Читать книгу Wild Horses - B.J. Daniels - Страница 12
ОглавлениеLIVIE THOUGHT SHE was braced for when the man opened the door. But she was wrong.
The man who stood on the threshold was taller than the man who’d rescued her that night. He was also heavier and more full in the face, less athletic in build and a good thirty years his senior. He wore a cable-knit sweater over jeans that had the hems rolled up to expose boat shoes. Everything about him, including the expensive watch on his wrist, said privilege and money—just like the man who’d rescued her.
“Yes?” he said as he took in first Cooper and then her before returning his gaze to her companion.
“Is this him?” Cooper asked, looking over at her as if nothing would surprise him.
This man was old enough to be her father. “No,” she said, a little too defensive. She was still reeling from the fact that she’d never seen this man before in her life. For a moment she’d thought she had the wrong house. Then she looked past him into the living room. No mistake. This was the house—just not the man.
“We’re looking for the owner of the house,” Cooper said.
“I’m the owner. What is this about?” the man asked.
Knowing that Cooper wasn’t leaving until they got answers, Livie said, “We’re sorry to bother you, but may we come in for a moment?”
A woman appeared at the man’s elbow. She was Livie’s age, yoga-class slim, blonde and classically pretty, dressed in jeans and a pale blue sweater. What struck Livie was that there was something vaguely familiar about her. The daughter of the man she’d met?
Livie realized her mistake as the woman put a possessive hand on the man’s arm, her huge diamond glinting on her ring finger.
“Howard?” the woman asked as she eyed Livie and Cooper with concern. “Is anything wrong?”
“If you can give me a minute,” Livie said. “I would be happy to explain why we’re here.”
Neither moved.
“Who was staying in this house this past winter?” Cooper demanded, cutting to the chase. “That’s the person we need to speak with.”
Howard frowned. “No one was staying here. The house was closed up for the season. I think you have the wrong—”
“There was a man staying here the end of January,” Cooper said.
Livie quickly explained. “My car went off the road in a snowstorm and the man brought me here.”
“That’s impossible. It couldn’t have been this house,” Howard said, and started to close the door on them.
“I’m Olivia Hamilton from Beartooth,” she said as Cooper reached to stop the man from closing the door. “I know this all sounds—”
“Hamilton? From Beartooth, Montana?” The man studied her. “By any chance are you related to...”
“Senator Buckmaster Hamilton?” Cooper said with a slight chuckle. “She’s his daughter.” He said it in a way that made clear he hadn’t meant it as a compliment.
The man quickly brightened and stepped aside. “I know your father. A fine man. I was so glad to hear that he’s running for president. I’m sorry, please come in. I can’t imagine how I can help, but I’ll certainly try.”
Cooper put his hand in the middle of her back to urge her forward. His touch, while fleeting, sent a pleasurable shiver through her. She realized with a longing that this was the first time he’d touched her since her confession.
“Your daddy said his name could open doors for me,” Cooper whispered next to her ear as they entered the house. “I guess he was right.”
* * *
THE INTERIOR OF the “cabin” was as opulent as Cooper had expected after seeing the exterior. No expense had been spared. He could understand how Livie would have felt at home here. She would have felt safe because this was what she was used to, only the best of everything.
“I’m Howard Wellesley,” the man said, extending his hand. “And this is my wife, Amelia.”
“Cooper Barnett,” he said, taking the man’s hand.
When he said no more, next to him, Livie added, “Cooper is my fiancé.”
Both Howard and Amelia offered congratulations and invited them into the living room. The open-concept living room and kitchen made the room with its high log ceilings feel even larger.
“Could we offer you something to drink?” Howard asked after they were seated in the leather chairs in front of the fireplace.
When they declined, Amelia said, “I met your father last summer. It was at a party not far from here.”
“Small world,” Cooper said under his breath, not surprised the Wellesleys would know Buckmaster.
“Yes,” Howard said. “As a matter of fact, he came back here for drinks after.” He waited a heartbeat, then asked, “Now what is this about someone using our cabin last winter?”
Cooper noticed Livie looking around. She was pale, as if she might be sick at any moment. His heart went out to her before he remembered where they were and why, and also that the baby might not be his.
Howard cleared his throat to get Livie’s attention.
