Running Scared

by Lisa Jackson

Genres: Suspense; Mystery

Synopsis

With numerous #1 New York Times best-sellers to her credit, Lisa Jackson continues to push the envelope through her trademark brand of romantic suspense. Running Scared follows a young single mother desperately trying to outrun her past.

Fifteen years ago, Kate Summers received an offer she couldn’t refuse: a newborn baby boy to adopt and call her own. Still reeling from the death of her husband and daughter, Kate accepted this little blessing and agreed to leave Boston forever and not tell a soul. Today, she has a wonderful life in Oregon, but the threat of the past catching up with her haunts her daily. Now a mysterious man is in town searching for the child, and the only person Kate can turn to has secrets of his own—secrets tying him to the boy she loves dearly.

Moving at a lightning-quick pace, this taut thriller is enhanced by a pulse-pounding narration from acclaimed voice actor Jack Garrett.

“Provocative prose, an irresistible plot and finely crafted characters make up Jackson’s … contemporary sizzler.”—Publishers Weekly

Release date: July 27, 2010

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 528

Sample

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

1980

 

 

Free!

Kate Summers pulled the last page from her word processor and dropped it with the others in her OUT basket. Now for the hard part—saying good-bye and making a quick exit. She glanced at the pebbled-glass door to Tyrell Clark’s office. His desk lamp shined through the opaque barrier.

Get a grip, Kate. You can do this.

She’d agreed to work late, hoping that he wouldn’t return, but she hadn’t been so lucky. She’d heard his heavy tread on the back stairs just forty minutes before, and though he hadn’t paused at her desk, hadn’t so much as glanced in her direction as he’d beelined to his office, she knew she couldn’t leave without collecting her last paycheck and a letter of recommendation.

The rest of the building was quiet. Only the soft rumble of the structure’s tired furnace and the muted sounds of traffic outside disturbed the silence in the once-hallowed halls of Clark & Clark. The elder Clark, Tyrell Senior, had died just two years before and now there was only his son to carry on the tradition. In the meantime business was shrinking. The staff that had once filled eight offices now occupied just two. Tyrell, a brilliant lawyer, also loved women, drink, and a friendly, if fatal, wager at the race track. And he had not only the IRS after him but other, more sinister adversaries—loan sharks and bookies and the like.

In two days Kate planned to leave Boston—and the nightmare she’d been living—behind. She’d never have to set foot in the offices of Clark & Clark again. All she had to do was ship her meager belongings to Seattle and hand her keys over to the landlord of her small apartment—four tiny rooms that had been her home for the past three years. A lump filled her throat, but she ignored it.

No more memories. No more pretending. A new start. That’s what she needed.

“Kate?”

She sucked in her breath.

From the adjoining office, Tyrell Clark’s voice, smooth as well-oiled machinery, caused a chill to creep up her spine. She hated that well-modulated, nearly patronizing tone.

“No more,” she whispered under her breath, and one of her hands curled into a tight fist. She didn’t have to put up with his advances—gentle touches and suggestive innuendos—a second longer. She found her coffee cup, favorite pen, address book, and dropped them all into her oversized bag.

“Before you leave, I’ve got something I want to discuss with you.”

The light in his adjoining office snapped off. Her stomach knotted in apprehension.

Now what? Bracing herself, she glanced at the clock. Nearly seven. And she was alone with him. The building was probably empty. Nervously she looked out the single window in the reception area, through the trails of rain that drizzled down the glass. Outside it was dark except for the illumination from streetlamps and the flash of headlights from cars as they passed. She’d been a fool to stick around after Rinda had gone home for the day, but she’d needed the money the overtime would bring, had naively thought that Tyrell wouldn’t return from his late afternoon meeting with a client. She’d been wrong. Stupid, stupid girl.

He scraped back his chair and it squeaked as he stood. His familiar tread followed.

Just a few more minutes. You can handle it, Kate. Whatever you do, don’t blow it; you need his letter of recommendation so you can get another job in Seattle.

She managed a thin, watery smile as he approached her L-shaped desk. Fake it, she told herself, though her palms began to sweat. Be friendly, but firm. She resisted the urge to wipe her suddenly moist hands on her skirt. A few more minutes, then you’ll never have to see him or put up with his harassment again. Just hang in there.

Tyrell was an imposing man and a cliché of the highest order. Tall, dark, and handsome, he’d been compared to Clark Gable’s Rhett Butler time and time again. He made it a point to see that his tie was never askew, his dark hair always in place, his three-piece suits without so much as a thread of lint or wrinkle to detract from his polished image.

