The Rancher & Heart of Stone (19 page)

“Are you going to tell Keely?” Carly was asking.

“I suppose I’ll have to,” Ella said tautly. “I hoped it would never come to this,” she added brokenly. “I thought it was all over. I prayed he’d die, that he’d stay away forever.”

“I know how you feel,” Carly said. “But it’s too late for that. You talked to the sheriff, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I told him everything I know. He said he’d told Keely that she and I might be in danger and that she had to tell him if she heard from her father.” She hesitated. “She loved her father. I know she still does, in spite of everything. She might not tell anybody if he called.”

“He isn’t the man she loved,” Carly said tightly. “He’d kill her in a heartbeat if she got in his way. And that Jock man, he’d kill anybody without a reason. He’s heartless.”

“Yes,” Ella said, and shuddered. “He came with Brent to bring Keely here. He wouldn’t let Brent out of his sight for a second, and they didn’t stay long.”

“I remember,” Carly replied. “He was the scariest man I ever met. He made my skin crawl when he looked at me.”

“They can’t come back here,” Ella said forcefully. “I don’t care how much trouble they’re in. I can’t give them money I don’t have!” She coughed. “He wanted me to sell the house!”

“It’s all you’ve got left, you can’t do that!”

“I’m not going to,” Ella said. “But he threatened—”

“You told Sheriff Carson. They’ll all watch out for Keely.”

Keely felt her heart stop. Had one of the men threatened her? Surely not her father!

“Jock was in the military,” Ella said dully. “Brent said he’d been in some top secret pacification program. He knows how to torture people and he likes it. Brent said he still had a yen for Keely, despite what happened to her.”

“What did he mean, what happened to her?” Carly wondered aloud.

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me.” There was a long pause. “So many secrets. I’ve kept them from Keely and Brent’s kept them from me. Apparently Keely’s keeping some of her own. So many secrets. Oh God, I need a drink!”

“We can’t go out,” Carly said at once. “Not now.”

“I had a little whiskey left,” Ella said wistfully. “I don’t know where it is.”

“You’re better off without it,” Carly said. “You have to think of the consequences. Now, of all times, you need to think clearly!”

There was another pause. “Yes. I suppose I do.”

Keely, her head full of what they were saying, felt numb. She didn’t say a word. She only smiled at Carly when she left, and avoided being alone with her mother, who was as quiet as a church. It was so uncharacteristic that Keely felt chilled, as if she’d stepped over her own grave.

* * *

S
HE
DID
TRY
,
once, to get her mother to open up about her father. Ella changed the subject and went to watch the news on television. She’d started doing that every day, as if she were waiting for some story to break. It made Keely nervous.

Clark came the next night, Saturday, to get her for one of their dates, and he was glum when they drove away from her mother’s house.

“What’s wrong with you?” Keely asked.

He glanced at her. “I wanted to drive us over to San Antonio for dinner and to take in a play. Boone said we couldn’t go.” He frowned, glancing at her. “He says you’re in some sort of trouble, and you aren’t supposed to go out of the county.”

Her breath stopped in her throat. How had Boone known? What did he know? Then she remembered. Hayes Carson was his best friend. They went out together every week to play poker with Garon Grier and Jon Blackhawk, Officer Kilraven’s half brother.

“What’s going on, Keely?” Clark asked. “What does Boone know that I don’t?”

She ground her teeth together. She didn’t want to talk about it, but it would be nice to get some of her worries off her chest. “My father is in some sort of trouble and Sheriff Carson thinks Mama and I might be in danger. He wants money. Apparently he called my mother and threatened her. She won’t tell me what he said.”

“Good Lord!” Clark exclaimed. He glanced in the rearview mirror. “Would that have anything to do with why we’re being followed?”

“Followed?”

“Yes. By a sheriff’s car when I picked you up, and by a Jacobsville police car now that we’re here in town.”

Keely remembered what Hayes had told her. She clutched her purse in her lap. “Sheriff Carson said they’d look out for me,” she confessed. “They think I might be in danger if I go out at night.”

“With me?”

“You could be in the line of fire, too, Clark,” she said, just realizing it. “Maybe we should stop seeing each other....”

“No.” His voice was firm. “I’m not giving up Nellie. This is a good plan. We’ll work around your father. After all, a threat is just a threat. How is he going to hurt you when we’re surrounded by uniforms?” he asked, grinning.

“I don’t know.”

