A Father's Sacrifice

“A car?” Jameson glanced over at the man who had been his unexpected salvation. “Whose car?”

“Yours,” John said as he pulled to a stop at the terminus of Prison Road. “A gift from your grandmother.”

I don’t want it! The words rose, hot and angry, in his mind, but he swallowed them back. He’d taken her money already—it had paid for the attorney’s time at an astronomical hourly rate. His grandmother’s wealth had paid for court costs, expert testimony, even the crisp new Dockers slacks and pristine blue polo shirt he wore.

Guilt money, all of it. But for the moment Jameson had no choice but to take it. Just as he’d had no alternative but to accept his grandmother’s help in winning his release from prison.

They’d reached the Dam Road and now Folsom Lake lay to his right, green and turbulent with the scudding autumn wind. A sudden impulse sharpened within him to climb into a sailboat and ride across those choppy waters.

It hit him with as much force as a splash of Folsom’s icy water—he could do it. If he wanted, he could tell John Evans to turn the damn car around and let him out. He could scout out a sailboat to rent and with his grandmother’s largesse, he could climb on board and explore every one of Folsom’s myriad coves. He was free—to ride a sailboat, to skip rocks on the water, to do any other fool crazy thing he wanted.

As they took the last curve on the dam, Jameson braced in his seat against the car’s movement. His hands reflexively closed on the polished mahogany box in his lap.

Ridiculous really, to feel so protective of a box of ashes. But he’d never connected with his brother, Sean, while he was alive. He was loath to sever this connection with him in death.

“You have a destination in mind?” Evans asked.

Hart Valley. The answer slammed into his mind, although Jameson didn’t say it aloud. The softening inside him let him know just how dangerous it was to even think of that sanctuary.

But he didn’t want to think, and certainly didn’t want to make small talk with his lawyer. Evans had gotten his conviction overturned, had jumped through all the hoops on his behalf to get him set free. Jameson was grateful, truly he was. But he couldn’t risk thinking of Hart Valley, because then he would think of the Russos. And if he let himself think about the Russos, his mind would inevitably wander to Nina.

And he most definitely didn’t want to think about Nina.

“Not sure yet,” Jameson said curtly, then pointedly turned his head to stare out the window again. Evans took the hint and fell silent.

They exchanged only the most minimal pleasantries when Evans reached his posh Granite Bay office and handed Jameson the keys to a shiny new Camry. His grandmother could have sprung for a high ticket car—a BMW like Evans’s or a Mercedes. That she’d selected something more modest implied she’d given the choice some thought, had understood that he would have felt awkward and alien in a luxury vehicle.

He gripped the keys so tightly he felt them bite into his palm. Emotions gnawed at him—unwanted gratitude, a raging desire to fling the keys away, embarrassment and the overwhelming guilt that would never go away. His own, his grandmother’s, Sean’s.

Jameson unlocked the silver Camry and set the carved mahogany box carefully on the passenger seat. Evans handed him an envelope packed with papers laying out Sean’s trust and the small fortune that now belonged to Jameson. He slid inside the car, then tossed the envelope into the foot well of the passenger seat.

He would just as soon give all his grandmother’s money away. It was blood money, money with so many strings attached he couldn’t begin to undo the tangled snarl.

But as he meandered through the Sacramento streets searching for a place to go, he acknowledged that he could no more refuse his grandmother’s gift than he could restore those lost four years of his life. He was a man with a bad reputation and worse history. Despite the vocational training at the prison in cabinetry, he’d be a hard sell to a prospective employer. The trust would allow him to open his own business, to give him a margin of security other recently released inmates didn’t have.

He could even go up to Hart Valley, stay there if he wanted. Could make a home for himself on the scrappy five acres his late father had left him. Could set up a cabinet shop behind the derelict cabin he’d grown up in—if it was still standing after five years of neglect.

But could he face Nina?

The light at the intersection up ahead flashed from yellow to red and Jameson slammed on the brakes. The pickup in the lane behind him squealed to a halt, its front bumper nearly kissing the Camry’s rear. The young hot-head at the wheel of the truck shouted something profane and hit the horn the instant the light turned green again.

Jameson pulled through the intersection, regretting that he’d let Nina back inside his mind. He’d done everything he could to keep her out those four long years, reluctant to bring even her memory within those harsh gray walls of Folsom Prison. When he couldn’t resist the urging of his body’s heat, he blanked his mind, replaced the tempting images of Nina with one of the buxom, bland-faced pinups the other inmates plastered on their walls. He wouldn’t let himself remember so much as the scent of Nina’s perfume.

It all came rushing back now, though. The memories so intense, his hands shook. His grip on the Camry’s wheel grew slick with sweat and he knew he’d have to pull over or risk an even closer call than the one he’d had with the pickup.

He pulled into a strip mall driveway and parked the Camry outside a discount shoe store. Sagging in his seat, he threw his head back, let his gaze wander out the side window. His chest felt tight, sharp pain digging deep. If he hadn’t felt this same ache a hundred times while lying in his cell, he might have thought it was a heart attack.

You’re free. You can think of her now.

