Always Look Twice (36 page)

Annabelle watched that truth sink into Mark. Moving slow like an old man, he reached down and righted the chair he’d knocked over. ‘‘I’m leaving. I have to go. C’mon, Annabelle.’’

She rose from her seat, feeling a little shaky. She could only imagine what Mark was feeling. He’d be hurt. Bitter.

When Mark reached the threshold of the study door, his father asked, ‘‘Son . . . will I see you again?’’

Mark paused, grimaced, then shook it off. ‘‘You have been a meddling bastard most all of my life. You’ve made some stupid, horrible, fatal decisions. Told some terrible lies. That said, portions of this story make sense. That doesn’t mean I’m ready to accept it or excuse it . . . or make peace with it.’’

At that, a tiny bubble of bitter laughter did escape Annabelle’s throat. Mark shot her an unreadable look before he continued. ‘‘One thing I do know, however, is that I’m done running away from my past. So, yeah, I’ll be back.’’

As Annabelle followed him out the door, Branch called softly, ‘‘Take care of him, Annabelle. Please, take care of him.’’

Not knowing what to say, she simply waved a sad good-bye.

The night was moonless, dark, and heavy as they left Callahan House. Climbing into the SUV, neither Annabelle nor Mark spoke. The silence continued during the drive out to the lake house. They passed beneath a streetlamp and light flashed across his face, revealing that his thoughts were somewhere else. Sometime else.

With someone else.

She wanted to cry. Instead, she sucked it up and asked herself how she wanted to play this. She considered the question all the way to the lake, a trip that took forever, but not nearly long enough. They went in through the kitchen door into the darkened house. Mark switched on the light above the sink. She saw a myriad of emotions etched across his expression— pain, grief, and disbelief among them—as he took a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water from the tap.

He drank the entire glass; then finally, he spoke. ‘‘Belle . . . this is a mess.’’

She gave him a sad, sweet smile. ‘‘That’s one way to put it.’’

He set down the glass. ‘‘Carrie . . . that baby was mine, Annabelle. Branch is wrong and I have to find out what happened.’’

‘‘I know you do.’’ Then, because her knees were a little weak, she pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat down.

‘‘Kevin Starr was an old friend of hers who had moved to Savannah, too. While I don’t believe for a minute that she cheated on me with him, for Starr to be on Branch’s radar . . . there is smoke of some sort.’’

Annabelle chose her words carefully. ‘‘With all the parental stuff going on, the interference, her fear . . . she was young, Mark. Awfully young. Anything could have happened.’’

He dragged a hand down his face. ‘‘I thought I’d moved past all this. Honestly, I did. I was ready to let it all go. Ready to commit to you. Before the debacle with Kurtz, I had decided to duck out of the hospital and buy you a ring. Matt got Torie’s here in town and she really seems to like it.’’

Annabelle knew he didn’t realize he’d just plunged a knife into her heart, so she said simply, lamely, ‘‘It’s a beautiful ring.’’

‘‘But I can’t just go off,’’ he said, his hands fisting at his sides. ‘‘We can’t forget that someone is out there killing Fixers.’’

She’d never seen him look so torn, so worried, and it was in that moment that Annabelle finally decided just how she had to handle this. ‘‘I haven’t forgotten anything, Callahan, including how good you are in the field. Are you afraid you can’t take care of yourself?’’

‘‘No. That’s not it.’’

She folded her arms, silently challenging him to dare say he worried she couldn’t take care of herself.

Mark was smarter than that.

‘‘I’ll hook up with Tag and Noah,’’ she told him. ‘‘We will cover the Fixer issue. You can focus on . . . old ghosts.’’

In a soft, low rumble, he said, ‘‘I don’t want to leave you, Belle.’’

She smiled sadly. ‘‘You really don’t have a choice, do you?’’

‘‘No. No, I don’t.’’ He briefly closed his eyes. ‘‘I have to find out what happened. Find out the truth. Find my . . .’’

She finished it for him. ‘‘Find your wife.’’

A muscle in his jaw twitched. Guilt clouded his green eyes. ‘‘I don’t know how long this will take. I don’t know what I will find.’’ He leaned back against the cabinet and gripped the edge of the granite countertop. With grim stoicism he declared, ‘‘I can’t ask you to wait.’’

She swallowed, drew a deep, bracing breath, and rose from her seat, fighting back the pain in her stiff muscles and in her breaking heart. ‘‘I’m whipped, Mark. I am going to go soak in a hot tub, then fall into bed.’’

