’t be able to put down

Chapter 2

Some nights, late at night, when her children were sleeping and the guests were settled down, Cassie would roam the house. She was careful not to go on the second floor, where guests were bedded down in the lovely rooms and suites Rafe and Regan had built.

They paid for privacy, and Cassie was careful to give it.

But she was free to walk through her own apartment on the third floor, to admire the rooms, the view from the windows, even the feel of the polished hardwood under her bare feet.

It was a freedom, and a security, that she knew she would never take for granted. Any more than she would take for granted the curtains framing the windows, made of fabric that she had chosen and paid for herself. Or the kitchen table, the sofa, each lamp.

Not all new, she mused, but new to her. Everything that had been in the house she shared with Joe had been sold. It had been her way of sweeping away the past. Nothing here was from her before. It had been vital to her to start this life with nothing she hadn’t brought into it on her own.

If she was restless, she could go down on the main level, move from parlor to sitting room, into the beautiful solarium, with its lovely plants and glistening glass. She could stand in the hallways, sit on the steps. Simply enjoy the quiet and solitude.

The only room she avoided was the library. It was the only room that never welcomed her, despite its deep leather chairs and walls of books.

She knew instinctively that it had been Charles Barlow’s realm. Abigail’s husband. The master of the house. A man who had shot, in cold blood, a wounded Confederate soldier hardly old enough to shave.

Sometimes she felt the horror and sadness of that when she walked up and down the staircase where it had happened. Now and again she even heard the shot, the explosion of it, and the screams of the servants who had witnessed the senseless and brutal murder.

But she understood senseless brutality, knew it existed.

Just as she knew Abigail still existed, in this house. It wasn’t just the sound of weeping, the scent of roses that would come suddenly and from nowhere. It was just the feel of the air, that connection that she’d been too embarrassed to mention to Devin.

That was how she knew Abigail had loved a man who wasn’t her husband. That she had longed for him, wept for him, as well as for the murdered boy. That she had dreamed of him, and despaired of ever knowing the joy of real love.

Cassie understood, and sympathized. That was why she felt so welcomed in this house that held so much of the past. Why she was never afraid.

No, she was grateful for every hour she spent here as caretaker to beautiful things. It had been nearly a year since she had accepted Regan’s and Rafe’s offer and moved her family in. She was still dazzled that they would trust her with the job, and she worked hard to earn that trust.

The work was all pleasure, she thought now, as she wandered into the parlor. To tend and polish lovely antiques, to cook breakfast in that wonderful kitchen and serve it to guests on pretty dishes. To have flowers all around the house, inside and out.

It was like a dream, like one of the fairy tales Savannah MacKade illustrated.

She was so rarely afraid anymore, hardly even disturbed by the nightmares that had plagued her for so long she’d come to expect them. It was unusual for her to wake shivering in the middle of the night, out of a dream—listening, terrified, for Joe’s steps, for his voice.

She was safe here, and, for the first time in her life, free.

Bundled into her robe, she curled on the window seat in the parlor. She wouldn’t stay long. Her children slept deeply and were content here, but there was always a chance they might wake and need her. But she wanted just a few moments alone to hug her good fortune close to her heart.

She had a home where her children could laugh and play and feel safe. It was wonderful to see how quickly Emma was throwing off her shyness and becoming a bright, chattering little girl. Childhood had been harder on Connor, she knew. It shamed her to realize that he had seen and heard so much more of the misery than she had guessed. But he was coming out of his shell.

It relieved her to see how comfortable they were with Devin, with all the MacKades, really. There had been a time when Emma hesitated to so much as speak to a man, and Connor, sweet, sensitive Connor, had forever been braced for a verbal blow.

No more.

Just that day, both of them had talked to Devin as if it were as natural as breathing. She wished she was as resilient. It was the badge, she decided. She was finding it easier and easier to be comfortable with Jared or Rafe or Shane. She didn’t jolt when one of them touched her or flashed that MacKade grin.

It was different with Devin. But then, she’d had to go to him, had to confess that she’d allowed herself to be beaten and abused for years, had been forced to show him the marks on her body. Nothing, not even Joe’s vicious fists, had ever humiliated her more than that.

She knew he was sorry for her, and felt obligated to look out for her and the children. He took his responsibilities as sheriff seriously. No one, including herself, would have believed twelve or fifteen years before, when he and his brothers were simply those bad MacKade boys, that they would turn out the way they had.

Devin had made himself into an admirable man. Still rough, she supposed. She knew he could break up a bar fight with little more than a snarl, and that he used his fists when that didn’t work.

Still, she’d never known anyone gentler or more compassionate. He’d been very good to her and her children, and she owed him.

Laying her cheek against the window, she closed her eyes. She was going to train herself not to be so jumpy around him. She could do it. She had been working very hard over the past year or so to teach herself composure and calm, to pretend she wasn’t shy when she greeted the guests. It worked so well that she often didn’t even feel shy anymore.