Except lately. He’d been slipping. His shoes weren’t always shined to a high gloss, a few gray hairs had dared invade his temples, and lines of worry had collected near the corners of his mouth. But it was his eyes that had changed dramatically. Usually full of a mischievous light, they’d dimmed with worry and he was forever playing with the wristband of his watch, as if he were running out of time. She knew why. The continuous correspondence from the IRS explained it all.

“So this is good-bye,” he said.

“Yes.” She reached for her purse. “I was just getting ready to call it a day.” Her mind was spinning ahead, creating an excuse to flee the building.

“I thought we might have one last drink together.”

“Sorry.” Not really. “I told Laura I’d stop by. I’m already late.”

“Your sister will understand.” He picked up her favorite paperweight—a crystal porcupine—and tossed it lightly, as if testing its weight. “This is important.” He offered her an infectious smile that had worked its magic on dozens of women with weaker hearts and landed them in his bed. The sorcery hadn’t affected Kate. She wasn’t interested in a man, any man, and especially not one as well worn as Tyrell. And now his grin seemed forced, his usually tanned skin, paler, as if the life were being sucked out of him.

“What?” Her damned curiosity always got the better of her.

“I thought you might like to be a mother again.”

She felt as if the floor had just dropped out from under her feet. “A mother?” she repeated, her voice a whisper. Her head began to pound. She’d never known him to be so outwardly cruel. “If this is some kind of joke—”

“It’s not.”

She could barely breathe, hardly hear above the dull roar in her ears.

“I’m offering you a son. No strings attached. Well, not many.” Easing his hip onto the edge of her desk, he clasped his hands around one knee and stared at her with dark knowing eyes. The tic beneath his eye kept up its steady rhythm.

“I don’t understand,” she replied, trying to calm down.

“It’s a long story and one I’m not privileged to discuss in too many details, but I have a client, an important, socially prominent client, whose daughter just had a baby—a little boy—out of wedlock. He was born this afternoon.”

“You—you want me to adopt him?”

He hesitated, his eyebrows drawing together. “Not just adopt him, Kate. I want you to take him with you to Seattle and pretend that he’s yours. The child’s white, his hair dark and he could certainly pass as yours.”

“What? Wait a minute—”

“Just hear me out, Kate,” he insisted and the roar in her ears became louder. He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and withdrew an envelope. From within, he found a Polaroid snapshot, which he handed to her. The picture was of a newborn infant, still red, eyes out of focus as the camera had flashed. Little fists were coiled and his expression was one of shock at being brought into the harsh lights of the real world.

“Oh, God,” she whispered.

“I thought you wanted another child.”

“I do, but…” There was nothing—nothing—she’d love more than a child. But the idea was impossible. A pipe dream. You had your chance, she reminded herself grimly before the tears could come again.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“Absolutely.”

A small drop of hope slid into her heart.

“I don’t understand.” This conversation was moving too fast. Way too fast. “You want me to adopt him?” She felt as if she had cobwebs in her mind that were slowing down her comprehension, as if she couldn’t quite keep up with the discussion. “What’s the catch?”

“The catch,” he repeated under his breath and bit his lower lip. “Unfortunately, there is one.”

“Always is.” Trepidation chased away that little bit of hope.

“I prefer to think of it as a condition that comes with this kind of instant motherhood.”

Motherhood. The sound of the word brought back images of her own mother and a small farm in Iowa. Spring flowers, the scent of mown hay, and cinnamon lacing the air from Anna Rudisill’s prize-winning apple pies. Her mother’s kind smile or razor-sharp tongue when one of her daughters dared take the name of the Lord in vain whispered through Kate’s mind. Summers had been full of hard work and long days, nights staring up at a wide dark sky sprinkled with millions of stars. The winters had been fierce, frigid, and brutal as well as gorgeous with the thick blanket of snow that crunched under Kate’s boots as she trudged through the drifts to the barn holding on to her mother’s hand. Icicles had hung from the eaves of the barn, and even the moisture collecting on the flat snouts of the cattle had sparkled in the pale winter sunlight.

From those few glorious years, Kate’s mind spun ahead as it always did, past the unhappy and horrifying part of her childhood to her short-lived marriage and her own darling baby girl. Erin. Sweet, sweet baby. If only her precious daughter had lived! Guilt squeezed Kate’s heart in its cruel, unforgiving fist. She blinked and found Tyrell still balanced on the desk’s corner, that pulse beneath his eye jumping.

