Lane stood over Will's bed and watched
him breathe, much as she had stood over his cradle when he had been an infant
and stared at his little chest rising and falling in a reassuring
rhythm. From the first moment she had held him in her arms, she had loved him
and known that she would do anything-pay any price- to keep him safe, secure
and happy. Not once in fourteen years had she ever looked at Will without
dunking of Johnny Mack.
"Oh, you were good,
lady," Kent had told her. 'You had me convinced Will was mine. But I
should have known better. I should have guessed. I saw the way you were
with him, how you adored him. You'd never have felt that way about a child
of mine. My God, every time you looked at Will, you thought about Johnny
Mack, didn't you?"
Lane brushed a stray lock of jet
black hair off Will's forehead. "Sweet Jesus, don't ever let him remember
what happened the day Kent died," she whispered. "Let the memories
stay buried forever. Even if I have to spend the rest of my life in prison,
so be it Just take care of Will. He's all that's important."
The cemetery was shadowed and quiet.
Moonlight spread across the large ornately carved monument and the
new grave, mounted high with floral arrangements. John Kent Graham. His
mother's only son. But not his father's only son.
Smart. Handsome. Charming. A man
who had been loved and cherished and desired. He'd had the world at his
feet, like a gift from the gods. And he had squandered that gift, as if it
had been a meaningless trifle. He had taken everything and given nothing.
The dark figure knelt, and a gloved
hand caressed the tombstone. Beautiful, yet cold and hard. Just as
Kent had been.
Kent, who had known how to charm and
connive, how to use and in turn be useless himself. Kent, who had possessed
everything a man could want and hadn't been smart enough to appreciate
it.
"You were a sorry son of a
bitch! And I'm glad you're dead. Do you hear me? I'm glad you're dead!''
The figure rose from the ground
and glanced around, wondering if by chance anyone else might be paying
a nighttime visit to a departed loved one.
All would be well as long as Will
didn't remember what had happened that day. If his memories returned,
he would have to be dealt with, one way or another. For everyone's sake,
maybe the boy would get lucky and never be able to recall the events of
his father's murder.
Will's father. Ha! No one, least
of all Kent, had ever suspected that Will was another man's son. And not
just any man, but Johnny Mack Cahill's bastard progeny.
How had Kent felt, realizing the
child he had raised as his own, the boy who bore his name and called him
Dad, was in reality the son of the man he had hated most in this world?
Ironic. Poetic justice. What goes
around comes around.
Had Johnny Mack, whose black soul
was no doubt burning in hell, welcomed Kent when he arrived? Had he smiled
that damn pussy-melting smile of his and had the last laugh on Kent?
A soft, muffled chuckle wafted
through the silent night air. The lone figure spit on Kent Graham's grave,
then turned and walked toward the wrought-iron entrance gates.
Chapter 2
Monica Robinson took a deep breath,
ran a quick, caressing hand over her short brown hair and entered the
fray. The place was crowded, filled with Houston's elite. She stopped a
passing waiter, lifted a flute of champagne from the silver serving
tray and took a sip. Nice. She liked the taste of champagne. Especially
expensive champagne. After taking another sip, she allowed the liquid
to linger in her mouth a few minutes before swallowing it.
She scanned the huge room, searching
for her date. It was a damn shame they were both so busy that they seldom
arrived at functions together. But she wouldn't change one single tiling
about her life, except maybe… No, don't go there. You can't change the
fact that after the divorce, Eric chose to live with Herb instead of
you.
Other than the fact that her thirteen-year-old
son lived in Dallas with his father, Monica's life was perfect. Perfect
by her standards. She was Fairfield Realtors' top seller for the second
year in a row. Her I apartment was luxurious, her car a new Lexus, her
friends smart, witty and well-connected, and her lover was one of the wealthiest
men in Texas.
Where the hell was Johnny Mack? She
didn't think he would be late for a charity function that could mean
hundreds of thousands of dollars for his pet project, the Judge Harwood
Brown Ranch. She supposed a man as rich as Johnny Mack could afford to be a
philanthropist. But sometimes she wondered if his good deeds were
prompted as much to appease a guilty conscience as they were acts of
a kind heart. Of course, she didn't know exactly what Johnny Mack j might be
guilty of since their time together was seldom spent discussing the
past-his or hers. But her instincts told her that a man such as he hadn't lived
thirty-six years without committing some unforgivable sins.
She caught a glimpse of him in
the crowd. As always, a group of ladies surrounded him. The damn man
oozed sex appeal. All he had to do was walk into a room and every woman
within a hundred-foot radius creamed her pants. And she should know.
She was one of those ladies. God forbid he ever use that killer smile on
a woman. There was something lethal about his cocky grin.
His six-foot, four-inch height made
him highly visible in a congested area. As she approached him, Monica
finished off her drink, set aside the glass and spoke hastily to a couple
of acquaintances. The closer she got to him, the stronger her mating instincts.
They hadn't had a night alone together in over a week, and she was so horny
she felt like dragging him off to the nearest closet.
When she eased up beside him, he
casually slipped his arm around her and introduced her to the women,
whose strained smiles barely masked
their jealousy of her.
"Monica, you remember Charlene
McNair, don't you?" Johnny Mack lavished his smile on the horse-faced
oil heiress, who was one of the ranch's biggest supporters.
"Nice to see you again, Mrs.
McNair. Is your husband here tonight?"
Charlene's smile wavered
slightly. "Denny's about somewhere."
Johnny Mack eased Monica around
to face the other two women. "And these lovely ladies are Florence
Barr and her daughter Ashley. They're planning a visit out to the Judge
Harwood Brown Ranch this weekend."
Monica dutifully shook hands
with both women, noting the striking resemblance between parent and
child-two pink-faced, barrel-shaped females in designer dresses.