Startled out of her thoughts, she looked up. Cooper could see that she was reliving that night. With that other man. He ground his teeth.
“I’m sorry, what did you ask?” Livie said, and then told Howard that she’d changed her mind. She would love a glass of water if it wasn’t too much trouble. The trophy wife stepped into the kitchen and returned with a glass of wine for herself and a crystal glass filled with water and ice for Livie.
Cooper watched Livie take a drink, seeing how upset she was. What was she remembering? When she finally spoke, though, her voice was controlled.
“As I told you, my car went off the road near here. A man driving an SUV much like the one parked outside rescued me and brought me here. He led me to believe that he owned this house.”
“I can’t understand this.” Howard glanced to his wife, who was looking intently at her freshly manicured fingernails. “The cabin was closed up for the winter. At least, I thought it was. This happened in January, you say?”
“The twenty-seventh.”
Amelia looked up from her nails. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Why are you concerned about it now, months later?”
“The man who used your cabin is blackmailing Olivia,” Cooper said. “I came here to put a stop to it. I have to assume that whoever he is, he knows you. Perhaps a relative or a friend who knew you would be gone?”
“No, no,” Howard said, clearly insulted that Cooper could suggest such a thing. “No one I know, let alone am related to, would be involved in blackmail. That’s preposterous. What did this person say his name was?”
* * *
LIVIE COULDN’T HELP REMEMBERING. The living room looked exactly as it had that night. The fire crackled in the large rock fireplace. The deep leather chair next to the fire had the same feel to it as she had sunk into it now.
Mostly, she remembered being so relieved and grateful to be out of the storm. She could have frozen to death in her car if he hadn’t come along when he did.
What scared her was that her life outside of Beartooth, Montana, had seemed so far away that night. Was that also why she’d lied about her name? Or had she just wanted to be someone else that night and not think about Cooper and their problems? For weeks, she’d felt exhausted by their arguments, his stubbornness and her hurt that he wouldn’t give an inch. She’d been so tired of making excuses for him to her family.
As she now took in the room, she knew why she’d felt safe here and she figured Cooper did, too. She would have been comfortable here because it was what she’d grown up with. And she’d trusted the man because she’d thought they’d had that in common.
Why hadn’t she sensed that things weren’t what they seemed? Or had the man who’d pretended to own the house also wanted to be someone else that night?
She could feel Cooper’s gaze on her. She’d seen the way he’d taken in the cozy scene in front of the fireplace. From his expression, she knew what he was seeing—her here with another man.
And it had all been a lie from the start.
Add to that the connection between the Wellesleys and her father. They had not only met him in this area of Montana, but also had him back to this very house for drinks. It all seemed surreal and yet too real. Her father had always warned his daughters about people who might want to take advantage of them because of who they were. No, she thought now. Because of who he was.
“Howard asked you what the man’s name was,” Cooper said, bringing her out of her reverie. It surprised her that Cooper wasn’t the one who’d asked before this. Apparently he hadn’t cared. Not that she’d thought the name would have meant anything to him since it hadn’t her.
“Hank Wells.” It sounded as fake as it probably was now that she’d said it out loud. So why hadn’t she questioned it that night?
To her surprise, Howard gasped.
“You know him?” she asked.
“Hank Wells was the name I went by when I played in a band,” he said.
“It was a long time ago,” Amelia said as if she’d heard the story too many times. “The band only played a few years and hardly anyone has ever heard of them since they had only one minor hit.”
One minor hit? “The man played me a song. He said he wrote it for the band. ‘Wandering Ways’?” Livie asked.
“Appropriate,” Cooper said under his breath.
“That was it,” Howard said, and Amelia took a drink of her wine. He had paled and now appeared even more upset and confused. “I don’t understand this.”
Livie hadn’t noticed the beat-up inexpensive guitar in the corner until that moment. “That guitar...” She got to her feet. The battered guitar had seemed out of place that night, so much so that she’d asked the man about it.
Howard started to say something, but quickly rose to hurry over and take the guitar from her, as if it was a priceless vase.
“The guitar...” She looked to Howard in confusion. “It’s yours?”
“It’s my first guitar,” he said, his expression softening with both self-depreciation and fondness. “It was all I could afford at the time. I spent many hours playing this when I used to travel with...”
