Whiskey Island (48 page)

She folded her arms across her chest and thought about that as they drove toward Lakewood. Maybe as a young woman she had set out to have a good time just to chase away the nightmares. In her early years away from home she’d made a concerted effort not to think about her sisters or Rooney. When the urge to consider her past seized her, she’d gone off to dig up whatever excitement she could. She hadn’t been picky about men to spend her loneliest hours with, and she hadn’t been picky about the things she’d done to and with her body.

She closed her eyes. “About two years after I left home I woke up one morning next to a stranger. I didn’t know who he was, didn’t know where I was and didn’t know if my head was still permanently screwed to my neck.”

“Was it?”

She still wasn’t sure sometimes. “I cleaned up my act after that. It scared me.”

“But you were still looking for a good time.”

“When I sobered up that morning, I realized I might have done some things that could haunt me for the rest of my life. I was lucky. I hadn’t and I’m healthy. But after that, I started saving for college. I figured I was on a loser track, and that might help get me off of it. From that point on, I was careful about my good times, but I still went looking for them when I had the chance.”

“Which Casey are you really? The one who avoids her feelings by drowning them in whatever’s handy? Or the one who rescues kids who need her and mourns the one she couldn’t save?”

She bristled. “They aren’t mutually exclusive, and besides, I don’t hide my feelings. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying life.”

“Do you?”

She stopped short.

He shook his head. “It’s a pain not to be able to lie to me, isn’t it? That’s the problem with knowing each other so well. You can try, but you know what your chances are of sneaking a lie across home plate. Same with me.”

“Really? What would the perfect Jon Kovats have to lie about, anyway?”

“I don’t know. Life might be easier if I could pretend I’m not in love with you.”

She was appalled that he’d finally said it out loud. “You aren’t in love with me! That’s just something you’ve told yourself for so long you’ve started believing it. I’m just the girl you left behind, the path you didn’t travel. Everybody has something they hold up that way, something they didn’t pursue that they can look back on. A little nostalgia’s good for a lift. It doesn’t mean there’s any real feeling there.”

He turned into his driveway and switched off his engine. He didn’t sound angry. “That’s all this is?”

He was being too reasonable to suit her. “We ought to have sex, just to get it out of your system. You’d find out it’s nothing special.”

“Kind of like taking an aspirin to clear your head after a hangover?”

“Something like that.”

“That’s all it would be?”

“Exactly.”

“Sounds good to me, then. Now or after dinner?”

She stared at him. “What?”

“Now or after dinner? You want a good time, I need to clear my head. Two cures for the price of one. Now or later?” He got out before she could answer.

She got out, too, to head him off before he could round the car. She slammed her door and joined him on the sidewalk. “You sound pretty sure of yourself. How do you know I’d have a good time?”

“I can pretty well guarantee it.”

“That sounds like a challenge.”

He started toward his house. “Not to me. I’m confident.”

“What in the hell would you say if I took you up on that?”

“Hallelujah.”

She watched him unlock the porch door. “I don’t believe you.”

“Don’t you?” He held the door and gestured for her to go inside.

“No. I think you’re just trying to jolly me out of my bad mood.”

“You’d be dead wrong about that.”

“Oh, really? Then what are you going to do if I take off my clothes right here and wrestle you to Aunt Magda’s porch floor?”

“Tell you to wait a minute until I get the inner door unlocked. I have nosy neighbors.” He unlocked the second door and held that one open, too.

Inside, she stripped off her coat and let it drop to the floor. “The man talks big.”

He stripped off his coat, too, and it hit the floor beside hers. His gaze didn’t flicker. “So does the woman.”

“Do you think this would mean any more to me than any of those meaningless encounters I told you about? That just because we’re good friends, this is different somehow?”

“Uh-huh.”

“The man
thinks
big.”

“The woman
doesn’t,
which is her only real problem.”

She was wearing a silver-gray sweater embroidered in gold thread. Defiantly she snatched it over her head so fast that a thread caught on the tip of her nose and snapped. She threw the sweater on the pile.

