The Man She Once Knew

Three RITA
^®
Award nominations, a
Romantic Times BOOKreviews
Series Storyteller of the Year and numerous other awards have all been huge thrills for Jean, but hearing from readers is a special joy. She would not lay claim to being a true gardener like Bella, but her houseplants are thriving. She does play guitar, though, knows exactly how it feels to have the man you love craft a beautiful piece of furniture with his own hands…and has a special fondness for the scent of wood shavings.

Jean loves to hear from readers, either via e-mail at her Web site www.jeanbrashear.com, or Harlequin’s Web site, www.eHarlequin.com, or by postal mail at P.O. Box 3000 #79, Georgetown, TX 78627–3000.

To Ercel, whose strong shoulders have always
been there for me to lean on.
Your love is my life’s greatest blessing.

Kelly Brashear Kitchens, lawyer extraordinaire, has been a godsend during the writing of this book, not only for her knowledge of Georgia criminal law but for her willingness to let me spin out tales while yanking me back to reality in the kindest of manners…all with response times that were a lifesaver!
Any errors made or liberties taken are most assuredly my own.

My thanks to Wanda Ottewell for bringing me back home to Harlequin Superromance and being a delightful presence at the doorway when I arrived!

Blue Ridge Mountains
Georgia

T
HE CHAPEL WAS
wall-to-wall strangers. All the better.

Callie Hunter had no desire to be connected to the hell-raising fourteen-year-old she’d been, bottle-black, scarlet-tipped hair, piercings and all. That summer she’d been banished to Oak Hollow by her mother was one she’d shoved to the back of the closet.

One stiletto-clad foot swung impatiently from her crossed knees. As soon as the service was over, she was out of here. Only her feelings for Miss Margaret, as her great-aunt Margaret Jennings was known, could have dragged Callie back to the mountain of Georgia. Not one time in the sixteen years since she’d left had she returned. Memories of shame and sorrow clogged the valleys and hollows of this Smoky Mountain landscape. Agonizing reminders lurked on each rounded peak, waiting to pounce on her with the stealth of a wildcat.

Faint murmuring began to creep through the congregation like fog stealing over a riverbank, spilling up the
nearest rise of land, and Callie could only assume someone had, after all, recognized her. She steeled herself. The funeral would be over soon. She’d deposit a generous donation with the minister and jump into her car. Be back in Philadelphia before morning, burrowed safely in her real life where she balanced the scales of justice, put the bad guys away. Where Callie Hunter was a rising star in the District Attorney’s office, with plans to one day run for election and replace her boss.

Assuming, that is, that she could reverse the damage she’d done to herself in the high-profile case she’d recently lost, a severe blow to the reputation of the wunderkind known in the tough Philly press as Lady Justice for her ardent prosecution of crime and her record conviction rate. She itched to get home and prove herself. Her job was her life; every second she had to be away during this critical period was torture.

The murmuring grew loud enough to drown out the organ music that she found creepy. When mutters rose to a crescendo behind her, Callie gave up and turned, only to discover that no one was paying her an iota of attention.

Instead, every eye appeared to be focused on a man just entering at the back. Callie shifted to see who he was.

When she did, her heart stuttered.

No. It could not be. She examined the tall, powerful frame for signs of the boy she hadn’t let herself think of in years.

The man’s gaze flickered over her and onward. His stony expression never wavered.

She was seized by an impulse to get closer, to see if she was mistaken. Should she talk to him? But what on earth would she say?

He disappeared into a back pew before she could decide, and Callie turned to face the front again.

Just as well. There was nothing for her here. She couldn’t wait to be gone.

W
HY WAS HE HERE
? Hadn’t fifteen years in prison taught him hard lessons about caution?

Regardless of how intense those months together had been, he and Callie had parted ways as though strangers. There had been nothing to hold them together, it turned out, after the roller coaster of emotion, the drama and heartache. A boy’s damn-fool notion of honor had exploded in his face, had blasted his future to bits.

What had he expected to feel? He had no idea who she was anymore, except that she was beautiful—man, was she ever. The badly dyed black hair had given way to the natural blond he’d seen only at her roots, the profusion of curls she’d so often derided were now a shiny, straight cap. She’d grown a good three inches, he guessed, no longer that tiny rebel.

No rebel at all, from what he’d heard. A prosecutor—fate sure had a nasty sense of humor. Their role reversals appeared to be complete.

Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered really, only biding his time, doing what he could for the one person who still held a claim on his shriveled heart. If not for his mother’s
need of him, he’d never have set foot in Oak Hollow again. The road pulled at him, the longing to disappear, to start over somewhere, anywhere that no one knew him.

He’d come from good stock; his father had died rescuing two hikers from a fall. However desperate and defeated his mother was now, she once had raised a boy single-handed, struggled to keep body and soul together for both of them. An excellent student—particularly at math and science—with ambitions of being a pilot and astronaut, David had grown up under the caring eyes of an impoverished town where hardly anyone made it to college.

She’d taken in sewing at night after long days of waiting tables to be sure he had basketball shoes and football uniforms. She’d grown vegetables and raised chickens to keep food on the table.

He wondered if she thought any of the struggle had been worth it when she’d been writing letters to a prison instead of the university where he was to have received a football scholarship.

He’d served his time, and he was supposed to be free now. Instead he was back in Oak Hollow, despised by everyone but his mother for dealing a mortal blow to the dreams of a town that had expected him to succeed for all of them.

Tough. The townspeople needed to get their own dreams.

The organ music swelled, yanking David from his musings. Just as well—the past was a hostile country to visit. He glanced toward the front and realized that
there was nothing to say to the woman Callie had grown into. He should never have come.

Before the ushers began leading the mourners out, David Langley slipped into the shadows and through the side door.

With long strides, he left the past where it belonged.

“M
S
. H
UNTER
?” Outside the chapel, a stooped man with a weathered face paused before her. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

She accepted his handshake. “Thank you.” She let go, eager to leave.

But he lingered. “I’m Albert Manning. I need to see you at my office as soon as you’re ready.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry. Miss Margaret’s death has addled me. I’m her attorney.” His forlorn expression spoke of a deeper sense of loss than for a mere client, however. “There are issues we must address as soon as possible.”

“What?” Callie frowned. “But I’m leaving. Right now,” she added.

“It would be a kindness if you could stay one night, at least. Miss Margaret’s house is ready for you. As you know, there are no hotels or motels in Oak Hollow.”

It would be a kindness
. How had she forgotten Southern pleasantries so quickly? There was not a man she’d ever met in Philly who would talk like that.

“But I—”
Have to get back immediately. I have a reputation to save. A future to secure.

“Please, Ms. Hunter—Callie, if I may. Miss Margaret was very proud of you and spoke of you so often that I feel I know you.”

Shame left a bitter taste in Callie’s mouth. She had abandoned her great-aunt years ago as she fled the painful memories of her time here. “Mr. Manning, I really must return to Philadelphia and my work. Can’t we handle this on the phone?” Even if her great-aunt had made some sort of bequest, what could there be to deal with, really? Miss Margaret had lived hand-to-mouth in her small frame house.

“I’m afraid I must insist that you stay, at least until tomorrow.” His tone was gentle but adamant. “There are issues that are inappropriate for me to bring up here.”

There was actually no reason she had to leave today except her own need to save her reputation. Her boss, Gerald Parks, had ordered her to take an extended leave, utilizing some of her unused vacation time in lieu of a suspension after she’d skirted the line trying to win her last case. What he omitted—but she knew all too well—was that his concern was not for her but for his own reelection campaign.

Even if she agreed to remain here tonight, she didn’t want to be at Miss Margaret’s, not when memories lurked in every corner. “I’ll drive over to the county seat and spend the night, then come back tomorrow to meet with you.”

“There’s no reason to make that hour drive. Miss Margaret was set on you staying in the house. She asked specifically.”

Callie did not appreciate feeling cornered.
I don’t want to
was her only defense, however, and she would not admit to a soul why that was. “Mr. Manning—”

“Please,” he said, eyes soft with compassion. “She knew staying there would be difficult, but it was important to her. She loved you, Ms. Hunter. She blamed herself for what happened.”

How much did he know? Callie was desperate to turn and run.

If you’ve become that easy to rattle, how do you expect to beat what’s facing you back in Philly?

“All right.” She squared her shoulders. It was just a house, a collection of boards and nails. And only one night. “Where do I find the key? What time shall we meet? I’d like to make it early so I can get on the road. I have a thirteen-hour drive ahead of me.”

He smiled. “This is Oak Hollow, Ms. Hunter. We don’t lock our houses. The electricity and water are on, and I took the liberty of having my wife stock the refrigerator for you.” He took her hand in his. “Thank you. It would have meant a lot to Miss Margaret to have you there. Shall we meet at nine, then? I’m up earlier, of course, but I like to take my time these days. No reason to get in a rush.”