“We’ll be perfectly safe,” he said. “When Boone said I couldn’t take you to San Antonio, I called Nellie and had her drive down here. I’ll leave you at the local library. It stays open until nine o’clock. That will give me a little time with her, if you’re game. You’ll be safe at the library,” he added.

She knew that. The police would be able to watch her through the many glass windows if she sat at a table. “Okay,” she agreed.

He grinned at her. “You’re the nicest girl I know.”

“Thanks, Clark.”

“I mean it.” He hesitated. “You don’t think your own father would really hurt you?” he added, worried.

“Of course not,” she lied.

“That makes me feel better.”

“Will Nellie be safe, driving down here from San Antonio and back, alone at night?” she added, and she was concerned.

“She drives one of those huge SUVs,” he said. “A tank couldn’t dent it. And she has a cell phone that I pay for. She can call for help if she has to.”

“She seems very nice,” she replied.

“She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he murmured, smiling wistfully. “She’s just dynamite in bed, and when I give her presents, she embarrasses me with the gratitude. The diamond earrings made her cry.”

She wondered if Clark realized what he was admitting. The woman was trading sex for expensive gifts, and he thought it was love. She didn’t. She’d seen the greed in Nellie’s eyes when Clark had talked to her at the restaurant. Men were so dim, she thought sadly. Even Boone, going out with that traitorous woman who’d left him in the lurch when he was wounded overseas. He’d taken her back in a heartbeat.

“You’re very quiet,” Clark remarked. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have made that remark about Nellie being hot. I guess you think of sex outside marriage as a sin.”

“I do,” she confessed.

“Our dad never thought of it like that,” he returned. “He enjoyed women. He never remarried, but he sure played the field. Winnie, though, didn’t approve of his lifestyle. She’s a lot like you.” He glanced at her. “She didn’t like Nellie at all.” He grimaced. “I guess Nellie doesn’t appeal to women,” he added. “She has a lot of trouble at work. Her coworkers think she gets too many tips. They say she plays on men’s vanity just so they’ll leave her big tips. Ridiculous!”

It wasn’t, but Keely wasn’t going to say so. With any luck, when Clark spent enough time with his pretty girlfriend, he’d learn the truth for himself. If Winnie didn’t like the girl, it meant something. Winnie loved people, and she wasn’t possessive about her brothers.

“You don’t mind staying here alone?” he asked when he pulled up in front of the library. He’d called Nellie on the way there.

She smiled. “Of course not. Go have fun.”

He bent and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re sweet. I’ll make it up to you. How about some emerald earrings? I know you love emeralds...”

She frowned. “I don’t want anything from you, Clark,” she said, puzzled. “You’re my friend!”

He looked as if she’d knocked him in the head. “But you love emeralds,” he persisted.

She reached up and kissed his cheek. “If I want any, I’ll buy them. One day,” she added, laughing. “Isn’t that Nellie?” she asked, indicating a big green SUV that had just pulled up next to them in the parking lot. The woman inside was openly glaring at them.

“Uh-oh.” Clark laughed. “She saw you kiss me. She’s terribly jealous. I’ll have to sweeten her up.” He pulled a jeweler’s box out of his pocket, opened it and showed it to Keely. It was a diamond necklace. A real, glittery, very expensive diamond necklace. “I asked her what she’d really like, and she said one of these. Think she’ll like it?”

Keely had to bite her tongue. “Sure!”

He closed the box. “It will put her in a good mood.” He chuckled. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Okay.”

She got out of the car. Nellie came around the SUV, locking it with her remote. She gave Keely, who was wearing corduroy slacks with a cotton blouse and Berber coat, a superior sort of look. Nellie was wearing a designer dress and expensive shoes with a coat that would cost Keely a year’s salary—probably another gift from Clark. She looked expensive and greedy and very jealous.

“Why did you kiss him?” she asked Keely, keeping her back to Clark. “I don’t want you touching him, do you hear? He’s all mine.”

“I noticed,” Keely said, indicating the coat and dress. “Bought and paid for?”

“How dare you!” Nellie snapped.

Keely smiled sweetly. “One day he’ll get a look at this side of you,” she whispered. “And you’ll be out on your ear.”

“Think I care?” Nellie drawled. “There’s always another one, a richer one. Besides, men are stupid.”

She bypassed Keely and went rushing into Clark’s outstretched arms. “Oh, darling, I missed you so!” she exclaimed, and kissed him hungrily. Clark was eating it up.