“The Sidewinders,” Livie said.
Howard nodded slowly as he put the guitar back where it had been.
“The man who brought me here told me about the band and what it was like traveling from town to town playing noisy bars.” She could feel Cooper’s gaze on her.
“What did this man look like?” Howard demanded as he took his seat again on the couch next to his wife.
Livie described him. Blond, blue eyes. So different from Cooper with his dark hair and eyes. “He was tall, athletic, mid to late thirties.” What she didn’t say was that his thick hair curled at the nape of his neck, that his eyes were a deep blue that invited her into his confidence, that when he talked or sang, his voice was low and soft, making her think he’d known sorrow.
She’d felt close to him that night with the storm raging outside. It was as if the two of them were the only people left in the world, she thought with an inward shudder. A part of her had been attracted to the man. The admission rattled her to her core. She might never know what she did that night.
“Handsome, I take it?” Howard asked.
Livie merely nodded, aware of her fiancé watching her closely, reading more into her words than she wished. Cooper had his head cocked to the side in a way that told her he wasn’t just angry, he was hurting.
But neither of them could leave things as they were. They had to know who the man was and stop the blackmail, even if they could do nothing about the past.
“Was he one of your band members?” Even as she asked it, she wondered about the age difference.
Howard shook his head.
“That’s a pretty generic description,” Amelia said. “It could be anyone.”
“But it wasn’t just anyone,” Cooper said, his voice sounding cold and hard as the granite rock on the fireplace. “It’s someone who had access to your...cabin, probably that rig out front and your husband’s guitar and the stories that go with it, not to mention the hit song.”
Howard glanced over at his wife. A look passed between them. Livie could feel the increased tension in the room.
“Look, you have to know this man,” Cooper said, “since he knew his way around your house, where to find your good wine.” Howard winced at that. “And he appears to have made himself at home.”
“I can’t explain this,” the husband said in exasperation. “I have no idea who this man might have been.”
Amelia got up to refill her wineglass. “It’s obviously someone who’s been to one of your parties and heard your band stories you’re always telling, Howard.”
“Who has a key to your house?” Cooper asked. “He did open the door with a key, didn’t he?” he asked, and looked over at Livie.
She had never seen Cooper’s eyes so dark. He shifted in his chair with obvious impatience. She tried to remember that night, a night she’d spent the past three months fighting to forget. She had seen the man open the door with a key, hadn’t she? Or had he only pretended to? She’d been hurt, cold and still shaken and scared from going off the road in the storm. Looking back, she’d been more vulnerable than she’d known.
“I can’t be sure. I thought he did,” she said finally.
“This man told you he owned the house?” Amelia demanded. She’d come back into the room with a fresh glass of wine, but she hadn’t taken her seat next to her husband on the couch again.
Had he? “I guess he only let me believe he owned the house.” She realized with a start that the reason Howard’s wife had looked so familiar was because she’d seen her before. There had been a photograph of her on the mantel that night. Just as there was now. The man hadn’t said the photo was of his wife, but he’d let her believe it was. Just as he’d let her believe he’d lent her his wife’s clothes since hers had blood on them from the wound on her temple.
Without thinking, she touched the small scar. Her fingers felt as if she’d burned them as she recalled the gentle way the man had cleaned the wound and put a bandage on it.
“Who was watching your place?” Cooper asked as he got to his feet. “I’m sure you have a caretaker. I think it’s time to talk to him.” The husband still looked confused. “If your caretaker was doing his job, then wouldn’t he have known someone was using the house?”
“My thought exactly since he certainly never mentioned it to me,” Howard said as he rose again from the couch. “This is all so...upsetting.” He started toward the door where some winter coats hung along a wall; the hooks were the hooves of elk. He pulled down a quilted down coat. “My caretaker lives up the road. If you want to stay here—”
“We’ll follow you,” Cooper said, giving none of them a choice.
Howard stopped at the door to look back at his wife for a moment. Then he pushed out the door, pulling his coat around him, and headed for his SUV, Cooper and Livie at his heels.
* * *
COOPER FELT HIMSELF seething as he slid behind the wheel of his pickup. He’d been expecting a fistfight. Never in his life had he dreamed things would go like this.
