Unmasking Kelsey (2 page)

But as Kelsey drove his battered Ford slowly through two caution lights on Main Street, he decided that Pinnacle had, somewhere, an ace up its sleeve. He had spent nearly two hours driving all around Pinnacle before venturing in, and from that had concluded that the town would be a stagnating, dying one.

There appeared to be few income-producing resources in the rural county. Scant acres of usable, productive farmland, no river or stream of any size, nothing to attract tourists, one lone industrial plant called Meditron operating about five miles from town, and if a company or private individual was cutting timber, it was well-hidden.

So Kelsey had expected a dying town, one being slowly choked to death by its own limitations. He expected to see few young people, no new businesses or construction, and signs of decay everywhere.

He was wrong on all counts.

The downtown area boasted several establishments of considerable size, all in excellent repair and, judging by traffic along the busy sidewalks on a weekday, flourishing nicely. At a rough estimate the population on the streets today had a median age of thirty and an income way above average, leaving folks with a lot of money to spend on themselves. Most of the cars on the picturesque street were late models, and there wasn’t a weed, a broken-down building, or crooked street sign anywhere to be seen.

“Damn,” Kelsey murmured. He continued down the main street and out of the downtown area, looking left and right to study some fine old homes and tasteful new ones, a compact little shopping center doing brisk business, an obviously new high school, and other signs of a healthy economy.

A county sheriff’s patrol car cruised past in the other lane, and Kelsey looked in the rearview mirror and watched as it pulled into a parking lot, backed out again, and fell in behind his own car.

“Double damn,” he muttered. It could have
been coincidental, of course, but he doubted it. Kelsey didn’t have a great deal of faith in coincidence. And he remembered, then, that Elizabeth Conner had ordered him off her land unless he could produce a badge—“state or federal.” So, didn’t the beautiful, bristly lady trust the local police? Now, that was interesting.

That was interesting as hell.

Kelsey found a small, neat motel about two miles from the city limits and pulled in there, nearly rammed head-on by a flashy sports car that was exiting at the same moment. Hanging his head out the window, he roared a few choice expletives, saw a faintly apologetic salute from the other driver, and parked his car with half his attention on that task and half on the patrol car that had departed, siren wailing, after the sports car.

He grinned a little, then got out of his car and went to acquire a room for himself. The result was a room, no more and no less; it was neat and clean and impersonal, and he barely glanced at the bland colors and sturdy furniture before
dumping his bag and busying himself in showering and shaving.

He hardly looked at the face in the steamed mirror while he shaved automatically, but thought instead about everything he had seen and the conclusions he had reached. And he told himself that Elizabeth Conner figured prominently in those thoughts only because she looked like a good place to start. That was all, of course.

Sure it was.

Kelsey changed into clean clothes, faintly amused at himself for even thinking to check the shine of his shoes before leaving his room. He returned to his car, chose a less public road to leave the small town, and made only one stop before finding his way back to the place he had parked for sleep that morning. He took the precaution of parking his car out of sight behind a thicket of brambles, then moved cautiously up the dirt road, which led to a sprawling farmhouse in the distance.

He was automatically taking stock as he went, noting that all the acreage on one side of the dirt drive was given over to a flourishing orchard;
peaches, he guessed uncertainly, since he wasn’t familiar with the spring blossoms covering the short, gnarled trees planted in neat rows. On the other side of the drive was pastureland surrounded by a barbed wire fence; there was an elusively bare look to that land, as if little time or money had been spent in cultivating the thick stand of grass there. From that evidence, he concluded the pasture was not a money-making proposition, but merely used for the three or four horses he could see in the distance near a tumbledown barn.

Kelsey was still a good hundred yards away from the sprawling white house when he was confronted by the growling, clearly hostile Tasmanian devil disguised as a dog. Promptly, he sat down in the middle of the dusty drive, reached into the paper bag he carried, produced a large soup bone, and began talking to Lobo.

“Yes, but who
was
he?”

Elizabeth brushed a strand of silvery hair from
her hot brow and frowned at her younger sister. “I didn’t ask, Ami. Just some man who pulled off the road to sleep. Now, would you please stop waving that knife around and use it on the potatoes?”

