Fugitive Father Read online

  It was a lonely setting. An ideal hideaway for Noah while he recovered from his sprain. Maybe too lonely. By the time she settled him inside the compact cabin, she began to regret the necessity of leaving him here on his own.

  “The ankle,” she said.

  “Keep off it as much as possible, keep it elevated, keep the ice on it, keep the elastic bandage on it. I know, Ellie.”

  “The groceries—”

  “I watched you put them away. I can find them.”

  “The remote for the TV—”

  “Right here beside me.”

  “There are plenty of books, anyway. But no phone. Why didn’t I think to ask if there was a phone?”

  “Ellie ?”

  “What?”

  “Stop worrying about me. I can manage.”

  “Of course.” But they both knew she was unconvinced. “I’ll try to come back first thing tomorrow, if I can get away. They’ll expect me to go out painting. No one should question it.”

  He took her hand, drawing her down until her face was level with his own where he sat in a deep easy chair. “This stinks, doesn’t it?” he said, his voice low and husky in that slow rumble that never failed to tug at her insides.

  She didn’t know what to say. Their parting was even more difficult than she’d anticipated. “I’d better go,” she murmured. “I’ll have to find a phone back in Rosebay. I can’t just show up at the castle without calling first.”

  “Yeah.” He took her face between his big hands. “Uh, watch yourself with Buchanan, will you?”

  “I know.”

  “No, you don’t. The guy has a way of getting to women ”

  Her gaze searched his dark eyes. What she saw there left her glowing. He was jealous. Aside from his major concern about Brett, he was jealous at the thought of her being near him. But she was afraid to attach too much meaning to that jealousy.

  “I’ll remember that,” she promised him solemnly.

  “Okay, but just in case you’re tempted to forget…”

  His reminder came in the form of a potent kiss. Mouth melding with hers, he branded her with his lips and tongue. It was a deep, thorough kiss that rocked her senses, leaving her breathless when he finally released her.

  “What have you gone and done to me, Rembrandt?” he asked her, his voice rough with emotion. “And, come to think of it, for me? My kid, too. How am I supposed to thank you for all of it?”

  “We’ll find a way,” she promised him, keeping her voice light and playful. It was the only way she could find the will to turn and leave the cabin without him.

  THE IRON GATES were no longer a barrier. Ellie was expected. The phone call from Rosebay had taken care of that. All she had to do was identify herself from her lowered window at the speaker mounted in a stone pier. The gates swung inward, admitting her van.

  She was aware, as she rolled up the drive, that the electronic gates were promptly closed behind her. The estate was being very careful about its security. She could guess why.

  The long, smooth drive ascended the wooded mountainside along a series of switchbacks that brought her at last to the castle’s front door. Turning off the engine, she gazed up at the sprawling structure. It really was an extravagant stone pile, but she couldn’t deny its magnificence.

  She went on sitting there at the wheel, giving herself a moment to steady her nerves. Playing a role as an ordinary houseguest was a tough challenge. Deceit didn’t come easily to her. She would need to be careful at every turn.

  Reminding herself that what Noah so desperately needed was somewhere behind those lofty walls and that she had the means to give it to him, she summoned her courage and climbed from the van.

  Brett himself, blond and handsome, came down the wide stone steps to meet her in the drive. “Welcome to North Carolina’s version of Balmoral.”

  She clasped the hand he offered, forcing a cheerful, “You look right at home playing the local laird.”

  He laughed, displaying perfect teeth. “I have to admit I’m having fun with it, but I draw the line at wearing a kilt. Come on inside and see the place.”

  She accompanied him toward the front door. “It’s brazen of me to arrive here like this, but it’s like I told you on the phone—I was all set to paint mountains in autumn, and when the Ozarks didn’t work out I thought—”

  “No apologies. I couldn’t be more pleased that you’re here.”

  Not wanting him to get the wrong idea, she defused his enthusiasm with a quick, “Well, I missed Joel.”

