Nighthawk & The Return of Luke McGuire (24 page)

Last night had been simply perfect. She wouldn’t have changed one moment of her time with Craig…well, except that she wished she could be sure he had wanted it as much as she did. Having asked him left her feeling a little uncertain about that part of it.

But he had acted as if he wanted it every bit as much as she did, once she had asked him. But that might just have been because he was so kind.

No, she didn’t want to think about it that way! She didn’t want to tarnish a memory that was always going to be one of the most beautiful of her life.

Smiling inwardly, she hugged a throw pillow and snuggled down in the chaise. Not even in her wildest imaginings could she have conceived that a man could make her feel so wonderful, so wild, so…exquisite.

And she was determined, absolutely and positively, not to let anything at all rob her memories of their joy.

Wondering what was taking Craig so long, she gradually drifted off into a doze, lulled by the quiet beauty of the warm Wyoming afternoon. She never noticed the thunderhead building above her.

“E
sther. Esther, wake up.”

She stirred on the chaise, vaguely realizing that someone was calling her. Thunder boomed hollowly, and the breeze that blew over her skin was cool.

“Esther…”

She didn’t recognize the voice. As soon as that realization penetrated the fog of sleep, adrenaline hit her with a sharp jab. Instantly she was awake, sitting up swiftly, looking around.

And facing her worst nightmare.

Richard Jackson stood not more than six feet away, looking down at her. Guin, for some reason, seemed not to be disturbed by his presence.

“Nice dog,” Richard said, and smiled.

“Get out of here!”

But he shook his head and sat in a wicker chair facing her. “I need to talk to you, Essie. Just for a few minutes. Then I’ll go away.”

“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say! Just get out of here.” Inside she was shriveling. As if something about Richard Jackson reached into her very soul and blighted it, she could feel the tender buds of life withering and dying. God, he terrified her.

Pushing herself off the chaise, she began to back away from him. Run! She had to run!

Turning, she hurried as fast as her brace would allow her, away from him. Away from the threat that had stalked every day of her life.

Guin followed her, whining her disturbance. Jackson followed her, too, calling her name. “Essie—”

“Leave,” she sobbed, hurrying as fast as she could, steadying herself against the porch railing when she nearly stumbled. “Get out of here! I’m going to call the police!”

“Essie.”

Guin suddenly turned on him, standing stiff-legged with her hackles raised and growling deep in her throat. Jackson drew up sharply.

“Look,” he said, “I just want to talk to you.”

Esther backed up, holding on to the railing for dear life, aware that she had twisted her leg somehow while she ran, and now it throbbed with fiery pain. Oh, God, she had to get to the phone in the kitchen. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”

He held out his hands imploringly. “Look, I won’t come any closer, I swear. Just hear me out.”

She shook her head almost wildly, torn between fear and a rising anger. He was too close. Guin’s growling seemed to be holding him at bay, but she couldn’t be sure that would deter him for long. “Essie, please.”

“Go away!” she sobbed. “Just go away and leave me alone!” Another backward step and her leg buckled beneath her. Desperately she clung to the rail as she started to fall, and just managed to catch herself. “Get out of here!” Oh, God, if she lost her footing she would be totally at his mercy.

But suddenly Richard Jackson turned away. “Sorry. I thought maybe after all this time you’d want to know that I finally learned something.”

Guin followed him, growling low in her throat.

The fact that Richard was turning away, not threatening her at all, finally penetrated Esther’s terror. And suddenly, as clearly as if he were standing right there, she heard Craig say, “You have to face the demon….”

Shaking, shivering, she gripped the rail with both hands. The urge to flee was overpowering, but where could she run? She’d just proved that there was no way she could outrun anything but a two-year-old. Richard would be able to catch her in less than a half-dozen steps—and would have if he had wanted to.

She felt cornered. Trapped. There wasn’t even anything handy that she could use for a weapon if he tried to hurt her. The only advantage she had that she could see was that if he threw her off the porch she would only get a few bruises.

But he wasn’t coming any closer. In fact, he was walking away, looking back at her over his shoulder.

He had aged, she realized with a jolt. The demon of her youth looked old, with white hair and a sunken face. His shoulders were stooped, as if he were hunched in expectation of a blow. Even the hands, big hands that had once terrified her by their very size, suddenly looked shrunken.

Everything about him looked shrunken, she realized. He was no longer the huge, threatening menace of her childhood, but a shrunken, ordinary old man.

