Nightingale Way: An Eternity Springs Novel (12 page)

“Cat said she’d keep an eye on you.”

Cat. Damn. He’d been trying not to think about Cat.

“Oh? When did she say that?”

“Ten minutes ago. Sarah called her.”

“Huh.” Jack lifted his right hand from the crutch to scratch at one of the cuts on his face that had required a stitch and was now beginning to itch. “I’m surprised she’d agree to have anything to do with me.”

“What did you do to send her running from Eagle’s Way, anyway?”

“I, um, well …” He dragged his hand across his jaw.

Cam’s brows arched. “You had sex with her.”

“Yeah,” Jack replied with a sigh.

“And, let me guess. You weren’t exactly suave James Bond about it.”

“Maybe she wants to smother me in my sleep.”

Cam nodded sagely. “Now I understand her comment to Sarah. She said she’s been taking in dogs for months now through her work with the rescue group, so the precedent has been set.”

So, she was calling him a dog? That’s better than some things he could think of. Better than some things he deserved to be called. “Where am I supposed to stay? Not in her room, I imagine.”

“No.” Cam waved a hello to Celeste as she entered the rose garden, pruning shears in hand, then gestured toward a red Victorian-style cabin along the bank of Angel Creek. “You’re over here in one of the cottages.”

The carved wood sign hanging beside the door read
THE COUGAR’S LAIR
. From eagle to cougar, hmm? Okay, he could work with that. “Where is Cat staying?”

A smirk on his face, Cam gestured toward the cottage next to his. “Nightingale Cottage.”

She’d be closer to him here than she’d been at Eagle’s Way.

“The cabins are mirror images of each other, so your bedroom windows face each other.”

So he could look up and see her light at night. He
liked the sound of that. Through the years of their marriage, she’d always been the light in his darkness.

The exercise and the conversation had helped his head to clear somewhat, and Jack considered his earlier rambles to Cam. Did he honestly intend to go vigilante? Had the idea been a drug-induced, dark-night-of-the-soul idiocy or something he truly wanted to do? Right at the moment, he couldn’t say for sure.

Well, it wouldn’t hurt anything to make some preliminary preparations. He could do that from here with his laptop and a phone. Any arrangements that required a secure connection wouldn’t be made until after the initial plans were in place, anyway. He had time.

And besides, right now, he could really use a bed and another nap.

“You think Devin would make a run up to the house to pick up some things for me?”

Cam visibly relaxed. “Absolutely. My boy said to tell you that if you needed anything to give him a shout.”

“I’ll make a list.”

Twenty minutes later, Jack lay stretched out on a comfortable queen-size bed in the Cougar’s Lair cottage. He wanted to sleep, but his mind continued to spin with images from recent days and his black mood returned.

He was tired. So damned tired. Sorrow and guilt had a vise grip on his soul.

Tony was dead because of him. His wife a widow because of decisions he’d made. Tony’s daughter would grow up without her father because a few years ago, Jack had actually believed that their work made the world a better place.

It’s nothing but whack-a-mole. Beat down one piece of scum and another one pops up somewhere else. Why even try?

Because the good people are worth saving
, his conscience argued.
You have to try
.

With those and similar thoughts sounding a never-ending litany through his mind, he lay mired in a black morass of depression, aching both physically and emotionally, until the soothing sound of Celeste Blessing’s voice lifted in song lulled him to sleep.

Seeing Jack bloodied and hurt had unsettled Cat. He’d come home battered in times past, with new scars and stitches, but she’d never seen his injuries in such a fresh state. She tried to tell herself that her heart would nearly stop, her knees almost buckle, at the sight of any injured soul, but honesty made her admit that seeing a blood-streaked Jack in a wheelchair had turned her blood to ice. She’d been shaken and restless when she returned to Nightingale Cottage, so she’d gone for a soak in the hot tub pools. It had proved to be just what she’d needed, and she returned to her cottage relaxed.

