Secrets and Lies: He's A Bad Boy / He's Just A Cowboy

“Can I go now?” she cut in.

The answer was no. The interrogation lasted another two hours, at the end of which, on the lawyer’s advice, her parents—in the first decision they’d agreed upon for two years—proclaimed that Rachelle wasn’t to see Jackson again. They were both shocked and appalled that their daughter, the reliable, responsible one of their two girls, had gotten involved with “that wretched Moore boy.” Though the police had assured her folks that Rachelle was not a suspect, not even considered for being an accessory, she was as good as convicted in their eyes. She’d slept with a boy she hardly knew, a boy with a reputation as tarnished as her grandmother’s silver tea set, a boy who was now charged with kidnapping, trespassing, assault, breaking and entering and murder.

While Jackson sat alone in the county jail, unable to make bail, Rachelle was grounded. Indefinitely. Even her sister, Heather, who usually enjoyed adventure and took more chances than Rachelle, was subdued and stared at Rachelle with soulful, disbelieving blue eyes.

“I can’t believe it,” Heather whispered, gazing at Rachelle with a look of horror mingled with awe. “You did it? With Jackson Moore?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Rachelle, sitting on the edge of her bed, towel-dried her hair.

“But what was it like? Was it beautiful, or scary or disgusting?”

Rachelle ripped the towel from her head. “I said I’m not discussing it, Heather, and I mean it. Let it go!” she snapped, and Heather, for once, turned back to the pages of some teen magazine. To Rachelle, her sister, four years younger and a troublemaker in her own right, seemed incredibly naive and juvenile. In one night, Rachelle felt as if she’d grown up. She had no patience for Heather getting vicarious thrills out of Jackson’s bad luck.

And bad luck it was. Jackson, before he was indicted, was branded as a killer by the citizens of Gold Creek, and Thomas Fitzpatrick swore that whoever murdered his boy would live to regret it. Thomas never came out and publicly named Jackson as Roy’s assailant, but it was obvious, from the biting comments made to the press by Roy’s mother, June, that the Fitzpatrick family would leave no stone unturned in seeing that Jackson was found guilty of Roy’s death. The Fitzpatrick money, lawyers and as many private detectives as it would take, would aid the district attorney in the quest to prove Jackson the culprit.

Rachelle was frantic. She would do anything to see Jackson again and she suffered her mother’s reproachful stare. “Just pray you’re not pregnant,” Ellen Tremont said through pinched lips about a week after Jackson was hauled in. She was washing dishes with a vengeance. Soapsuds and water sloshed to the cracked linoleum floor as she scrubbed, her stiff back to her daughter. “It’s bad enough your reputation’s ruined, but think about the fact that you could be carrying his child!” She cast a look over her shoulder and her mouth curved into a frown of distaste. “And then there’s venereal disease. A boy like that—who knows how many girls he’s been with?”

“He’s not like that!”

Her mother slapped down her dishrag and held on to the counter for support. She was shaking so badly, she could barely stand. “You don’t know what he’s like! And besides all that—” Ellen turned to face her daughter, and her teary reproachful stare was worse than her rage. Her chin wobbled slightly and the lines around her mouth were more pronounced. She looked as if she’d aged ten years. “How will you ever get a scholarship now? We can’t count on your father anymore and…a scholarship’s about the only way you’ll be able to afford college. Lord, Rachelle, God gave you a brain, why didn’t you use it?”

Rachelle couldn’t stand to see her mother’s pain any longer. Nor could she listen as Jackson’s character was destroyed even further. She left the kitchen and slammed the door of her room behind her. But she felt sick as she flopped on her twin bed and stared across the room to her sister’s empty bunk. She flipped on the radio and tried to get lost in the music of Billy Joel, but through the thin walls of the cottage, she could still hear her mother softly crying.

God, please help us all. And be with Jackson. Oh, Jackson, I wish I could see you… .

Rachelle squeezed her eyes shut. She refused to break down and sob, but tears slid down her cheeks and she had to bite her lower lip to keep the moans of despair within her lungs. She wouldn’t let her mother or anyone else in town see how much she hurt inside. She would abide the stares, the whispers, the pointed fingers and the knowing snickers, because she knew that she and Jackson had shared something wonderful, something special.