There were even times, and they were coming more and more often, when she actually felt competent.

So she would work now to teach herself not to be so jittery around Devin. She would stop thinking about his badge and remember that he was one of her oldest friends—one she’d even had a little crush on, once upon a time. She would stop thinking of how big his hands were, or what would happen if he got angry and used them against her.

Instead she would remember how gently they ruffled her daughter’s hair, or how firmly they covered her son’s when he helped him with his batting stance.

Or how nice it had been, how unexpectedly nice, to feel the way his finger brushed her cheek.

She curled more comfortably on the padded seat….

He was here, right here beside her, smiling in that way that brought his dimple out and made odd things happen to her insides. He touched her, and she didn’t jolt this time. There, she thought, it was working already.

He was touching her, drawing her against him. Oh, his body was hard. But she didn’t flinch. She was trembling, though. Couldn’t stop. He was so big, so strong, he could break her in half. And yet…and yet his hands stroked so lightly over her. Over her skin. But he couldn’t be touching her there.

His mouth was on hers, so warm and gentle. She couldn’t stop him. She forgot that she should, even when his tongue slid over hers and his hand cupped her breast as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

He was touching her, and it was hard to breathe, because those big hands were gliding over her. And now his mouth. Oh, it was wrong, it had to be wrong, but it was so wonderful to feel that warm, wet mouth on her.

She was whimpering, moaning, opening for him. She felt him coming inside her, so hard, so smooth, so right.

The explosion of a gunshot had her jerking upright. She was gasping for breath, damp with sweat, her mind a muddled mess.

Alone in the parlor. Of course she was alone. But her skin was tingling, and there was a tingling, almost a burning, inside her that she hadn’t felt in so many years she’d forgotten it was possible.

Shame washed over her, had her gathering her robe tight at her throat. It was terrible, she thought, just terrible, to have been imagining herself with Devin like that. After he’d been so kind to her.

She didn’t know what had gotten into her. She didn’t even like sex. It was something she’d learned to dread, and then to tolerate, very soon after her miserable wedding-night initiation. Pleasure had never entered into it. She simply wasn’t built for that kind of pleasure, and had accepted the lack early on.

But when she got to her feet, her legs were shaky and there was a nagging pressure low in her stomach. She drew in a breath, and along with it the delicate scent of roses.

So she wasn’t alone, Cassie thought. Abigail was with her. Comforted, she went back upstairs to check on her children one last time before going to bed.

Devin was well into what he considered the paper-pushing part of the day by noon. He had a report to type and file on the break-in at Duff’s Tavern. The trio of teenagers who’d thought to relieve Duff of a bit of his inventory had been pathetically easy to track down.

Then there was the traffic accident out on Brook Lane. Hardly more than a fender bender, Devin mused as he hammered at the keys, but Lester Swoop, whose new sedan had been crinkled, was raising a ruckus.

He had to finish up his report to the mayor and town council on the preparations for crowd control on parade day.

Then, maybe, he’d get some lunch.

Across the office, his young deputy, Donnie Banks, was dealing with parking tickets. And, as usual, drumming his fingers on the metal desk to some inner rhythm that Devin tried hard to ignore.

The day was warm enough that the windows were open. The budget didn’t run to air-conditioning. He could hear the sounds of traffic—what there was of it—and the occasionally squeal of brakes as someone came up too fast on the stop light at Main and Antietam.

He still had the mail to sort through, his job, since Crystal Abbott was off on maternity leave and he hadn’t come up with a temporary replacement for her position as general dogsbody.

He didn’t mind, really. The sheer monotony of paperwork could be soothing. Things were quiet, as they were expected to be in a town of less than twenty-five hundred. His job was to keep it that way, and deal with the drunk-and-disorderlies, the traffic violations, the occasional petty theft or domestic dispute.

Things heated up now and again, but in his seven years with Antietam’s sheriff’s department, both as deputy and as sheriff, he’d had to draw his weapon only twice. And he’d never been forced to fire it.

Reason and guile usually worked, and if they didn’t, a fist usually turned the tide.

When the phone rang, Devin glanced hopefully toward his deputy. Donnie’s fingers never broke rhythm, so, with a sigh, Devin answered the phone himself. He was well on his way to calming a hysterical woman who claimed that her neighbor deliberately sent her dog over into her yard to fertilize her petunias when Jared walked in.

“Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am.” Devin rolled his eyes and motioned Jared to a seat. “Have you talked with her, asked her to keep her dog in her own yard?”

The answer came so fast and loud that Devin winced and held the phone six inches from his ear. In the little wooden chair across the desk, Jared grinned and stretched out his legs.