“So he played you a song on the guitar,” he said without looking at Livie as she buckled up her seat belt.
She said nothing.
“Cozy little cabin, by the way.” When he finally did look over at her, her eyes were filled with tears. He swore under his breath. As Howard’s SUV roared to life and took off down the road, he followed the Suburban a short distance until the brake lights flashed and Howard swung to a stop in front of a modular home tucked back into the pines.
Glancing back the way they’d come as he parked, Cooper noted that he couldn’t see the Wellesley house from here. “Why don’t you stay in the pickup?” he suggested as Livie opened her door.
“I’m the only one who can recognize the man,” she said without looking at him, and climbed out.
“You have a point there,” he said under his breath, and got out, slamming his door.
Howard was already on his way up to the front door by the time they joined him. He banged on the door and, a moment later, a heavyset man wearing gray sweats answered his knock. The man held a fried chicken drumstick in his free hand and was still chewing as if caught in the middle of dinner.
He looked from Howard to Olivia and Cooper, then back to Howard, his expression one of only mild interest.
“Is this the man?” Howard asked Livie.
Cooper tried not to laugh. Clearly he didn’t know Buckmaster Hamilton’s daughter. The man standing in the doorway also didn’t fit the description Livie had given.
She shook her head as if unable to even answer such a ridiculous question.
“I need to talk to you, Bob,” Howard said, and shoved his way into the house. They followed him into the cluttered house. It smelled of wet dogs, grease and stale beer. Cooper felt his stomach turn, thinking of the house he’d grown up in. When he looked at Livie, he saw that she’d grown pale again.
He took her arm. “Wouldn’t you rather wait in the pickup?” he asked, figuring she’d balk again at the suggestion even though she appeared green around the gills.
To his surprise, she merely nodded and practically ran from the house.
“Is she all right?” Howard asked.
“Morning sickness,” Cooper said, then wished he hadn’t when he saw the man’s surprised look. Neither he nor his wife had asked about the blackmail. The night Livie had been in their house was three months ago. It wouldn’t take much to put two and two together now.
“What do you know about someone staying in the cabin last January?” Howard demanded of the caretaker. “Apparently whoever it was had a key, built a fire, drank my wine, slept in my bed...” He stopped, avoiding looking at Cooper. “I would have thought this would have been something you would have noticed.”
He and Howard had followed Bob into the kitchen. A heavyset woman sat at the table. She didn’t get up and the man didn’t introduce her. She merely kept eating as if whatever was going on didn’t hold much interest for her.
Bob put down his half-eaten drumstick on his dirty plate and took his time wiping his hands on his napkin. Finally he said, “That would have been January 27. Of course I noticed. I saw the tracks into the cabin the next day and went inside to investigate.”
“And?” Howard demanded.
“It looked like it always did after you and the missus have been up.” He tilted his head toward the woman at the table. “I told Patsy to go up and clean the place. I would have contacted you, but given the condition of everything, no sign of forced entry and all that, it seemed pretty obvious that you’d used the cabin yourself.”
Howard let out an exasperated sigh. “What do you mean, ‘the condition of everything’?”
“When Patsy checked the closet, she saw that your clothes and your wife’s had been worn and left to be cleaned in the spot where you always leave them.”
“She wore my wife’s clothing?” Howard demanded of Cooper.
He said nothing, but he felt his jaw tighten. Apparently Livie had made herself at home, as well. Then he remembered. “She hit her head when she went off the road. She had a cut over her eye. There was probably blood on her clothing.”
Howard didn’t look appeased by this explanation. “I want to know who the hell used my cabin.”
The caretaker looked at him just as calmly as he had when he’d opened the door, making Cooper wonder if this had happened before. “Then I suggest you ask whoever has a key. Maybe Mrs. Wellesley might be able to shed some light—”
“Mrs. Wellesley has no idea who the man was,” Howard interrupted. Bob looked at the floor and said nothing in the heavy silence that fell between them. “I will get to the bottom of this,” Howard blustered as he turned abruptly and headed for the door.
Outside the caretaker’s house, Howard stopped. He was breathing hard. Cooper hoped the man didn’t have a heart attack. He looked as if he’d aged since he’d opened the door to him and Livie.
