Authors: Mariah Stewart
“How did your parents take that?”
“How do you think?” She laughed dryly. “I was thirteen when the show went off the air. I did a few other shows—two sitcoms and a medical drama, but none of them lasted beyond a season or two. I did a couple more movies, but I knew that when I turned eighteen, I was outta there. Hugh supported me in that, helped me to look for colleges. He and his wife actually went on a cross-country trip with me and one of their sons to look at schools. My parents never forgave him for supporting my decision to leave the business. I was their meal ticket, their entrance into the Hollywood scene. I was putting an end to life as they knew it.”
“Have they forgiven you?”
“Not really. It was my fault that the party invitations stopped coming. My fault that they had to sell the big house and move to a more modest home in a more modest neighborhood. My fault that they couldn’t afford private school for my sister and brother. Everything negative that ever happened to anyone in my family was my fault.”
“Fiona, I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “I wish you’d told me before.”
“I never tell anyone. Everyone thinks, oh, poor thing, her parents pushed her into this fabulous career. But you can’t imagine what that was like. I was a child who never had a childhood. I had responsibilities that a kid of six or seven should never have to bear. The expectations were just too much for me. I’d made enough to pay my way through college, and I
did work a bit over vacations, so I didn’t walk away empty-handed. Unfortunately, my parents never invested a dime.”
“What are they doing now?”
“Managing my brother’s music career.” She rolled her eyes.
“When was the last time you spoke with them?”
“It’s been a while,” she said softly. “I call from time to time and leave messages, but I never get a call back.”
“Well, that explains a lot,” Sam said. “Why you never went to regular school, why you never went to the prom or played team sports. I’m really sorry you had to go through all that. No kid should ever have their childhood stolen from them, for any reason, especially by their own parents.” Sam eased up on the gas pedal. “I can understand why Hugh Davenport meant so much to you that you wanted to follow in his footsteps. Well, his TV footsteps.”
“I guess I was young enough that I believed he really was a cop. I idolized him. What a shock when I got old enough to realize he really wasn’t a police officer, but by then the idea was planted in my head. I was going to be a cop, just like Hugh. He told me if I was serious about it, though, that I should go all the way and aim for the FBI, so I did.”
“Have you ever regretted it?”
“Not for a minute. I really believe this is what I was meant to do. So in a way, I guess it all turned out all right. Maybe I wouldn’t have wanted a career in law enforcement if I hadn’t been on that show.”
“That’s what my mom calls making lemonade when life gives you lemons.”
“You don’t have a choice, really. Hugh used to say, ‘Control your life or life will control you.’” Fiona stifled a yawn.
“Had he been ill?”
She shook her head no. “Hugh was the picture of health. You hear about people who are never sick a day in their lives and then one day, bam! Gone? That was Hugh.”
“What happened?”
“Heart attack. He just turned sixty-eight last month. His wife, Elisa, said he never complained about anything. The doctors said it happens that way sometimes.” She seemed to consider this. “I do think he’d have preferred this way to hanging on with all manner of issues to deal with—he hated anything that threatened to slow him down—but damn, I will miss him so much.”
Sam reached across the console and took her hand. She squeezed it and rested her head back against her seat.
“When was the last time you slept?” he asked.
“What day is it now?”
“That long, eh?”
“I slept on the flight out to LA, then a few hours here and a few hours there.”
“Why don’t you try to get in a few winks now?”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“I’m suggesting it.”
“Maybe if I close my eyes, just for a minute …”
When Fiona awoke, the car was motionless. For a moment, she thought they’d arrived at the farm and that Sam had let her sleep in the car, rather than wake
her. She was okay with that. It had been so good of him to come out in the middle of the night and drive out into the middle of nowhere to get her, and she really hadn’t thanked him adequately.
I’m sure I can think of some way to express my gratitude
, she thought, smiling.
“I hope that smile’s for me,” she heard him say.
