"A kid," he replied.
"A son. A fourteen-year-old son."
Monica let out the breath she had
been holding, and instant relief spread through her body. Fourteen.
That meant a child from his distant past. A child from the life he'd had before
he came to Texas.
She slipped out of bed, picked up
her black-and-red-striped robe lying on the floor and eased into it.
"Come on. I'll make us some strong coffee and then we can talk."
Johnny Mack rubbed his neck as he
paced back and forth along the foot of the king-size bed. "What I'm going
to tell you isn't something I want known. I expect you to keep it in strict
confidence."
She laid her hand on his back.
"You trust me, don't you?"
"Yeah."
"Then, come on. Coffee first,
then conversation."
Ten minutes later, they sat in
the living room-a large, professionally decorated area that epitomized
a modern contemporary style. Two china cups rested, untouched, on the
silver tray Monica had placed on the coffee table.
"So tell me," she said.
"Why do you think you may have a fourteen-year-old son?"
Johnny Mack got up, walked over to
the glass and metal desk in the corner, pulled out an envelope from beneath
the desk blotter and brought it back with him. He handed the envelope to
Monica, then sat down beside her.
"Go ahead," he said.
"Take a look."
Monica shook out the contents. A
note written on lined paper. A newspaper clipping. And a wallet-size
photograph. She scanned the letter and the article quickly, then looked
at the picture. A handsome, dark-haired boy, with a sharply chiseled face,
almond-shaped black eyes and a breathtaking smile. Johnny Mack's smile.
"Whoa!" The one word escaped
her lips on a released breath.
"So, you think he could be mine?"
She glanced from the school picture
to the black-and-white photograph in the newspaper clipping. "Do
you know her? The boy's mother?"
Johnny Mack avoided Monica's direct
gaze. He stared past her, toward the glass doors leading to the balcony,
which overlooked Houston. "Yeah, I know her. Or I did know her. Fifteen
years ago."
"How well did you know
her?"
"Lane and I were never lovers,
if that's what you're asking."
Monica noticed a pained expression
in his eyes. Barely discernible. But it had been there. She knew him too
well not to be aware of something so power-
ful, no matter how fleeting. This
woman-Monica read the name from the paper-this Lane Noble Graham had
meant something to Johnny Mack. And whether he wanted" to admit it
or not, she apparently still did.
"The boy looks like
you," Monica said. "Any chance he's a relative's kid?"
"Anything's possible."
Johnny Mack spread his long legs, dropped his hands between his knees and
interlocked his fingers. "What I want to know is why someone sent me
this message. Hell, who sent it? And if this boy, Will Graham, is my son,
why wait all these years to tell me?" He maneuvered his fingers
back and forth, locking and unlocking them as he stared down at the carpeted
floor. "If the kid is Lane's child, then he can't be mine."
"Are you sure?" Monica
asked. "Couldn't there have been a night when you'd had too much to
drink or one time you just forgot or-"
"I'd never have forgotten
making love to Lane."
His voice froze Monica, inside
and out, as though an Arctic blast had instantly reduced the temperature
to subzero. It wasn't just what he had said that affected her so profoundly,
but the way he had said it. Johnny Mack had been in love with this woman.
And that fact surprised Monica. She had thought Johnny Mack incapable
of falling in love.
"If she is his mother, and
this newspaper article"- Monica shook the clipping she held in
her hand- "states that she is, then he can't be yours."
Johnny Mack rubbed his hands up and
down his thighs, then slapped his knees and shot straight up onto his feet.
"I phoned Benton Pike first thing this morning, and he called in a
private detective to find out everything he can about the boy."
"Then, you've done all you can
do. You've contacted your lawyer, and he's having the matter investigated.
It could be that whoever sent you the message wants something from you.
Perhaps some sort of reward money."
"Yeah, that's what Benton said,
but my gut instincts tell me that this note is on the level, that Will Graham
is my son."
"If you feel that strongly about
it, why don't you go to… to"-she checked the name of the newspaper-"to
Noble's Crossing yourself and-"
"I once swore hell would freeze
over before I'd ever return to Noble's Crossing."
"That was before you found
out that you might have left behind some unfinished business."
"I left behind a lot of unfinished
business." Johnny Mack opened the balcony doors, stepped outside
and] gripped the railing with white-knuckled fierceness.
Monica eased up behind him, slipped
her arms around his waist and laid her head on his back. "Why can't
you go home to Noble's Crossing? What are you so afraid of?"
"I'm afraid to face the
ghost," he admitted.
"Whose ghost?"
"My own."
Chapter 3
Johnny Mack parked his rental car
in front of the brick pillars. The rusted iron pins that held the dilapidated
open gates in place hung precariously in their holes. A soft August breeze
flitted across the weed-infested landscape, fluttering the tall
grass without disturbing the hardy bushes and trees. Fifteen years ago
these five acres of land on the outskirts of Noble's Crossing had been
the site of a mobile home park. Now only the remnants of the gravel drives
remained.
He had shared a one-bedroom,
ten-year-old trailer with Wiley Peters, an alcoholic Vietnam veteran
who had lost his left eye and half his left arm in the war. Wiley, one of Faith
Cahill’s many lovers, had been the only soul in town willing to take in a
rebellious thirteen-year-old, after his mother's death had left him
without any kin. Wiley hadn't been much of a guardian, but nobody in
Noble's Crossing had given a damn. Johnny Mack Cahill had been a bad seed
from the day he was born. Wild and surly, filled with anger and bitterness,
he'd been nothing but white trash. Wiley had put a roof over Johnny Mack's
head, and when he occasionally won big at cards, he had provided a few
groceries and a new pair of jeans. Most of the time, Johnny Mack had been
on his own, picking up odd jobs in order to survive.