Let the gossip-mongering citizens of Gold Creek make it dirty. Let the damned Clarion, the newspaper where she had worked two afternoons a week and from which she had been fired, tear her reputation to shreds. In her heart of hearts, she knew that she and Jackson would never let go of the unique bond that held them together.

Was it love? Probably not. She couldn’t kid herself any longer. But someday, if things worked out, and the circumstances were right, if given the chance, she and Jackson could fall in love. In time. And together she and Jackson would show everyone that what they’d shared was beautiful. He’d prove his innocence, the town would forgive him and everything would work out.

It had to.

BOOK TWO

Gold Creek, California

The Present

CHAPTER FIVE

RACHELLE SHIFTED DOWN and her compact Ford responded, slowing as she took the winding curves of the road near the lake. From the wicker carrier propped on the back seat, her cat growled a protest.

“We’re just about there,” Rachelle said, as if Java could understand. But how could he?

More than once Rachelle herself had questioned the wisdom of this, her journey back home. She told herself it was necessary, that in order for her to be happy as David’s wife, she would have to resolve some problems that were firmly rooted in Gold Creek.

But now as she approached the lake where all the pain had started, her skin began to rise in goose bumps and she wished she were still asleep in her walk-up overlooking San Francisco Bay.

She shivered a little. The summer morning was dark, the last stars beginning to fade. Her headlights threw a double beam onto the rutted road and she flipped on the radio. Bette Midler’s voice, strong and clear, filled the small car’s interior and the words of “The Rose” seemed to echo through Rachelle’s heart.

She flipped to another channel quickly, before the words hit home. She’d heard the song often in the days after Jackson’s arrest—the days when she, along with he, had been branded by the town. The lyrics had seemed written for them and the lonely melody had only reminded her that aside from her family, only Carlie had stood by her.

Carlie.

Where was she now? They hadn’t spoken in three or four years. The last time Rachelle had heard from her, she’d received a Christmas card, two weeks into January and postmarked Alaska. Most of the other kids had stayed in Gold Creek. A few had moved on, but the new generation of Fitzpatricks, Monroes and Powells had stayed. Even Laura Chandler, the girl who had never once spoken to Rachelle since the night of Roy’s death, had married into the Fitzpatrick money by becoming Brian Fitzpatrick’s bride.

The soft-rock music drifting out of the speakers was better. No memories of Jackson in a Wilson Phillips song.

She parked her car near the bait-and-tackle shop on the south side of the lake and knew in her heart that she’d come back to Gold Creek because of Jackson, to purge him from her life, so that she could start over and begin a new life with David.

The thought of David caused a pucker to form between her eyebrows. She told herself that she loved him, that passion wasn’t a necessary part of life and that romance was a silly notion she’d given up long ago.

David sent her flowers on all the right days—straight from the florist’s shop each birthday and Valentine’s Day. He took her to candlelight dinners when he deemed it appropriate and he always complimented her on a new outfit.

A stockbroker who owned his own house in the city and drove a flashy imported car and knew how to program a computer. Perfect husband material, right? What did it matter if he didn’t want a baby or that his lips curved into a slight frown whenever he caught her in a pair of worn jeans?

She shoved her hands into her pockets. Though the lake was still thick with mist, several boats were already heading into the calm waters, and fishermen were hurrying in and out of the old bait shop. Built in the twenties, it was a rambling frame structure that still had the original gas pumps mounted in front of the store. A bell tinkled over the threshold as customers came and went and the wooden steps were weathered and beaten. Rusted metal signs for Nehi soda and Camel cigarettes had never been taken down, though the lettering was faded, the paint peeling.

“Like stepping back in time,” she told herself as she followed a trail past the store and into the woods. From this side of the lake, once the haze had disappeared, she would be able to look to the north shore, where the estates of the wealthy still existed. The Monroe home and Fitzpatrick “cottage” would soon be visible.

Rachelle wasn’t superstitious. She didn’t believe in ghosts. Nor Indian lore. Nor psychics, for that matter. She’d never had her palm read in her life and she wasn’t about to have her chart done to find out about herself.