“Why?” she finally asked. “Whose baby is this?”

“I can’t say, but the mother doesn’t want him—she’s broken up with the father and the family just wants to get the whole unhappy incident behind them. They don’t want any publicity, any hint of a scandal, and so far they’ve managed to keep the pregnancy a secret. Now, all they have to do is make sure the baby is brought up by someone who will keep their secret and love the little boy as her own.”

“But I’m single…I don’t have a lot of money and there are hundreds of couples anxious to…” Something was wrong here. Very wrong. She glanced at the picture again and already this precious child, this unwanted and unloved baby, was starting to attach himself to her. “What about the father?”

“Bad news.”

“He doesn’t know?”

Tyrell shook his head. “The family doesn’t want him to ever find out.”

“But he has rights—”

“He’s in prison.”

“Oh, God.”

Tyrell’s lips flattened together and he set the paperweight back on the desk. “The guy’s bad news—someone my client’s daughter hung around with just to rebel against her folks. He’s into drugs, leather, chains, motorcycles, and crime; everything my client abhors. The guy also has a history of violence—serious, domestic violence. There’s a rumor floating around that he already had a son who died suspiciously as an infant. The police couldn’t prove that he was the reason the kid quit breathing, but they suspect him. My client doesn’t want anything like that to happen to his grandchild. Right now the kid’s safe as the father is locked up for assault, so he’s out of the picture. Won’t be paroled for a few years. Believe it or not, the family wants what’s best for the baby.”

“As long as he doesn’t inconvenience them.”

“If you don’t want to do this, Kate—”

“No!” she said so vehemently she surprised herself. It’s not the baby’s fault that he isn’t wanted, is considered nothing more than a nuisance.

Kate felt sick inside but the first little glimmer of what he was suggesting tugged at her heart. Could she? Could she take this child and pretend that he was hers?

A baby. A newborn. Her own child. A mother again.

Tyrell tugged on his tie.

“You know, Tyrell, this just sounds like trouble. Big trouble.” But there’s a baby involved, a baby who needs a mother, a child whom you need to care for. “The girl should tell her folks to take their Machiavellian opinions about children being born out of wedlock and shove them. That child belongs with his mother!”

“It’s not that simple,” Tyrell said, the patience in his voice belied by the lines of tension near the corners of his mouth. “The baby’s mother…she’s not well either, or at the least stable. She’s been in and out of mental hospitals for depression; always on some kind of medication, though the doctors have assured everyone that the baby’s healthy. The girl’s been monitored ever since she found out about the pregnancy. It’s been decided that the best thing would be for the baby to be adopted privately to someone who lives out of state. You’re moving to the West Coast, and since you lost your own family, I thought it would only make sense…” He let the thought trail off, leaving it to be finished by her own imagination, attempting to persuade her that he was only trying to help. She didn’t buy it.

“As I said, the deal would be that you would claim the baby was yours—we’d even manage to make the birth certificate say as much.”

“How?”

“When you have money, anything’s possible. My client has money, lots of it. And influence. It’s not that difficult to get a phony birth certificate and you’ll be moving so far away that no one will ever guess the truth.” He glanced pointedly down at the pictures resting on the corner of Kate’s desk, then picked up a framed photograph of Kate holding Erin as an infant. Her husband, Jim, was standing beside them, ever the proud father. Jim was smiling widely, his arm around Kate’s shoulders, her own eyes shining with pride and happiness. The perfect family. How long ago it seemed.

Kate’s heart tugged and tears clogged her throat, tears she needed to hide. Oh, God, could she go through with this? Could she not? She knew she should leave, right now, before he reeled her in and she became a part of something corrupt, something darker than it appeared on the surface. Something she wanted. Standing, she slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “I think I’d better go. Laura’s waiting for me—”

Setting the picture back in its resting place on the desk, Tyrell straightened, then walked slowly around the desk to stand behind her. Gently, he placed his hands on her shoulders.

She shifted away, turned, and glared at him. “Don’t.”

“I know how hard it was for you to lose Jim and Erin,” Tyrell said kindly. “You…well, you’ve never been the same. I thought that this might be a godsend to you, to give you new purpose, a child. But if you’d rather pass—”

“No!” she blurted out, though her rational mind told her to walk out the door, to stay as far as possible from Tyrell and his unethical scheme. This was crazy. Ludicrous! Impossible! Illegal, for crying out loud! And yet despite all her well-laid arguments, she couldn’t let this opportunity slip through her empty fingers. A baby! Her baby! “I—I don’t know what to say, I mean, I’d have to know more. How do I know this baby isn’t kidnapped?”

