Читать книгу A Face in the Shadows - Lenora Worth - Страница 13

Kate put the phone down then turned to her son. The expectant look on Brandon’s face broke her heart. But she couldn’t lie to him. “That was your daddy.”

Brandon jumped up and down, clapping his hands. “Is he coming to my birthday party? Is he?” It was almost a month before Brandon’s birthday, and it was all he could talk about.

Kate took Brandon by the hand, leading him to the small round breakfast table centered under the bay window. “I’m sorry, honey. He can’t take time away from work.”

Considering Dexter had finally found a new job after being unemployed for five months, Kate could almost sympathize with her ex-husband. She wanted to believe he had long-term, unbreakable plans, but she knew he was more likely planning to go to some sports event or a rock concert instead. Dexter still had a lot of growing up to do. He hadn’t asked for joint custody of their child because he didn’t want to deal with fatherhood, even part-time. He just didn’t want to have a family at all.

“But he promised,” Brandon said, his bottom lip beginning to quiver. “How come he misses everything? He missed Christmas, ’member?”

“I remember,” Kate said, taking her son onto her lap. “Daddy lives far away now, so it’s hard for him to make arrangements. But he loves you, you know. And I’m thinking he’ll send a nice present even if he can’t be here.” She’d see to that herself, just as she always did.

Brandon pressed his head against her fleece bathrobe. “Why can’t he just bring the present? Then I could have my daddy here, too. Like we used to be.”

Kate knew Brandon wanted his family back together. Had she been wrong to do this to her child? She’d certainly tried to make her marriage work; she’d prayed about it, consulted her minister back in Nashville, even begged Dexter to go to counseling with the minister. But in the end, Dexter hadn’t wanted to do that. He’d simply decided he had to have his freedom. And now, it seemed as if his son didn’t matter to him either. Since they’d been back in Magnolia Falls, Dexter had called Brandon only a few times and had seen him even less.

But it mattered to Kate. She glanced out the window to the street. She’d been lucky to find this little cottage in the older part of Magnolia Falls, not far from the college campus. Here the streets were lined with moss-draped live oaks, age-old magnolias and crape myrtles. But her backyard wasn’t really big enough to hold a birthday party, and her budget didn’t allow for having a party at the fun-filled pizza place out on the interstate. She debated asking her mom to host the party, but Grace Duncan did more than her share of babysitting when Kate had to work extra shifts or stay late at the hospital. And besides, Grace would turn what should be a fun time into some sort of formal, stuffy event.

“What we need is a big yard for your party,” Kate said. “Like a park or a nice garden, maybe.”

Brandon perked up at that, his eyes going bright. “Nana Grace says Mr. Parker Buchanan has the biggest yard in the county. She says his garden is supposed to be real pretty. I heard her talking ’bout it with Mrs. Welch from church. Maybe we could borrow his yard.”

Wishing her well-meaning but gossip-loving mother hadn’t spilled the news that the Patchman creator lived about eight miles from them, Kate looked down at her son. “Oh, honey, Mr. Buchanan is a very busy man. And he doesn’t like visitors on his estate.”

Which is why she’d hesitated even to try to track Parker down since the class reunion months ago. Each time his name came up amongst her friends, Kate tried to change the subject. By not getting back in touch, Parker had made it clear he didn’t want to be bothered. Not even by an old classmate. And not even a murder investigation could change that, since it had been rumored that he’d balked when everyone attending the reunion had had to submit statements to the police.

Parker Buchanan might live in Magnolia Falls, but he was apparently off-limits to everyone in town. He hadn’t even tried to call Kate after they’d reconnected at the reunion. But then, she hadn’t made any effort to keep in touch with him either. She told herself that was because she was a busy working mom and distracted by all the strange happenings around the college campus lately.

“If we asked nice though?” Brandon said, his eyes widening. “You always say to use manners.”

Kate had to smile at that. “Yes, manners are important, but asking someone for the use of their home isn’t very polite.”

“Even if we say please?”

Brandon’s innocence never ceased to amaze her. But she also worried that her son would get hurt if he got grand ideas about meeting the famous Parker Buchanan. Yet Parker had said at the reunion that he’d like to meet Brandon.

With all the scandal following the identity of the body buried on the campus grounds, everyone was a bit skittish. The media had tried to get comments from the entire class, including Parker. But she reminded herself again, he wasn’t talking to anyone, let alone the media, about his relationship with Josie.

Even though she hadn’t seen Parker again since that night, maybe now was not such a good time to get in touch with him. Or maybe it could be the best time, she couldn’t help thinking. Planning her son’s birthday party would help take Kate’s mind off that grisly discovery, at least. But what about Parker? Could he use a distraction, too? It just might work.

If she used her manners, of course.

