Holiday in Stone Creek Read online

  Ashley listened in helpless sorrow as he went on to explain the Ardith-Rachel situation and ask for help.

  The singer agreed immediately.

  Brad called for a private jet. He might as well have been ordering a pizza, he was so casual about it. Only with a pizza, he would at least have had to give a credit card number.

  When Brad said “jump,” the response was invariably, “How high?”

  Because she’d always known him as her big brother, the broad scope of his power always came as a surprise to her.

  Things accelerated after the phone calls.

  Resigned, Ashley got to work preparing food for the trip, so Ardith and Rachel wouldn’t starve, though the jet probably offered catered meals.

  Her guests stumbled sleepily into the kitchen just as she was finishing, herded there by Jack, their clothes rumpled and hastily donned, their eyes glazed with confusion, weariness and fear.

  The little girl favored Ashley with a wan, blinking smile. “Have you been taking care of Jack?” she asked.

  Ashley’s heart turned over. “I’ve been trying,” she said truthfully, studiously ignoring Brad, Tanner and Jack himself.

  Vince had wandered in behind them. “Want me to go along for the ride?” he asked, meeting no one’s eyes.

  “No,” Jack said tersely. “You’re done here.”

  “For good?” Vince asked.

  “For now,” Jack replied.

  Vince turned to Brad. “Catch a ride to the airstrip with you?”

  Jack gave the man a quick glance, his eyes ever so slightly narrowed. “I’ll take you there myself,” he said, adding a brisk, “Later.”

  “You stopped trusting me, boss?” Vince asked, with an odd grin.

  “Maybe,” Jack said.

  Some of the color drained from Vince’s face. “Am I fired?”

  “Don’t push it,” Jack answered.

  In the end, it was decided that Tanner would drive Vince back to his helicopter once Brad, Ardith and Rachel were aboard the jet, ready for takeoff. Later, Tanner would see that Jack boarded a commercial airliner in Flagstaff, bound for Somewhere Else.

  Holding back tears, Ashley handed her brother the food she’d packed, tucked into a basket with a cheery red-and-white-checkered napkin for a cover.

  Something softened in Brad’s eyes as he accepted the offering, but he didn’t say anything.

  And neither did Ashley.

  A gulf had opened between Ashley and the big brother she had always loved and admired, far wider than the one created by their mother’s death. Even knowing he was doing what he thought was right—what probably was right—Ashley felt steamrolled, and she resented it.

  Soon, Brad was gone, along with Ardith and Rachel.

  Approximately an hour later, Tanner and the chastened Vince left, too.

  Jack and Ashley sat on opposite sides of the kitchen table, unable to look at each other.

  After a long, long time, Jack said, “My mother died three years ago. And I didn’t have a clue.”

  Startled, Ashley sat up straighter in her chair. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Breast cancer,” Jack explained gruffly, his eyes moist.

  “Oh, Jack. That’s terrible.”

  He nodded. Sighed heavily.

  “I guess this is our last night together,” Ashley said, at some length.

  “I guess so,” Jack agreed miserably.

  Purpose flowed through Ashley. “Then let’s make it count,” she said. She locked the back door. She flipped off the lights. And then she took Jack’s hand, there in the darkness, and led him upstairs to her bed.

  Every moment, every gesture, was precious, and very nearly sacred.

  Jack undressed Ashley the way an archeologist might uncover a fragile treasure, with a cherishing tenderness that stirred not only her body, but her soul. Head back, she surrendered her naked breasts to him, reveled in the sensations wrought by his lips and tongue.

  A low, crooning sound escaped her, and she found just enough control to open his shirt, her fingers fumbling with the buttons. She needed to feel his flesh, bare and hard, yet warm against her palms and splayed fingers.

  They kissed, long and deep, with a sweet urgency all the better for the smallest delay.

  In time, Jack eased her onto the bed, sideways, and spread her legs to nuzzle and then suckle her until she was gasping with need and exaltation.

