Best-Kept Lies (14 page)

“You and me both. We haven’t even started with colors yet. I’m leaning toward white.”

“Big surprise, oh conservative one.”

He chuckled. “Well, it’s too damn dark and cold to make many more decisions tonight. That’s what happens when you’re married to a doctor who works sixty or seventy hours a week and then gets detained at the hospital.”

“Poor baby,” Randi mocked.

“Uh-oh, they need me,” he said, but his voice was fading, the connection breaking up. “I think…going to check into…sinks and…see you in a few hours…”

“Thorne? Are you there?”

Only crackle.

“I’m losing you!”

“Randi?” Thorne’s voice was suddenly strong.

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re coming home.”

“Me, too,” she said, and her throat caught as she envisioned her oldest half brother with his black hair and intense gray eyes. She imagined the concern etched on his strong features. “Give my love to…” but the connection was lost, as they were deep in the mountains. Reluctantly, she clicked the cell phone off.

“He wants to know why I haven’t tracked Patsy down yet,” Striker surmised, his lips blade thin.

“He wants to know why
no one’s
tracked Patsy down. Your name came up, yes, but so did Detective Espinoza’s, along with every government agency known to man. You have to understand one thing about Thorne. He gives an order and he expects immediate, and I mean i-med-i-ate, results. Which, of course, is impossible.”

“I’m with him, though,” Kurt said. “The sooner we nail Patsy Donahue, the better.”

Randi wanted to agree with him, but there was a part of her that balked, for she knew that the minute Patsy was located and locked away, Kurt would be gone. Out of her life forever. Her heart twisted and she wondered how she’d ever let him go. It was silly really. She’d only known him for a month or so and only intensely for a week.

And yet she would miss him.

More than she’d ever thought possible.

This entire midnight run to Montana seemed doomed. Joshua’s fever was worsening, there was talk of a blizzard ahead, and somewhere in the night, Patsy Donahue was planning another attack. Randi could feel it in her bones. She shivered.

“Cold?” Kurt adjusted the heater.

“I’m fine.” But it was a lie. They both knew it. Every
time a vehicle approached, Randi tensed, half expecting the driver to crank on the wheel and sideswipe Striker’s truck. Silently she prayed that they’d reach Grand Hope without any incident, that her baby would recover quickly and that Kurt Striker would be a part of her life forever. It was a hard fact to face, one she’d denied for a long time, but no protests to herself or anyone else could overcome the God’s honest truth: Randi McCafferty had fallen in love with Kurt Striker.

Patsy drummed gloved fingers on the wheel of her stolen rig, an older-model SUV that had been parked for hours at a bar on the interstate in Idaho. No one would be able to connect her to the theft. She’d ditched her van on an abandoned road near Dalles, Oregon, gotten on a bus and traveled east until the truck stop, where she’d located the rig and switched license plates with some she’d lifted while in Seattle. By the time anyone pieced together what she’d done, it would be too late. She was behind Striker’s pickup, probably by an hour or so, but she figured she could make up the distance. It would take time, but eventually she’d be able to catch the bitch.

And then there would be hell to pay.

Her speedometer hovered near seventy, but she pushed on the accelerator and pumped up the volume on the radio. An old Rolling Stones tune reverberated through the speakers. Mick Jagger was screaming about getting no satisfaction. Usually Patsy identified with the song. But not tonight. Tonight she intended to get all the satisfaction she’d been lacking in recent years.

The SUV flew down the freeway. Patsy didn’t let up for a second. She’d driven in dry snow all her life and felt no fear.

By daybreak her mission would be accomplished.

Randi McCafferty and anyone stupid enough to be with the bitch would be dead.

T
he baby wouldn’t stop crying.

Nothing Randi did stopped the wails coming from the back seat and Striker felt helpless. He drove as fast as he dared while Randi twisted in her seat, trying to feed Joshua or comfort him, but the baby was having none of it.

Striker gritted his teeth and hoped that the baby’s fever hadn’t climbed higher. He thought of the pain of losing a child and knew he had to do something,
anything
to prevent the little guy’s life from slipping away.