“Yes, ma’am, I’m sure you worked very hard on your petunias. No, no, don’t do that. Please. There’s a law against discharging a firearm within town limits. You don’t want to go waving your shotgun at the dog. I’m going to send somebody over there. Yes, ma’am, I surely am. Ah…we’ll see what we can do. You leave that shotgun alone now, you hear? Yes, ma’am, I’ve got it all down right here. You just sit tight.”

He hung up, tore off the memo sheet. “Donnie?”

“Yo.”

“Get on over to Oak Leaf and handle this.”

“We got us a situation?” Donnie stopped his drumming, looking hopeful. Devin thought he seemed very young, in his carefully pressed uniform, with his scarecrow hair and eager blue eyes.

“We’ve got a French poodle using a petunia bed as a toilet. Explain about the leash law, and see if you can keep these two women from a hair-pulling contest.”

“Yo!” Delighted with the assignment, Donnie took the information sheet, adjusted his hat and strode out, ready to uphold the law.

“I think he started to shave last week,” Devin commented.

“Petunias and poodles,” Jared said, and stretched. “I can see you’re busy.”

“Antietam’s a real naked city.” Devin got up to pour them both coffee. “Had us a situation down to Duff’s,” he added, tinting his voice with Donnie’s accent and emphasis. “Three cases of beer went missing.”

“Well, well…”

“Got two of them back.” After handing Jared the mug, Devin eased a hip onto his desk. “The other had been consumed by three sixteen-year-olds.”

“Tracked them down, did you?”

“It didn’t take Sam Spade.” Devin shook his head as he sipped. “They’d bragged about it right and left, took the beer out to the field near the high school and had themselves a party. They were sick as dogs when I caught up with them. Idiots. Now they’ve got B and E charges, larceny, and an appointment with juvie.”

“Seems to me I remember a couple of cases of beer and a party. In the woods.”

“We didn’t steal it,” Devin reminded him. “We left Duff the money in the storeroom—after we’d broken in and taken the beer.”

“A fine but salient point. God, we got drunk.”

“And sick,” Devin added. “When we crawled home, Mom made us shovel manure all afternoon. I thought I’d die.”

“Those were the days,” Jared said with a sigh. He sat back. Despite the trim suit and tie, the expensive shoes, there was no mistaking him for anything but a MacKade. Like his brother, he had the reckless dark good looks. A bit more groomed, a bit more polished, but reckless enough.

“What are you doing in town?”

“This and that.” Jared wanted to work up to what he had to tell Devin. “Layla’s getting a tooth.”

“Yeah? Keeping you guys up?”

“I forgot what sleep’s like.” His grin flashed. “It’s great. You know, Bryan changes diapers. The kid’s so in love with her, Savannah says the first thing he does when he gets home from school is to go find her.”

“You got lucky,” Devin murmured.

“Don’t I know it. You ought to try it, Dev. Marriage is a pretty good deal.”

“It’s working for you and Rafe. I saw him this morning, heading into the hardware with Nate strapped to his back. He looked real domestic.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“I didn’t want to start a fight in front of the baby.”

“Good call. You know what you need around here, Dev?” Still sipping coffee, Jared looked around the office. It was utilitarian, basic. Desks, wood floors, coffeepot, a ceiling fan that he knew squeaked when it was put into use in the summer, unpadded chairs, metal file cabinets. “You need a dog. Ethel’ll be dropping that litter any day now.”

Devin raised a brow. Fred and Ethel, Shane’s golden retrievers, had finally figured out what boy and girl dogs could do together besides chase rabbits. “Yeah, I need a puppy puddling on the floor and chewing up my papers.”

“Companionship,” Jared insisted. “Think how you’d look cruising around town with a dog riding shotgun. You could deputize him.”

The image made Devin grin, but he set his coffee down. “I’ll keep it in mind. Now why don’t you tell me what you came in to tell me?”

Jared blew out a breath. He knew how Devin’s mind worked, step by meticulous step. He’d let Jared ramble, but he hadn’t been fooled. “I had some business at the prison this morning.”

“One of your clients not getting his full television rights?”

Jared set his coffee aside, linked his fingers. “You arrest them, I represent them. That’s why it’s called law and order.”

“Right. How could I forget? So?”

“So. I had a meeting with the warden, and as he’s aware that I’m Cassie’s lawyer, he felt it reasonable to pass some news on to me.”

Devin’s mouth thinned. “Dolin.”

“Yeah, Joe Dolin.”

“He’s not up for a parole hearing for another eighteen months.” Devin knew the exact day, to the hour.

“That’s right. It seems that after a difficult period of adjustment, during which Joe was a disciplinary problem, he’s become a model prisoner.”

“I’ll bet.”

Jared recognized the bitterness in the tone, understood it perfectly. “We know he’s a bastard, Devin, but the point here is, he’s playing the game. And he’s playing it well.”