Taking heart from the fact that he wasn’t much bigger than she, she dared to halt him. “Why should I listen to you?”

“No reason, I guess.” He hesitated. “Except that maybe you’ll be able to sleep better knowing I don’t intend to hurt you.”

She felt another uncomfortable jolt. How had he known? Then she remembered that Sheriff Tate had spoken to him just yesterday. Maybe the sheriff had let him know how terrified she was. She felt a sudden burst of hot anger at that, fury that Tate had told Richard about her fear, fury that Richard was able to scare her so much.

“I’m just supposed to take your word for that?” she heard herself demand hotly. “Why the hell should I do that, Richard? Every time you came crawling back after you beat up Mom or me you said it would never happen again. Every time you came back you said you were sorry, that you’d never meant to hurt us. But I’m still crippled and Mom is still dead!”

He kept his face averted, but she could see the way his hands clenched and his jaw worked as she shouted at him. A long time passed before he spoke, a time in which the only sound was the wind in the grass and Guin’s warning growl. Finally he said, “Yes, you are.”

It was as if he punched her. All the air rushed out of her lungs, making her feel dizzy and weak. Her voice deserted her, leaving her helpless to lash out. She couldn’t believe he’d admitted that. Couldn’t believe he’d admitted it so easily. So calmly. What was this? A sham?

But he turned then, and she doubted he could have manufactured the terrible look in his eyes.

“I killed her, Essie,” he said simply. “I killed her and I have to live with that. I crippled you and I have to live with that. I have to live with the memory of every blow or nasty word I hurled at you. Do you know what I dream of at night? Your face when you were little, looking so god-awful scared and hurt. The way you skittered away from me as fast as you could if I came into a room. I have to remember what I did to you and your mother.”

“So do I,” she said defiantly. Was she supposed to feel pity or sympathy for this man?

He nodded. “I’m not asking for your forgiveness. I don’t have a right to that. But I want you to know I learned. I had fifteen years in a prison cell to give me time to think without alcohol getting in the way and I figured a few things out.”

“So?”

He looked down, as if hoping he could find answers on the plank floor in front of his loafered feet. When he lifted his head he looked even more shrunken. “This isn’t for you, I guess.” His voice cracked on the words. “I can’t take back what I did to you. I know that. There’s not one damn thing I can do to make it any better. I guess I gave you nightmares you’ll have for the rest of your life. I sure as hell gave you that leg.” He indicated her leg with a jerk of his chin.

Esther compressed her lips and folded her arms tightly around herself, wishing the earth would just open and swallow the man. But the earth didn’t open, and she kept hearing Craig’s urging to face the demon. Somehow that gave her courage to keep standing there looking at this nightmare monster from her youth.

“I’m here for me,” he said abruptly. “It’s something I need to do. To tell you to your face that I’m sorry as hell about the kind of creep I was and about how bad I hurt you and your mother. I know you aren’t going to believe it, but I always loved you.”

“You sure had a strange way of showing it!”

He nodded. “I guess so. I wish…I wish I could fix it, Essie. Really. But I can’t. So I just gotta stand here and tell you how god-awful sorry I am. I had a weakness for alcohol and I was too weak to fight it. I was a weak man.”

“And you’re not now?”

“No. Not like I was.” He looked at her from those haunted eyes. “I don’t drink anymore. I don’t go anywhere near the stuff. And I’ll never hit anyone again, ever.”

He averted his face for a moment, then looked at her again. Before speaking, he drew a long, shaky breath. “I loved your mom. I loved her too damn much. I got…too possessive. She loved to flirt with guys and dance with guys and…I used to get so mad I couldn’t even see straight because of the way she was looking at some guy. I know it’s no excuse but…I don’t know why, but I kinda figured that if I hit her she’d stop fooling around. She never did, and I shoulda just had the sense to leave, y’know? But I was stupid, and she was mine, and I was going to fight for her. Only problem was it was her I was fighting.”

He drew a ragged breath and Esther felt an uncomfortable tug. She didn’t like the image he was painting of her mother. She had known that her mother drank, too, and got violent sometimes when she did, but she hadn’t thought of her as being cheap. “Are you blaming
her
for what you did?”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, I’m not. Nothing she ever did deserved being beaten up. It sure as hell didn’t deserve getting killed. I’m just trying to…” He hesitated. “I guess I’m trying to explain. It ain’t no excuse, Essie. There isn’t any excuse for what I did. I was just a bastard. I was too quick to hit. Too quick to get mad. They had me take some counseling about that when I was in prison. Anger control counseling. I think it helped because I don’t get near as angry as I used to.”