Then, because she couldn’t help herself, she crossed the room to him. She reached out and brushed her thumb across the ridges of his knuckles, gone white from the force of his grip. ‘‘Go make peace with your ghosts, Mark Callahan.’’ Lifting her hand, she gently touched his face. ‘‘Go heal your heart.’’

She went up on her tiptoes and quickly kissed him one last time, a brief touch of lips, a fast good-bye. The only way she could bear it. Then she stepped away and turned around, rushing for the door. As she reached the threshold, he asked, ‘‘Annabelle? Will you wait?’’

She stopped, but didn’t turn around. ‘‘I thought you weren’t going to ask.’’

‘‘Yeah, well, I lied.’’

She swallowed hard, licked her lips, and said, ‘‘I’ll wait, Callahan. Not forever, but for a while. If you do come back to me, I expect you to bring a heart that is whole and healthy and finally, once and for always, all mine.’’

She went upstairs then, took her long hot bath, and fell into bed, exhausted.

When she awoke in the morning, he was gone.

Annabelle slipped the last dinner plate into her mother’s dishwasher, then added soap and closed the door. Out on the driveway, she heard the bounce of a basketball, a
clang
as it hit the rim, and the grunts and groans of men fighting hard for the rebound.

Noah, Tag, and her brother, Adam, were warming up, waiting for her to join them. Despite having cooked tonight, she’d volunteered for KP, too. Honestly, she simply wasn’t in the mood for basketball this evening. She’d rather go up to her room, crawl into bed, and have a pity-party crying spell.

Today had been a frustrating day. Their investigation into the gallery woman had ground to a halt. They had no more clues to follow, no more leads to pursue. Though Annabelle had been thrilled when Tag found Rhonda Parsons alive and healthy, she was frustrated that he learned nothing more to add to the puzzle. Noah’s investigation in Europe had reached a dead end, too, a fact confirmed in an afternoon conference call with Colonel Warren in which Noah’s suspicion regarding the involvement of a Germany-based terrorist cell had been put to bed.

They didn’t know what to do next. Tag thought they should all stay together to watch one another’s backs. Noah believed that the gallery woman’s death likely ended that direction of the threat. Annabelle . . . well . . . Annabelle didn’t know what they should do.

She wanted to ask for Mark’s advice, but she hadn’t talked to him. He kept in touch with Tag and Noah, she knew, but he’d quit phoning her after the first few days when she didn’t answer his call. She didn’t want a play-by-play. Didn’t want to hear his voice from somewhere far away. She missed him too much as it was. Her loneliness for him went bone deep. Her hope for a happy ending was hanging by a string.

‘‘Stop it,’’ she murmured as she switched the dishwasher on. She wiped her hands on a dish towel and hung it on a rack. Glancing into a mirror, she put on her game face and stepped out onto the front porch, where her parents sat ready to watch basketball.

‘‘There you are,’’ her mother said. ‘‘I was getting ready to send the boys in there to help.’’

‘‘And stink up your kitchen with their sweat? Really, Mama. You’d have to air the place out before fixing pancakes in the morning.’’ She leaned down and kissed her mother’s cheek, then said, ‘‘Now, if y’all will excuse me, I have to go kick some basketball butt.’’

She picked up her muddy athletic shoes from where she’d left them beside the door and headed for the porch steps when her father said, ‘‘Car coming.’’

Immediately, she tensed. They weren’t expecting any more family tonight, and friends seldom arrived at the Monroe farm unannounced. Since her dad had an ear for engines, she asked, ‘‘What kind of car?’’

‘‘Big engine. Not a truck. Sports car, I suspect.’’

Annabelle dropped her shoes, ducked back into the house, and retrieved her gun. ‘‘Guys?’’ she called. ‘‘We have company.’’

Noah and Tag stopped the game and grabbed their weapons. In a long-practiced habit that needed no directions, they took up defensive positions. Annabelle waited beside her parents.

A Porsche took the turn into the farmhouse drive just a little too fast and sent dust flying before slowing for the final hundred yards up to the house. As the car drew closer, Annabelle could see two occupants inside the car, though a tinted windshield prevented her from identifying their features.

The car rolled to a stop. Annabelle’s heart began to pound. Began to hope.

The passenger-side door and the driver-side door opened at the same time. Two tall male figures unfolded from the seats. ‘‘Oh, wow,’’ Annabelle said.

