Secrets and Lies: He's a Bad Boy\He's Just a Cowboy (12 page)

He guided the Buick to a stop at the park situated in the middle of town. This little scrap of ground, less than an acre, was a far cry from Central Park in the heart of Manhattan, but Gold Creek was no New York City, he thought with a trace of sarcasm. Despite its problems, New York held more appeal.

Jackson climbed out of the car and stretched his legs, eyeing the surroundings. The hair lifted on his arms as he spied a gazebo that stood in the center of the green where several concrete paths met. The gazebo was larger than the lattice structure he remembered at the Fitzpatrick summer estate, but still, his skin crawled.

The walkways, illuminated by strategically placed lampposts, ran in six directions, winding through the trees and playground equipment of one square block of Gold Creek. The grass was already turning brown, and the area under the swings and teeter-totters was dusty. Flowers bloomed profusely, their petals glowing in the white incandescence of the street lamps. A few dry leaves, the precursors of autumn, rustled as they blew across the cracked concrete.

But the air was different from the atmosphere in New York City. In Manhattan, he felt the electricity, the frenetic pulse of the city during the day as well as the night. But here, practically on the opposite shore of the continent, the pace was slow and low-key. No one appeared in the dusky park, and the wattage of energy seemed to simmer on low.

Shoving his sleeves over his elbows, he made his way to the gazebo and read a carved wooden sign that noted that the park was dedicated to Roy Fitzpatrick, and listed his date of birth and death, a bare nineteen years apart. Ironic that the shrine for Roy had been a gazebo, similar in design to the gazebo on the Fitzpatrick property at the lake—the very spot where Roy had tried to force himself on Rachelle. Jackson’s jaw grew hard. He supposed he should feel some pity for Roy, but he didn’t. Though he’d never wished Roy dead, the kid had rushed headlong into tragedy. Roy had taken what he wanted, had felt no remorse and had believed that excess was his due.

No wonder someone had objected. It was just a shame that Roy had died. He ran his fingers over the inscription and wondered for the millionth time who had killed Roy. Probably someone they both knew, some coward who had let Jackson hang, twisting in the wind, for the murder. How far would the killer have let him go? If the case had gone to trial, if, by some fluke, Jackson had been convicted, would Roy’s murderer have come forward? He doubted it. Whoever had killed Roy had been more concerned about covering his tracks than letting justice prevail.

But Jackson hadn’t been indicted and he’d run. Like a jackrabbit escaping a coyote, he’d decided to run as far as he could and start a new life. Without any ties to Gold Creek. Without Rachelle. And he’d created that life for himself through hard work, determination and luck—something that was in short supply here in Gold Creek.

And now Rachelle was going to dig through the dirt all over again. Though her column hadn’t said that was her intent, Jackson knew that the old scandal wouldn’t stay buried, not with the ever-widening specter of dominion that was the Fitzpatrick family. It was time to settle this, once and for all. Before anyone—especially Rachelle—got hurt.

And Rachelle? How does she fit into the plan?
He glanced up to the diaphanous clouds skirting a slit of a moon. He’d tell her to lay off, threaten her with some kind of fictitious libel suit, then leave her alone.

He only hoped she had enough sense to take his advice. He didn’t really give a damn if she wanted to let the nation see the small town where she’d grown up, but he didn’t want her fouling up his own reasons for being here.

Yes, she’d been the catalyst that brought him to the sunny state of California, but he wanted her to concentrate on the daily lives and anecdotes of the people in her town, and he wanted her to stay the hell away from the night that Roy Fitzpatrick died.

Roy’s death was Jackson’s business. Unfinished business that he intended to finally take care of. He didn’t need Rachelle unwittingly stepping into danger.

Now all he had to do was find her. There were a couple of motels in town that he would check out and he knew the little house where she’d grown up. He’d start there.

* * *

R
ACHELLE TOOK A SIP FROM
her tea and nearly burned her lips on the hot mug. “Blast it all,” she muttered at the microwave she had yet to master. The house had changed in the past twelve years, as had her life. New coats of paint gleamed on the walls, the kitchen cabinets had been refinished and soft new carpet spread like a downy blanket over the battered linoleum floors. She could thank her sister, Heather, as well as Heather’s money, for the restoration of this place. Heather had, for their mother’s sake, invested in this house after their mother had decided she wanted to rent an apartment in the heart of town, closer to the man who was now her husband, Harold Little. Rachelle frowned at the thought of Harold. She’d never liked the scrappy, flat-faced man.

