The Lawman's Secret Son

Myra Halifax had worked for Lara’s mother forever. A woman in her sixties with gray permed curls, she was built with a low center of gravity and formidable forbearance. That trait was a plus when it came to dealing with Lara’s high-strung mother.

Lara returned the smile. She couldn’t return the sentiment.

An hour later, she’d emptied the car and spent several moments upstairs settling into her old bedroom. Restless and uneasy, she decided something cold to drink and a friendly chat with the housekeeper might ward off her growing sense of foreboding.

She was one step into the kitchen when the doorbell rang. The shrill interruption came as a surprise. With her mother gone and her own presence in Riverport more or less a secret, company was unexpected and unwanted.

“I’ll send whoever it is away,” Myra said as she bustled past Lara into the foyer.

Lara hung back. There was a sense of destiny in the air, of colliding worlds. An overwhelming desire to race out the back swept through her and yet she stood off to the side as Myra impatiently flung open the door.

“You!” Myra said, and even though Lara couldn’t see who stood on the front-porch step, she knew. Myra added, “What do you want?”

There was a pause during which Lara stopped breathing. Her heartbeat drummed in her head.

And then his voice.

“I need to speak to Mrs. Kirk.”

“Mrs. Kirk is away for several weeks.” Myra started to close the door.

Lara saw the hand that caught it. His hand. “Maybe you can help me.”

Myra sputtered a little before saying, “I don’t see how—”

“I need to get in touch with Lara,” he cut in. “I have to talk to her. Warn her. All I need is her address or a telephone number.”

Was it possible he didn’t know she was at this house? It seemed so unlikely. No, someone must have seen her drive by, someone must have alerted him.

What else had they reported?

“I won’t give you her phone number,” Myra announced. “You broke her heart once and I won’t stand by while you do it again.”

Lara grabbed the edge of the door and opened it wider. “It’s okay,” she told Myra who stood her ground, glowering at their guest. Staring up into two very dark eyes, she added, “Hello, Brady.”

For a second he didn’t answer. For a second he looked as dumbstruck as she felt and she knew in that instant that he hadn’t expected to find her here, that she was as much a surprise to him as he was to her.

That moment gave her a second to absorb his changed appearance. The thinner face, the longer hair, the hollows in his cheeks, the deep, deep tan, the solid muscles under the worn T-shirt, the dusty-looking jeans. What had happened to Mr. Press and Fold, Mr. Perfect Haircut, Mr. By the Book?

This Brady looked younger, rangier, cagier, sexier.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, which was an out-and-out lie. Sure, she’d planned on seeing him while she was in Riverport, of course, but not quite so soon, and not here at her mother’s house. She’d spent three long hours in the car rehearsing her what-comes-next speech and now drew a total blank.

She hadn’t taken one factor into account. She hadn’t considered the impact of seeing him face-to-face. The months of tears that had cleared her head apparently hadn’t cleared her heart. Yet.

“I’ll just be a minute or two, Myra,” she said with a backward glance. “You’ll take care—”

“Of course,” Myra huffed as Lara stepped onto her mother’s broad porch and softly closed the door behind her.

“I was going to call you later,” she told Brady.

Before he could answer, a car drove by, slowing down as the driver craned his neck to see who stood outside the Kirk house. Brady said, “Let’s walk around back so we don’t give the whole town something to talk about.”

Lara suspected it was too late for that. She’d recognized Frank Duncan leaning forward, eyes wide. The hardware store would be abuzz within minutes. But she led the way around the back just the same, toward the riverside garden where they couldn’t be overheard through the open windows.

The back sloped down to the river, which flowed by at a leisurely pace this late in the summer. Lara stopped by a grouping of wrought-iron patio furniture arranged on a brick island, surrounded by a sea of flowers. Too nervous to sit, she stood in back of a heavily scrolled chair, gripping the metal for support. Brady leaned against the edge of the old brick barbecue, linking his arms across his chest. He’d always been fit, but had his shoulders and arms always bulged with so many muscles?

“I didn’t know you were in Riverport,” he said.

“I’ve been here less than an hour.” She tried not to stare at him but her traitorous gaze strayed his way every chance it got.

“How have you been?” he said.

She shook her head, unable to bear the thought of small talk.

“You look good,” he added, his gaze taking her in from head to toe. She hadn’t changed out of her traveling clothes, the white shorts and white halter top felt suddenly too revealing.

She whispered, “It’s too late, Brady. I didn’t come back for this.”

His eyes flashed, then he smiled, kind of, his lips doing all the work, his eyes not playing along. “Oh? Then why did you come back? Explain it to me.”

“Don’t use that tone with me. You’re the one who called everything off.”

“And you’re the one who left.”

“You sent me packing like a kid. I was hurt at first but I’m over it now.”

No reaction showed on his face. He was quiet for a long moment before saying, “Listen, Lara. Things between us ended kind of abruptly.”

She met his gaze.

“Okay, okay, it’s all my fault. I know that.” He threw up both hands. “I admit it. I take full responsibility. I couldn’t give you a whole man—”

“So you gave me nothing,” she said, pushing herself away from the chair and walking toward the river and the abandoned dock her father had built twenty years before.

“I was a wreck—” he said from right behind her.

She jumped at the nearness of his voice. “Of course you were,” she said, memories of the night flooding back. His stunned expression, his self-incrimination, the reality of the last few hours circling them like a cyclone, lifting them off their feet, tossing them around before flinging them back to earth a hundred miles from where they’d been.

She pushed it all away. “This is pointless. Let’s skip the postmortem on our very short marriage. You told Myra you needed to warn me. Warn me about what?”

His voice, pitched low and combined with the mysterious intensity of his dark gaze, made Lara’s knees go weak as he said, “I expected divorce papers by now.”

“I have a lawyer working on them.”

“For a year?”

“I haven’t wanted anyone to know—”