And yet here she was, standing on the shores of Whitefire Lake, the source of all sorts of legends and scandals and ghosts that were as much a part of the town of Gold Creek, California, as the Rexall Drug Store that stood on the corner of Main and Pine.

Hopefully she’d find answers about herself as well as this town in the next few weeks. And when she returned to San Francisco, she’d be ready to settle down and become Mrs. David L. Gaskill. Her palms felt suddenly sweaty at the thought.

And what about Jackson?

Jackson. Always Jackson. She doubted that there would ever be a time when she would hear his name and her heart wouldn’t jump start. Silly girl.

Rachelle tossed a stone into the lake. The first fingers of light crept across the lake’s still surface and mist began to rise from the water. Like pale ghosts, the bodies of steam collected, obscuring the view of the forests of the far shore.

Just like the legend, Rachelle thought with a wry smile. Impulsively she knelt on the mossy bank, cupped her hands and scooped from the cool water. Feeling a little foolish, she let the liquid slide down her throat, then let the rest of the water run through her fingers. She smiled at her actions and wiped the drops from her chin. Drying her hands on her jeans, she noticed, in the dark depths of the lake, a flash of silver, the turning of a trout, the scales on its belly glimmering and unprotected, as the fish darted from her shadow.

She felt a sudden chill, like winter’s breath against the back of her neck, and the hairs at her nape stood. She knew she was being silly, that the old Indian legend was pure folly, but when she looked up, her gaze following an overgrown path that rimmed the water, she saw, in her mind’s eye, a figure in the haze, the shape of a man standing not twenty feet from her.

Too easily, she could bring Jackson Moore to mind. She imagined him as she’d last seen him: dressed in a scraped leather jacket, battered jeans and cowboy boots with the heels worn down; his thumb had been hooked as he started toward the main highway. The look he’d sent her over his shoulder still pulled at her heartstrings.

“Bastard,” she muttered, refusing to spend too much time thinking of him. The mirage, for that’s all it was, disappeared.

The sun crested the hills and sunlight streaked across the sky, lighting the dark waters of the lake, turning the surface to golden fire. The mist closed in, pressing against her face, wet and cool.

She drew in a long breath and wrapped her arms over her chest. Maybe coming home hadn’t been such a hot idea. What was the point of stirring things up again?

Because you have to. Because of David.

She smiled sadly when she thought of David. Kind David. Sweet David. Understanding David. A man as opposite from Jackson as a man could be. A man who wanted nothing more than for her to become his wife.

With one final glance at the still waters of Whitefire Lake, she dusted off her hands and walked up the gravel-and-dirt path to her car. The mist rose slowly and without the fog as a shroud, the forest seemed warm and familiar again. A chipmunk darted into the brambles and in the canopy of branches overhead, a blue jay screeched and scolded her.

“Don’t worry,” she told the jay. “I’m going, I’m going.” She unlocked the door of her old Ford Escort and slid onto a cracked vinyl seat. Someday soon she’d have to replace the car, she knew, but she had resisted so far. This car, bought and paid for with her first paycheck from the San Francisco Herald, was a part of her she’d rather not throw away just yet.

With an unsettling grind, the engine turned over, coughed and sputtered before idling unevenly on the sandy road. Java meowed loudly. Rachelle sighed and turned on the radio. A song from years past reverberated through the speakers and she thought again of Jackson.

Rolling down a window, she breathed deep of the wooded air, then threw the little car into gear and started down the winding road that would lead her back to Gold Creek.

Jackson Moore. She wondered what he was doing right now. The last she’d heard, he was in the heart of New York City, practicing law, but still a rebel.

* * *

“I TELL YOU, THERE’S GONNA be trouble. Big-time,” Brian Fitzpatrick insisted. He tossed a newspaper onto his father’s desk and, muttering an oath under his breath, flopped into one of the expensive side chairs.

Thomas was used to Brian’s moods. The boy had always been a hothead who didn’t have the mental fortitude to run the logging company, but there’d been no choice in the matter. Not after Roy’s death. At the thought of that tragic night, Thomas set his jaw. God help us all, he’d thought then. And now, as he stared at the Tremont girl’s headline, he thought it again.