His face muscles relaxed. He knew he had her and she felt incredibly weak and manipulated. “Trust me, Kate. We’re talking about a newborn who isn’t wanted, who needs a mother, who deserves to be loved. He’ll have to be hidden far away so that his psycho of a father never finds him. This is an opportunity for you to be a mother again—an opportunity that may never happen otherwise.”

She blinked against a sudden wash of hot tears. For the past two years she’d felt an overwhelming sense of guilt and remorse for the deaths of the two people closest to her. Maybe this was a chance to make it up; or maybe it was God’s way of giving her a reason to live.

“Okay, so it’s decision time. What’ll it be? Have we got a deal?”

“I need time to think.”

“There is no time.” He sighed heavily. “You know, Katie, I thought this would make you happy.”

“It…it would.”

“So you’ll do it?”

She hesitated only a second. Inside she was shaking. “Yes.”

“Good.” He hesitated, tugging at his lower lip. “There is one other thing, Kate.”

She braced herself. “What’s that?”

“You know how much I think of you, how…well, how I’ve tried to get close to you.”

She closed her eyes for an instant. “I don’t want to hear this.”

“Even before Jim was killed.”

“I know, Tyrell.” She stepped away from him, the backs of her calves brushing up against the seat of her secretarial chair.

“And I wasn’t as much of a gentleman as I should have been.” He ran a hand through his hair, as if he were embarrassed. “I feel badly about it, really. I’d like to make it up to you.”

“By what? Allowing me this adoption?”

“Not adoption. Remember that. This child is your own flesh and blood.” He stared at her long and hard, as if silently assessing her mettle, determining if she was up to the role she’d have to play. “God, you’re beautiful.”

She swallowed hard.

“You know, I think I’m half in love with you. Can you imagine that? Me—the confirmed bachelor. Anyway, I would have done anything for you, Kate. Anything. After Jim died, I thought I could help you get over him, that we could get together.”

“It…it could never happen,” she said firmly.

He stared at her for a long minute, and as if he finally understood that she wouldn’t change her mind, he let out a sigh. “Yes, well, I figured as much, but I thought it was worth at least saying aloud.” Clearing his throat, he walked to the window and stared outside. The reflection from a stoplight flashed red against his skin. “Well, now that I’ve thoroughly embarrassed myself, I suppose we should get down to business.”

She waited, watching the play of emotions cross his face. He looked cornered and defeated, but she had to remind herself that Tyrell Clark was like a cat with his proverbial nine lives. No matter what, he always landed on his feet. She’d seen it time and time again.

“I’ll get the necessary paperwork together and then you’ll leave town with your newborn son.” His face clouded a bit. “I wish…” Shaking his head, he chuckled without a trace of mirth. “Oh, well, you know what they say about wishes and beggars. As part of the deal, I’m giving you ten thousand dollars.”

“Oh, no—”

“For the child. It will be expensive at first.” He saw the questions in her eyes. “It’s not from me. The maternal grandfather wants to be sure that the baby is cared for properly. If you don’t need the cash now, you can always buy bonds—think about the future, college or a house or whatever.” He waved off her concerns but she felt sick inside. Adding money into the deal gave it a darker, more corrupt hue.

“So the grandfather is financing all this?”

“You might not approve of it, Kate, but you should look at it as a gift. No one’s twisting your arm,” he reminded her. “What would you like to call him?”

“What?”

“He’ll need a name.”

“Oh, Lord. I don’t know. How about Jon? Jonathan Rudisill Summers.”

“Clever girl,” he commented. “Your maiden name and Jim’s.” He smiled to himself.

“How will I know that no one will ever contact me? Want the boy back?”

“You have my word.”

He slid the envelope that had held the photograph in it across the desk. “Here’s the cash.”

“I don’t want the money.”

“Take it, Kate. Look, you’re going into this with your eyes open, but you’ve got to promise to practically fall off the face of the earth and, no matter what, pretend that the baby is yours.”

She swallowed back her last, lingering doubts and picked up the bulky manila envelope. “I will,” she vowed because somewhere in this city an innocent newborn boy lay in a bed alone and frightened. He needed her.

And God only knew how much she needed him.

Run, run, run!