God, he was pathetic, she found herself thinking. As he stood there and exposed more of his weakness he was resembling the monster of her nightmares less and becoming more just a poor excuse for a human being.

He shifted from one foot to the other and shoved a hand into his slacks pocket. “Anyway, your mom made me mad a lot, but there was really no reason for me to get mad at you except…I was jealous.”

“Jealous?” She couldn’t fathom it. Jealous of a small child?

“Jealous.” One corner of his mouth twitched. “You took so much of her time and she was so crazy about you. I resented it, Essie. Pretty dumb, huh? I mean, you were my kid. I still don’t understand why I was so jealous. I can remember…” His voice broke. “I can remember when you used to…crawl into my lap and call me daddy. I remember that and…” His voice broke again and his breathing grew ragged. “I can’t explain it, what happened. I can’t explain why I started to see you as a nuisance. You weren’t a bad kid. Hell, you didn’t even cry very much. And that time that I…that I…”

He broke off and turned away, visibly fighting for control. Several minutes passed before he spoke again. “I don’t know why I threw you down the stairs. Your mom and I had been fighting, I remember that. I was pretty angry, and I put away a couple of six-packs, and then you started screaming and it was like something exploded in my head. I remember picking you up, but I honest to God don’t remember throwing you down the stairs.”

She spoke, her voice dripping ice. “I remember every detail.”

He swore and walked a few steps away, as if he wanted to escape. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, turning to look directly at her. “I’m sorrier than I can ever tell you.”

She simply looked at him, wondering if his apology was somehow supposed to make it better for her. It didn’t feel like anything at all. How could saying you’re sorry ever make up for anything? “I’m not sure you have any right to apologize,” she said finally. “You knew you were causing harm.”

He nodded. “I surely did. I just didn’t admit it to myself. I had some red-hot teeth biting my tail and driving me on like I was some kind of madman. I don’t know what the hell it was that kept pushing me, but I should’ve had better control. I shouldn’ta let myself get out of hand the way I did. And I’m sorry for it, Essie. I truly am sorry. I know it doesn’t make a damn thing any better for you, but I had to tell you. I know I did wrong and I’m sorry.”

She looked at him with a detached, cold sort of curiosity. “Did it make you feel better to tell me that?”

He shook his head. “No. Nothing’s ever going to make me feel better. That isn’t why I did this.”

“Then why did you?”

“Because I had to own up to what I did. And I had to face up to you.” He shrugged. “So, okay, I did it. Maybe someday you can even see your way to…letting me back into your life.”

She was horrified. “Never!”

He nodded sadly. “I kind of figured you’d feel that way. You have every right to.”

“Well, how wonderfully generous of you to admit that!” Her voice curled with scorn. Her fear of him was beginning to evaporate like a puddle on a hot summer day. “I’d have been happy if I’d never seen you again period.”

He nodded, not even flinching, acting as if he were accepting just punishment.

“I’ve had nightmares every night of my life because of you! I never knew the simple safety a child is supposed to know from its parents. I had no childhood to speak of, and I suffer pain every single day of my life because of you. How can you possibly think an apology would make any of that easier to take?”

“I don’t. I never did. I’m not a fool, Essie.”

“Stop calling me that! My name is Esther.”

“I called you Essie when you were a baby.”

She knew that. What she hated was the skin-crawling feeling she got when she heard him say it now. “Well, you’ve apologized so now you can go.”

But he hesitated and she found herself wanting to scream with frustration and a billion other emotions that seemed to have been building for so long. This man had made a wreck out of her life and now he stood there as if he had a right to be on her front porch. As if he had any right to anything at all.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and turned to walk away.

It was watching him walk away that at last broke the shackles of her prison of fear. She had faced him, she had stood up to him, and now he was walking away. She had triumphed in the most elemental way possible—she had faced the demon, and he was a demon no more.

Instead, she suddenly saw him as a pathetic excuse for a man who had ruined his entire life for lack of simple self-control. He could neither control his rage, nor control his drinking, and so he had killed his wife and permanently alienated his daughter.

And suddenly she knew she wasn’t going to let it end this way.