He gunned the pickup ever faster, but the terrain had become rough, with sharp turns and steep grades as they drove deep into the foothills of the Montana mountains.

“He’s still very warm,” Randi said, touching her son’s cheek.

“We’ll be there in less than an hour,” Striker assured her. “Hang in there.”

“If he will,” Randi whispered hoarsely, and it tore his heart to hear her desperation.

“I think it’s better that he’s crying rather than listless,” Striker offered, knowing it was little consolation.

“I guess. Maybe we should get off and try to find a clinic.”

“In the rinky-dink towns around here? At three in the morning? St. James is the nearest hospital. Just call Nicole and tell her we’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”

“All right.” She reached for the phone just as Striker glanced in the rearview mirror. Headlights were bearing down on them and fast, even though he was doing near sixty on the straight parts of this curving, treacherous section of interstate. At the corners he’d had to slow to near thirty and he’d spotted the vehicle behind him gaining, taking the corners wide. “Hang on,” he said.

“What?”

“I’ve got someone on my tail and closing fast. It would be best if I let them go around me.” He saw a wide spot in the road, slowed down, and the other vehicle shot past, a blur of dark paint and shiny wheels.

“We’ll probably catch up to him rolled over in the ditch ahead.”

“Great,” she whispered.

He took a turn a little fast and the wheels slid, so he slowed a bit. As he passed by an old logging road, he thought he saw a dark vehicle. Idling. No headlights or taillights visible, but exhaust fogging the cold night air. The same fool who’d passed them? The hairs on the back of his neck lifted.

It was too dark to be certain and he told himself that
he was just being paranoid. No one in his right mind would be sitting in their rig in the dark. His gut clenched. Of course no one in his
right mind
would be there. But what about a woman no longer in control of her faculties, a woman hell-bent for revenge, a woman like Patsy Donahue?

No way, Striker. You’re tired and jumping at shadows. That’s all
.

Pull yourself together.

He peered into the rearview mirror and saw nothing in the darkness. No headlights beyond the snow flurries…or did he? Was there a vehicle barreling after him, one with no headlights, one using his taillights to guide it? His mouth was suddenly desert dry. The image took shape then faded. His mind playing tricks on him. Nothing more. God, he hoped so.

“What?” Randi asked, sensing his apprehension. The baby was still crying, but more softly now. The road was steep and winding and he cut his speed in order to keep the truck on the asphalt.

“Look behind us. See anything?”

Again Randi twisted in her seat and peered through the window over the back of the king cab. She squinted hard. “No. Why?”

He scowled, saw his own reflection in the mirror. “I thought I saw something. A shadow.”

“A shadow?”

“Of a car. I though someone might be following us with his lights out.”

“In this terrain? In the dark?” she asked, and then sucked in her breath and stared hard through the window. “I don’t see anything.”

“Good.” He felt a second’s relief. This would be the
worst place to encounter danger. The road was barely two lanes with steep mountains on one side and a slim guardrail on the other. Beyond the barrier was a sheer cliff where only the tops of trees were visible in the glare of his headlights as he swept around the corners.

Randi didn’t stop looking through the window, searching the darkness, and he could tell by the way she held on to the back of the seat, her white-knuckled grasp a death grip, that, she, too, was concerned. His hands began to sweat on the wheel, but he told himself they were all right, they would make it, they only had a few more miles. He thought of how, in the past few weeks, he’d fallen for Randi McCafferty hook, line and proverbial sinker. With a glance in her direction, his heart filled. He couldn’t imagine life without her or without little Joshua. As much as he’d sworn after Heather’s death never to get close to a woman or a child again, he’d broken his own pact with himself. And it was too late to change his mind. His stubborn heart just wouldn’t let him. Maybe it was time to tell her. To be honest. Let her know how he felt.

Why?

Come on, Striker, are you so full of yourself to imagine she loves you? And what about the kid? Didn’t you swear off fatherhood for good? What are you doing considering becoming a father again? Why would you set yourself up for that kind of heartache all over again? Remember Heather? Do you really think you have it in you to be a parent?