Jon raced through the dark city, his sneakers slapping against the wet pavement, his heart pounding so hard he thought it would explode. Piles of dirty slush lined the unfamiliar streets, snow fell from the sky, dancing in the pools of light cast by the streetlamps. Far away he heard the sound of a siren and over it all the muted strains of a Christmas carol.

“God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay…”

Where the hell was he?

And who was chasing him?

Killer.

The word rang through his brain.

What?

The one who wants you dead.

As in dead and buried. Six feet underground, covered in ripe soil…

No!

Breathless, he glanced over his shoulder and saw a looming shadow, dark and swift, a weapon in one gloved hand as it swept the poorly lit streets.

God help me.

Jon turned sharply, slipping and catching himself with one hand, to sprint forward, into a narrow alley, where the cheery Christmas lights no longer blinked, where only dark oblivion awaited him.

Please don’t let this be a dead end, he silently prayed as the sounds of the carol oozed through the night.

“…to save us all from Satan’s power when we have gone astray…”

He nearly ran into the brick wall.

Oh, God, a blind alley!

He heard the sounds of his pursuer so close behind, felt his skin crawl, and his soul go numb as he turned and knew that there was no way out…

Jon Summers opened his mouth to scream…

And woke up with a jolt. He was shaking, the sheets of his twin bed wet with sweat, his heart tattooing in his eardrums as the recurring dream…the nightmare he knew to be a premonition, faded into the gray light of dawn.

He let out his breath and hoped to God that he hadn’t screamed aloud and woken his mother. Fingers twisting in the bed sheets, he slowly let out his breath and knew, deep in his heart, that his dream was a foreshadowing of events to come. They might not play out exactly as he’d envisioned, but they sure as hell were going to play out.

Oh, God, why me? he wondered as he always did whenever a vision passed behind his eyes. The ones at night scared the hell out of him and the ones during the day…well, he just had to hide those or else all the other kids would think he was a freak—not that they didn’t already.

Kicking off the tangled sheet, he ran a hand around his jaw and felt a little bit of stubble on his chin. He needed a smoke and knew his mother wouldn’t approve. She didn’t approve of much he did these days, but she’d really flip out if she knew about this latest vision. Swiping the sweat from his forehead, he pushed Houndog out of the way, climbed out of bed, and plowed through the towels and clothes on the floor of his closet. Without turning on a light, he kneeled down, his fingers skimming the baseboard until he found the spot where he’d rolled up the carpet and cut a hole in the floorboards this past summer. Inside was his stash of all things his mother considered contraband.

Slowly he lifted the board and reached into the dark hole. His fingers moved deftly over an old copy of Penthouse he’d found in the recycling bins just outside of town, a jackknife he’d purchased with his own money, a box of condoms Billy Eagle had swiped from an older kid, all the cash he had in the world—about seventy-eight bucks—and a framed picture of Jennifer Caruso. Finally, the tips of his fingers brushed against his pack of cigarettes and lighter.

Not making a sound, he padded barefoot, wearing only his flannel boxers, to the window. Houndog let out a muffled bark as Jon unlocked the latch and shoved the glass open, but the half-grown pup didn’t move from his spot on the bed. Jon propped the window up with a stick, then climbed outside to the roof, where he sat on the old asphalt shingles. It was cool outside, the air brisk. Winter was coming, the night air frosty. Thousands of stars glittered in the sky and a solitary cloud passed in front of a lazy half-moon, just as it had in his vision.

Shit. His heart was beating about a million times a minute. Hands trembling, he lit up and felt the warmth of smoke roll down into his lungs. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I be normal? The same old questions he’d been asking himself for years rambled through his head, but tonight they seemed even more critical than ever. Jennifer Caruso wouldn’t go out with a weirdo like him, someone who could touch her and look into the future, not when she could have other, normal boys who played football like Dennis Flanders.

He drew hard on his Marlboro again and peered through the boughs of the pine trees surrounding this old place his mother rented. Five miles outside of town, the scrap of land was isolated except for the neighboring spread, the McIntyre ranch, which had stood empty for a few weeks, ever since old Eli had been found dead as a door nail on his kitchen floor. The old man had had himself a killer of a heart attack and no one had discovered him for three days. But Jon had known—had sensed something was wrong. He’d felt Eli’s whenever the wind had shifted and blown past Eli’s house before touching his skin. Jon had experienced a feeling—the kiss of death, he called it. It had really given him the creeps.