"Y'all will be very impressed with the ranch and with the work being
done there. All the boys at the ranch have been deserted by their families
and by society." She knew the spiel by heart. She should. She had heard
Johnny Mack spouting it off on numerous occasions.
"We can hardly wait," Ashley
replied, but her gaze never left Johnny Mack's face.
"We'll be expecting you around
ten next Saturday morning." Florence patted Johnny Mack's shoulder.
"Your giving us a personal tour will be so much more meaningful."
Monica breathed a sigh of relief
when, ten minutes later, she and Johnny Mack were able to escape the charity-minded
threesome and make their way to the buffet table.
"God, I'm starved," Monica
said. "I had to skip lunch today. I was showing the Wright house to a
couple, which ran me over two hours, and I had to make a mad dash across
town to show the Daily Towers penthouse." She piled her plate with
an assortment of delicacies.
"What say we ditch this joint
early and go to my place," he whispered in her ear.
"Can you do that? Leave this
shindig early?"
"By my estimation, I've already
schmoozed close to two hundred thousand out of folks tonight."
"Yeah, well, the way Mrs. Barr
and her daughter were looking at you, I'd say they may be expecting more
from you than a tour of the ranch."
"Tsk-tsk, what a cynic you
are." Johnny Mack lifted a shrimp to his mouth.
"I thought that was one of the
things you liked about me. My cynicism."
"I like a lot of things about
you, Monica."
"And I like a lot of things
about you, too," she told him.
"I guess that's the reason
we're still together, isn't it?"
"Yeah, that and our mutual
dislike of long-term commitments."
"Eat up and let's get out of here."
He downed several more shrimp, then leaned over and said in a low voice,'
'Meet me at the front door in ten minutes. I see Malcolm Winters has just
arrived. While you pacify your stomach, I'll go talk a little business."
Business. Business. Business.
Johnny Mack seemed to live to do business. By all reports, the man was a
multimillionaire, who had the Midas touch. Any deal in which he was involved
was considered a sure thing. Except for his charity work, especially
his devotion to the Judge Harwood Brown Ranch, the only time the man
spent away from business was when he took an occasional weekend off and
went to his ranch in
the Hill Country. He had never asked
her to accompany him. And as far as she knew, no other woman had ever been
invited into that private domain.
They had become lovers nearly a
year ago, sometimes staying the night in her apartment, sometimes in
his, and once or twice they had gotten away for a few days together. To
New Orleans six months ago and to Jamaica last month. She knew how Johnny
Mack liked his coffee, knew who his friends and enemies were in Houston,
knew which side of the bed he preferred, and she trusted him implicitly.
But she knew nothing about his past-nothing more than what the world at large
knew. He had been a poor kid who had gotten in trouble when he first arrived
in Houston fifteen years ago. A saintly old judge named Harwood Brown
had taken Johnny Mack under his wing and saved him from a life of crime.
He had sent the young man to college and had personally taught him what
it meant to be an honorable man.
She often wondered where Johnny
Mack had come from and why he never spoke about the years before he had
come to Texas. Just what was there in his past that he didn't want anyone
to know? It didn't really matter, of course. She was simply curious. It
wasn't as if she planned a long-term future with him. Even if that was what
she wanted, and it wasn't, she knew marriage was an alien concept to her
lover.
He rode her like a wild man, pumping
into her with a force that pinned her to the bed. She clawed at his shoulders
as the pressure inside her built to the exploding point. There was an
uncontrollable power to his lovemaking, a ravaging possession
that set him apart from all her previous lovers. Johnny Mack Cahill knew
how to pleasure a woman and at the same time conquer her completely.
She cried out with the force of
her climax. He thrust to the hilt one final time and groaned deep in his
throat.
She snuggled her head against the
pillow and sighed with satisfaction as the aftershocks of her orgasm
trembled through her body. She lay there and watched him rise from the
bed, his naked body lean and sleek, his muscles superbly toned. Damn,
but he was good. The best she'd ever had. When their affair ended, as she
knew it would, she'd miss him.
He returned from the bathroom
wearing a black silk robe loosely tied at the waist. "Want a
drink?" he asked.
"Some of that ancient brandy
of yours would be nice right about now," she told him.
"Stay put. I'll be right
back." He winked and grinned.
Something was up. Johnny Mack never
offered her a drink and conversation after lovemaking. Usually, he
held her for a while, and then they drifted off to sleep. On a few occasions,
when they stayed at her apartment, she had awakened the next morning to
find him gone.
So, why had he changed the routine
tonight? Why after-sex drinks and conversation?
He returned and handed her a snifter
of golden brown liquor, then sat on the edge of the bed beside her.
"You miss having Eric around, don't you?" Johnny Mack lifted his
own crystal glass to his lips and sipped the brandy.
She was momentarily taken aback
by his question. Except in the most casual way, they never discussed
her son. The subject was painful for her and one she usually tried to
avoid.
"Yes, I miss Eric. But you know
that. Whose shoulder did I cry on when my son told me that he preferred to
live with his father permanently?" Swirling the brandy around in the
antique snifter, Monica stared into the glass, as if she could foresee
the future in its depths. Glancing up, she narrowed her gaze and asked,
"What's this really about? Why the sudden interest in my relationship
with my son?"
Johnny Mack downed the contents of
his glass, set the snifter on the bedside table and stood. With his back
to Monica, he said, "I just found out that I may have one."
"One what?" she asked,
but her accelerated heartbeat and the sinking feeling in her stomach
told her that she already knew the answer to her question. Was it possible
that he had accidentally gotten some other woman pregnant? Surely
not. Johnny Mack Cahill never-ever-had unprotected sex.