Nightingale Way: An Eternity Springs Novel (6 page)

Cat sat back in her chair. So, was he telling her that as a warning or as a test of some sort? It was the closest
he’d come to mentioning Lauren since he’d snatched Cat off the street.

She supposed that she should reassure him that she didn’t break out in hives or erupt into tears or sink into despair every time she spied a child. Not anymore, anyway. However, being around Jack had brought all those emotions closer to the surface—along with the old, deep resentments—so she managed only a noncommital “That’s very sad.”

When she didn’t elaborate, he said, “They’ll be in here twenty minutes or so.”

“Okay. I’ll finish up what I’m doing and join you then.”

Taking that as the dismissal it was, he nodded curtly and left. Cat blew out a breath, her thoughts racing.

So, this Gabe Callahan guy was someone Jack knew from work. “Work” could mean a whole lot of things. He could have been a bureaucrat or he could have been a spy. He could know Cat’s mother.
Oh, golly gee. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Cat shut off her computer, then made a quick trip upstairs to brush her hair and check her makeup. She knew she hadn’t made a good first impression on the Reeses, the first—and only—Eternity Springs residents she’d met. Pride made her want to redeem herself.

Fifteen minutes after Jack knocked on the sunroom door, Cat joined him outside. He carried a box of toys from the pool house closet and set them on a lounge chair as an SUV came up the road toward the house. The driver pulled the vehicle to a halt in the spot where Sarah Reese had parked on the day they’d arrived in Colorado. A handsome man wearing swim trunks and a Texas Rangers baseball jersey exited the driver’s side door, then retrieved a curly-headed blond toddler from a car seat in the back. At the same time, a pretty, ponytail-sporting
blonde removed an identical child from a second car seat on the passenger side.

Jack approached the couple, shook the man’s hand and kissed the wife, then gladly accepted the handoff of a child from her mother. Upon seeing Jack holding the toddler, emotion knifed through Cat and she caught her breath. Whoa. She hadn’t expected that.

She realized that in all the years they’d been together, she’d never seen Jack hold a child.

Stupid of her, though, not to consider the possibility. Had she thought ahead, she would have braced for the blow, and she wouldn’t be walking toward the group with a fake smile pasted on her face, trying to look anywhere else but at Jack, but unable to tear her gaze away.

Jack said, “Gabe and Nic Callahan, meet Cat Blackburn. Cat, the Callahans and their daughters, Meg and Cari.”

Gabe’s greeting was friendly enough. Nic’s was both friendly and unabashedly curious. “I have to confess that after Jack told us you were up here, I went online and read about your investigation and the bomb going off and how you’ve … um …” She cut a glance toward Jack. “… gone into hiding until your safety can be assured.”

Cat’s fake smile transformed to a genuine smirk. “As a career newspaper reporter, let me advise you not to believe everything you read in the papers.”

“Yes, well, our friend Sarah did mention that Jack said something about a kidnapping.”

“I knew she wouldn’t keep her lips zipped,” Jack said.

Nic’s grin was unabashed. “She swore me to secrecy.”

Wryly, Jack asked, “Who did you tell?”

“Just Sage Rafferty.”

“Just do me a favor? If anyone asks, her name is Catherine Davenport.” Cat frowned at Jack, who shrugged. “Just an added, and probably unnecessary, precaution.”

Gabe nodded reassuringly. “No need to worry about your safety in Eternity Springs. We take care of our own.”

One of the girls—Meg—began kicking her legs, saying, “Down, Daddy. Down.”

For the next little while the girls busied themselves throwing all of the toys one by one into the pool while the adults made small talk. The Callahans spoke of the Fourth of July picnic and fireworks show at Hummingbird Lake, then Gabe asked, “Did y’all come down to watch the fireworks?”

“No,” Jack replied. “We were still settling in here.”

What he didn’t say was that neither one of them had wanted any reminder of the romantic Fourths of July they’d spent together watching fireworks on the National Mall. In fact, the word “fireworks” had taken on a special meaning to them after they made love for the first time after returning to Jack’s town house following a Fourth of July show.

“Have you seen your cousin?” Nic asked, a frown line showing between her brows.

“I haven’t seen Cam, but he called earlier to tell me he and Devin are returning to Australia.”

Cat was more than a little surprised as she listened to the conversation about Cam Murphy and Sarah Reese’s star-crossed romance. So, Jack had a cousin named Cam who grew up in Eternity Springs? She’d never heard of any cousin before. He’d always told her he didn’t have any family.