  They paused under the archway of the stone porch that sheltered the door. She turned to him. “Where is he, by the way?”

  “Inside, working with a retired kindergarten teacher I hired from Rosebay She was willing to come out half days to tutor him.”

  “He’s not attending public school then?”

  Brett shook his head, his expression turning grim. “He isn’t setting foot off the estate until Noah Rhyder has been caught. I suppose you know he’s on the loose out there somewhere.”

  “Yes, I heard it on the news,” she murmured. “But you don’t think that he’d try to—”

  “Probably not. He must still be in Missouri, but I’m not taking any chances. The boy remains inside the estate and protected until Noah is back behind bars.”

  It was not going to be easy then delivering Joel to his father, Ellie thought. She was relieved about one thing. Peaches couldn’t have revealed to his employer Lew Ferguson’s opinion that Noah had kidnapped her. Brett wouldn’t have welcomed her here if he had.

  “How is Joel doing?” she asked him solemnly.

  “He seems content, but to tell you the truth, I think he’s lonely. He misses you too. It’ll be good for him to have you here.”

  “Has he been told about…”

  “Yes, I explained to him about his father. Don’t ask me what he’s feeling. He still doesn’t want to discuss it, and I haven’t pushed it. Maybe you can get him to open up. I’m putting you in the room next to his. I hope that’s all right.”

  “I’d be disappointed if you hadn’t.”

  He led the way into the castle. Seconds later, Ellie stood beside him in a cavernous banquet hall with immense fireplaces and a barrel-vaulted ceiling. Everything but tartan on the walls, she thought.

  “How do you like it?” he said, pointing out a piper’s gallery overhead.

  She was aware that he was too close to her, his arm brushing her side. She glanced at him, noticing something she’d never observed before. There was arrogance in that good-looking face. She remembered Noah’s warning. Brett Buchanan was not to be trusted.

  Uneasy with his closeness, she started to move away. And found herself dealing with another threat. There was a sudden pressure against her leg. Alarmed, she looked down to see the hound, Caesar, who had arrived without warning in the hall. He was pushing against her calf, sniffing at her suspiciously.

  Ellie went very still, fearing that the dog was about to recognize her from this morning. If he regarded her as an intruder, there was the possibility that, aside from taking a chunk out of her leg, his unfriendly behavior would result in his master asking some awkward questions.

  Brett, finally noticing the animal, glowered at him. “He won’t hurt you, but he’s not supposed to be in this part of the house.” He lifted his voice in a shout, calling for his bodyguard. “Peaches!”

  Ellie kept her wary gaze on the dog, but out of the tail of her eye she saw Peaches appear in a doorway across the hall.

  “Get this mutt out of here,” Brett instructed him.

  The bodyguard snapped his fingers, and Caesar trotted obediently to his side. The hound had lost interest in her. But Peaches, discovering her presence in the hall, eyed her shrewdly.

  Ellie nervously wondered if she was about to be challenged, but he remained silent. Maybe Peaches didn’t want his employer to know he’d hooked up with Lew Ferguson. Or maybe he simply felt that, if she had been kidnapped by Noah as the detective claimed
, then she wouldn’t be casually turning up here on her own.

  Whatever the explanation, she knew she would have to watch herself around the bodyguard. He was a potential enemy.

  Acknowledging her with a polite nod, Peaches turned his attention to Brett. “You asked me to remind you about the conference call with Chicago scheduled for one o’clock. You want me to cancel it now?”

  “No, I’d better go ahead with it.” Brett glanced at his watch, then favored her with one of his dazzling smiles. “Ellie, will you excuse us? One of the staff will be along to help you with your things and see that you get settled. Just make yourself at home, and I’ll see you later.”

  He disappeared with Peaches and the dog. Ellie, uncomfortable with the idea of being waited on, went out to the van to collect her luggage on her own. She had unloaded her two cases when she was startled by a yelp of excitement from the direction of the front door.

