At Home in Stone Creek

Ashley bit her lower lip. God knew why, but Jack wanted to stay at her place, and he’d gone through a lot to get there. As impractical as it was, given his condition, she didn’t think she could turn him out.

Brad must have read her face. He reached out, took her hand. “You still love the bastard,” he said. “Don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” she answered miserably. She’d definitely loved the man she’d known before, but this was a new Jack, a different Jack. The real one, she supposed. It shook her to realize she’d given her heart to an illusion.

“It’s okay, Ashley.”

She shook her head, started to cry again. “Nothing is okay,” she argued.

“We can make it that way,” Brad offered quietly. “All we have to do is talk.”

She dried her eyes on the sleeve of Jack’s old shirt. It seemed ironic, given all the things hanging in her closet, that she’d chosen to wear that particular garment when she’d gotten dressed that morning. Had some part of her known, somehow, that Jack was coming home?

Brad was waiting for an answer, and he wouldn’t break eye contact until he got one.

Ashley swallowed hard. “Our mother died,” she said, cornered. “Our mother. And you and Olivia and Melissa all seemed—relieved.”

A muscle in Brad’s jaw tightened, relaxed again. He sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. “I guess I was relieved,” he admitted. “They said she didn’t suffer, but I always wondered—” He paused, cleared his throat. “I wondered if she was in there somewhere, hurting, with no way to ask for help.”

Ashley’s heart gave one hard beat, then settled into its normal pace again. “You didn’t hate her?” she asked, stunned.

“She was my mother,” Brad said. “Of course I didn’t hate her.”

“Things might have been so different—”

“Ashley,” Brad broke in, “things weren’t different. That’s the point. Delia’s gone, for good this time. You’ve got to let go.”

“What if I can’t?” Ashley whispered.

“You don’t have a choice, Button.”

Button. Their grandfather had called both her and Melissa by that nickname; like most twins, they were used to sharing things. “Do you miss Big John as much as I do?” she asked.

“Yes,” Brad answered, without hesitation, his voice still gruff. He looked down at his coffee mug for a second or so, then raised his gaze to meet Ashley’s again. “Same thing,” he said. “He’s gone. And letting go is something I have to do about three times a day.”

Ashley got up, suddenly unable to sit still. She brought the coffee carafe to the table and refilled Brad’s cup. She spoke very quietly. “But it was a one-time thing, letting go of Mom?”

“Yeah,” Brad said. “And it happened a long, long time ago. I remember it distinctly—it was the night my high school basketball team took the state championship. I was sure she’d be in the bleachers, clapping and cheering like everybody else. She wasn’t, of course, and that was when I got it through my head that she wasn’t coming back—ever.”

Ashley’s heart ached. Brad was her big brother; he’d always been strong. Why hadn’t she realized that he’d been hurt, too?

“Big John stayed, Ashley,” he went on, while she sat there gulping. “He stuck around, through good times and bad. Even after he’d buried his only son, he kept on keeping on. Mom caught the afternoon bus out of town and couldn’t be bothered to call or even send a postcard. I did my mourning long before she died.”

Ashley could only nod.

Brad was quiet for a while, pondering, taking the occasional sip from his coffee mug. Then he spoke again. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “When the chips were down, I basically did the same thing as Mom—got on a bus and left Big John to take care of the ranch and raise the three of you all by himself—so I’m in no position to judge anybody else. Bottom line, Ash? People are what they are, and they do what they do, and you have to decide either to accept that or walk away without looking back.”

Ashley managed a wobbly smile. Sniffled once. “I’m sorry I’m late on the mortgage payments,” she said.

Brad rolled his eyes. “Like I’m worried,” he replied, his body making the subtle shifts that meant he’d be leaving soon. With one arm, he gestured to indicate the B&B. “Why won’t you just let me sign the place over to you?”

“Would you do that,” Ashley challenged reasonably, “if our situations were reversed?”

He flushed slightly, got to his feet. “No,” he admitted, “but—”

“But what?”

Brad grinned sheepishly, and his powerful shoulders shifted slightly under his shirt.

“But you’re a man?” Ashley finished for him, when he didn’t speak. “Is that what you were going to say?”

“Well, yeah,” Brad said.

“You’ll have the mortgage payments as soon as I get a chance to run Jack’s credit card,” she told her brother, rising to walk him to the back door. Color suffused her cheeks. “Thanks for coming into town,” she added. “I feel like a fool for panicking.”

