After Dark (7 page)

    "I hate this!" Will gritted
the words through clenched teeth. "More secrets! That's all my life
has been-ugly, dirty secrets."

    "Now, you stop that!" Lillie
Mae shook her bony index finger in Will's face. "There's nothing
ugly or dirty about your life. You're a good boy. Not one thing that has
happened is your fault. Do you hear me? Just like your mama has told
you, you're the only innocent one in all of this mess."

    Will's face flushed crimson.
"Maybe I'm not so innocent. Maybe I'm the one who… who-"

    She grabbed his shoulders and shook
him. "I don't want to ever hear you talking such nonsense. Let your
mama and me and… and that man out there"- she inclined her head in
the direction of the foyer- "handle everything. We're not going
to let anything bad happen to you. Not ever again."

    "That man out there-"
Will mimicked her head nod. "What's he got to do with us? Why would he
help you and Mama handle things?"

    "Because he owes your mama
his life." Lillie Mae released her tight grip on Will, then lifted
her chin and squared her shoulders. "He's come back to Noble's Crossing
to pay a long overdue debt."

    "How'd Mama save his life?"

    Lillie Mae saw the curiosity in
Will's eyes. What would it hurt if she told him about Johnny Mack, about
what happened that long-ago September night, without revealing the
man's relationship to Will? Sooner or later, Will would have to be
told, but it would be up to Lane to decide when to tell Will who the stranger
was and to introduce father and son.

    "Come on back in here and sit
down while I put on that fresh pot of coffee." Lillie Mae motioned for
him to sit at the kitchen table. "You stay in here with me and I'll
tell you about how your mama brought home a half-drowned man who'd been
badly beaten and dumped in the Chickasaw River."

    With his attention focused solely
on the tale yet to be told, Will pulled out a Windsor oak chair from the
round table and sat.

    "When did this happen? How old
was Mama?"

    Lillie Mae grinned. She could kill
two birds with one stone-keep Will occupied so Lane could talk to Johnny
Mack and at the same time give Will some insight into Lane's past relationship
with his biological father.

    While busying herself with preparations
for the coffee machine, Lillie Mae let her mind drift back to that night nearly
fifteen years ago when Miss Lane had dragged a half-dead Johnny Mack through
the back door. She had never seen a sorrier sight. His face had been so
bruised and bloodied, she hadn't recognized him at first. Them that had done
the deed had meant to kill Johnny Mack. But they had miscalculated the
boy's strength, determination and sheer survival instincts. He'd
grown up hard and tough and wild. It took a lot to kill a man like that.

    "This man… well, he wasn't much
more than a boy back then, but he was a tough kid… he had done things that
got some of the menfolk here in Noble's Crossing all riled up."

    "What had he done?"

    "Don't interrupt me. Besides,
some of this story is X-rated, and you'll have to wait until you're twenty-one
to hear it."

    That comment gained Lillie Mae
one of Will's beautiful smiles. Those smiles had warmed her heart for
fourteen years and would continue to do so until the day she died. There
was absolutely nothing she wouldn't do for this boy.

    "Go on," Will said.
"But don't leave out the X-rated parts, even if you have to sanitize
them for me. Okay?"

    "Sanitize them, huh?" Lillie
Mae grinned. "Well, this young man had romanced a few ladies who belonged
to other men. He was a regular heart-breaker, and your mama'd had a
crush on him since she was fourteen. Just the age you are now."

    "Then, why didn't she marry
this man instead of marrying Kent?" Will's smile vanished, erased
by memories of the man who had so cruelly disowned him.

    "That's another story, but mainly
because this other man left town a long time ago-before Miss Lane married
Kent." Lillie Mae paused, took a deep breath and then continued
her tale. "Your mama used to spend a lot of time down by the river.
Thinking. Daydreaming." Using her thumb, Lillie Mae motioned toward
the back of the house. "Her favorite sanctuary was the old boathouse.
Anyway, that night she went down there and guess what she found lying on
the riverbank, half-drowned and beaten so bad he couldn't even stand
up?"