The arguments tore through his mind. Nonetheless, he had to tell her. “Randi?”

“What?” She was still staring out the back window.

“About the last few nights—”

“Please,” she said, refusing to look his way. “You don’t have to explain. Neither of us planned what happened.”

“But you should know how I feel.”

He noticed her tense. She swallowed hard. “Maybe I don’t want to,” she whispered before she gasped. “Oh, God, no!”

“What?”

“I think…I think there
is
someone back there. Every once in a while I see an image and then it fades into the background. You don’t think…”

Kurt stared into the rearview mirror. “Hell.” He saw it too. The outline of a dark vehicle without its lights on, driving blind, bearing down, swerving carelessly from one side of the road to the other and then melding with the night. He pressed hard on the accelerator. “Keep your eye on it and call the police.”

She reached for the phone. Dialed 911.

Nothing.

“Damn.”

She tried again and was rewarded by a beeping of the cell. “No signal,” she said, staring through the window as the baby cried.

“Keep trying.” Kurt took a corner too fast, the wheels spun and they swung wide, into the oncoming lane. “Damn it.”

“It’s getting closer!”

Kurt saw the vehicle now, looming behind them, dangerously close as they screeched around corners. “Hell.”

“Do you think it’s Patsy?”

“Unless there’s some other nutcase running loose.”

“Oh, God…” Randi sounded frantic. “What’s she going to do?”

“I don’t know.” But he had only to think of the accident where Randi was forced off the road to come up with a horrific scenario.

Randi punched out the number of the police again. “The call’s going through! Where are we? I’ll have to give our location…oh, no…lost the signal again.”

“Hit redial!” Kurt ordered. A sign at the edge of the road warned of a steep downgrade.

“Maybe you should just slow down,” Randi said. “Force her to slow.”

“What if she’s got a gun. A rifle?”

“A gun?”

The vehicle switched on its lights suddenly and seemed to leap forward.

Kurt swung to the inside, toward the mountain.

The SUV bore down on them.

A sharp corner loomed. A sign said that maximum speed for the corner was thirty-five. The needle of his speedometer was pushing sixty. He shifted down. Pumped the brakes. Squealed around the corner, fishtailing.

The SUV didn’t give up. “She’s getting closer,” Randi cried as she kept redialing. “Oh, God!”

Bam!

The nose of the trailing vehicle struck hard as Kurt hit a pothole. The truck shuddered, snaking to the guardrail, wheels bouncing over a washboard of asphalt and gravel. Kurt rode out the slide, easing into it, only changing direction at the last minute. His heart was pounding, his body sweating. He couldn’t lose Randi and the baby!

“Hello! Hello! This is an emergency!” Randi cried, as if she’d gotten through to police dispatch. “Someone’s trying to kill us. We’re on the interstate in north
ern Montana.” She yelled their approximate location and the highway number, then swore as the connection failed.

Thud!

Again they were battered from behind.

The front wheel hit a patch of ice and the truck began to spin, circling in what seemed like slow motion. Kurt struggled with the steering wheel, saw the guardrail and the black void beyond. Gritting his teeth, trying to keep the truck on the road, he felt the fender slam into the railing and heard the horrid groan of metal ripping. Over it all the baby cried and Randi screamed. “Come on, come on,” Kurt said between clenched teeth, willing the pickup to stay on the road, his shoulders aching. He couldn’t lose the woman he loved, nor her child. Not now. Not this way. Not again. “Oh my God, look out!” Randi cried, but it was too late.

The SUV hit the truck midspin, plowing into the passenger side with a sickening crash and the rending of steel. Kurt’s fingers clenched over the wheel, but the truck didn’t respond. The SUV’s bumper locked to the truck and together the two vehicles spun down the road, faster and faster. Trees and darkness flashed by in a blur.

Randi screamed.

The baby wailed.

Kurt swore. “Hold on!” The two melded vehicles slammed into the side of the mountain and ricocheted across the road with enough force to send the entangled trucks through the guardrail and into the black void beyond.