She opened her eyes and glanced over to the driver’s seat, where Sam sat, resting back against the door. She sat up and looked out the window. Through the windshield, she could see a lake surrounded by trees and wrapped in mist, bathed in the palest light imaginable.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Shelby Lake,” he replied. “This was the great make-out place when I was in high school.”
Sam turned on the radio and increased the volume.
“Come on.” He got out of the car and gestured for her to follow him. She unbuckled her seat belt and pushed open the door.
He’d left his door open and the sweet sound of Dolly Parton’s “Heartbreaker” floated out around them. He walked around the car and took her hand in his, then slid his other arm around her waist.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Taking you to the prom.”
She laughed and they slow danced, their bodies close, then closer. Dolly was followed by a more uptempo “Summer Nights” by Rascal Flatts, then Martina McBride’s “Happy Girl.”
“I guess country’s pretty big at the proms out here,” she said, cheek to cheek with Sam for another slow number.
“Sorry. It’s the only station you can get until you’re a little closer to Henderson Falls.”
“I don’t mind,” she told him. “I always kind of liked Dolly. She always sounds so sincere.”
He laughed softly in her ear, then spun her around and dipped her low. “What would a prom be without flowers?” He paused to snap off a stem of black-eyed Susans. “Not exactly roses, but the best I can do in a pinch.”
“They’re actually one of my favorites, so you’re batting a thousand tonight, as far as I’m concerned.”
“You mean this morning.” Sam pointed across the lake to where the first hint of the new day began to appear.
Suddenly overwhelmed by it all—the grief of losing Hugh, the beauty of the morning, the sheer sweetness of the man who held her—she felt the tears build inside but fought against letting them fall, knowing that once they started, there was no telling when, if ever, they would stop.
When the first sob broke, it was with a strangled cry followed by a surge of weeping that startled even her. She covered her face with her hands, as if to hide from the outpouring of her own pain.
“It’s okay, baby, let it out,” Sam whispered in her ear as he backed against the car and brought her with him, leaning her against his body and holding her as close as he could. “It’s been a bad week for you. Let it go, Fiona. Cry it all out …”
As far as she could remember, no one had ever seen her cry for real. On screen, sure, when the part called for it. But not in real life. There’d been few people she trusted enough that she would let them see this much
of her. But there was no stopping the rush that had been building inside her since the moment she’d gotten the call about Hugh. Miraculously, she felt no distress, no compulsion to protect herself against Sam. She simply let it go, as he had quietly prompted her to do.
When no tears were left to fall and her legs had weakened and threatened to betray her, Sam’s strong hands held her up and rocked her slowly, side to side, as if she were a child.
“The front of your shirt is soaking wet.” She sniffed and with her hands smoothed out the fabric, too embarrassed to look him in the eye. “And it’s got mascara on it.”
“We’ll leave the windows down on the way home and it’ll air dry. And as for that black stuff”—he looked down at the front of his shirt—“hey, it’s only a shirt.”
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“You’ve suffered a great loss, Fiona. You’re going to be mourning for a long time.” He leaned back and looked down into her eyes. “You don’t have to be the iron woman all the time, you know.”
“I don’t usually lose control like that.”
“I promise not to tell anyone.” His lips were close to her ear. “Your secret is safe with me.”
She nodded, wanted to tell him that she knew that all of her secrets would be safe with him. She turned her head to catch his mouth with hers, and kissed him, silently begging him to kiss her back with everything he had. She sunk her hands into his hair and held on. His hands skimmed her body, slowly at first, gliding over her breasts over her shirt, and her hips
over her skirt in gentle waves. But soon she wanted—needed—to feel his hands on her skin. She pulled her shirt from the waistband and started to unbutton it, her fingers trembling on the buttons, his mouth following the slow exposure of her skin. He lifted her, turning them both around so that her back was against the hard metal of the car, pinning her there with his body while he touched and tasted every bit of her that was exposed.
It wasn’t enough.
She yanked up her skirt and he moved away from her just enough so that she could pull it up to her hips. Her legs freed, she wrapped them around his hips and pulled him as close to her as she could, her brain filling with a foggy darkness in which there was only Sam and his hands and his mouth and his body. Her skin smoldered everywhere he touched and the heat overwhelmed her.