“Tell you what,” she said as she placed Brandon on his feet. “You finish getting ready for school and I’ll see what I can do. I’ll try to find a special place for your party, I promise.”

“At Mr. Parker’s?”

“I didn’t say that. But we’ll have to see. Don’t get your hopes up, okay?”

Brandon nodded. “’Kay. But I’m gonna pray about it.”

Another of her mother’s phrases Brandon had picked up. Praying about things was a good idea, if you didn’t pray for the wrong things, of course.

“Dear God,” she said as she picked up Brandon’s empty cereal bowl, “if You can see fit to help me make my son’s ninth birthday special, I would so appreciate it.”

And in the meantime, Kate would give Parker a call. After all, another one of her mother’s phrases was “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, but I have to make the effort to be strong in Christ.” Kate certainly knew that particular piece of wisdom firsthand. She could only depend on God’s grace and her own strength to take care of her son.

Now, if only Parker Buchanan would see fit to make Brandon’s wish come true.

Parker stopped drawing to listen to the phone message once again. Just to torture himself a little bit more, he reasoned.

“Hi, uh…Parker, it’s Kate. Kate Brooks. You are one tough man to track down. I had to go through an agent and a publicist to get this number.”

Only because Parker had given his publicist permission to give it to her, he thought. Just out of curiosity, and not because of a keen need to see Kate again, he reasoned. He had no idea what she wanted, but he wasn’t ready to face her again. Not right now, just after he’d been hounded by the press and questioned briefly by the police about the latest developments in the murder case. He expected the police to question him again any day now, too.

“Anyway, I need to ask you a huge favor. Can you call me, please?”

Parker listened as Kate gave him her home number. He’d had it memorized since the message had come in yesterday, but he had yet to return her call. Or delete her message. His publicist didn’t know what it was about. Kate wouldn’t say. She just needed to talk to Parker.

A favor?

What kind of favor could she want?

Getting up to pour himself another cup of black coffee, Parker stared out into the night, his two loyal German shepherds, Patch and Daisy, following him across the spacious room. On the other side of his desk in the cozy sitting area, a fire crackled in the massive stone fireplace, warding off the last of the winter chill. His office was downstairs on the back of the house, overlooking the pool he’d had renovated this winter. The row of paned windows and doors across one entire wall gave him a stunning view of the sparkling water and the moonlit gardens. He could see the dazzling white of the dogwood blossoms just on the edge of the estate. Soon the magnolias and the moon vines would be blooming. The landscapers called it a moon garden, one where all the white-flowering blossoms shone luminous and ethereal in the moonlight.

The way Kate’s pretty dress had shimmered the night of the reunion last summer.

And why was he thinking of that instead of calling Kate back? The very thing he’d so often thought of—having a conversation with Kate Brooks—now stood as a symbol of all that had kept them apart. And how many times had he thought about her over the last few months since their brief encounter at the class reunion? Just about every day, almost every waking minute.

But, as he usually did when he didn’t want to face a problem, Parker poured his heart into his work. When he needed a break, he could take the dogs on a walk over his twenty-five acres, or go fishing down at the pond or just sit out by the pool, staring at nothing. Thinking of nothing.

Thinking of her.

“Okay,” he said out loud as he turned back to his storyboard. “Get her out of your mind, man.”

Kate Brooks came from a fine, hardworking middleclass family. Although she hadn’t been as wealthy as some of their classmates in college, she’d certainly been popular. And since she’d grown up here in Magnolia Falls, she’d been on the inside track with the uppity society crowd.

Parker, on the other hand, had moved here in his senior year of high school and had never managed to fit in. His family wasn’t rich. In fact, he’d lived in a house with his widowed mother and older sister on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak. His mother had worked hard in the college cafeteria, but she’d insisted on Parker getting an education. So with money left over from his father’s insurance policy, she’d sent Parker to college. She’d died a year later.

Now his only sister was married with her own family in Atlanta, but Parker made sure she didn’t want for anything. He sent money to her regularly to help with her children’s education. He was glad to be able to do that, since it looked as though he might not ever have children of his own.

Then he thought of Kate’s son. Brandon. He’d told her he’d like to meet the little boy, though he certainly hadn’t made any effort to do so since the reunion. But then, a lot had happened since that night.

Beginning with Trevor Whittaker finding a skeleton buried on the college campus. That kind of scandal sure put a damper on any type of reunion or party. Maybe that’s why Parker hadn’t bothered pursuing Kate. He knew she was here; knew she worked hard at her job. He didn’t think she had time to date anyone, or at least he’d heard nothing to give him reason to believe that she did. He’d thought about calling her, but maybe he just liked the idea of Kate Brooks better than getting to know the real woman. Maybe he didn’t want to risk that. Because that would mean she’d have to get to know the real Parker Buchanan.