“Back to Gold Creek,” the article was titled. Thomas’s gut clenched. He skimmed the article and his lips thinned angrily. So she was returning. What a fool. She was better off living in the city, burying the past deep as he and the rest of his family had.

“Thomas? Did I hear Brian’s voice?” his wife, June, called. He heard her footsteps clicking against the marble foyer of the house they’d called home for nearly twenty years. She poked her head into the den and her pale face lit with a smile at the sight of her son. “Weren’t you even going to say ‘hi’?” she admonished with that special sparkle in her eyes she reserved for her children.

“’Course I was, Mom,” Brian replied. He was putty in her hands. Just as Roy had been. “Dad and I were just discussing business.”

She rolled her eyes. “Always. So Laura isn’t with you?”

At the mention of his wife’s name, Brian forced a cool smile. “Nope. I came directly from the office.”

“She should stop by more often, bring that grandson of mine over here. I haven’t seen Zachary for nearly a month,” June reprimanded gently—with a smile and a will of iron.

“I’ll bring him over.”

“And Laura, too,” June insisted, and started for the door. But as she turned, she spied the newspaper, folded open to Rachelle Tremont’s article. Her pale face grew whiter still. “What’s this?” she whispered.

“Nothing to get upset about,” Brian intervened quickly.

Wearily Thomas handed his wife the paper. She’d find out soon enough as it was. “Rachelle Tremont’s coming back to town.”

“No!”

“We can’t stop her, June.”

Two points of color stained her cheeks as she read the article. “I won’t have it, Thomas. Not after what happened.” Her throat worked and she clasped a thin hand to her chest.

“She has family here. You can’t stop her from visiting.”

“That little tramp is the reason that Jackson Moore wasn’t convicted!” she said, her eyes bright. She collapsed on the couch and closed her eyes. “Why?” she whispered. “Why now?” The agony in her voice nearly broke Thomas’s heart all over again.

“I don’t know.”

“If she comes, he won’t be far behind,” she predicted fatalistically.

“Who? Moore?” Brian asked. “No way. He was lucky to get out of this town with his skin. The coward won’t dare show his face around here.”

“He’ll be back,” she whispered intently, unnervingly.

Thomas rounded the desk and sat on the edge of the couch, taking her frail hands in his. “He’s a hotshot lawyer in Manhattan. He probably doesn’t even know that she’s coming back.”

“He’ll know. And mark my words, he’ll be here.”

“He could’ve come back any number of times. It’s been twelve years.”

Her eyes flew open and she looked over his shoulder and through the window, as if staring at the hills in the distance, but Thomas knew she wasn’t seeing anything other than her own vision of the future and that the vision frightened her to her very bones. He felt her fingers tremble in his hands, saw her swallow as if in fear.

“He’s a coward. A murdering, low-life coward,” she said, her voice cracking. “But he’ll be back. Because of her.” With a strength he wouldn’t have believed she possessed, she crumpled the newspaper in her fist and blinked against the tears that she’d held at bay for over a decade.

“He’s in New York,” Thomas assured her, and they both knew that Thomas had kept track of Jackson Moore ever since he’d left Gold Creek. There were reasons to keep track of him, reasons Thomas and his wife never discussed. “He won’t come back.”

But Thomas was lying. With a certainty as cold as the bottom of Whitefire Lake, Thomas knew that Jackson Moore would return.

* * *

THE HEAT OF THE DAY STILL simmered in the city and the air was sultry and humid, a cloying blanket that caused sweat to rise beneath collar and cuffs. Even the breath of wind slipping across the East River didn’t bring much relief through the open window of Jackson Moore’s Manhattan apartment.

He rubbed the kinks from the back of his neck, then poured Scotch over two cubes of ice in his glass and sat on the window ledge. The air-conditioning was on the fritz again, and his apartment sweltered while dusk settled over the concrete-and-steel alleys of the city.

As he had for the past six summers since he’d started working, he wondered why he didn’t pack his bags and move on. New York held no fascination for him—well, nothing much did. He’d spent too many years chasing after a demon who probably had never existed, before giving up on his past and settling here in this city of broken dreams.