  Looking up, she saw the small figure of Joel tearing down the steps. He’d obviously been informed of her arrival. Released from his lessons, he had rushed to meet her.

  She was clutched in a fierce hug. Their reunion would have been emotional under any circumstances, because the child had captured her heart from the start. But now, feeling as she did about Noah, knowing this was his son she embraced, she felt a protective tenderness for Joel that threatened to result in tears. To prevent that, she held him away and gazed into his small, earnest face.

  “I missed you, sweetheart.”

  “Me, too.” He grinned up at her happily, but she thought she detected a shadow of sadness in his dark eyes. Noah’s eyes.

  “So now we don’t have to miss each other. Only there’s a small problem.”

  “What?”

  “Where am I going to sleep?” she wondered, pretending she didn’t already know.

  “Next to me. Come on, I’ll show you.” He tugged impatiently at her hand.

  “Whoa, I have to bring in my suitcases.”

  “I’ll help.”

  He insisted on taking one of the bags. She reluctantly handed him the smaller of the two. Lugging it manfully up the steps and into the castle, he led the way down a broad corridor. They weren’t midway along the passage when he began to puff with the effort.

  “Why don’t I take it the rest of the way?” she suggested.

  “I can do it.”

  He stubbornly moved on toward the stairway at the end of the corridor, the case banging against him. Ellie worried about him, fearing that the load would be more than he could handle on the massive staircase. A solution presented itself when they reached the bottom of the flight.

  “Just like in a hotel!” she said, exaggerating her amazement as she indicated the elaborate iron gate stretched across a paneled cubicle in the wall beside the staircase.

  She thought he would be delighted by her surprised discovery of the small elevator, but Joel had no response.

  “Aren’t we going to ride up in style?” she wondered. “Or are you going to make me haul my suitcase all the way to the bedroom?” Again he had no answer. “Joel, doesn’t the elevator work?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Then why don’t you want us to use it?”

  “I like the stairs,” he murmured, offering no other explanation.

  He clearly had a dislike of the elevator. She could see it in his manner, in the way he edged away from the gate as though he feared he might be trapped behind it. It was an odd phobia for a boy who, otherwise, was fascinated with machinery. Back in St. Louis he had forever asked her questions about such things as cranes and bulldozers. But this subject agitated him to the degree that he was unwilling to discuss it.

  “Then I like the stairs too,” she said firmly.

  His relief was evident They mounted the stairway in easy stages. Ellie pretended a need for frequent pauses to rest her load so that he wouldn’t be tired by his own heavy burden.

  The matter of the elevator was unimportant, a concern she would have dismissed if she hadn’t recalled Joel’s aversion to the fanciful slide in her home. Come to think of it, he had also avoided any contact with the old-fashioned laundry chute outside her bedroom. Was there a similarity here, a connection of some kind? Maybe it had to do with height in enclosed spaces.

  “I just remembered something,” she said brightly when they reached the landing. “You and your Uncle Brett had a plane ride out here to North Carolina.”

  “Two planes,” he corrected her cheerfully. “A big one first and then a small one.”

  “I’ve never been up in a small plane. I’m not sure I’d like it.”

  “I did. It was great.”

  That couldn’t be the problem then. And did it really matter? Children often had funny likes and dislikes about unrelated things. She forgot about it. Joel was eager to show her their bedrooms.

  They went along another passage to the front of the mansion. He led the way into a spacious, elegantly furnished room that overlooked the valley.

  “This is yours,” he said, depositing her bag at the foot of the bed. “And here’s my room in here.”

  He showed her how the two rooms connected, pointing out the bathroom they would share.

  “This is wonderful,” she said, admiring the accommodations. “I’m going to feel very spoiled staying here.”

  “Will you stay for good? I want you to stay for good, Ellie.”

  “Sweetheart, I’m only here for a short visit. I thought you understood that.”

  “Oh.”