“Oh, I think big. I’ve got plans for my future, and they don’t include getting tangled in another dead-end relationship. Love is no guarantee of anything, Jon. I’ve seen as many good relationships fail as bad ones.”

“No, you haven’t.” He stripped off his suit coat and thrust two fingers inside the knot of his tie to loosen it. Then the tie joined the coat on the floor, and in a moment so did his shirt.

“You haven’t seen any good relationships fail,” he said, “because you haven’t paid attention. Your mind’s been made up ever since your father walked out on you. The only time you notice relationships is when something goes wrong. It confirms your view of the world.”

Her breath caught at the sight of Jon’s bare chest and wide shoulders. She could not comprehend how a scrawny teenager had been transformed into a Greek god.

Her heart was beating faster now, and what had seemed like a game suddenly seemed like something else. She unhooked her bra, but she didn’t shrug out of it. Not yet. “You are hopelessly middle-class and stodgy. You had so much potential, Jon. You used to question everything. Now you take the party line.”

“With enthusiasm,” he agreed.

She let the bra slide down her arms and fall in a graceful arc to the floor. She didn’t take her eyes from his. He didn’t look down at her.

“This is for keeps, Casey,” he said. “You’re going to pretend for a while that it’s not, and that’s okay. Then you’re going to be angry, because you realize I mean something to you, and that frightens you. That’s okay, too. But it won’t be okay if you run away again. It didn’t work the first time, and it won’t work this time, either.”

“I never ran away from you.”

“No?”

“We were kids, Jon. Children.”

“What I felt for you was timeless. It had nothing to do with age and never will.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. She wasn’t sure if she could have stepped toward him. Ever. She wanted to. This was Jon, the dearest friend she would ever have, and no matter what she did or didn’t feel, his words had touched the deepest parts of her.

But she didn’t have to make the first move. Because
he
did, and after that, all their moves were together.

She wore his bathrobe, pleasantly rough against her skin, and he wore an old Stanford track suit with the jacket unzipped so she could feel his skin against her cheek. The steaks were a memory, and superb sex was a warm glow still simmering in the most intimate regions of her body. Casey snuggled into Jon’s arms in front of the fire and watched the flames consume the newest log he’d added.

“I ought to be going,” she said, making no move to get up. “Ashley might wake up and wonder where I am.”

“Peggy will hear her.”

Casey felt his hand on her hair. He seemed fascinated by it, and she wondered for just how many years he’d fantasized about tangling his fingers in it. She had found herself exploring him in the same hungry way, as if her fingertips had longed to stroke his skin forever, whether she’d admitted it or not.

She tried to deny what she was feeling. “You haven’t won any battles, you know. Nothing’s all that different.”

“So you say.”

“Well, maybe a little different. I don’t recall sitting this way before.”

“You don’t recall a lot of things.”

She giggled, and was surprised to realize she sounded seventeen.

He must have thought so, too, because his next words slipped into the pleasure-laden cracks in her defenses. “Before you go, I want you to tell me the truth about Ashley.”

A slap in the face couldn’t have sobered her quicker.

As if he’d felt her stiffen, Jon shifted and pulled her even closer.

“I’ve told you the truth,” she said, recovering.

“No, you haven’t. Give it a try.”

“Who am I speaking to? The lover, the friend or the district attorney?”

“Tell me what you can without involving the district attorney.”

“Nothing, then.”

“Jesus, Casey.”

She tried to pull away from him. “I really need to go.”

He settled his arms around her tighter, not forcing, but coaxing her to stay. He eased her closer, fitted her hip between his legs, her shoulder between his arm and chest. He caressed her neck, his fingertips making brief, soothing reconnaissance missions into more intimate territory. Minutes passed before he spoke again. “The district attorney’s off-duty tonight. What can a lover do to help?”

“I can’t tell you anything more. I’ve promised.”

“Let me make an educated guess, then. You just listen.”

She assented with silence.

“Ashley was one of the children on your caseload. You’ve removed her from her home because the county had no control over what was happening to her, and you were sure she was in danger.”