    "This man-the one she'd had a
crush on since she was fourteen?"

    "Right. So, she helped him get
on his feet, and halfway dragging him, she got him to the back door of
this house. That's when she started hollering for me. We took him to my room
because it was the only bedroom on the ground floor. Miss Lane wanted
to call a doctor, but he said no, not to call anybody. That's when he told
us that they had tried to kill him."

    "Who had tried to kill
him?" Will sat perched on the edge of his seat, his eyes wide with
speculation.

    "He didn't tell me who, but I
suspect he told your mama. And I got my suspicions."

    "How'd he get better without
seeing a doctor?" Will asked. "And what did Grandfather and
Grandmother Noble think about him staying here in their house?"

    "Your grandparents were out
of town, so they never knew about Miss Lane rescuing him. Your mama and
me took care of him, the best we could. He was tough as they come and he
was determined not to die. I think plotting revenge is what kept him alive.
That and… and your mama."

    "Who is he?" Will looked
Lillie Mae square in the eye.

    "Best your mama tells
you."

    Will snapped his head around and
glared at the closed kitchen door. "He's Johnny Mack Cahill, isn't
he? He's the lowlife, son of a bitch bastard that Kent told me was my real
father!"

    For years after he had left town,
Lane had dreams of this moment. Johnny Mack Cahill coming home- home to
her. But as time went by and she never heard from him, she had given up her
dream. And somewhere along the way, the love she had once felt for Johnny
Mack had slowly turned to hatred. It had been apparent that wherever
he'd gone and whatever he'd done with his life, he had forgotten about
her. So with each passing year, it had become easier and easier to blame
him for her unhappiness.

    But now, suddenly, after fifteen
years, he was back- big as life and twice as deadly. What once would have
been a dream come true was now a nightmare realized. The devil incarnate
stood in front of her. Temptation personified. Every woman's fantasy.
And every woman's downfall.

    Why now, dear God? Why now?

    "It's been a long time,"
Johnny Mack said in that deep, sexy southern drawl, as he removed his
Stetson and held it in his hand. "You're even prettier than I remember."

    Heat rose inside Lane, warming
her as it flushed her skin. A compliment from Johnny Mack had always set
off a flood of butterflies in her stomach. If all else about their relationship
had changed, that one aspect hadn't. Don't believe a word he says, an inner
voice cautioned. He's a charmer. A seducer. A heartbreaker.

    "I don't mean to be rude,"
Lane said, ever the polite, mannerly Southern belle her mother had raised
her to be. "But why are you here? What are you doing in Noble's Crossing?"

    You swore you’d never come back-that
hell would freeze over first. What changed your mind?

    She tried not to stare at him, not
to take inventory of his physical assets. But with a man as devastatingly
male as Johnny Mack Cahill, she found it impossible not to visually appreciate
his long, lean body and his ruggedly handsome face. Dressed casually
in jeans and a dark cotton shirt, he looked like a working man all cleaned
up for a night on the town.

    Just where had he been all these
years and what had he been doing? And why, after fifteen years, had he
shown up on her doorstep tonight?

    "Aren't you even going to ask
me to sit down?" He eyed the living room from his position in the foyer.

    "Is this a social call?"
she asked, her stomach churning, her nerves rioting.

    "I'm not sure what kind of visit
this is," he admitted. "A search for the truth, maybe."

    Lane willed herself not to gasp
aloud. Did he know? Had he somehow found out about Will? But how, after
all these years? Was it possible that the story of Kent's murder had reached
him wherever he lived now? Maybe he wasn't here because of Will. Maybe
he didn't know he had a son. Perhaps he had come back to Noble's Crossing
to help her. If that were true, then he was, as the old adage said, a day late
and a dollar short. If she had ever meant anything to him, he would have
come back for her long before now.