Parker looked down at Patch. The black dog with the brown spotted nose stared up at him with big eyes. “She needs a favor,” Parker said, shrugging. “What’s up with that, old boy?”

Patch made a grunt deep in his throat. Daisy looked from her master to her mate and back, then whimpered low.

“Oh, of course you’d side with Kate,” Parker said to the female dog. “You’re a woman, after all. I know y’all conspire together, right?”

Daisy gave him a quizzical look, then slid down onto the braided rug next to Patch.

Parker wondered why humans couldn’t be as loyal as animals.

The two dogs looked at each other, then back to Parker as if to say “It’s not that hard. We love each other.”

“Right,” Parker said. “Love. That has to be in there somewhere, doesn’t it?”

He stared at the phone, but he refused to listen to the message again. He didn’t believe in love. And he didn’t grant favors, even to an old friend.

This should be very simple, Kate decided two days later. It was a warm Saturday morning and Brandon was at soccer practice for the next couple of hours. And she was on a mission. Once she got something in her head, she plowed forward. Like moving to Nashville to become a country singing star. Or marrying the wrong man for all the wrong reasons.

But this was different. This was for Brandon. And Kate would do anything for her son.

Even if it meant breaking and entering, sort of.

“Got to move that mountain,” she said, thinking of another one of her mother’s favorite sayings.

She didn’t know what had possessed her to wake up this morning with criminal intent in her mind, but something had urged her to go to extreme measures regarding Parker Buchanan. Okay, maybe it was because her son looked so dejected each time she mentioned his birthday. Since nothing she offered seemed to change Brandon’s sad expression, she’d finally done a very foolish thing. She’d promised her son she’d talk to Parker Buchanan about at least coming to his birthday party.

“But that’s all I promised,” she told herself as she scoped the territory surrounding Brandon’s gated estate.

“I did not tell my son I was actually going to come here and confront the man himself.”

She eyed the electronic gate and the six-foot wrought-iron fence. Well, she had tried reaching Parker the conventional way, but the man wouldn’t return her messages. And he wouldn’t answer the buzzer on the gate, either, even after she’d hit it for the third time just to be sure. Maybe he wasn’t even in that big white house up on the hill. There was only one way to find out.

She was going in there.

Okay, so how exactly was she going to get inside this compound?

She looked around, thinking maybe if she found a tree near the fence, she could climb up and jump over. She saw an old oak, then tried to shimmy her way up the slanted trunk to the one low branch that could propel her over the high fence. Pushing through new spring brambles and old dead weeds, she managed to secure one tennis shoe to the tree, then lift herself up the ancient trunk. She climbed toward the protruding limb, then reached a hand out to grasp it. But the branch was limp and not as secure as it had looked from the ground, so her hand slipped, causing her to wobble backwards through the air. That only brought her tumbling back down onto her bottom, her hands rough and red from holding on to loose bark. Rubbing her raw palms against her now-soiled jeans, Kate stood back to stare at the graceful mansion sitting back away from the road. Maybe if she walked the perimeter of the property, she could find a way inside.

But after marching a few yards toward the woods, she realized the weeds and shrubs were too overgrown for her to be able to even find a hole in the fence. She had the thorns and beggar ticks on her jeans to prove it. And since the weather was warming up, there was a possibility that she’d encounter a rattlesnake or copperhead coming out of hibernation.

Frustrated, sweating and puffing, with her hair falling out of the haphazard coil she’d pulled together this morning, she came back to the fence.

“Maybe I can squeeze through those iron bars,” she reasoned. Something told Kate she’d just have to force the issue with Parker, to get his attention at least. If she remembered nothing else about the man, she knew he was stubborn and full of pride.

Kate intended to break through all that, for her son’s sake.

“Sure, like that’s gonna happen.”

Then an amazing thing did happen. The gate started to swing open. Glancing around, Kate wondered if there was a camera on her. But a delivery truck coming down the long drive from the house confirmed she was safe. Obviously, even a recluse like Parker Buchanan had to order supplies now and then.

So, taking the only chance she might have, she slipped through the open gate, in too much of a hurry to get in her car and drive through the normal way. She scooted around the partially open gate before the truck rounded the curve to the street, then hid behind a tall camellia bush until the truck was gone and the gate had shut.

She was inside Parker’s beautiful estate. Looking around, she could see that the lawns and gardens were well-maintained and lush. A new springtime bloom covered everything from the great moss-draped oaks lining the drive to the shiny green magnolia trees waiting to blossom in a month or so. Soon the many azaleas covering the grounds would burst out in brilliant color. Kate could only imagine how beautiful this place would be during the spring and summer.

But she wasn’t here to admire the scenery, she reminded herself.

“Now what?” she asked as she took a deep, calming breath.

Then she heard the dogs barking.