Somewhere there was a bell ringing…steady…never getting any louder…just a simple bleating. It was so ir
ritating.
Answer the phone, for God’s sake…answer it!
Randi’s head ached, her body felt as if she’d been beaten from head to toe, there was an awful taste in her mouth and… She opened an eye and blinked. Everything was so white and blinding.

“Can you hear me? Randi?” Someone shined a light into her eyes and she recoiled. The voice was a woman’s. A voice she should recognize. Randi closed her eyes. Wanted to sleep again. She was in a bed with rails…a hospital bed…how did she get here? Vaguely she remembered the smell of burning rubber and fresh pine…there had been red and blue lights and her family…all standing around…and Kurt leaning over her, whispering he loved her, his face battered and bruised and bleeding… Or had it been a dream? Kurt…where the hell was Kurt? And the baby? Joshua. Oh God! Her eyes flew open and she tried to speak.

“Jo…Joshua?”

“The baby’s okay.”

Everything was blurry for a minute before she focused and saw Nicole standing in the room. Another doctor was examining her, but her eyes locked with those of her sister-in-law. Memories of the horrible night and the car wreck assailed her.

“Joshua is at home. With Juanita. As soon as you’re released you can be with him.”

She let out her breath, relieved that her child had survived.

“You’re lucky,” the doctor said, and Nicole was nodding behind him.
Lucky? Lucky?
There didn’t seem anything the least bit lucky about what happened.

“Kurt?” she managed to get out though her throat was raw, her words only a whisper.

“He’s all right.”

Thank God. Slowly turning her head, Randi looked around. The hospital room was stark. An IV dripped fluid into her wrist, a monitor showed her heartbeat and kept up the beeping she’d heard as she’d awoken. Flowers stood in vases on a windowsill.

“I…I want to see…my baby…and…and Striker.”

“You’ve been in the hospital two days, Randi,” Nicole said. “With a concussion and a broken wrist. J.R., er, Joshua, had a bad cold but didn’t suffer anything from the accident. Luckily there was an ambulance only fifteen minutes away from the site of the accident. Police dispatch had gotten your message, so they were able to get to you fairly quickly.”

“Where’s Kurt?”

Nicole cleared his throat. “Gone.”

Randi’s heart sank. He’d already left. The ache within her grew.

“He had some eye damage and a dislocated shoulder.”

“And he just left.”

Little lines gathered between Nicole’s eyebrows. “Yes. I know that he went to Seattle to see a specialist. An optic neurologist.”

Randi forced the words over her tongue. “How bad is his vision?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is he blind?”

“I really don’t know, Randi.”

She felt as if her sister-in-law was holding back. “Kurt’s not coming back, is he?”

Nicole took her hand and twined strong fingers between Randi’s. “I’m not certain, but since you’re going to ask, if I were a betting woman, I’d have to say ‘No,
I don’t think so.’ He and Thorne had words. Now, please, take your doctor’s advice and rest. You have a baby waiting for you at the Flying M and three half brothers who are anxious for you to come home.” Nicole squeezed Randi’s fingers and Randi closed her eyes. So they’d survived.

“What about Patsy?” she asked.

“In custody. As luck would have it, she got away unscathed.”

The doctor attending her cleared his throat. “You really do need to rest,” he said.

“Like hell.” She scrabbled for the button to raise her head. “I want to get out of here and see my baby and—” Excruciating pain splintered through her brain. She sank back on her pillow. “Maybe you’re right,” she admitted. She had to get well. For Joshua.

And what about Kurt?
Her heart ached at the thought that she might never see him again. Damn it, she couldn’t just let him walk away.

Or could she?

Three days later she was released from the hospital and reunited with her family. Joshua was healthy again, and it felt good to hold him in her arms, to smell his baby-clean scent. Juanita was in her element, fussing and clucking over Randi and the baby, generally bossing her brothers around and running the house.

Larry Todd seemed to have forgiven Randi for letting him go, though he insisted on a signed contract for his work, and even Bill Withers, after hearing of the accident, had agreed to allow Randi to write her column from Montana. “Just don’t let it get out,” he said over
the phone. “People around here might get the idea that I’m a softie.”