Once the toys were all in the swimming pool, the Callahan twins showed signs of wanting to go in after them, and Cat wanted a distraction from thinking about Jack. She asked Nic, “Can your girls swim?”

“We’ve been taking water babies classes at a pool in town this summer,” the other woman replied. “They
can’t swim yet, but they have learned to go underwater and hold their breath.”

Jack got into the water with the Callahans, and after changing into a swimsuit in the pool house, Cat did, too. The toddlers laughed and splashed and squealed when their daddy blew bubbles on their tummy and Jack tossed them up in the air. While the children played, the adults talked a little politics, some major league baseball and college football, and then general news about Eternity Springs. When the girls started showing signs of fatigue, Nic and Gabe took them out of the pool, dried, dressed, and fed them, then put them down to nap in the portable beds the Callahans had brought with them. While Gabe and Nic were busy with the girls, Jack and Cat set the table for lunch.

“This looks good,” Jack said as he peeked into a container. “Chicken salad?”

“Yes, it’s Ali Timberlake’s,” Nic replied, adjusting the sunshade over Meg. “You need to give her restaurant a try while you’re in Colorado, Jack. Her menu is beginning to attract foodies from all over the state.”

“I’ll be sure to do that.”

Once the children were asleep, conversation turned to some landscaping changes that Jack had in mind for Eagle’s Way. An award-winning landscape architect, Gabe Callahan had strong opinions about Jack’s ideas, and once they’d finished their lunch, the men took their discussion into the house where they’d have access to the Internet so that Gabe could illustrate his points. Nic turned the conversation toward the dogfighting ring, explaining that she was a veterinarian. “Is it true that one of the men kept twenty-three dogs penned in his basement?”

Cat nodded. “Craig Gauthier.”

“Okay, I must confess my ignorance of pop culture. He’s the singer on TV or the race car driver?”

“The singer.”

“That’s just so wrong. They were pits?”

“Pits and pit mixes,” Cat replied. “You wouldn’t have believed what pathetic shape those dogs were in.”

“I’ve seen a lot over the years in my veterinary practice. I don’t think anything some humans do to animals could surprise me. This subject depresses me. Let’s change it.” Nic gave Cat a sidelong glance and observed, “Gabe has known Jack a long time. He said Jack was tight-lipped about his personal life. He didn’t know about the divorce.”

Cat snorted.

“The man never has been one to share much about himself.”

“How long were you married?”

“Five and a half years. We’ve been divorced for four.”

Cat wondered how much Nic Callahan would indulge her own curiosity, and she was trying to decide how much to reveal when Nic surprised her by saying, “I was married and divorced before I met Gabe. There is no way on earth that I would sit down to lunch with my ex. I might be tempted to pick up my knife and do harm.”

“And you think I wasn’t?” Cat drawled.

Nic grinned. “I think I like you, Cat Davenport.”

“Blackburn. Cat Blackburn. I think I like you, too, Nic Callahan.”

Nic must have taken that as tacit permission to be nosy, because she then said, “So, my first husband cheated on me. Why did you and Jack split?”

“He didn’t cheat.” At least, not that Cat knew. Those first weeks after the miscarriage he could have brought a woman home and done her on the living room floor and she wouldn’t have noticed. She gave Nic her usual response whenever anyone asked. “He traveled a lot. We grew apart.”

At Nic’s speculative look, she asked, “What?”

“
You
cheated?”

“No!” Cat scowled at her. “You Eternity Springs people are nosy, aren’t you?”

Nic grinned unapologetically. “I think you should probably know that I have a soft spot in my heart for your ex. More than a soft spot, actually. Jack is my hero. I wouldn’t have my life if not for him.” Nic refilled her glass of iced tea, then silently offered more to Cat.

Cat nodded and asked, “Jack saved your life?”

“He saved Gabe’s life.”

Nic Callahan went on to tell her the story of how Jack accomplished Gabe’s rescue from a Balkan prison. Cat realized that it had happened during one of those unexplained absences during their marriage, and her gaze shifted to the twins napping peacefully in their beds.

She’d always known that Jack did important work. That had never been in doubt. But she’d grown up with an absentee mother, and because of that, she’d never wanted an absentee spouse. Unfortunately, Jack Davenport had been a force her heart had been unable to resist.