Keely shook her head. She walked into the library, thinking that P. T. Barnum was right. A sucker actually was born every minute. She wished she could tell Clark the truth. A man that much in love wouldn’t hear her, or believe her, and it would ruin their friendship. But worse was to come, she knew. She wished she and Boone weren’t enemies, so she could tell him what was going on. She knew that she was going to end up, inevitably, right in the middle of all the trouble.

CHAPTER SIX

T
HE
LIBRARY
WAS
one of Keely’s favorite places. She didn’t get much time to spend there, because she was usually on call on the weekends. But this weekend, the senior vet tech had unexpectedly offered to take Keely’s place. Her husband was in the military, and his unit had been called up for overseas deployment. She was blue about it and didn’t want to spend so much time alone. Keely sympathized with her, but was glad to have the time off. Or she had been, until her life suddenly became complicated.

She was reading a thick biology text on canine anatomy when a shadow fell over her. She looked up, straight into Boone Sinclair’s dark eyes. Her heart raced. She fumbled with the book and it fell onto the floor.

He picked it up and, glancing at the title with an odd smile, put it back on the table. He pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. Here, in the reading area, she was alone. The librarian was in the back cataloging, so they had the room to themselves.

“I thought you and Clark had a date,” he murmured suspiciously.

She couldn’t think. He was leaning toward her, and she could smell the minty scent of his breath on her face. She bit her lower lip nervously.

“I wanted to look up something,” she stammered inventively. She flushed. She wasn’t good at lying. “He went to get gas. He’s coming back for me.” She forced a glare. “We were going up to San Antonio to the theater when you told him we couldn’t go.”

“San Antonio is too big and we don’t know many police officers there,” he said, unexpectedly somber. “You don’t need to be out of sight of the police. It’s easier to watch you here.”

“You’ve been talking to Sheriff Hayes,” she accused.

He nodded. “Hayes is pretty laid-back most of the time. When he worries, there’s good reason.” His eyes narrowed on hers. “Your mother hasn’t been seen out at Shea’s for a week?” It was a question.

She needed so desperately to talk to someone. Her face was drawn with worry. Clark was sweet, but he was too concerned with Nellie to pay more than a little attention to Keely’s problems. Not that he didn’t care about her. He just cared more about Nellie.

Incredibly Boone’s big hand smoothed over hers where it lay on the book cover. He linked his warm, strong fingers into hers. “Talk to me,” he said quietly.

She actually shivered. It had been years since a man had touched her. Not even a man, really, just a boy she dated. She hadn’t been held, kissed, caressed. She was a woman with a woman’s feelings, and she couldn’t, didn’t dare, indulge them.

Boone knew more about women than she realized. He understood her reaction to him, and was puzzled by it. “For a woman who’s getting regular sex, you sure don’t act as if your needs are being met,” he commented.

She went as red as the book cover and her hand jerked under his.

He smiled, but not in a mean way. His fingers contracted more. “Tell me what’s really going on, Keely.”

His hand was comforting. She didn’t fight the firm, caressing clasp. It felt so good. She wanted to climb into his lap and put her head on his shoulder and cry her eyes out. She wanted comfort, just a little comfort. But this wasn’t the man, or the place or the time.

She took a deep breath. “Something’s going on about my father,” she confessed in a hushed tone. “I don’t know what. Nobody will tell me anything. He’s mixed up in something bad, and he has this friend...” Her soft features contracted and her eyes were full of pain at the memory.

“This friend,” he prompted, squeezing her hand. He was very intent.

“Jock.” The name tasted like poison in her mouth. “My mother thinks he has something to do with whatever’s going on. I overheard her talking to Carly. She won’t tell me anything.”

“This man, Jock,” he persisted. “You look frightened when you say his name.”

“He...hit me,” she confessed, fascinated by the expression on his face. “I was just barely thirteen. He’d been watching me while I was cooking. He made me nervous. He’d been in prison. He said he’d killed a woman. I let the biscuits burn.” She bit her lip again. “He hit me so hard he knocked me down. My father heard him yelling and came into the kitchen and managed to get Jock out of the room.” She wrapped her arms around her chest, cold with the memory. “It was just after that when Dad brought me back here to live with Mama.”

“Good God.” Boone’s eyes were soft and quiet with sympathy. “No wonder you’re uncomfortable around men.” He was remembering. His jaw tautened. “That’s why you were afraid of me in my office.”