“Whoever the man is, he’s now demanding fifty thousand dollars in blackmail money,” Cooper told him. “I’m thinking I should just turn it over to the sheriff.”
“No,” Howard said quickly. “Let me see what I can discover first before you do that. A few days can’t hurt.”
Cooper hoped the man was right. “Maybe you don’t know him, but he knows you,” he said, and added silently, Or at least he knows your wife.
“If you leave me your number,” Howard said once he seemed to catch his breath, “I’ll let you know what I find out.”
He had a pretty good idea what Howard would uncover. He hoped the older man didn’t do something he would regret. “I’ll be in touch,” Cooper said, making it clear that this wasn’t the end of it. “I want this man’s name.”
As they parted, he still itched to kick the bastard’s ass. Not that it would lessen his pain or solve the problem between him and Livie, he thought as he looked toward his pickup, only to find it empty.
* * *
AFTER LEAVING THE caretaker’s home, Livie couldn’t stand the confines of the pickup. Breathing in the cold spring air, she’d headed up the road toward the Wellesley cabin.
The men were still inside accomplishing little, she’d thought. If they really wanted answers they should have been talking to Amelia Wellesley.
The walk was short back up the road. It had felt good to be moving, to be doing something, especially after what she’d learned. The man had duped her in ways she hadn’t even imagined.
Livie knocked lightly, but didn’t wait for Amelia to open the door. Stepping in, she found her in the kitchen. She had a glass of wine in one hand and a cell phone in the other.
Seeing Livie, she glared at her as she said into the phone, “I have to go,” and disconnected. She took a sip of her wine before she said, “That’s quite the story you told earlier. How long have you been seeing him?”
“I’d never seen him before in my life or again after that night.”
Amelia raised a brow. “Would you be surprised if I told you that he’s been taking my money, as well?”
“Not really. Who is he?”
“He said his name was Drake, but I suspect even that was a lie.”
“But you know how to reach him,” Livie said.
“His number’s been disconnected.” She took another drink of her wine.
“I don’t believe you.”
Amelia slammed down her nearly empty wineglass on the counter. “I just tried to call the bastard. I thought I was rid of him and then you show up at my door. Do you realize what you’ve done coming here like this?”
Livie did. “I’m sorry if this causes you a problem.”
“A problem?” The woman let out a bitter laugh and drained her wineglass.
“He called me that night. Yes, that’s right, the night he was with you,” Amelia said. “I was supposed to meet him here, but I couldn’t make it. Nor could I give him any more money.” She met Livie’s gaze. “He sent me a photo of the two of you in my bed.”
“Do you still have that photo?”
Amelia looked at her as if she must be mad.
“But if he was blackmailing you, I’d think you want to see him caught as much as I do.”
She shook her head as if amused. “I’d never press charges against him and he knew it. Just as he knew you wouldn’t tell your fiancé about that night.”
“How could he know that? How could he know anything about me?”
She refilled her wineglass before she said, “The man preys on women like us. Women who don’t want the bad publicity and can get their hands on money. In my case, a rich husband. In yours, a rich father. He seemed to know me so well that for a while I thought maybe Howard had put him up to it. That it was a test.”
“How did he get a key to your house, to your SUV?”
The woman’s smile had a bite to it. “What do you want me to say? He played me, just as he did you. With me, he targeted me at a fund-raiser of my husband’s, also pretending to be someone he wasn’t. With you...”
“I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“His good luck,” she said, and raised her wineglass in a salute. They both glanced toward the front door at the sound of vehicles approaching. The men would be here soon.
“What will your husband do?”
Amelia looked away for a moment. “Howard will be angry, but he’ll get over it.” Her gaze shifted back to Livie. “Your fiancé doesn’t seem to be as forgiving.”
She didn’t want to talk about Cooper. She hesitated and then asked, “Is there a chance he could have drugged me that night?”
Amelia laughed. “Did he look like the kind of man who has to drug a woman to get her into his bed?”
That was the last thing she wanted to hear. Desperate, she pleaded, “If you know how I can find him...”
“I don’t.” She met Livie’s gaze. “Don’t worry. If you don’t pony up the money, he’ll find you. Because now he’s your problem.”