She sighed. “Jon, of course not. That’s kidnapping.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He waited. When she didn’t volunteer any information, he started again. “Did you take her with her parents’ permission until they could get their act together? Against county policy?”

“No.”

She wanted to tell Jon the truth. Had he been anyone else, she probably would have told him weeks ago. The stress of what she was doing ate away at her sometimes, yet what choice did she have?

“Are you part of a network that hides children from their custodial parents?”

She couldn’t breathe, and she couldn’t answer.

“Casey…” He shook her a little. “Have you lost your mind?”

“That’s a pretty good guess.”

“Her mother’s not going to send for her, is she?”

“Jon, what are you going to do with this information?”

“We’re talking as friends.”

She didn’t know exactly what Jon was required to report, but she knew she must be putting his career at risk. “This is the right moment to terminate the conversation. If I say anything else, you’re putting yourself in harm’s way.”

“You are putting yourself in harm’s way every single day. Now, tell me exactly what’s going on and let’s see what we can do about it.”

“I haven’t asked for your help. I have help—”

“Don’t tell me who that is. I don’t want to know.”

“You couldn’t drag it out of me.”

“Ashley’s mother isn’t going to send for her, is she?” he repeated.

“Ashley’s mother is in jail because she refuses to tell the courts where Ashley is.”

“Is Ashley her name?”

“For now.”

He didn’t sigh so much as exhale in resignation. “How on earth did you get involved?”

“I testified in the murder trial for the father of the little boy I told you about, and I broke down on the stand. Someone heard me, thought I was properly committed to the cause and approached me a few weeks later about helping in the underground. Ashley’s not the only child they’re hiding. They’re always looking for sympathetic people to shelter children.”

“And you just went into this blindly?”

She turned to see his face. “I’m a trained social worker. I investigated this up the wazoo. And when I was finished, I realized that these people were right. Ashley’s father
had
molested her. The signs were absolutely unmistakable, the evidence as plain as the nose on your face. But Ashley’s father is worth millions, and Ashley’s mother got out of their marriage with the clothes on her back and nothing much left for dry cleaning. When she tried to fight for custody, she was powerless.”

“Casey, I—”

“Don’t tell me it doesn’t happen! He had a roomful of lawyers, and they managed to get all the evidence—good, solid evidence—dismissed!”

Jon looked skeptical, but he nodded.

Casey drew a deep breath and waited a moment. “Ashley’s mother sent her into the underground alone. It was the only way she could get her out of that terrible situation. She was arrested, of course, and she may well stay in jail until Ashley’s eighteen. But at least her daughter’s safe.”

“You’ve had Ashley since the beginning?”

“I’m the third placement. There’ll be more.” She felt a familiar sadness. “She’s a wonderful little girl. She deserves better.”

“What if you’re discovered?”

“You have no idea how careful we are.”

“What if you’re discovered?” he repeated.

“Then I’ll face whatever consequences I have to, when I have to.”

“If Ashley’s father is as rich as you say, he’s on her trail. If it were just up to the courts and the cops, you might have a chance. But if he really wants his daughter back, he’ll have a fleet of investigators working on this. It’s only a matter of time until they show up on your doorstep.”

“That’s why I came back here. She’d already been in Chicago too long, and an apartment over a saloon’s as good a place to hide as any. By the time they track us down and show up at Whiskey Island, she’ll be gone.”

“She’ll be gone? Not
we’ll
be gone?”

“To keep her safe, we have to change families. That’s the way it works. I won’t be able to keep Ashley with me for too much longer, no matter how much I want to. One day she’ll be moved, and even I won’t know where she is.”

“What if her father’s already found you, Case?”

“What do you mean?”

“Somebody’s making trouble for you. Look what happened to your car.”

“Why would Ashley’s father, with all his millions, resort to a cheap trick like slashing my tires? If he traces Ashley to me, all he has to do is notify the police and they’ll take care of the rest.”

“It’s not that simple. They wouldn’t immediately take his word for it. You could delay the inevitable by claiming any number of things. They’d have to investigate. It might be a little while before he could remove her from the state. Particularly if the ruling’s under challenge.”