The failure of her marriage couldn’t be summarized as easily as that of Nic’s first one. Even if she’d wanted to spill her guts to this woman whom she’d only just met, too many factors had contributed to the breakup to be neatly enumerated. Cat wasn’t sure that she could identify all of them herself, even if she tried.

“I’ve always known that Jack was someone special,” she said, honestly touched by Nic Callahan’s tale. “I imagine there are dozens of stories similar to yours that only a handful of people have ever heard. Unfortunately, it’s hard to be married to a hero. We simply weren’t able to make it work.”

“That’s too bad,” Nic said softly, as one of her daughters
stirred in her bed and let out a little snuffle of a snore.

Cat had nothing more to say.

The room in Eagle’s Way that Jack used as an office was on the ground floor off the great room. Designed with the need for secure communications in mind, the office was the one room in the house that didn’t boast floor-to-ceiling windows. The furnishings were sleek, functional, and comfortable, though the room was not designed or utilized for relaxation.

Now Jack stood behind Gabe, who was seated at a drafting table. He studied the sketch his guest had penciled on the blank sheet of paper and nodded. “You are good, Callahan.”

“I know.”

“I never would have thought of adding that sundial.”

“That’s why you pay me the big bucks to design your landscape.” Gabe reached up and switched off the light illuminating the drafting board.

In a droll tone, Jack replied, “Last time I checked, I hadn’t paid you anything. I wish you’d cash my checks, Callahan.”

“Not gonna happen, Davenport.” Gabe’s expression and tone turned serious. “I could work at Eagle’s Way for the next forty years and not come close to paying you back for what you did for me.”

“Just doing my job—for which I received a paycheck from the good old U.S. of A., I’ll remind you.”

“I owe you my—”

“Enough,” Jack interrupted, waving the topic away. “This is cruising too close to mush for me. When can you start on the build?”

Gabe nodded his acceptance of Jack’s change of subject. “I’ll want to put more thought into it, draw up a
detailed design. How long do you plan to be in Colorado this time?”

“That depends. Cat needs to stay hidden until we can smoke out whoever firebombed her house.”

Gabe slipped off his chair and tore the drawing from the pad. He folded it, stuck it into his pocket, and idly asked, “So, Davenport, I gotta ask. Why the secret wife?”

Jack had expected this question, and he’d thought about his answer prior to the Callahans’ arrival. Gabe knew more than most, considering their history, so Jack had decided to be more open than he’d be with someone else. “Our marriage wasn’t exactly secret, but I kept it separate from work. Cat wanted it that way. She had some firsthand experience with the way things worked at Langley, and she wanted to keep our life together as far away from it as possible.”

“Firsthand experience?”

“Her mother is Melinda Blackburn.”

A widening of his eyes telegraphed Gabe’s surprise. “I wondered when I heard her name. Blackburn isn’t that common. But c’mon, Jack. You married the boss’s daughter?”

A defensive note in his voice, Jack replied, “I married her in spite of the fact that she was the boss’s daughter. Cat’s relationship with her mother was rocky as a result of Melinda’s work. She didn’t want to sign up for more of it.”

“Then why did she?”

Jack started to deflect the question with a reply containing the usual guy-talk boast about great sex, but then he hesitated. He’d invited Gabe into the middle of this mess, and Gabe deserved better than that from him. “We fell in love.”

“Marriage couldn’t withstand the strain of the job?”

The job. Infertility. The death of their baby. The job. It wasn’t an easy question. “Something like that.”

“How long ago was the split?”

That, too, wasn’t a simple answer. Just when had they split? When the papers were served? When he stopped sleeping in their bed? Or when he’d come home from what was supposed to be a three-day trip to Iraq and discovered that Cat had lost their child?

The front porch light of his house in Arlington, Virginia, glowed a welcome beacon through the veil of twilight and snowflakes as Jack pulled his Porsche into his driveway. He was beat
.

He’d been gone seventeen days. Seventeen dirty, miserable, bloody days with a double-digit body count, a couple of personal near misses, and a slaughterhouse scene that was likely to haunt his nightmares for years. Even worse, they’d failed in their mission. The informant they’d been sent to extract had been killed before Jack and his partner had ever set boots on the ground. They’d suspected it by their third day in country. It took them another ten days, thousands of dollars in bribes, and three gun battles to confirm it. Jack never left without confirmation. It was a principle upon which he never wavered, but man, was he glad to finally be home
.