After taking a shower, she’d sat down to watch a movie on TV and ended up falling asleep. Her ringing cell phone woke her and she’d listened in disbelief as Sarah had relayed news of Jack’s infinitely idiotic plan to play mercenary army general and Cam’s subsequent demand that Jack stay in Eternity Springs until after the wedding. “The problem is that if he stays holed up alone at Eagle’s Way, we’re afraid he might actually go through with it,” Sarah said.

“I’m not moving back up there,” Cat told her. She didn’t want Jack doing something stupid like declaring war with Mexico, but she needed space from him.

That’s when Sarah had suggested Jack join her at Angel’s Rest—in a separate cabin, of course. “He needs
someone to check up on him until he’s off his crutches. Cam thinks that once life in Eternity Springs has its opportunity to work its magic, he’ll see the idea of declaring war on drug lords as the idiocy that it is.”

“I think it’s a good idea for him to have people around,” Cat had replied. “But I don’t see why I need to be involved. Jack has friends in town who can check on him. For that matter, he can hire a full-time nurse if that’s what he needs. He could have someone flown in today to wait on his every whim. Money isn’t an issue for him, you know.”

“I know. But Celeste suggested that we’d have better success getting him to see how ridiculous this private army idea is if you are the one watching over him here for the next few days. We’ve learned to pay attention to Celeste. She’s uncanny about such things.”

Private army
. Cat recalled how devastated he’d been yesterday, and how completely out of character all of his actions had been since he returned from Texas. She sincerely doubted he’d do anything so ridiculous, but then again, he wasn’t being himself.

She would worry about his being on crutches if he were alone up at Eagle’s Way. She could picture him becoming entangled, taking a tumble down the stairs, and cracking his head open on the floor. It’d be one thing if she never knew he was on crutches, but now that she did know … yikes. She wouldn’t sleep well from worrying about him.

Great. Just great. Would it be a big deal to look in on him a time or two? She’d do that for any injured animal, wouldn’t she? Besides, in a weird sort of way, she owed him. He had gone to the trouble of abducting her, hadn’t he? “Just for the next few days?”

“He’ll be off his crutches in a week.”

“All right. I’ll do it.”

“Good. Celeste said she’d put him in the cottage next
to you if you agreed. I’ll tell Celeste, and someone will let you know once he’s settled in at Angel’s Rest.”

They discussed Sarah’s wedding plans for a few moments before ending the call, and not five minutes after she hung up, her phone rang again. Nic Callahan was calling to thank her for stepping up to help Jack. “I haven’t seen Gabe this upset in a very long time. We were ready to bring him here, but I’m just afraid that toddlers and crutches don’t mix.”

Once they’d exhausted the subject of Jack’s stupidity—though honestly, Cat could have gone on for hours about that—Nic asked her a question about Paw Pals and talk turned to the therapeutic value of pets. The veterinarian relayed the story of how a stray dog—now their Clarence—had literally saved Gabe’s life, and that gave Cat the germ of an idea. “Does Eternity Springs have an animal services department?”

“We have someone who is lead on wildlife issues.”

“Not wildlife. I mean a pet shelter.”

“That would be my kennel. We don’t have a large number of strays, and those we do have are part of a shelter round-robin agreement I have with other vets in this section of the state. We’ll move animals every six weeks so they are seen by a broader community and have a better shot at adoption.”

“That’s a really good idea. So, do you have any adoptable dogs now?”

“Actually, I have two, a toy mix and a boxer. Why do you ask?”

“When you talked about Clarence coming out of the snow to save Gabe, it made me think of the cartoons when we were kids where the Saint Bernard with the keg of whiskey around his neck would come to the rescue. I think Jack needs a dog.”

“To bring him whiskey if he trips and falls?”

“The excuse would be that he’d bark in the middle of
the night if Jack needs attention, but the real benefit would be giving him a companion. Jack is too alone. Maybe if he had a dog at home, he wouldn’t be so quick to run off to war. If you have a dog who doesn’t have any better prospects, maybe he could come to Jack as a loaner?”