“I don’t really know you,” she confessed apologetically. “And you don’t like me,” she added uneasily. “You don’t like me being friends with Winnie and you don’t like me going around with Clark.”

“No, I don’t,” he replied honestly. But he looked troubled.

“I understand,” she said unexpectedly. “You know that I’m poor and you think I use Winnie and Clark...”

“The hell I do!” He lowered his voice quickly, looking around to make sure he hadn’t drawn the attention of the librarian. He looked back at Keely, scowling. “You don’t use people,” he bit off. “You work like a soldier for your paycheck. Unpaid overtime, trips out to old Mrs. McKinnon’s place to give her dog its diabetic injections because she can’t do it, walking dogs at the shelter on weekends so the staff can handle adoptions...” He stopped, as if he hadn’t wanted her to know that he was aware of her activities.

“Mrs. McKinnon loves her dog,” she replied. “Maggie handles the shelter on Saturdays and feeds and waters the animals on Sunday. There’s this tiny little budget. She already spends twice the hours she gets paid for to do all that. I just help a little.”

His dark, quiet eyes studied her soft, oval face in its frame of thick blond hair, down to her pretty bow mouth. She wasn’t a beauty, but she radiated a sort of loveliness that most women didn’t.

“It’s a pity,” he said, almost to himself, “that you aren’t older.”

“I’ll be twenty in December,” she said, misunderstanding.

“Twenty whole years old.” He looked down at her hand. It was a useful hand, not an elegant one. Short nails, immaculately kept, no polish. No jewelry on those fingers, either. He frowned. “No rings?” he asked. He looked up at her ears where her hair was pushed back. “No earrings?”

She flushed. “I have little silver studs, but I forgot to put them on....”

“Clark hasn’t given you anything?” he persisted. “He walked out tonight with a huge jewelry case.”

“Oh, that was for—” She stopped at once, horrified.

His eyebrows arched and the corner of his mouth tugged up. “Not for you?”

She swallowed hard. “I don’t like jewelry.”

“Liar.”

She flushed. “I don’t have to be paid to give a man attention,” she said curtly, and then realized how that sounded, and flushed even more. “I mean, I don’t want expensive things from Clark.”

He cocked his head to one side and watched her like a hawk. “In the past few weeks, he’s gone through half the inventory of a jewelry store. I see the receipts, Keely, even if I don’t pay the bills. I have an accountant to do that.”

She was in a quandary now. She couldn’t admit that Clark hadn’t given that expensive jewelry to her, and if she denied it, she’d only get him in trouble.

“Your car is a piece of junk,” he persisted. His practiced eye swept over the blouse and slacks she was wearing, the coat hung over the back of the chair beside her. “You’ve worn that same outfit to the house half a dozen times. You don’t drive unless you have to, so you can save on gas money. And you won’t let Clark give you a pair of earrings?”

Her teeth clamped down. She wasn’t telling him anything else. She tugged at her hand.

He wouldn’t let it go. “That waitress he brought to the house,” he said softly, “was looking around between every bite, cataloging paintings and silver and furniture and putting mental price tags on the rugs and the chandelier.”

She was horrified that she might react to that statement. Her eyes were almost bulging.

He pursed his lips and his dark eyes twinkled. “Clark thinks he’s putting one over on me,” he said in a hushed, soft tone. “He doesn’t realize that Misty’s father has a private detective agency that I can hire when I need to. Apparently, Nellie doesn’t realize it, either, or she’d be more careful about going with Clark to motels.”

She made a soft exclamation and her horror showed.

“You don’t use people,” he continued. “But Clark does. He’s using you. And you’re letting him.”

“You don’t know that,” she protested weakly.

“I’m only surprised that your boss is so forgiving about it,” he added, and his expression hardened. “Isn’t he the jealous type?”

She sank down into her chair. She felt limp. She’d failed Clark. He’d never forgive her. “Dr. Rydel is thirty-two, Boone,” she said gently, and didn’t notice the reaction when she spoke his name. His eyes had flashed.

“Thirty-two.” He parroted the words. He’d gone blank for an instant.

“Thirty-two,” she repeated, looking up. “I’m nineteen. Even if I were a femme fatale, I’d have my work cut out. Dr. Rydel hates women. He only likes me because he thinks of me as a child. Like you do,” she added in a different tone.