But Heather, God bless her stubborn streak, had tried to help their mother. She’d thought Ellen needed to meet other people, get on with her life and quit stewing over the fact that her husband had left her over a decade before. Rachelle had agreed, and Heather, confiding that she planned to let the tide of California inflation buoy the value of the cottage into the stratosphere, had bought the house. The plan had been great until the recession had hit and the tidewaters of big money had ebbed dismally.

Cradling her tea, Rachelle padded barefoot back to the small bedroom. Aside from a few clothes, her cat, Java, and her laptop computer, she hadn’t brought much with her. Setting her mug onto the nightstand, she kicked a small pile of dirty laundry toward the closet.

She flopped onto the bed, the laptop propped against her knees and Java curled at her feet on the rumpled bedspread. This little room with its blond twin beds and matching dresser had been the girls’. The bulletin board was long gone, taken down in her senior year when her blackened reputation had made each day at Tyler High a torture and any reminders of high school had been burned, tossed out or locked in the attic.

Her dark thoughts shifted to the friends who had turned their backs on her, who had since become stalwart citizens of the town: teachers, bankers, waitresses and even a doctor who had avoided her. Now they were parents themselves, married, divorced, their lives as changed from their carefree days in high school as hers had been. She set her fingers on the keypad and started on her column, entitling it “Faded Flowers,” and imagined interviewing the people who had shunned her.

Shivering, she picked up her mug, nearly sloshing its contents over the bed when the doorbell pealed. Java leapt off the bed and crawled beneath the dust ruffle.

“Chicken,” Rachelle chided the cat. She set her drink down and walked quickly through the hall. “Coming!” she called toward the door, then noticed from the antique clock on the mantel that it was after ten. Aside from her mother, or possibly Heather if the whim struck her, no one would visit.

Flipping on the porch light, she peered through the narrow window next to the door—and froze, her spine tingling coldly. She’d been thinking of him tonight, yes, and not kindly. But she couldn’t believe he was here, a handsome ghost of her past returned to haunt her! Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, and her heart nearly stopped as her eyes glued to the hard-edged features of Jackson Moore.

Time seemed to stand still. Rachelle’s skin was ice as Jackson’s inflexible brown gaze moved to the window to land full force upon her.

Her throat turned to cotton at the hard line of his lips, the tension in his jaw. He didn’t smile or frown, and she knew instinctively that he wasn’t pleased to see her.

Twelve years of fantasies shattered in that single second. For even though she’d told herself she hated him, that the mere sight of him on the news reports turned her stomach, a stupid little feminine part of her had wished that he still cared. From the intensity of his features and the unspoken anger in his glare, she’d been wrong about him. Shame washed up her neck as she realized, not for the first time, that the town, this damned town, had been right! She’d been a worse fool than even she had thought.

Obviously she’d meant nothing more to him than a one-night stand and an easy alibi for Roy Fitzpatrick’s murder. It took all the strength she had to throw the dead bolt and open the door.

A night breeze crept past him, stealing into the room.

“I thought you were in New York,” she said defensively, her reticent tongue working again. She decided she’d better set things straight before he had a chance to say anything. “Isn’t that where you live now, righting all the wrongs against your innocent clients?”

His eyes glittered, and the whisper of a smile caught the edges of his mouth for just a second. “I didn’t come here to talk about my practice.”

“Just in the neighborhood?” she taunted, wanting to wound him and give him just a taste of the pain she’d suffered when he’d abandoned her. All those years. All those damned years!

His thin lips shifted. “Actually, I came to see you.”

“A little late, aren’t you?”

Did he wince slightly, or did the shadow of a moth flutter by the porch light, seeming to change his expression for just a second? “I guess I deserved that.”

“What you deserve I couldn’t begin to describe,” she replied. “But phrases like ‘drawn and quartered,’ ‘boiled in oil’ or ‘tarred and feathered’ come quickly to mind.”