He’d been the one to call the sheriff’s department, anonymously of course, from a phone booth in town, and a deputy had been dispatched to find Eli still clutching his chest as he lay on the cracked linoleum only a few feet from the phone that he’d tried and failed to reach.

Jon still missed the old coot. Eli hadn’t seemed to mind that he was different. For as long as Jon could remember, the leathery old farmer had been kind to him, showing him how to whittle on his back porch, or pointing out constellations in the heavens, or letting him have a fiery swallow of his own home-brewed brand of moonshine.

Helluva thing—the old man being dead.

“Son of a bitch.” Eli was the closest thing he had to a grown-up friend. He studied the red embers of his cigarette, then took a long drag. He calmed a little as the nicotine hit his bloodstream. Mom would have a fit if she thought he was smoking—really smoking—but he didn’t care. He was fifteen, old enough to make some of his own decisions.

He couldn’t tell her about this vision tonight because she’d really wig out if she thought he was seeing his own death. She was wigged out enough already. He didn’t blame her. It wasn’t easy to be the mother of a freak, especially not in a town as small as Hopewell-damn-Oregon.

Wrapping his arms around his knees, he closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, forcing himself to think about his vision and analyze it. His fear had subsided enough for him to consider what it meant and he had to search it through—examine it from all sides—before he could lay it to rest.

In the dream it was night and he was in an unfamiliar city, a busy city that smelled of sea water, gasoline fumes, and something else—pine, maybe? Cedar? Christmas? He was running hard and fast, barely able to breathe, his lungs burning for more frigid air. Cold, mind-numbing fear chased him as buildings, tall, narrow, and looking centuries old, flashed by in a blur. The ground was blanketed with snow that had crusted with ice and he slid all over the place as he forced his legs to pump faster. His muscles began to cramp, his heart pumping in fear. Someone was chasing him—someone deadly—someone with the cunning of a wild animal, a man who could stalk prey in the forest or city, it didn’t matter.

Someone who was going to kill him.

Jon swallowed against a dry throat. Who was this guy? Try as he might, he couldn’t get a mental image of the man, but he knew with cold certainty that the stranger had been searching, looking for him, following him with the deadly and patient skills of a hunter. He wouldn’t give up.

Lights blurred his vision—blue, red, green, yellow—strings of Christmas bulbs framing doors and windows of the brick houses. Wreaths and sprigs of holly adorned the grand homes with their paned windows and warm lights. He raced past them all, hearing footsteps relentlessly pursuing him, feeling the hot breath of his enemy against the back of his neck. His feet tripped and the man caught up with him, grabbing the collar of his jacket.

Go! Go! Go! Faster!

He slipped out of his stalker’s grip.

Faster and faster he ran, gasping for air, sweat drenching his body though snow was falling all over this dark, unfamiliar town. Far away a ship’s foghorn bellowed through the night.

Sometimes the shadowed man actually caught him, a sharp hand reached forward, strong fingers clamping over his shoulder. That was usually when Jon started to scream, dragging himself out of the nightmare. But the man’s parting words always followed him into consciousness, chilling the marrow in his bones.

“I’m your father, Jon.”

Son of a bitch! Jon bit down on his bottom lip until he tasted blood. His father. His father? No way. This was too damned weird. His father was dead—buried before he’d been born. James Summers. Killed by a hit-and-run driver. Or so his mother had insisted. He’d seen the faded pictures of the thin blond man who was supposed to have been his dad and the infant who had been his older sister.

But then there had always been something odd about that story—something that didn’t ring true. His mother was never able to meet his eyes whenever they discussed his dad, and she always changed the subject quickly whenever Jon asked too many questions. Jon assumed it was because she felt somehow guilty about the accident that had taken Jim’s life along with that of Jon’s older sister.

He’d never been able to divine into his mother’s mind, not once. The gift he’d been cursed with seemed to work best on people he wasn’t close to.

Except for these damned dreams.

He squashed his cigarette into the gutter and tried to think. Maybe this was just a bad dream, not really a vision, just a nightmare. Everybody had them, didn’t they? But the goose bumps still clinging to his flesh convinced him he was only trying to fool himself. He knew the difference.

Running a shaking hand over his face, he considered waking his mother. He slid through the window and walked to the door of his room only to halt, his hand poised over the doorknob.

Stop being a baby. This is your problem. You’ve got to deal with it.

All his life he’d run to Kate, cried to her, clung to her, but he couldn’t do it forever, especially when he knew how she’d react. Nope. This time he had to handle it himself. He had time. Christmas was still two months away.