His eyes were unreadable. “There are times,” he said softly, “when you seem older than you are.” He frowned slightly. “Why don’t you date, Keely?” he asked suddenly.

She was shocked by the question. “I...my job takes up so much time...” She’d walked right into the trap. She glared at him. “I date Clark,” she said doggedly.

“Clark loves you,” he replied unexpectedly. “Like a sister,” he added almost at once. “He never touches you. He doesn’t light up when you walk into a room. His hands don’t shake when you’re close to him. That doesn’t add up to a romance.”

What he was describing was exactly what happened with Keely when she saw Boone. She didn’t dare admit it, of course. What had he been saying about Clark?

“When he brought the waitress home with him,” he continued, “he spilled coffee all over the linen tablecloth trying to pour her a second cup. He actually fell out of his chair when he touched her hands as she passed him the salad bowl.”

She grimaced.

“And I don’t need a declaration to tell me who got that diamond necklace. It sure as hell wasn’t you.”

“You won’t tell him?” she asked worriedly. “He’s my friend, he and Winnie. I don’t have many. I gave my word...”

His eyes glittered. “It bothers me that you didn’t mind helping him get around me.”

Her eyes were apologetic. “He said she was the most important thing in the world to him and that he’d die if he had to give her up. He thought it would make you so angry, seeing me with him, that you wouldn’t think about Nellie.”

He looked down at her hand. He caressed the back of it absently with his fingers. He didn’t want to admit how angry it
had
made him. Uncharacteristically angry. Keely was a child. He couldn’t afford to become involved with her. Just the same, he didn’t want Clark taking advantage of her. Odd, how relieved he felt that she wasn’t sleeping with Bentley Rydel. Her mother had been lying to him, trying to hurt him because he rejected her.

“Your mother is a piece of work,” he muttered angrily.

She was puzzled, not having been privy to his complicated thoughts. “Why do you say that?”

He looked up. “What do you think of Nellie?” he asked, changing the subject.

She hesitated.

“Tell me,” he prodded.

She sighed and met his eyes. “I think she’s the worst sort of opportunist,” she confessed. “She adds up presents and gives sex in return. Clark thinks that’s love,” she added cynically.

“You don’t.”

Her eyes were old. “Living with my father taught me some things. He was almost broke when he lost the game park because this woman played up to him and pretended to be awed at the way he handled the animals. She stroked his vanity and he bought her expensive things. Then there was a lawsuit, and we had absolutely nothing. Meanwhile,” she added, “there was this sweet woman who kept the books for us, who took me to church and dated my father. She was shy and not beautiful, but he dropped her as soon as the other woman came along.”

“What happened?”

“When he went bankrupt, his flashy girlfriend was suddenly interested in a local Realtor who’d just inherited a lot of property from his late father.”

“I see.”

“Clark is a sweet man,” she said quietly. “He deserves better.”

He leaned back, finally letting go of her hand. His eyes narrowed on her face. “She works for a living. So do you. I expected you to take her side.”

“She’s a snake,” she returned. “And she doesn’t exactly work that hard for a normal living. Her coworkers say she plays up to her male customers to get big tips. Clark told me. He thinks they’re jealous because she’s pretty.”

He had a faraway look. “Beauty is subjective,” he said oddly. “It isn’t always manifested in surface details.”

She smiled. Then she laughed. “Maybe I’m subjectively beautiful and nobody noticed,” she said.

He realized, belatedly, that she’d made a joke. He laughed softly.

She looked around. The librarian was starting to close doors and turn out lights. She bit her lip. Clark was nowhere in sight.

“I don’t think they’ll let you stay the night,” he pointed out.

She got up, grimacing. She picked up her coat and her purse. “At least there’s a bench out front. I told Clark they closed at nine.”

He got up, too, towering over her. “You haven’t learned yet that intimacy makes people lose track of time.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. He sounded very worldly. She put her purse down and gingerly eased her left arm into the coat. He was behind her at once, easing the rest of the garment over her other arm and onto her shoulder.

“What happened to your arm?” he asked.

She felt his warm hands on her shoulders, the warm strength of his body behind her. She wanted to lean back and have him hold her. Insane thoughts.

“An accident,” she said after a minute. “Nothing terrible,” she lied. “But it left a weakness in that arm. I can’t lift much.”

There was a pause. His usually impassive face had a ragged look. “I have a similar problem with one of my legs,” he said hesitantly. “If I overdo, I limp.”