    "And just what truth are you seeking?"
She stuck out her chin defiantly, as if daring him to mention Will. At the
thought of her son, she glanced toward the closed kitchen door and prayed
that Lillie Mae could keep Will occupied until she could get rid of her
uninvited company.

    "Worried about the boy overhearing
our conversation?"

    Johnny Mack's lips curved into the
turn-a-woman's-knees-to jello smile that Lane remembered only too well.
So, he knew she had a child, but just how much did he really know about
Will?

    "Yes," she admitted.
"Until I know why you're back in town, after an absence of fifteen years,
I'd prefer my son not meet you."

    "Fair enough." Without
another word, Johnny Mack reached inside his back pocket and pulled his
wallet from his jeans. After retrieving a folded piece of paper, he
spread it apart to reveal a newspaper clipping and a small photograph.
He held the items out to Lane. Their gazes met and locked. A hard knot of
apprehension formed in the pit of her stomach. With trembling fingers,
she reached out and accepted his offering.

    The photograph was of Will. Last
year's school picture. The knot in her stomach tightened. He looked
just like Johnny Mack, feature for feature, right down to the devastating
smile. How could Johnny Mack have seen this picture and not realized
that the boy was his?

    Hurriedly Lane glanced at the newspaper
clipping and recognized it as being the front-page story about Kent's
murder that had run in the local paper. The Herald, which she co-owned
with Miss Edith. Lane turned her attention to the last item in her hand. A
sheet of lined notebook paper on which two succinct sentences had been
written. Come home. Your son needs you.

    Bile rose into her throat. Her
knees weakened. She closed her eyes, momentarily shutting out the
truth. Johnny Mack knew that Will was his son!

    "We can't talk here," she
told him, then neatly folded the items and handed them back to him. "We
need to talk privately, where there's no chance of our being overheard."

    Johnny Mack glanced past her toward
the hallway leading to the kitchen. "All right. Where and when? The
sooner the better."

    "Yes, I agree. The sooner the
better." Lane's mind splintered into fragments, each flying off in a
different direction. Without even thinking she blurted out, "Tomorrow.
I'll meet you, wherever you say."

    "I'm staying at the Four
Way," he told her. "What time?"

    Only people who couldn't afford
better stayed at the Four Way. It was one step above a rat hole. Clean,
but shabby. Lane supposed that Johnny Mack's finances hadn't improved
much over the years.

    "Ten o'clock in the morning,"
she said.

    He nodded agreement, but his gaze
remained riveted to her face. She sensed that he wanted to say more,
that he wanted to touch her. To shake her hand. To squeeze her shoulder.
Something. Any-tiling. To make a personal contact. She couldn't let
that happen. She didn't dare.

    Lane took an uncertain step backward,
away from him. Johnny Mack had been the most dangerous young man she had
ever known, and her instincts told her that he was far more dangerous
now. There was something about him, an air of confidence that had been
lacking fifteen years ago. What had given him the aura of self-assurance
that had replaced the mask of cocky bravado he had worn as a youth?

    "Ten o'clock tomorrow at the
Four Way. Room seventeen," he said. "And don't be afraid of
me, Lane. You're the last person on earth I'd ever hurt."

    Before she could respond, he turned
away. She caught up with him just after he opened the front door and stepped
out onto the porch. She hung back, hesitant to move too close. Lingering
in the doorway, she called his name.

    "Johnny Mack?"

    His body stiffened. But when he
glanced back over his shoulder, his seductive smile was in place.' 'Yeah?"

    "I didn't send the note."
She swallowed hard. "I had no idea where-" She stopped abruptly
when she heard footsteps behind her. She eased back inside and slammed
the door in Johnny Mack's face.

    She knew before she turned around
that Will had come out of the kitchen. He stood in front of her, his eyes
filled with questions.

    "Is he gone?"