Time waits for no one,
she wanted to retort.
And Miss Margaret is dead. She won’t care.
But she bit her tongue and simply nodded. “Nine it is. How do I find you?”

“It’s the yellow frame house catty-corner from town hall,” he explained. “You know where that is, right?”

She nodded. “I’ll find it.” She turned to go.

“Oh, and Ms. Hunter, I am sorry you had to be subjected to that display earlier. He had no business being there when decent people were burying their dead. He shouldn’t be in Oak Hollow at all, folks think.”

She revolved slowly. “Are you speaking of David Langley? Was that him in the chapel?”

“He was.” His face was tight with disapproval. “We don’t hold with criminals in our midst. If he bothers you at all, just speak up. The sheriff is keeping an eye on him.”

Callie’s eyes popped. “Criminal?
David?
”

“Miss Margaret never told you? I would have thought, given your—” His face was reddening. “I mean, since he and you—” He worried at the brim of his straw hat.

She rushed past his fumbling. “Told me what?”

He looked away, then back. “I suppose you’ll find out anyhow,” he said almost to himself. “David Langley just got out of prison three months ago after serving fifteen years.”

“Prison?
For what?” Callie couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea of David being a criminal, but the buzzing at the chapel and his unyielding expression were making more sense now.

“Why, for murder, of course—only he got off easy and was convicted of manslaughter instead.”

She couldn’t help her gasp. “That’s impossible. David would never—”

“Oh, yes, ma’am, he surely did, but I’m sorry—I should not have brought up such an unpleasant topic, especially when you’re in mourning.” His jaw clenched.
“I will make certain that he doesn’t come near you again, rest assured. Now let me escort you to the car.”

He made as if to grasp her elbow, but Callie strode ahead briskly toward the sedan where the funeral director waited patiently. Mr. Manning followed, tipped his hat and said goodbye.

Once in the car on the way to the cemetery, Callie let herself feel the impact of what she’d heard. She’d dreaded returning to Oak Hollow, dreaded brushing up against her past. She’d intended to cruise as lightly as possible into and out of the site of the most painful period of her life.

But if she’d known what she would encounter and the havoc it would create inside her—

Nothing on this earth could have forced her back.

D
AVID STRAIGHTENED
with a groan. Rolled his shoulders and stretched his back, then lifted the hoe and headed for the toolshed at the back of his mother’s garden. When he was growing up, the garden had been lush and green, its bounty plenty to keep them over the winter while providing extra that David sold at a makeshift stand on the highway.

The plot his mother had patiently cultivated for years had lain fallow for a long time, perhaps ever since he’d been gone. He wasn’t sure why he was bothering with it now, except that he’d seen her wistful gaze land on it often as she stared out her kitchen window.

The smell of the dirt had drawn him in first, one restless night soon after his arrival. He’d craved to lose
himself in the oblivion of slumber, but he couldn’t get used to the quiet. Prison was never silent, and the sound of the frogs outside had been as startling as gunshots. He’d learned to slide beneath the layers of guards talking, inmates snoring or groaning, new prisoners crying…and more furtive, desperate sounds he never wanted to hear again in his life. Then there was the darkness. Even with a full moon, as had been the case when he’d first returned, his room was dark as pitch compared to the harsh glare of the prison fluorescents that never fully dimmed.

He’d encountered the garden on one of those uneasy nights, leaping from the bed that had been his as a teen—the same bed where he’d once conjured up dreams of the life he’d live, the places he’d see, the difference he’d make.

The bed was too soft for him now. Too much a torture, stinking as it did of his failures. He’d taken up sleeping on the floor instead, often outside on the screened-in porch at the back of the small house. He couldn’t get enough of fresh air, of room to move. Some nights he took off down the country road in front of his mother’s house, running five, six, ten miles at a time, trying to sweat out fifteen years of misery.

And the present, as devoid of hope, in some ways, as each day behind bars.

He stifled the urge to throw the hoe like a javelin, to damage something, hurt something, to shatter the paper-thin wall with the rage that he pushed down and down and down—

He stopped in his tracks, dust motes drifting in the air, sweating and shaking with the effort of keeping it all inside. Why did Callie have to show up now and make him face exactly how far he’d fallen?