It had been in that trailer park
on a blistering summer evening that Johnny Mack had discovered sex. He
had been fourteen, big, rowdy and eager to get laid. His first lover had
been thirty, a trailer trash’s whore with a husband doing ten-to-fifteen
in the state pen for armed robbery. They had fucked themselves silly that
summer. Then when fall came, she'd moved her trailer and left town with a
former boyfriend who had a good-paying job in Mobile.
Laura. No, Lorrie. Or was it Lorna?
Hell, he couldn't remember. And why should he? That had been twenty-two
years ago. Back then sometimes he didn't even ask a girl's name before
or after. The young Johnny Mack Cahill had been a real hard-ass and had deserved
his bad boy reputation.
Opening the door of the blue Escort,
he got out and stood beside the leased vehicle. He could have driven
his Jaguar up from Houston instead of flying in and renting a car, but
when he made his first appearance in town, he didn't want anyone speculating
about his success. He wanted that bit of news to come as a surprise to
everyone. Their not knowing right away that he was a multimillionaire
would make this damned trip a lot more interesting. That and the fact a
few people still thought he was dead.
He walked down the dirt and gravel
trail, wondering if he could find the spot where Wiley's trailer had been
parked. So long ago. A million years. He stopped beside a towering cottonwood
tree, its branches reaching into the clouds like a New York skyscraper.
The Hickmans' trailer had sat beside the cottonwood. The first time he
had screwed Sharon, he'd braced her against that tree. They had been a couple
of horny kids, both experienced beyond their years, friends through
common backgrounds. Love had never entered into their relationship,
but they had shared a lot of hot sex on and off from the age of sixteen until
he'd left town.
If John William Graham turned
out to be his son, was it possible Sharon was his mother? From the private
investigator's initial findings, Johnny Mack had learned that Lane
and Kent Graham had adopted Will shortly after his birth on April 20, fourteen
years ago. That meant he had probably been conceived in late July. Pike
had said the investigator would do his best to discover the name of
the boy's birth mother. He had told Pike he wanted that information-whatever
it cost and no matter what had to be done to get it.
Johnny Mack lifted his tan Stetson
off his head and held it against his leg as he ran his hand through his hair.
On the flight in from Houston, he had sorted through the limited knowledge
he had about the boy who might be his son. Fourteen. Straight-A student.
Played baseball and football. Adopted as an infant by newlyweds Kent
and Lane Graham. Parents divorced four years ago. By his own choice,
Will lived with his mother.
Of all the men on earth to have raised
a boy who might be his son-why Kent Graham! From first grade on, they had been
rivals, Kent the golden boy, always winning, always superior. Until
they'd grown up. Johnny Mack had had either the respect or the fear of all
his male peers, and the undying adoration °f just about every female
in town. Kent had both envied and hated him.
Then Kent had heard the ugly rumors
that had been floating around Noble's Crossing for years. The whispered
innuendoes, the murmured gossip about John Graham having fathered
Faith Cahill's son. The thought that they might be half brothers had amused
Johnny Mack and enraged Kent.
But the death knell had sounded
for Johnny Mac when Kent found out that Lane Noble, the girl he had chosen
for himself, had a crush on his despised enemy. Their boyhood rivalry
had burst into an unquenchable flame of warfare. And that flame had
been kindled to a white-hot intensity the night Kent had found Johnny
Mack with his mother. Edith Graham had been out for revenge against her
womanizing husband. And what better way to get it than to bed his illegitimate
son?
After what this town did to him,
Johnny Mack ha«sworn he would never return to Noble's Crossing He had
known then as he knew now that if he hat returned, he would have killed
Kent Graham.
Had Kent suspected Johnny Mack was
his adoptee son's natural father? Obviously not. Kent never would have
accepted a child of his into the prestigious Graham family. And Miss
Edith would have drowned the boy at birth if she had known Johnny Mack had
sired him. Unless… Was it possible that Edith was Will's natural mother?
She had been in her early forties fifteen years ago, not young, but young
enough ton have gotten pregnant.
Edith Graham Ware, her slender
hand gripping the portable phone, gazed through the French doors I leading
to the patio and gardens. Mary Martha sat beneath the shade of a willow
tree, silent and unmoving, as traumatized today as she had been since
the] day after Kent's funeral. Jackie Cummings, the private!
nurse they had recently hired, sat
across from Mary Martha, reading to her from one of her favorite books.
Despite the warmth of the summer day, Edith thought an hour outside
might do her daughter some good. At least it had put a little color in
the girl's pale cheeks.
Edith hated waiting on anything
or anyone, and being put on "hold" by her husband's secretary
did little to soothe her irritation. How dare James call and leave her
such an outrageous message on the answering machine!
Someone using the name Johnny Mack
Cahill phoned our new district attorney to ask questions about Kent's
murder and Lane's part in the crime. And he asked about Will, too.
"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Ware, but
the mayor went out for a bite of lunch and I'm afraid he didn't mention
exactly where he was going," Penny Walsh said. "Perhaps you can
catch him later."
Without so much as a thank-you,
Edith punched the Off button and flung the telephone down on the seat of
the Chippendale arm chair to her left. Johnny Mack Cahill, indeed. It
wasn't possible that Johnny Mack was still alive, was it? Kent had been so
sure his half brother was dead. Even Buddy Lawler agreed that there was
no way the man could have survived. But what if he had? And what if he had
found out about Will? What if he wanted revenge?
Other than the fact that the young
man had possessed a certain charm-in bed-Johnny Mack never had been anything
but trouble. And if, by some miracle, he was still alive, he would be
even more trouble now. In fact, he would be downright dangerous.
If he was alive and if he came home
and tried to help Lane, Edith would have to put a stop to him. And she could
do it. After all, she was Edith Noble