‘‘Oh, my God.’’

Her father reached over and removed her gun from her numb fingers. Everything about her was numb.

Mark Callahan shut the passenger door, then removed his Oakley sunglasses and met Annabelle’s gaze. Under other circumstances, he would have held her gaze, but as it was, she couldn’t stop looking at the driver of the car.

He stood the same. Moved the same. When he took off a pair of Ray-Ban aviators, she repeated, ‘‘Oh. My. God.’’

She stepped down from the porch and crossed the lawn. The car doors shut and Mark moved toward her, stopping an arm’s length away. ‘‘Hello, Belle.’’

She cleared her throat. ‘‘That’s not Margaret Mary.’’

‘‘No.’’ He flashed a nervous smile. ‘‘She named him Mark. I’m guessing ‘Junior,’ but . . . well . . . we’ve decided on ‘Chris.’ He’s my son.’’

‘‘Definitely no doubt about that,’’ she said, blowing out a heavy breath. He was a lanky, leaner, younger Mark. Same hair, same eyes, same nervous smile.

Only two seats in that car. Where was the young man’s mother?

Mark said, ‘‘I’d like to introduce you. Then we can talk?’’

‘‘Sure.’’ She nodded, aware that her knees had gone weak, her palms damp. Furtively, she wiped her hands on her shorts.

She realized that her mother, father, and brother had moved to stand behind her. Tag and Noah watched the proceedings from either side. Annabelle pasted a smile on her face and tried not to faint.

‘‘Belle, I’d like you to meet my son, Mark Christopher Callahan. Chris . . .’’ Mark paused, waited for Annabelle to jerk her gaze away from his son’s. Only when she looked at him, only when his green-eyed gaze captured hers and held her captive, did he finish the sentence. ‘‘. . . this is Annabelle Monroe, the woman I love. The most beautiful, courageous, generous, forgiving woman on the face of this earth. The woman who I hope to remarry just as soon as we can manage it.’’

Annabelle’s world started spinning. As if through a fog, she heard Chris say, ‘‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.’’ He shook her hand. Nice and polite. Then he looked at his father. ‘‘You’re right, Dad. She’s a hottie.’’

Annabelle burst out with a breathless laugh. Nice, polite, and a Callahan, through and through.

Mark wanted privacy for their talk, so he led her away from the house and prying eyes and curious ears. Chris joined Harrington, Kincannon, and Annabelle’s brother in their basketball game, so he knew they’d wheedle all the details out of his son before long. That was fine with him. It’d save him having to tell the story twice.

As they walked past the barn, Mark motioned toward the door. ‘‘How about in here?’’

‘‘Sure.’’

She strode into the barn and climbed the ladder up into the loft. Mark followed her, glanced around, and noted the bales of hay and one big haystack. His Kansas farm girl. He could work with this. ‘‘Where would you like me to start?’’

She cut right to the heart of it. ‘‘Where is Carrie?’’

‘‘She died a long time ago.’’

Annabelle sank down onto a hay bale and heaved an audible sigh. ‘‘Okay, then. Okay. I . . . um . . . it would be disingenuous of me to say I’m sorry, but you do have my sympathy. Chris, especially.’’

‘‘He doesn’t remember her, Annabelle.’’

‘‘Why don’t you start at the beginning.’’

He took a seat beside her, inhaled the familiar jasmine scent of her lotion, and felt like he’d finally come home. He wanted to bury his face against her neck, sink his fingers into her hair. Plunge his . . . but first things first.

‘‘The first thing I did after leaving Texas was to track down Carrie’s mother. What a bitter old bitch Vicki Hansen is. I never heard so much venom come out of a woman’s mouth in my whole life. She shared some prime opinions about my dad. She didn’t hesitate to tell me that when Carrie ran away, she knew her money tree had disappeared. Vicki despised my dad, truly hated him, by that time. She decided that since she lost her daughter, it was only fair that Branch lose his son.’’

‘‘That’s crazy. So, it happened like Branch said? She wrote Carrie’s letter to you? She faked their deaths?’’

‘‘Yep. The story he told us was pretty much spot-on. Vicki said she never heard from Carrie again. Since she’d hooked up with the police chief, she didn’t much care. I left pretty quickly after that because I was afraid I’d kill her.’’

Annabelle stretched out her long, summer-tanned legs and Mark focused on the hot pink polish on her toes. How could toes be so damned sexy?