He felt tears burning, but he wouldn’t let them fall. Eyes squeezed shut, he released the constriction in his chest bit by bit, then let Nina in to the forbidden places.

It was dangerous, he knew, to think of her even now. But if he didn’t, he thought he’d die. He needed desperately, in these few minutes of fantasy, to pretend that Nina Russo would still be the idealized woman he had held in his arms nearly five years ago. The real Nina—the one who would certainly scorn and reject him—would see through his best intentions to the dark soul beneath. So, for now, he could pretend that Nina didn’t exist.

Chapter One

Nina Russo sank onto a seat at the café’s counter, her feet still throbbing from the rush of the noontime crowd. Nina’s Café, a Hart Valley watering hole and community meeting place, had nearly emptied as it usually did by three o’clock. The dinner rush wouldn’t start up until five, and by then the night cook would be in back, ready to put up orders of meat loaf with mashed potatoes and bowls of chili.

That’s if the night cook arrived on time—always a questionable proposition. Dale Zorn had not made punctuality his hallmark. In the unfortunate tradition of night cooks at Nina’s, Dale had distinguished himself as being the most undependable of them all.

All but Jameson O’Connell, that is.

An odd shiver tingled up Nina’s spine. What in the world had made her think of Jameson? He’d weighed heavily on her mind five years ago, both before and after that world-changing night. But since then, particularly when the town’s former bad boy took a powder and left Vincent and Pauline Russo in the lurch, Nina had made it a point to keep memories of him at bay.

She was tired, that was all. Dale had been a no-show three nights out of the last seven, leaving Nina to take his place. The teenage boy she’d hired as busboy/dishwasher caught a nasty flu that had been making the rounds in Hart Valley, so she was short even that pair of hands last night.

She rubbed at her eyes and leaned back in the swivel chair with a sigh. She’d grown up in this place. She’d done her homework in the front corner booth, had played jacks on the linoleum floor while her parents finished the closing up. She’d learned every aspect of the family business, from ringing out the register to ordering the best ground beef. Key among all those lessons was the small business owner’s edict—be ready to step in when someone doesn’t show.

As Jameson hadn’t. He’d never returned from that weekend trip to Sacramento.

Enough, she told herself. No more jaunts down memory lane. She had too much to do this afternoon to let past history haunt her.

When Lacey Mills came out from the kitchen, Nina smiled, grateful for the distraction. As willowy and tall as any fashion model, nineteen-year-old Lacey filled out her plain white waitress shirt and black slacks as if they’d been tailored for her. Nina felt the customary pang of envy that her own generous curves lacked Lacey’s elegance and grace.

Lacey claimed the seat next to Nina and pushed back blond bangs. “I can stay if Dale doesn’t show.”

Nina shook her head, feeling her own short dark hair brush her shoulders. It was definitely time for a cut. “You’ve been here since six this morning. And don’t you have class tonight?”

Lacey shrugged. “Yeah. But I could go straight to Marbleville from here.”

A jangle up front signaled a new arrival. Nina pushed herself to her feet as she turned toward the café’s door. The late autumn sunshine backlit the man entering, concealing his face with shadows. A tingle started up her back again, as if invisible fingertips grazed her spine. Nina shivered as a shred of memory teased her.

He stepped out of the shaft of sunlight, turning so it now lit his face. The harsh lines of the man’s cheek and jaw, sharpened and almost gaunt with time, danced elusively in her memory. His dark brown hair was cropped close now, but she could still recall the silky feel of it. The strength of those broad shoulders suggested a remembered heat.

Then his blue eyes were riveted onto her. Pain inhabited those depths that hadn’t been there five years ago, a hopelessness that made her heart ache. The hard edge to his mouth was new as well. Nina gasped as if sucker punched as full recognition burst inside her.

Lacey put a solicitous hand on her shoulder. “Nina? What’s the matter?”

Nina just shook her head, trying to deny the truth that stood twenty feet away. Jameson O’Connell. He was out of prison.

Had he expected her to greet him with a smile and open arms? Jameson would have thought that hope had shriveled away within those formidable gray walls. But a tiny seed of it had remained in his heart, had fluttered to life at his first glimpse of Nina.

The sight of her horrified face should have ground hope back into oblivion, but somehow it still breathed. And that ticked him off royally, because he couldn’t seem to control even that tiny speck of emotion.

He closed the distance between them, stopping just outside of arm’s length, and the reality of Nina collided violently with his suppressed memories. He’d been certain he’d idealized her—given her a goddess’s face, a body too lush and sensual to be real. But seeing the satiny arc of her cheek, the thick fall of black hair, her delicate chin, he could barely take a breath.

He allowed himself the briefest glance at her breasts. They were even more full than he remembered, her nipped-in waist more achingly feminine, her generous hips begging to be cupped. For just a heartbeat, he let himself recall how good it felt to draw his hands along her body, to explore each hidden curve.

Then he slammed the lid on his over-fertile imagination. Damned if he’d give temptation any more ammunition. He would have closed his eyes if he could, blocked her face from view. But if he did, he was pretty certain his heart would just stop beating.