  She looked down into his face and saw disappointment. “Joel, aren’t you happy living here?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Just okay?” she asked him gently.

  He thought about that for a second. “I’ve got a pony. He’s out in the stable with Uncle Brett’s horse.”

  “Wow, your own pony! Will I get to meet him?”

  “You want to go now? Hobo can come with us.” Without waiting for her answer, he raced into his bedroom and returned bearing the clown puppet to which he had become attached back in St. Louis.

  “Hello, Hobo,” she greeted the sad-faced tramp. “Are you ready to see the pony?”

  Minutes later, they were on their way to the stables with Joel chattering beside her as they descended a walk through terraced formal gardens.

  “Jonnie takes care of the horses,” he informed her. “Jonnie’s my friend and is teaching me how to ride.”

  “You like Jonnie, huh?”

  “Jonnie’s nice.”

  They reached the stables at the bottom of the gardens. Jonnie turned out to be a young woman with skin the color of dark mahogany and a warm, glowing smile. Ellie liked her immediately. She seemed very fond of Joel.

  The pony was led out and presented to Ellie. She was busy admiring him when she was startled by what sounded like an explosion from the stall behind them. Swinging around, she saw a large black horse tossing its head restlessly as it bumped against the half door of the stall. There was a wild look in its eye.

  “That’s Sultan,” Joel said. “He’s mean.”

  Ellie’s gaze met Jonnie’s. The young woman sketched a shrug, murmuring a soft, “Mr. Buchanan’s horse. I don’t know why he bought him. He’s a handsome brute, but he has a bad disposition.”

  Ellie cast a glance in Joel’s direction.

  Jonnie noticed her concern. “Don’t worry,” she quickly assured her. “Joel knows he’s not supposed to go anywhere near Sultan, and I’m always careful to keep the door latched.”

  Ellie and Joel were on their way back to the house when she decided to introduce the sensitive subject of Noah. She longed to tell the boy that his father was close by, that he loved and wanted him, but she didn’t dare. Not yet. What she could do was to learn just how much Joel cared. That was vital if she was going to risk reuniting him with Noah.

  “Joel, can I ask you a question?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Do you miss your father?”

  He didn’t answer her. When she look
ed down, he was tightly clutching the puppet, slowly stroking the top of its head.

  “Sweetheart,” she coaxed, “it’s all right to talk about him.”

  Still no answer. She tried again.

  “He didn’t go away because he stopped loving you. It was something he couldn’t help, and if he could I bet he’d have you with him right now.”

  She waited for his response, any response, as they climbed up through the gardens, but Joel had shut down like a trap. Why? she wondered. Why was the subject something he still refused to discuss? Did he resent his father because he believed he had abandoned him? Or was there another reason for his silence?

  She thought about it. Remembered that, no matter how carefully Joel had been shielded, the murder and its aftermath had been a terrible experience for him. Maybe his young mind simply couldn’t handle it anymore, so he had taught himself that if he didn’t talk about it, then none of it could be true.

  That was what Ellie wanted to believe. But another thought occurred to her, one she struggled to resist. What if Joel was afraid of his father, convinced he was dangerous? What if, when the time came, he wouldn’t want to join him?

  The awful possibility was still with her late that night Joel was asleep in his room next door. Ellie, alone in her darkened bedroom, knelt on the window seat and gazed across the valley. A single light winked high on the slope of a distant mountain.

  She knew it couldn’t be a lamp shining from the cabin where Noah was hiding. The cove that sheltered the cabin was out of sight somewhere behind those hills. But in her loneliness for him she pictured him out there, sleepless as she was, worried as she was, with a solitary light burning at his bedside like that one.

  She hoped he was managing all right with his ankle. She also wondered, when she saw him again, whether she ought to tell him about Joel’s silence and her fear of what that silence might convey. It would devastate him if he thought Joel didn’t want to be with him. No, she couldn’t tell him. Not unless it became absolutely necessary.

  The light on the mountainside vanished. It had been turned off.