“You don’t think I suffered enough?” he asked, crossing tanned arms in front of a chest that had expanded with the years. He was built more solidly than he had been: broader shoulders, still-lean hips, but more defined muscles. Probably the result of working out with a private trainer or weight-lifting or some such upper-crust urban answer to aging. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him and he looked tougher in real life than he did on camera.

“You didn’t stick around long enough to suffer,” she said.

“What would that have proved?”

That you cared, that you didn’t use me, that I wasn’t so much the fool… .
“Nothing. You’re right. You should have left. In fact, I don’t know why you’d want to come back here at all,” she admitted, some of her animosity draining as she stared at his sensual lower lip. Steadfastly, she moved her gaze back to the hard glitter in his eyes.

“I returned for the same reason you did,” he said slowly.

“And why’s that?”

“To settle things.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” He was gazing at her so intently that her heart, which was already beating rapidly, accelerated tempo. Emotions, as tangled and tormented as they had been twelve years before, simmered in the cool night. The sound of traffic from the freeway was muted, and the wind chimes on her porch tinkled softly on a jasmine-scented breeze.

“I take the
New York Daily,
” Jackson said, his hands in the back pockets of his black jeans. “It carries your column.”

She waited, expecting more of an explanation, and avoided looking into his eyes. Those eyes, golden-brown and penetrating, had been her undoing all those years ago. She’d trusted him, believed in him, and it had cost her. Well, she wouldn’t let his gaze get to her again. Besides, he couldn’t. There was a new jaded edge to him that she found not the least bit appealing.

“I read that you’re doing a series about Gold Creek.”

“That’s right.” Her gaze flew back to his and she straightened her shoulders, determined to deal with him as a professional. An interview with Jackson Moore would be a coup, an article her editor, Marcy, expected, but Rachelle couldn’t imagine talking with him, taking notes, probing into his life as it had been in Gold Creek all those years ago.

“I think we should discuss it.”

“Discuss
it?
” she repeated, her backbone stiffening as if with steel. “Why would you want—?” She cut herself off, and, folding her arms over her chest, propped one shoulder against the door. “What’re you doing back in Gold Creek?”

His eyes bored deep into hers and she realized suddenly what it must feel like to be a witness squirming on the stand while Jackson, slowly, steadily and without the least bit of compassion, cut her testimony to shreds. “I think you’re about to get yourself into trouble, Rachelle,” he said. “And I want to make sure that you don’t get hurt.”

She laughed. “I don’t need
you
to protect me. And there’s nothing to be afraid of, anyway.”

“You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

“I do. And if you’re talking about the Fitzpatrick murder, I was there, too. Remember?” Deciding she was probably exercising a blatant error in judgment, she kicked the door open wider. “Why don’t you come in and say whatever it is that’s on your mind?”

“Off the record?” he asked.

“Afraid of what I might write?”

“I’ve been misquoted before.” She thought of the past six years and his meteoric rise to fame, or infamy. He hadn’t been afraid of taking on the most scandalous of cases, many involving the rich and famous, and he’d managed to see that his clients came out smelling like proverbial roses.

One woman, an up-and-coming actress who had a reputation with men, had been accused of shooting her lover after he’d been with another woman. Jackson had come up with enough blue smoke and mirrors to confuse and cloud the issue, and the actress, Colleen Mills, had walked out of the courtroom a free woman. Though the press had tried her in the newspapers and the evidence had been overwhelmingly against Colleen, she was now in Hollywood working on her next film. Rumor had it that she was giving an Oscar-worthy performance, as she had, no doubt, on the witness stand under Jackson’s direction.

He walked into the house and she closed the door after him. He didn’t look like a hotshot New York attorney in his faded black Levi’s, boots and T-shirt. A leather jacket—black, as well—was thrown over one shoulder and she wondered sarcastically if he’d joined a motorcycle gang and roared up on his Harley.

She almost smiled at the thought and realized that he looked much the way she remembered him, though his features had become leaner, more angular with the years. His hair was still on the long side, shiny black and straight, and his eyes, golden-brown and judgmental, didn’t miss a trick. Even the brush of thick lashes didn’t soften his virile male features. His gaze swept the room in one quick appraisal and probably found it lacking.