“Sam,” she whispered, needing more. “Sam …”
They moved against each other, with each other, need soon overtaking want.
“Fiona, maybe we should …” Sam gasped.
“… get into the car. Right.” She nodded. “Get into the car …”
He carried her, her legs still wrapped around him, and opened the door to the back seat. He slid her down his body until she hit the seat, then pushed her back. She slid along the seat until her head hit the passenger door, one leg on the floor. Sam eased onto her, his body moving against hers, his hands and lips suddenly everywhere, and she could not get enough. She arched up against his mouth when it covered her breast, and urged him to take more of her, all of her.
“Make love to me, Sam,” she whispered. “I need you to make love to me …”
She shuddered when he entered her, soft moans in the back of her throat when he began to move with a slow rhythm, sending tiny ripples spreading throughout her body. Soon the tempo changed, and they moved together, flying together, lost to everything else except each other. She closed her eyes and rode it out, until they crashed together, and slowly came back down to earth.
She lay beneath him, listening to his breathing as it attempted to return to normal.
“So,” she said, clearing her throat. “I suppose that was how you do ‘after prom’ out here in the heartland o’ America?”
Sam laughed and buried his face in her hair.
“Is that how you celebrated your first prom?” she asked.
“I’m sure I would have jumped at the chance, but no. I went to my first prom with Phyllis Banks. She had three brothers, all of whom played football at Notre Dame. There was no ‘after prom’ that year. Besides, I didn’t have a car. We went with two other couples in Vic’s dad’s ten-year-old station wagon.”
“Whose car is this, anyway?” she asked.
“Luke’s.”
“Arrrgghh.” She buried her face in his chest.
“What?”
“Luke and I go way back.”
“How far back?”
“Like, to the Academy.”
“Were you and he, ahhh …”
“No. But he’s like a brother to me. I can’t believe we just had sex in Luke’s car.”
“Does it help to know it’s a rental?”
She laughed and struggled to sit up, wondering where her clothes were. She looked past Sam and frowned.
“Sam, you left the car door open?”
“My legs are too long, I couldn’t close the door.”
“Didn’t you think about what would happen if someone had come along?”
“I wasn’t exactly in thought mode at the time.” He sat up and looked out the windows and sighed. “Well, that was one hell of a way to greet the dawn, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to get back to the farm. Luke threatened to put out an APB if we weren’t back by the time he got up.”
He glanced at his watch.
“If he’s running on schedule, I’d say we have about ten minutes before he rolls down for breakfast.”
“How far away are we?” She slipped her shirt over her shoulders and began to button it.
“About twenty minutes.” He leaned over and kissed her, then grabbed his clothes and hurried into them. “We’re going to have to make tracks if we’re going to head off the posse.”
D
rew’s funeral is today at three,” Kitty told Sam when he and Fiona strolled onto the front porch. Sam knew she was dying to know where he’d been since midnight the night before, and why it had taken him a full eight hours to drive to Brightcliffe and back. And why Fiona had what looked suspiciously like whisker burns on both sides of her neck. But he also knew she’d cut out her tongue before she asked.
“Why so soon?” He frowned.
“The Novaks don’t believe in embalming,” Tom replied. “Never did, none of ’em. So since the coroner has released the body to the funeral home, there’s no reason not to bury him, and a very compelling one why they should.”
“That means they’ve established a cause of death,” Sam said. “I’ll give Doc Jensen a call.”
He excused himself and went inside, Fiona following him. It took him only a minute to find out what he wanted to know.
“No surprise there,” Sam told her when he hung up the phone. “Manual strangulation. The stabbing was all postmortem, just like the others.”
“Where the hell have you been?” Luke walked into the kitchen as if on a mission.
“Fiona’s plane was late,” Sam said at the exact moment Fiona told Luke, “We had a flat tire.”
Luke’s eyes shifted from one to the other then back again. He shook his head and put out his hand. Sam tossed him the car keys and Luke grabbed them in midair.