Ami, who at fourteen was coping with the physical uproar of adolescent hormones and who was glumly convinced she was the ugliest creature since the proverbial duckling, looked at the older sister who had virtually raised her and felt depressed. Not that
any
woman, she thought vaguely, wouldn’t be depressed when she looked at Beth.

Wielding her knife efficiently, Ami sent sidelong glances at her beautiful sister and thought disjointedly that Beth shouldn’t be stuck way out here in the middle of nowhere. She should be a model, or actress … or … or a
queen
. There should be a gallant prince for her, one who wouldn’t mind baby sisters with a lot of growing left to do before they could leave the nest. A prince with broad shoulders and a laugh in his eyes, one
who could carry Beth’s burdens and take away that awful strained look in her eyes.

A prince who would punch Blaine Mallory in the nose.

“Ami.”

“Hmmm?” Dwelling on the lovely vision, Ami blinked and saw her sister holding up a potato denuded of much more than its skin. “Oh, I’m sorry, Beth, I just—”

“I know.” Elizabeth smoothed her sister’s long pale hair and smiled a little. “Daydreaming. But could you keep your mind on this until we get supper finished, sweetie?”

“Okay.” Ami was intensely grateful that Beth never made fun of her daydreaming, or her constant bouts with awkwardness as she tried to adjust to the added inches that had come upon her with startling suddenness. And Beth never got mad at her for blurting out whatever popped into her head, like when she had asked Blaine Mallory why he smiled with his teeth but never his eyes.

If she
had
to have a gorgeous sister, at least she
was glad it was Beth. Now, Meg, on the other hand—

“I see the chickens are going to get a lot more potato than skin again, half-pint. Where does your mind go?”

Ami bristled instantly. “It was
your
turn to do this, Meg, but you had to parade those shorts of yours in town hoping Jeff Mallory would see!”

“That’s enough,” Elizabeth said mildly before Meg could voice the retort hovering hotly on her lips. “Here, Meg, take this and set the table, please.” She handed her younger sister a handful of silverware, meeting the mutinous blue-green eyes steadily until Meg turned away with a flounce.

Under her breath, Ami muttered, “The whole town’s talking about her, Beth.”

Elizabeth sent her a small smile, but said nothing. Still, Ami could see the increased worry in her sister’s eyes when they rested on Meg, and it infuriated her. What was
wrong
with Meg, adding to Beth’s troubles like she did? She seemed hellbent to prove she was as beautiful as her sister, and it
just wouldn’t happen. Not that Meg wasn’t pretty, Ami decided with reluctant fairness. She was. She had the pale hair of all the sisters, and her blue-green eyes would be lovely if only they weren’t so sulky, and her face was delicate. Her figure was good too, except that she insisted on dressing it scantily in shorts, tops, and jeans that were indecently tight.

She was sixteen, and certainly old enough to know how dangerous her games were. She flitted from one boy to another, reckless, dissatisfied with them after a short while. She wore too much makeup and swore too much, and she both drank and smoked when she was out of Beth’s sight. She thought Beth didn’t know. Idiot, Ami decided irritably. Of course Beth knew.

“Are the potatoes ready, sweetie?”

Ami handed over the peeled and sliced vegetables, and she felt absolutely wild for a moment. They were increasingly common, these violent emotions; she often burst into tears when something upset her, astonished by her own lack of control. It would get better in time, Beth had told
her gently. When her mind and emotions caught up with her maturing body, it would get better.

But for now, she made an incoherent sound and then said intensely, “I have to go outside, Beth! I can’t
stand
it when Meg acts like this! I just can’t!”

“All right, honey.” Beth smiled at her, understanding. “But don’t go far. Supper in half an hour.”

Ami nodded, rushing out the back door as if some demon pursued her, and managing to make it around the corner of the house before she burst into tears. She swiped at the wetness angrily as she stalked toward the driveway, feeling so frustrated and worried that she didn’t know where to turn. She couldn’t tell Beth about part of it, because her sister would only worry more if she knew that Ami had overheard a few conversations she shouldn’t have and had guessed what was going on; Beth, as always, was trying to shield her younger sisters, and had accepted the burden onto her own shoulders.

And it just wasn’t
right
, dammit!

“Hello.”