Lock it down. Kill the fury with your bare hands. If you don’t get a grip, son, you’ll be in here forever.
The advice of fellow prisoner Sam Eakins, eighty years old if he was a day, had saved him in those early weeks when David’s gut-churning fear had become a smoldering rage.

He had to stop thinking about what might have been. It couldn’t matter that he had a crap job, cleaning up after drunks in a bar where patrons like Mickey Patton seldom missed an opportunity to jab at him, to spill a beer purposely on a freshly cleaned floor. To relish that David was cleaning toilets when he should have been flying a jet and wearing medals.

He had a job he badly needed, the only work anyone would give him. There was so much to be done around his mother’s place, chores that she’d left neglected as her health declined. Until David had returned, he’d had no idea how impoverished her circumstances were, worse even than when she’d been newly widowed and responsible for a child.

If the roof over her head wasn’t to fall down, the repair was up to him, and materials cost money. He’d sent most of his pitiful prison pay to her, but obviously it hadn’t gone nearly far enough.

He stepped outside, washed off at the faucet and spotted his mother moving about in the kitchen, preparing his supper. He stared down at the hands that resem
bled his father’s, then reached into his pocket and fingered the knife he had reclaimed from the small desk in his bedroom. His hands were rusty from years of disuse, but each day they itched a little more to resume the carving his father had taught him.

When the police had come to arrest him, he’d left the knife behind so it wouldn’t be confiscated in jail. His fingers had gone blind after that, no longer able to create beauty or humor from only a stick, a block of wood. The last carving he’d completed before prison was one he wasn’t ready to see yet.

He flexed his hands, his father’s hands, then closed his fingers one by one into a fist.

No. Not yet. Until he could carve with the rage purged from his heart, he would leave the knife unopened.

David shook himself like a dog shedding rain.

Lock it down. Get a grip.

C
ALLIE HALTED
two steps into the kitchen. Unbelievably, the small, scrubbed-to-an-inch-of-its-life house still smelled of the lavender water Miss Margaret used to iron her sheets, underlaid by frying bacon, homemade bread and a million or so cups of mint tea. She expected the older woman to pop around the corner any second.

By rote, Callie had entered the back door from the driveway. The front door was only for company, Miss Margaret had told her that first day. Callie was family, she’d insisted, however little Callie could believe back then that she belonged anywhere, especially in this warm refuge.

Callie glanced out the picture window that had been Miss Margaret’s pride and joy, the one that gave her great-aunt a good view of the backyard she’d labored so many hours to create. Oh, she’d tended the front and sides, as well—weeds were not tolerated, and she’d had an eagle’s eye for the slightest up-cropping—but the back was where her heart was planted. Vegetable garden off in the right-hand corner, roses lining the left. In between lay her rock garden, an exotic Southwestern creation as out of place in these ancient, rounded green mountains as Miss Margaret would have been in the desert.

I do believe I was a cowgirl in another life,
she would say.
On my one trip to Los Angeles by train, I saw the desert for the first time and something in my soul expanded.
A look of intense regret would furrow her brow at the mention, but she never explained beyond one admonition.
Do not let your dreams pass you by, Callie Anne. When your heart tells you you’re home, you listen, you hear me?

Miss Margaret had been as foreign to a fourteen-year-old in full rebellion as a rose was to a coyote. Callie had rolled her eyes that first time, but after seeing the hurt she’d dealt to someone more harmless and innocent than Callie had ever been, she’d kept her cynicism to herself. Miss Margaret had been out of another century and older than dirt to boot in Callie’s view, but a kindness in her smoothed off some of the edges of Callie’s wild misery.

Miss Margaret had taken one look at her full-on Goth attire and pressed her lips together so hard they’d nearly
disappeared. Just when Callie was ready to bolt, Miss Margaret had confided that two of her little earrings resembled a pair she’d wanted when she was young, except that her father would have sent her to the woodshed for piercing her ears. Ladies didn’t do that, she’d said, then, with a puckish grin, she’d asked if Callie thought she was too old to try it now.

An astonished Callie had found herself offering to do the deed.

The Callie who stood in nearly the same spot now was surprised to find herself smiling.

Okay
. She exhaled slowly.
It’s only one night.

She walked through the space, trailing her fingers over the old Tell City maple table and chairs in front of the picture window, the rocking recliner where Miss Margaret had sat to watch her television at night. Beside it stood a table groaning under the weight of not only a lamp but a good six months’ worth of catalogs and magazines and, of course, Miss Margaret’s ever-present King James Bible.