Stonebrook Cottage. Carla Neggers

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СКАЧАТЬ Texas was his business if he decided it was.

      Not that it had any effect on her. “Give it up, Sergeant Temple. Mike’s death and Henry and Lillian skipping out of summer camp are at most only peripherally related.”

      He stepped back onto the porch, the hot night air mingling with the cool air coming from her house. He remembered her soft, white sheets, one of Eva Dunning’s hand sewn quilts hanging on the wall above her bed. Kara, Kara. What had he done?

      He pressed two fingers to his lips, then touched them to hers. “I went too fast with you. I’m sorry.”

      “Sam—”

      But he straightened, removing any hint of softness from his expression. “If those kids don’t turn up at the airport, I’ll be back.” He started down the porch steps, his back to her as he added, “You can make more popcorn.”

      

      Kara locked her front door behind her and stood in the foyer, her head pounding. A suspicious Texas Ranger was just what she needed. Now what? Sam or the Austin police would find the cabdriver who’d taken Henry and Lillian to Hyde Park. Two rich kids on their own—the driver would remember them.

      The effects of her long day ate at her nerves, threw her off her normal manner of doing things. She wasn’t one to panic. When she was nine years old, she’d had to sit motionless next to her dying mother while they waited for the paramedics. Ranger Temple wasn’t getting under her skin. She wouldn’t let it happen.

      Except it already had. Her reaction to him on her doorstep had been instantaneous and overpowering, a mix of attraction and desire, frustration, a touch of embarrassment, even fear, although not for herself. Having a tight-lipped Texas Ranger at her house gave weight to what Henry and Lillian had done in running off from the dude ranch, what their lives had become now that Big Mike was gone and their mother was governor.

       Tell no one…I’m trusting you with my children…

      Kara shook off the words in the letter. Replaying them in her head would get her nowhere, and it was her own damn fault she had Sam on her case. She’d given his name to Zoe West in Connecticut, figuring it couldn’t hurt to have a Texas Ranger vouching for her whereabouts. She hadn’t expected the Bluefield detective to go to the trouble of checking out her story and actually calling him.

      Then, after Allyson had told her about Henry and Lillian, Kara immediately drove to San Antonio in a panic. It wasn’t just to see her brother and Susanna and get their moral support. She’d half hoped Sam would be there.

      She’d more than half hoped.

      She pulled out sheets in the hall linen closet, figuring she might as well make up the couch and at least get some sleep before she had to deal with Sam. Or should she wake up the kids and clear out before he got back here? She couldn’t think straight. She started back to the living room with her armload of sheets.

      “Aunt Kara!” Lillian called in a panicked whisper, crab-walking up the short hall from the bedroom. Her face was ashen. “Get down! He can see you!”

      “Lillian, good God—”

       “Get down!”

      Doing as she asked, Kara crouched down with her sheets and made her way to Lillian. “What is it, Lil?” The frightened girl was barely breathing. “Did you have a nightmare? Did you see my friend Sam—”

      “It’s the man…” She faltered, unable to speak. Purple splotches spread across her pale cheeks as she gulped in more and more air, not breathing out.

      “Lillian…honey, you need to hold your breath for a couple of seconds. You’re not exhaling. If you get too much oxygen into your bloodstream, you’ll pass out.”

      She raised her huge blue eyes to Kara and dutifully held her breath for two seconds, then blew out a sharp breath and blurted, “It’s the man from the ranch!”

      “What man? Where?”

      “Outside. I saw him. Henry said we shouldn’t tell you about him until we get to Stonebrook Cottage, but he’s here. Mom doesn’t even know about him.”

      Kara could feel Lillian’s near hysteria infecting her. Wisps of blond hair matted the girl’s damp forehead and temples, beads of perspiration formed on her freckled nose. Kara steadied herself. “Lillian, where? Where is this man?”

      “Out front. He’s in a car. I saw him from the bedroom window.”

      “Are you sure? This is the city. There are lots of cars—”

      “It’s him. Come on, I’ll show you.” She tugged on Kara’s arm, but when Kara tried to stand up, Lillian gasped and dug her fingernails into her godmother’s wrists, almost drawing blood. “Stay down.”

      Whatever was going on with these kids, Kara thought, it was serious and undoubtedly more than she could handle alone. She set the sheets on the floor and tried to maintain an outward air of calm, if only to reassure Lillian, who was scared out of her wits. The girl’s hyperventilating wasn’t an act. Kara had seen enough faked fear and panic attacks—on the part of witnesses, clients, even young attorneys before a big trial—to recognize the difference.

      Staying low, she followed Lillian to the bedroom. Henry was on his knees at the window, peering over the sill in the dark, an angle of light from outside catching his pale face. He silently motioned for Kara and his sister to join him.

      “I wasn’t going to tell you,” he whispered when Kara crouched next to him. “I didn’t want to scare you, but Lillian wouldn’t listen. He’s out there.”

      “Who, Henry?” Kara asked.

      “Do you see the black car? That’s him.”

      She looked up past the neighbor’s house, craning her neck, and saw a black sedan parked on the street. Someone was in the front seat, but she couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman.

      “Look,” Lillian said, kneeling down on Kara’s other side, “he’s smoking a cigarette.”

      Kara frowned. “I can’t see the cigarette never mind who’s in the car. How do you two know he’s from the ranch?”

      “He got out of the car a few minutes ago,” Henry said. “He stared right at your house. Lillian and I got a good look at him, didn’t we, Lil?”

      “Uh-huh. He was under the streetlight.”

      “Okay, I believe you,” Kara said. “So who is he?”

      Henry sat down on the floor, leaning back against the wall under the window with his knees tucked up under his chin. Kara noticed a smattering of small scratches and bruises on his tanned bare legs, a twelve-year-old at summer’s end. How had his and Lillian’s summer come to this?

      “We saw him watching us at the ranch,” he said. “Well, I did, and I warned Lillian to look out for him. He showed up the first of this week.”

      “Are you sure he wasn’t an employee? He didn’t introduce himself—”

      “Sometimes he had on a disguise,” Lillian said. СКАЧАТЬ