“He won’t make parole, not the first time at bat. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Parole’s not the issue. Yet. He’s been put on work release.”

“The hell he has!”

“As of this week. I argued against it. I pointed out the fact that he’ll be only a matter of miles from Cassie, his history of violence, his ties to the town.” Feeling helpless, Jared unlinked his hands, held them palms up. “I got shot down. He’ll be supervised, along with the rest of the crew. We need the work release program, need the park and the roads cleaned and maintained, and this is a cheap way to handle it. Letting cooperative prisoners serve the community is a solid method of rehabilitation.”

“And when they take a hike from trash detail?” Devin was pacing now, eyes fiery. “It happens. Two or three times a year, at least, it happens. I hauled one back myself last fall.”

“It happens,” Jared agreed. “They rarely get far. They’re pretty easy to spot in the prison uniform, and most of them don’t know the area.”

“Dolin knows the damn area.”

“You’re not going to get any arguments from me. I’m going to fight it, Devin. But it’s not going to be easy. Not when Cassie’s own mother has been writing the warden in Joe’s defense.”

“That bitch.” Devin’s hands curled into fists. “She knows what he did to Cassie. Cassie,” he repeated, and scrubbed his hands over his face. “She’s just starting to pull things together. What the hell is this going to do to her?”

“I’m heading over there now to tell her.”

“No.” Devin dropped his hands. “I’ll tell her. You go file papers, or whatever you have to do to turn this thing around. I want that son of a bitch locked up, twenty-four hours a day.”

“They’ve got a crew out on 34 right now. Trash detail. He’s on it.”

“Fine.” Devin headed for the door. “That’s just fine.”

It didn’t take him long to get there, or to spot the bright orange vests of the road crew. Devin pulled to the shoulder behind a pickup truck where bags of trash were already heaped.

He got out of his car, leaned against the hood and watched Joe Dolin.

The sixteen months in prison hadn’t taken off any of his bulk, Devin noted. He was a big man, thick, burly. He’d been going to fat before his arrest. From the look of him, he’d been busy turning that fat into muscle.

The prison system approved of physical fitness.

He and another man were unclogging the runoff on the other side of the road, working systematically and in silence as they gathered up dead leaves, litter.

Devin bided his time, waited until Joe straightened, hauled a plastic bag over his shoulder and turned.

Their eyes met, held. Devin wondered what the warden would say about rehabilitation if he’d seen that look in Joe’s eyes. The heat and the hate. If he’d seen that slow, bitterly triumphant smile before Joe tossed the bag in the bed of the pickup parked on his side of the road.

Because he knew himself, Devin stayed where he was. He knew that if he got close, too close, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. The badge he wore was both a responsibility and a barrier.

If he was a civilian, he could walk across the road, ram his fists into Joe’s leering face and take the consequences. If he was a civilian, he could pummel the wife-beating bastard into putty.

But he wasn’t a civilian.

“Help you, Sheriff?” One of the supervisors walked over, ready to chat, officer to officer. His easy smile faded at the look in Devin’s eyes. “Is there a problem?”

“Depends.” Devin took out one of the cigarettes he’d been working on giving up for the past two months. Taking his time, he struck a match, lit it, blew out smoke. “You see that man there, the big one?”

“Dolin? Sure.”

“You remember that name.” Devin flicked his gaze down to the ID clipped to the supervisor’s shirt. “And I’m going to remember yours, Richardson. If he gets away from you, even for a heartbeat, it’s going to be your ass.”

“Hey, look, Sheriff—”

Devin merely fixed his eyes on Richardson’s face, kept them there as he pushed off the hood. “You make sure that son of a bitch doesn’t wander into my town, Richardson. You make damn sure of it.”

Joe watched the sheriff’s car pull out, drive away. He bent his back to the work, like a good team player. And patted his pocket, where the latest letter from his mother-in-law was tucked.

He knew what it said, almost word for word. She kept him up with Cassie just fine. How the little bitch had a fancy job now at the MacKade Inn. Lousy MacKades. He was going to take care of all of them, every last one of them, when he got out.

But first he was going to take care of Cassie.

She thought she could have him tossed in a cell. She thought she could divorce him and start strutting her stuff around town. Well, she was going to think again, real soon.

Her mama was helping him out, writing him letters. They were preachy letters, and he couldn’t stand the dried-up old bat, but she was helping him out. And he wrote her every week, telling her how he’d suffered, how he’d gotten religion, how he wanted to be with his family again. He made sure he went on about the kids.

He could have cared less about the kids. Whiny little brats.

It was Cassie he wanted. She was his wife—till death do us part. He was going to be reminding her of that before too much longer.

He hauled another bag to the bed of the truck, tossed it in. Oh, yeah, he was going to remind her good, just like the old days. She would pay, in spades, for every hour he’d spent in a cell.

Curling his hand into a fist, he dreamed about his homecoming.