Still shaken, he climbed back into his bed, nudged the puppy off his pillow, and stacked his hands behind his head. Staring at the ceiling, he clenched his back teeth together. Nothing was ever unchangeable. The future wasn’t laid out in a perfect plan.

Jon was convinced he could alter the course of his destiny. He just had to figure out how.

By Christmas.

 

Eyes shielded by aviator sunglasses, Daegan O’Rourke eased up on the gas, allowing his old pickup to slow at the Summers place. He couldn’t see much, just a long lane that wound through a thicket of pine and scrub oak. The twin ruts were long overdue for a load of gravel, and the house, barely visible through the branches, was some kind of white cottage trimmed in cobalt blue. Neat. Clean. Just as he’d expected.

Daegan grimaced and ran a hand over four days’ worth of stubble on his jaw. Dry lips flattened over his teeth. Guilt and apprehension had been his constant companion for the past week, and now as he stared through the grime and dead insects splattered over the windshield, he wished he could roll back time and change things.

He was on a fool’s mission. No doubt about it. He’d suspected it from the minute he’d heard Bibi’s bullshit story and yet he hadn’t been able to tell her to go back to Boston where she belonged. Instead, he’d landed here in Hopewell-damned-Oregon wishing he were someplace else. Anywhere else.

Maybe he should just back up and go home to Montana, because the truth of the matter was he didn’t have the stomach for what he was about to do. He’d lost that cutting edge years ago—wasted it on a youthful need for revenge.

But curiosity and guilt had spurred him on and now here he sat in a used pickup planning his next move.

“Hell,” he ground out as he drove a little farther, to the next long drive. This house, a sorry hovel, was more visible from the county road that ran straight as an arrow from the blue hills in the distance to the town of Hopewell about five miles in the other direction. Weeds and tall, dry grass already gone to seed choked the lane and scraped the underbelly of his truck as he pulled in. He braked at the open gate. A freshly painted FOR SALE sign had been nailed to the weathered fence, and Daegan decided that he’d just been granted his first break in the ten days since he’d reluctantly started this, his personal quest.

Maybe his luck was changing.

Oh, yeah, and maybe you’ll win the lottery, too, you son of a bitch.

His body ached from hours in the truck and he’d have liked nothing better than a beer to cool his parched throat, but first things first. He opened the glove compartment and pulled out a leather pouch. Fingering past a thick stack of bills, he found what he was looking for—several snapshots, old black-and-white stills taken by a private investigator’s camera, pictures of a girl who was nearly twenty at the time. Her long hair was caught back in a ponytail, her face clean and fresh scrubbed as she dashed across the corner of School and Washington Streets toward the Old Corner Bookstore Building in Boston. A backpack was slung over one arm and she looked over her shoulder, directly into the camera’s hidden eye. Pretty, young, brimming with vitality. Even features, large eyes, and arched eyebrows. Full lips and a wary expression.

He wondered how much she’d changed since then, but then he wondered about a lot of things when it came to Kate Summers, a woman he’d never met.

Yet.

That would have to change.

Stuffing the photos back into the pouch, he located an old receipt for a six-pack he’d picked up at a convenience store in Boise, and with a pencil the previous owner of the truck had tucked into the visor, Daegan scribbled down the number of the real estate agent who’d agreed to list these dry, barren acres. He didn’t much care about the land; the ranch would just provide him with the cover he needed until he’d figured out his next move, but the location was perfect.

Location, location, location. Wasn’t that the phrase real estate agents always promoted when they were trying to sell you a place? Well, in this case, being right next door to Kate Summers’s house, they were right. The location was perfect.

 

“I’m telling you, Kate, a boy that age needs a father.”

A father. Kate’s blood ran cold at the mention of the man who had sired Jon—the criminal who didn’t know he’d created a son.

“…any boy that age needs a man around. I’m not just talking about Jon, but because he’s well…different, you know, and hard to handle, he needs the influence of a strong man even more. Now, I know it’s really none of my business, but what’re friends for?” Cornelia Olsen asked, her voice blaring from the telephone receiver.