“Keep it up, Moore, and you’ll break my heart,” he told himself as he swirled his drink, letting the cubes melt as condensation covered the exterior of the glass. He didn’t have it so bad. Not really. His apartment was big enough for one, maybe two, should the need arise, and he did have a view of the park.

By all accounts he was a rich man. Not a millionaire, but close enough. Pretty damn good for a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, he thought reflectively, a kid once considered the bad boy of a sleepy little Northern California town. Not that it mattered much. He tossed back his drink and felt the fiery warmth of the liquor mingle with the frigid ice as the liquid splashed against the back of his throat. A nice little zing. A zing he was beginning to enjoy too much.

He flipped through the mail. Bills, invoices and yet another big win in a clearing-house drawing where he would become an instant millionaire—all he had to do was take a chance. He snorted. He’d been taking chances all his life. The afternoon edition of the New York Daily was folded neatly under the stack of crisp envelopes and, as he had every Saturday since her syndicated column had appeared, he opened the paper to Section D, and there, under the small byline of Rachelle Tremont, was her article—if you could call it that. Her weekly exposés were little more than expressions of her own opinions about life in general—or her latest pet peeve of the week, usually on the side of someone she thought had been wronged. Not exactly hard-core journalism. Not exactly his cup of tea. Why he tortured himself by reading her column and reminding himself of her week after week, he didn’t bother to analyze; if he did he’d probably end up on the couch of an expensive shrink. But each Friday evening, when the Saturday edition was left near his door, he poured himself a drink and allowed himself the pleasure and pain of tripping down memory lane. “Idiot,” he muttered, and his voice bounced off the walls of his empty apartment.

He leaned a hip against the table and read the headline. Back to Gold Creek. Distractedly he read the editor’s note that followed, indicating that the column would be written from good ol’ Gold Creek, California, for the next ten weeks while Rachelle returned home to examine the small town where she’d grown up and compare that small-minded little village now to what it had been when she’d lived there.

Jackson sucked in a disbelieving breath. His gut jerked hard against his diaphragm. Was that woman out of her mind? She was always too inquisitive for her own good—too trusting to have much common sense, but he’d given her credit for more brains than this!

A small trickle of sweat collected at the base of his skull as he thought of Rachelle as he’d found her that night in the gazebo, drenched from the rain, her long hair wet and soaked against bare skin where her blouse had been torn. A metallic taste crawled up the back of his throat as he remembered how frightened she’d been, how desperate she’d felt in his arms and how he, himself, had unwittingly used her.

So now she was going back? To all that pain? He’d never thought her a fool—well, maybe once before. But this—this journey back in time was a fool’s mission—a mission he’d inadvertently caused all those years ago.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a minute and refused to dwell on all the pain that he’d created, how he’d single-handedly nearly destroyed her.

So what was this—some sort of catharsis? For her? Or for him?

The demons of his past had never been laid to rest; he’d known that, and he’d accepted it. But whenever they’d risen their grisly heads, he’d managed to tamp them back into a dark, cobwebby corner of his mind and lock them securely away. And time, thankfully, had been his ally.

But no longer. If Rachelle tried to turn back the clock and expose that hellhole of a town for what it really was, if she attempted to tear open the seams of the shroud that had hidden the town’s darkest secrets, the questions surrounding Roy Fitzpatrick’s death would surface again. Jackson’s name would surely come up and the real murderer—whoever the hell he was—might reappear.

What a mess!

He tossed his paper on the table and swore as he began pacing in front of the open window. His muscles tense, his mind working with the precision that had gained him a reputation at the courthouse, for he’d been known to become obsessed with his cases, living them day and night, he considered his options.

Until now, he’d managed to keep his past to himself. However, things had changed. It looked as if, through Rachelle’s column in the Daily and a dozen other newspapers across the country, that the whole world would find out how he’d grown up on the wrong side of the tracks and left his hometown all but accused of murder.

“Great,” he muttered sarcastically, glancing at the half-full bottle of Scotch on the bar. He plowed both sets of fingers through his sweaty hair and his thoughts took another turn. Not that it really mattered. His life was open. He’d been raised by a poor mother, gotten into trouble in high school and had shipped out with the navy. Eventually he’d gone back to Gold Creek, made a little money and had been accused of murder.