  She whispered his name, a ragged sound, and tears burned in her eyes. How would she live without him, without this? How colorless her days would be, when he was gone, and how empty her nights. He’d taught her body to crave these singular pleasures, to need them as much as she needed air and water and the light of the sun.

  But, no, she thought sorrowfully. She mustn’t spoil what was probably their last night together by leaving the moment, journeying into a lonely and uncertain future. It was now that mattered, and only now. Jack’s hands on her inner thighs, Jack’s mouth on the very center of her femininity.

  Dear God, it felt so good, the way he was loving her, almost too good to be borne.

  The first climax came softly, seizing her, making her buckle and moan in release.

  “Don’t stop,” she pleaded, entangling her fingers in his hair.

  She hoped he would never cut his hair short again.

  He chuckled against her moist, straining flesh, nipped at her ever so lightly with his teeth and brought her to another orgasm, this one sharp and brief, a sudden and wild flexing deep within her. “Oh, I’m a long way from finished,” he assured her gruffly, before falling to her again.

  Ashley could never have said afterward how many times she rose and fell on the hot tide of primitive satisfaction, flailing and writhing and crying out with each new abandoning of her ordinary self.

  When he finally took her, she gloried in the heat and length and hardness of him, in the pulsing and the renewed wanting. Her body became greedier than before, demanding, reaching, shuddering. And Jack drove deep, eventually losing control, but only after a long, delicious period of restraint.

  They made love time and again that night, holding each other in silence while they recovered between bouts of fevered passion.

  “I’ll come back if I can,” Jack told her, at one point, barely able to breathe, he was so spent. “Give me a year before you fall in love with somebody else, okay?”

  A year. It seemed like an eternity to Ashley, she was so aware of every passing moment, every tick of the celestial clock. At the same time, though, she knew it was safe to promise. She’d wait a lifetime, a dozen lifetimes, because for her, there was no man but Jack.

  She nodded, dampening his bare shoulder with her tears, and finally slept.

  JACK EASED HIMSELF out of Ashley’s arms, and her bed, around eight o’clock the next morning. It was one of those heartrendingly beautiful winter days, with sunlight glaring on pristine snow. Everything seemed to be draped in purity.

  He dressed in his own room, gathered the few belongings he’d brought with him, and tucked them into his bag.

  Given his druthers, he would have sat quietly in a chair, watching Ashley sleep, memorizing every line and curve of her, so he could hold her image in his mind and his heart until he died.

  But Jack was the sort of man who rarely got his druthers.

  He had things to do.

  First, he’d meet with Chad Lombard.

  If he survived that—and it was a crapshoot, whether he or Lombard or neither of them would walk away—he’d check himself into a hospital.

  Feeling more alone than he ever had—and given some of the things he’d been through that was saying a lot—Jack gravitated to the computer in Ashley’s study. He called up his dad’s website, clicked to the Contact Us link, wrote an email he never intended to send.

  Hello, Dad. I’m alive, but not for long, probably…

  He went on to explain why he’d never come home from military school, why he’d let everyone in his family believe he was dead. He apolog
ized for any pain they must have suffered because of his actions, and resisted the temptation to lay any of the blame on the Navy.

  The mission had been a tough one, with a high price, but no one had held a gun to his head. He’d made the decision himself and, in most ways, he had never regretted it.

  He went on to say that he hoped his mother hadn’t had to endure too much pain, and asked for forgiveness. In sketchy terms, he described the toxin that was probably killing him.

  In closing, he wrote, You should know that I met a woman. If things were different, I’d love to settle down with her right here in this little Western town, raise a flock of kids with her. But some things aren’t meant to be, and it’s beginning to look as if this is one of them.

  No matter how it may seem, I love you, Dad.

  I’m sorry.

  Jack.

  He was about to hit the Delete button—writing the piece had been a catharsis—when two things happened at once. His cell phone rang, and somebody knocked hard at the front door.

  Simultaneously, Jack answered the call and admitted Tanner Quinn to the house he’d soon be leaving, probably forever.

  No more cherry crepes.

  No more mutant cat.

  No more Ashley.