Ami nearly jumped out of her skin. She looked up—a long way up—and felt her breath catch on a last sob. Heavens, but the man was big! He reminded her of a soldier she had seen once, large and powerful but with a way of moving and even a way of standing that made you forget he was huge. And he had a lean face that was smiling, a not really handsome face but oddly pleasant. His hair was a rusty shade of brown and his friendly eyes were a color somewhere between blue and gray. And even though Ami felt—
knew
—instantly that here was the prince she had hoped for, a shrewd part of her mind was wary.

Kelsey had seen the girl bolt around the corner of the house as if she were running from something, and he had had a few moments to take stock as she approached him. Definitely a sister, he had decided; she was too old to be a daughter—fourteen or fifteen, he guessed. Her slender body showed hints of womanhood but was still ungainly in the transition of adolescence. Her long hair was pale and baby-fine, her thin little face filled with the sharp angles that promised later
beauty in bone structure but presently made her features ill-matched; she would be as lovely as her sister, he knew, within a few years.

“Hello,” he offered, intentionally low-key and friendly. And he studied her as she stood staring at him. Haunting eyes, he thought, more blue than green and presently anxious beneath the surprise. She stood poised like a startled fawn, and he felt a curious and unaccustomed gentleness soften something deep inside him.

She was just a baby, a worried and anxious baby troubled by more than the chaos of her maturing self.

“I was here this morning,” he went on in the same low, pleasant tone, seeking to ease her wariness. “Your sister—must be your sister—ran me off. Elizabeth?”

“Yes.” Her voice was soft, curiously wondering. “Beth. I’m—I’m Ami.”

The instant he heard her voice, his eyes narrowed briefly, but his own voice remained friendly. “Hello, Ami.”

“Why did you come back?” she asked, not as if
she didn’t know the reason, but as if she wanted confirmation of some private deduction.

Kelsey debated briefly, but found that no inner decision was necessary. Honestly, he said, “I wanted to see Elizabeth again. I think she’s worried about something, and I want to help her.”

Ami’s wide gaze dropped to bemusedly watch his fingers moving in the ruff of the big dog beside him. “You made friends with Lobo? He’s always hated men. He bit Blaine once,” she confided with an air that was half pleasure and half guilt.

“Blaine?” His interest quickened; it looked as though his Irish luck had come through yet again.

Ami chewed her lower lip, her gaze returning to his face. Instead of responding to his question, she asked one of her own. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Kelsey, Ami.”

She didn’t appear to find the answer lacking. “Kelsey. I like that. Would you stay for supper, Kelsey?”

Laughter leapt to his eyes. “I’d love to. But don’t you think we should ask Elizabeth about that?”

There was a stirring gleam of amusement in her own eyes, as if she were hugely enjoying herself. “It’s my house too. You’ll be my guest, okay?”

“Okay.” He accepted the slender little hand that reached trustfully for his own, vaguely conscious that this was hardly something he had bargained for. This little fawn had seemingly adopted him with startling swiftness, and he couldn’t help but believe that her older sister was not going to like it. Still, it was incredibly lucky that he had stumbled into just the place he needed to be.

“Why were you crying, Ami?” he asked as they walked toward the house with Lobo pacing silently beside them.

“Because I’m a teenager,” she said baldly with a rueful shake of her head. “I cry over
everything
. But Beth says I’ll grow out of it. I just hope it’s soon.”

Both amused and sympathetic, he said, “It’s rough, isn’t it? You feel like yelling or crying, and your body doesn’t want to work right and nothing fits anymore.”

She looked up at him, grateful. “Yes! Just like
that. And I suppose one
has
to go through it, but it’s terrible.”

He smiled down at her. “You live here with your parents?”

Ami shook her head. “Our parents were killed in a car crash ten years ago. I was just four, so I hardly remember them. Beth raised me—and Meg, who’s sixteen. I guess she raised Jo too; Jo’s twenty-three now and doesn’t live at home much anymore.” She frowned broodingly, her anxiety increasing. Then she shook off whatever disturbed her. “I’m glad Beth was old enough then to convince the judge we didn’t need anyone else, but she was only sixteen. It hasn’t been easy for her.” Ami looked up at him with faint entreaty. “So if she snaps at you—or acts all prickly like brambles—you’ll remember that, won’t you? That it hasn’t been easy for her?”