Yes, what? Kate walked around the counter, stretching the phone cord as she opened a kitchen cabinet and found a bottle of aspirin. Even after fifteen years, the mention of the circumstances surrounding Jon’s birth made her break out in a cold sweat. As Cornelia continued to ramble on about Kate’s teenage hell-on-wheels son, about the McIntyre place next door being unoccupied now that old Eli had died and what did that mean—that more riff-raff would be moving into Hopewell, that’s what it meant—about how the weather had turned from a furnace blast two weeks ago to the cool of autumn now that it was nearly November, Kate tossed back the pills and chased them with a gulp of cold coffee. She didn’t care about the weather or the McIntyre place. But Jon worried her. He worried her a lot.

Lately he’d seemed edgy and restless, more abrupt than usual. Kate had told herself that it was just adolescence, that he was going through natural changes, physical as well as emotional. But there was more—an undercurrent of tension that was nearly palpable. He was worried, but whenever she asked him about school, or homework, or girls, or whatever she could think of, he clammed up—his latest defense mechanism. Where he used to say too much, letting people know that he could see things others couldn’t, lately he’d become withdrawn and brooding. She imagined that he was always looking over his shoulder and wondered what kind of trouble he’d discovered.

Drugs? Sex? Alcohol? Gangs? Weapons? Or was she overreacting? Was it that big of a deal that his grades had slipped and he’d become more sullen?

She stared out the open window to the late October afternoon. Leaves, lifted by an autumn breeze, skittered across the back porch, where Jon’s puppy, a black-and-white mutt of indecipherable lineage, lay on an old rag rug. The stalks of corn, now sunbleached and dry, were beginning to tumble down in the garden, where a few red tomatoes were visible through a tangle of pumpkin vines. Half a dozen apples that she’d failed to pick had fallen to the ground to wither and rot in the yellow, bent grass. Fall was definitely in the air, and though she was loath to admit it, Jon had become more of a problem than ever—she cut that line of thinking short. Jon was her son—not a problem—and she’d do anything, anything to keep him happy and safe. It was her vow when she’d first seen him, tiny and red-faced. So far she’d kept her promise.

 

“Never tell anyone that he’s not your boy,” Tyrell had insisted as she’d held the swaddled infant close to her breast so that he could hear her heartbeat. She’d felt the baby’s breath, warm and fragile through her clothes, and a joy had swept through her, a happiness that was kept at bay by the fear that what she was doing was wrong.

“I won’t.”

Tyrell’s tongue had nervously rimmed his lips. Whether it had to do with the adoption or the fact that the IRS was on his tail, Kate didn’t know. “The paperwork’s in here—it all looks legal.” He’d slipped a long envelope into the side pocket of the diaper bag she’d purchased. “When’re you moving?” he’d asked, his gaze sweeping over the packing crates and boxes in her small apartment.

“This weekend.”

“Still going to the West Coast?”

“Seattle first, then maybe Oregon.”

He held his hands up, palms outward. “The less I know, the better.”

“What if the family comes looking for him?” she asked in a sudden rush of panic. Now that she was cradling the baby in her arms, she couldn’t imagine ever letting him go.

“They won’t.” Tyrell barked out a laugh tinged in irony. “Believe me, they’ve worked too hard to keep this all a secret.”

“And the father—?”

“Don’t worry about him. He’s still locked up and doesn’t even know he has a son.”

“But he could find out.”

Tyrell’s dark gaze drilled into hers. “Don’t let it happen, Kate. For the baby’s sake. Leave and never come back.”

“My sister lives here,” she pointed out, thinking of Laura, how close they’d been, how Laura had helped her through that painful nightmare of guilt and grief after Erin and Jim had been killed.

“Send her a plane ticket. Have her visit you, but for God’s sake, Kate, don’t ever come back to Boston.”

She’d taken Tyrell’s suggestion to heart. And she’d never heard from him again.

 

However, now, years later, one phone call from a neighborhood busybody with a heart of gold and suddenly all the worries she’d lived with, the doubts and fears, came rushing back to slap her with the force of a hurricane. Her mouth was dry and she could barely concentrate on the conversation. Get a grip, Kate!

“…so I just thought you’d want to know,” Cornelia was saying so loudly that Kate had to hold the receiver away from her ear. The poor woman, a gossip by nature, was deaf as a stone and didn’t realize it. “I’m telling you I wanted to know everything my boys were up to when they were teenagers. Whenever one of ’em wasn’t where he was supposed to be, my radar went up, let me tell you. I figured I needed to be the first to find out what was going on. Thought you’d feel the same.”

“You’re sure it was Jon you saw?” Kate asked, hoping against hope that the town busybody was mistaken. Her fingers clutched the receiver in a death grip, which was silly. Cornelia had innocently mentioned that Jon needed . . .