  “Mercer?” Lombard asked affably, “is that you?”

  Jack shifted to the Neal Mercer persona, because Lombard knew him by that name, gestured for Tanner to come inside, but be quiet about it.

  Ashley was still sleeping, and Jack didn’t want to wake her. Leaving was going to be hard enough, without a face-to-face goodbye.

  On the other hand, didn’t he owe her that much?

  “What?” he asked Lombard.

  “I’ve decided on a place for the showdown,” Lombard said. “Tombstone, Arizona. Fitting, don’t you think?”

  “You’re a regular John Wayne,” Jack told him.

  Tanner raised his eyebrows in silent question. Jack shook his head, pointed to his gear bag, waiting just inside the door.

  Tanner picked up the bag, carried it out to his truck. The exhaust spewed white steam into the cold, bright air.

  Leavin’ on a jet plane… Jack thought.

  “Tomorrow,” Lombard went on. “High noon.”

  “High drama, you mean,” Jack scoffed.

  “Be there,” Lombard ordered, dead serious now, and hung up.

  Jack sighed and clicked the phone shut.

  Glanced up at the ceiling.

  Tanner returned from the luggage run, waiting with his big rancher’s hands stuffed into the pockets of his sheepskin coat.

  “Give me a minute,” Jack said.

  Tanner nodded, his eyes full of sympathy.

  Jack turned from that. Sympathy wasn’t going to help him now.

  He had to be strong. Stronger than he’d ever been.

  Upstairs, he entered Ashley’s room, sat down on the edge of the bed, and watched her for a few luxurious moments, moments he knew he would cherish until he died, whether that was in a day, or several decades.

  Ashley opened her eyes, blinked. Said his name.

  For a lot of years, Jack had claimed he didn’t have a heart. For all his money, love was something he simply couldn’t afford.

  Now he knew he’d lied—to himself and everyone else.

  He had a heart, all right, and it was breaking.

  “I love you,” he said. “Always have, always will.”

  She sat up, threw her arms around his neck, clung to him for a few seconds. “I love you, too,” she murmured, trembling against him. Then she drew back, looked deep into his eyes. “Thanks,” she said.

  “For—?” Jack ground out the word.

  “The time we had. For not leaving without saying goodbye.”

  He nodded, not trusting himself to speak just then.

  “If you can come back—”

  Jack drew out of her embrace, stood. In the cold light of day, returning to Stone Creek, to Ashley, seemed unlikely, a golden dream he’d used to get through the night.

  He nodded again. Swallowed hard.

  And then he left.

  HE WAS BOARDING a plane in Flagstaff, nearly two hours later, before he remembered that he hadn’t closed the email he’d drafted on Ashley’s computer, spilling his guts to his father.

  Ashley wasn’t exactly a techno-whiz, he thought, with a sad smile, but if she stumbled upon the message somehow, she’d know most of his secrets.

  She might even send the thing, on some do-gooder impulse, though Jack doubted that. In any case, she’d know about the damage the toxin was doing to his bone marrow and be privy to his deepest regrets as far as his family was concerned.

  She’d know he’d loved her, too. Wanted to spend his life with her.

  That shining dream could still come true, he supposed, but a lot of chips would have to fall first, and land in just the right places. The odds, he knew, were against him.

  Nothing new there.

  He took his seat on the small commuter plane, fastened his seat belt, and shut off his cell phone.

  Tanner had been right there when he’d bought his ticket—he’d chosen Phoenix, said he’d probably head for South America from there, and gone through all the proper steps, checking his gear bag and filling out a form declaring that there was a firearm inside, properly secured.

  What he didn’t tell his friend was that he planned to charter a flight to Tombstone as soon as he reached Phoenix and have it out with Chad Lombard, once and for all.

  Takeoff was briefly delayed, due to some mechanical issue.

  During the wait, Jack switched his phone on again, placed a short call that drew an alarmed stare from the woman sitting next to him and smiled as he put the cell away.

  “Air marshal,” he explained, in an affable undertone.