The connection went quiet for a moment as Nic considered it. “Ordinarily I am against giving someone a pet as a gift, and I’ve never done a ‘loaner’ before, but I think you might be on to something here. I can’t see Jack with a toy breed, but the boxer back there is as big as a house and friendly as can be. He also doesn’t have any better prospects at the moment. His name is Fred.”

“Fred?”

“That’s what his tag read when Gabe found him. He had his dog, Clarence, with him up at the Timberlakes’ new place at Heartache Falls. Clarence wandered into the woods and came out a little while later with Fred. I thought for sure someone would adopt him, but he’s made the round of shelters and is back to me. I do everything I can to avoid euthanasia, but …”

“Can I see him?”

“How soon can you be here?”

“It’s a short walk, isn’t it?”

“I do it in seven minutes.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

“I’ll gather up some supplies.”

Half an hour later, Cat returned to Angel’s Rest, a tote bag filled with a small sack of food and two chew toys in one hand, the end of a leash in the other. She decided to brave the beast right away. She knocked on the door of Cougar’s Lair, and after a moment she heard a grumbled “Yeah?”

“It’s Cat. May I come in?”

“I’m asleep.”

She took that as a yes. Opening the door, a firm grip
on Fred’s leash, she called out, “I know what your problem is, Davenport. You need a dog.”

“Like I need a chick flick and a strawberry daiquiri,” he called back from the bedroom. “I want a beer, a burger, and a ballgame on TV, but I’ll settle for a glass of water. Since you’re here, Cat, would you mind helping me out?”

Cat debated, glanced down at Fred who was sniffing his way around the kitchenette, then dropped the leash before she took a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water. As she stepped toward the back room, she heard him say, “Oh, you have got to be kidding.”

Cat entered Jack’s bedroom to see Fred with his front paws up on the side of Jack’s bed, gazing adoringly up at the man who looked like an Independence Day holdover—red road burns and blue bruises against an unnaturally pale complexion. “You look terrible,” she observed.

“Why did you let a dog in here?”

“Jack, meet Fred. Fred is the Eternity Springs version of that medical alert button that you hang around your neck.”

“What?”

“You know … ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’?”

Jack closed his eyes. “I know what this is. I’m still asleep and this is a nightmare.”

“Tell me about it.” Her lips twitched with a smile when she saw Jack give Fred a surreptitious scratch behind his ears. “You’re supposed to be up on the mountain, not down here within shouting distance of me. I left you.”

“Yeah, I know. So why are you back?”

“I’m not back. You followed me. In an extraordinarily stupid manner, I might add. You know, Davenport, I’ve called you a lot of names over the years. Stupid was never one of them. Before today.”

He cocked open one eye. “Take your dog and go, Cat.”

“Fred is your dog now. He was a stray who didn’t get adopted. He needs to be rescued, Jack.”

“That’s not going to work.”

Sure it would. “Then you take it up with Nic Callahan. Maybe she’ll let you fill the needle she’ll have to use to put him down.”

Now he opened both eyes and snarled at her. He’d given in, just as she’d known he would. Fred took the opportunity to put his front paws up on the bed again and lick Jack’s hand. “How is it all of a sudden I have to take care of a dog? I thought you were supposed to take care of me.”

“You and I both know that you can take care of yourself. Fred will alert me if there’s trouble. He has an exceptionally loud bark.”

“Oh, joy.” His hand rubbed the top of Fred’s head.

“As long as you are at Angel’s Rest, he’s your alarm dog.”

“Now
that’s
stupid.”

“No, wanting to play like Cortés conquering the Aztecs is stupid.” As temper flared in his eyes, Cat asked a question she’d wanted to ask for some time. “Do you still work for my mother, Jack?”

At that, he pushed Fred off the bed and sat up. “Why would you ask me that? You know I can’t answer.”

The words rolled from Cat’s mouth, welling up from old wounds within her she hadn’t acknowledged in a very long time. “I hated your job, absolutely despised the fact that you worked for Melinda. You always said that you kept marriage and work as separate at Langley as you did at home, but that was difficult for me to believe. I know your job changed after Lauren died. Your out-of-town trips quadrupled.”