hey, you look like you’re about to keel over again. Let’s get you some water.” With a hand at the small of her back, he guided her to the kitchen. He remembered where it was from visits to Birkett’s Folly as a child. His father and old Will Birkett had been good friends.

      The absurdity of this situation made Laurie want to laugh. Jake Mercer was alive? How often had she dreamed that it was all a big misunderstanding, that the Marshals Service had made a mistake? Apparently those farfetched dreams were coming true.

      Again she stifled an almost hysterical laugh. On the heels of her elation, however, came anger. How dare Jake come back from the dead? How dare he abandon her, abandon their child, then blithely waltz back into her life unannounced?

      Oh, Lord, she was confused, still woozy and weak, and if she didn’t get herself something to eat or drink she was going to faint again. So she said nothing as Jake took a glass from the cabinet and filled it with cold water from the refrigerator.

      He handed it to her. She took it, carefully avoiding touching him, and took several long swallows.

      “Sit down,” Jake said.

      She would have remained standing just to prove he couldn’t tell her what to do, but her legs wouldn’t cooperate. She sank into the chair he held out for her.

      He sat down across from her, with the old enamel kitchen table between them. Her dizziness abated and her wits began to return. Now maybe she was in some kind of shape to listen to Jake’s explanations.

      Surely he didn’t expect to take up with her where he’d left off.

      “So, talk,” she said. “Where have you been for the past four years? Now, let’s see, maybe I can guess. Juan LaBarba swore a vendetta against you, so the blessed U.S. Marshals Service decided to hide you for a while, and they told us you died so we wouldn’t come looking for you. Am I close?”

      “Nowhere near.” He rested his hands on the edge of the table and rocked back and forth a couple of times. “Laurie, do you actually believe I’d leave you standing at the altar because of some stupid vendetta?”

      Properly chastised for jumping to conclusions, she shook her head. “I’m sorry. Tell me what really happened.”

      “I was shot and left for dead,” he said quietly. “I got caught in the same flurry of gunfire that killed Ernesto LaBarba, Juan’s brother. The LaBarbas dragged me inside the building where they were holed up, thinking to trade me for Ernesto. But when they found out Ernesto had died, they decided to keep me as a bargaining chip. They fled to Costa Rica and took me with them.”

      “Did you try to escape?” Laurie asked, trying to fathom the horror he must have experienced. It sounded so unreal, like a bad movie.

      “I wasn’t in any shape to escape. Juan’s wife, Carmen, patched me up pretty good, but I still got some kind of infection that lasted for months. I don’t remember a whole lot about that time.”

      Laurie winced. What he must have gone through! She wanted to touch him, to offer him comfort, but the look in his eyes told her he hadn’t come to her for pity. “So did they use you as a bargaining chip, like they intended?” she asked.

      “Apparently they tried, but by then the government was denying all knowledge of me. As far as they were concerned, I was dead—and they didn’t want anyone to contradict them.”

      “But…” she started to object, then paused when Jake pulled a bit of metal out of his jeans pocket and laid it on the table.

      “That’s the bullet Carmen found in me. It was from one of our guns, not the Uzis LaBarba’s gang was using.”

      “My God, you were shot by one of your own men,” she said, barely breathing the words. “It wasn’t intentional, was it?”

      He shook his head. “I’m sure it was an accident. All hell was breaking loose. Nerves were pulled to the breaking point.”

      “Still, I can see why they wouldn’t want you spreading it around that you were the victim of ‘friendly fire.’”

      “Particularly since, in their official report, I was shot in the head, not the back.” Bitterness twisted his mouth. “Apparently they weren’t as sure that I was dead as they pretended, and they wanted to make damn certain no one else questioned it.”

      “So what did LaBarba do when he found out you weren’t—” she paused, choosing just the right word “—valuable to them?”

      “He would have killed me outright and left me for the buzzards, but Carmen intervened. I’m not sure exactly what she did, but LaBarba listened to her for some reason.”

      There was a certain kindness to Jake’s expression when he talked about Carmen, and Laurie felt a pang of jealousy. Had he and Carmen…? Oh, surely Jake wouldn’t get involved with another man’s wife! She pushed the irrelevant thoughts aside.

      “LaBarba might have had other plans for me. I don’t know,” Jake continued. “But I didn’t wait around to find out. As soon as I was strong enough, I got the hell out of there. The first person I called when, I got back to the States was Danny.”

      Danny. Her brother and Jake’s best friend. It bothered her that Jake hadn’t called her first. “When was this?”

      “About…” He hesitated. “Shortly after Wendy was born.”

      Laurie was out of her chair. “You’ve been back for more than three years, and you waited until now to contact me? You let me think you were dead all this time? Danny knew, and he didn’t tell me?” She was so angry and frustrated at the unfairness that she wanted to hit something. She settled for the tabletop, slapping it with the palm of her hand and almost upsetting her glass of water. “Why? Why didn’t you come back to me?”

      “Because, Laurie, you were married to another man.”

       Two

      Laurie fell back into her chair with a thunk. Of course she’d been married. And Jake’s sudden reappearance would have been awkward, to say the least. She wasn’t sure that excused the fact that he’d continued to allow her to believe him dead, but there was some logic to his decision.

      “I wanted to see you, believe me,” Jake said, softening. “But Danny…convinced me otherwise. He said you’d finally gotten your life pulled together, and with the new baby and all…well, he just didn’t think it would be fair for me to jump in and upset the applecart. Your brother can be very persuasive. I finally agreed with him,” Jake concluded, rubbing his jaw.

      You agreed to stay away from your own child? She almost said the words aloud, but something held her back. This whole situation was getting harder and harder to accept.

      “Who else knows you’re alive?” she asked, picturing the whole town whispering behind her back, pitying her in her ignorance.

      “My folks, but that’s about it. They retired in Tyler after they sold the ranch, and that’s where I’ve been living, too, where I could keep an eye on them.”

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