  The woman didn’t look reassured. In fact, she moved to an empty seat three rows forward. A word to the flight attendants about the man in 7-B and he’d be off the plane, tangled in a snarl with a pack of TSA agents until three weeks after forever.

  For some reason, she didn’t report him. Maybe she didn’t watch the news a lot, or fly much.

  Jack settled back, closed his eyes, and tried not to think about Ashley and the baby they might have conceived together, the future they might have shared.

  That proved impossible, of course, like the old game of trying not to think about a pink elephant.

  The plane lifted off, bucked through some turbulence and streaked toward his destiny—and Chad Lombard’s.

  CARLY MCKETTRICK O’BALLIVAN watched her aunt with concern, while Meg, who was both Carly’s sister and her adoptive mother—how weird was that?—puttered around the big kitchen, trying to distract Ashley.

  Meg was expecting a baby, and the news might have cheered Ashley up, but Carly and her mother-sister had agreed on the way into town to wait until Brad-dad was back from wherever he’d gone.

  Unable to bear Ashley’s pale face and sorrowful eyes any longer, Carly excused herself and wandered toward the study. She’d set up the computer, she decided. Use this strange morning constructively.

  School was closed on account of megasnow, but nothing stopped members of the McKettrick clan when they wanted to get somewhere. Meg had told Carly they were going to town, fired up her new Land Rover right after breakfast, acting all mysterious and sad, buckled a squirmy Mac into his car seat, and off they’d gone.

  Carly, a sucker for adventure, had enjoyed the ride into town, over roads buried under a foot of snow. Once, Meg had even taken an overland route, causing Mac to giggle and Carly to shout, “Yee-haw!”

  Even the plows weren’t out yet—that’s how deep the stuff was.

  To Carly’s surprise, someone had beaten her to the computer gig. The monitor was dark, but the machine was on, whirring quietly away in the otherwise silent room.

  She sat down in the swivel chair, touched the mouse.

  An email message popped up on the monitor screen.

  Since Brad and Meg were big on
personal privacy, Carly didn’t actually read the email, but she couldn’t help noticing that it was signed, “Love, Jack.”

  She barely knew Jack McCall, but she’d liked him. Which was more than could be said for Brad and Meg.

  They clearly thought the man was bad news.

  Carly bit her lower lip. If Jack had gone to all the trouble of writing that long email, she reasoned, her heart thumping a little, surely he’d intended to send it.

  With so much going on—Carly had no idea what any of it actually was, except that it had obviously done a real number on Ashley, so it must be pretty heavy stuff—he’d probably just forgotten.

  Carly took a deep breath, moved the cursor, and hit Send.

  “Carly!” Meg called, clearly approaching.

  Carly closed the message panel. “What?”

  Meg appeared in the doorway of the study. “School’s open after all,” she said. “I just heard it on the kitchen radio.”

  Carly sighed. “Awesome,” she said, meaning exactly the opposite.

  Meg chuckled. “Get a move on, kiddo,” she ordered.

  “Are there snowshoes around here someplace?” Carly countered. “Maybe a dogsled and a team, so I can mush to school?”

  “Hugely funny,” Meg said, grinning. Like all the other grown-ups, she looked tired. “I’d drive you to school in the Land Rover, but I don’t think I should leave Ashley just yet.”

  Carly agreed, with the teenage reluctance that was surely expected of her, and resigned herself to the loss of that greatest of all occasions, a snow day.

  Trudging toward the high school minutes later, she wondered briefly if she should have left that email in the outbox, maybe told Meg or Ashley about it.

  But her friends were converging up ahead, laughing and hurling snowballs at each other, and she hurried to join them.

  ASHLEY BOTH HOPED FOR and dreaded a call from Jack, but none came.

  Not while Meg and the baby were there, and not when they left.

  A ranch hand from Starcross brought Mrs. Wiggins back home, and Ashley was glad and grateful, but still wrung out. She felt dazed, disjointed, as though she were truly beside herself.

  She slept.

  She cooked.

  She slept some more, and then cooked some more.

  At four o’clock that afternoon, Brad showed up.