In the midst of pulling on his jacket, Brad paused. “I’m a big brother,” he said, somewhat gruffly. “It’s what we do.”

“Are you and Meg going to the hospital tomorrow, when Livie…?”

Brad tugged lightly at her braid, the way he’d always done. “We’ll be hanging out by the telephone,” he said. “Livie swears it’s a normal procedure, and she doesn’t want everyone fussing ‘as if it were a heart transplant,’ as she put it.”

Ashley bit down on her lower lip and nodded. She already had a nephew—Mac—and two nieces, Carly and Sophie, although technically Carly, Meg’s half sister, whom her dying father had asked her to raise, wasn’t really a niece. Tomorrow, another little one would join the family. Instead of being a nervous wreck, she ought to be celebrating.

She wasn’t, she decided, so different from Sophie. Having effectively lost Delia when she was so young, she’d turned to Olivia as a substitute mother, as had Melissa. Had their devotion been a burden to their sister, only a few years older than they were, and grappling with her own sense of loss?

She stood on tiptoe and kissed Brad’s cheek. “Thanks,” she said again. “Call if you hear anything.”

Brad gave her braid another tug, turned and left the house.

Ashley felt profoundly alone.

Jack had nearly flung himself at the singing cowboy standing at the foot of his bed, before recognizing him as Ashley’s famous brother, Brad. Even though the room had been dark, the other man must have seen him tense.

“I know you’re awake, McCall,” he’d said.

Jack had yawned. “O’Ballivan?”

“Live and in person,” came the not-so-friendly reply.

“And you’re sneaking around my room because…?”

O’Ballivan had chuckled at that. Hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “Because Ashley’s worried about you. And what worries my baby sister worries me, James Bond.”

Ashley was worried about him? Something like elation flooded Jack. “Not for the same reasons, I suspect,” he said.

Mr. Country Music had gripped the high, spooled rail at the foot of the bed and leaned forward a little to make his point. “Damned if I can figure out why you’d come back here, especially in the shape you’re in, after what happened last summer, except to take up where you left off.” He paused, gripped the rail hard enough that his knuckles showed white even in the gloom. “You hurt her again, McCall, and you have my solemn word—I’m gonna turn right around and hurt you. Are we clear on that?”

Jack had smiled, not because he was amused, but because he liked knowing Ashley had folks to look after her when he wasn’t around—and when he was. “Oh, yeah,” Jack had replied. “We’re clear.”

Obviously a man of few words, O’Ballivan had simply nodded, turned and walked out of the room.

Remembering, Jack raised himself as high on the pillows as he could, strained to reach the lamp switch. The efforts, simple as they were, made him break out in a cold sweat, but at the same time, he felt his strength returning.

He looked around the room, noting the flowered wallpaper, the pale rose carpeting, the intricate woodwork on the mantelpiece. Two girly chairs flanked the cold fireplace, and fat flakes of January snow drifted past the two sets of bay windows, both sporting seats beneath, covered by cheery cushions.

It was a far cry from Walter Reed, he thought.

An even further cry from the jungle hut where he’d hidden out for nearly three months, awaiting his chance to grab little Rachel Stockard, hustle her out of the country by boat and then a seaplane, and return her to her frantic mother.

He’d been well paid for the job, but it was the memory of the mother-daughter reunion, after he’d surrendered the child to a pair of FBI agents and a Customs official in Atlanta, that made his throat catch more than two weeks after the fact.

Through an observation window, he’d watched as Rachel scrambled out of the man’s arms and raced toward her waiting mother. Tears pouring down her face, Ardith Stockard had dropped to her knees, arms outspread, and gathered the little girl close. The two of them had clung to each other, both trembling.

And then Ardith had raised her eyes, seen Jack through the glass, and mouthed the words, “Thank you.”

He’d nodded, exhausted and already sick.

Closing his eyes, Jack went back over the journey to South America, the long game of waiting and watching, finally finding the small, isolated country estate where Rachel had been taken after she was kidnapped from her maternal grandparents’ home in Phoenix, almost a year before.

Even after locating the child, he hadn’t been able to make a move for more than a week—not until her father and his retinue of thugs had loaded a convoy of jeeps with drugs and firepower one day, and roared off down the jungle road, probably headed for a rendezvous with a boat moored off some hidden beach.

Jack had soon ascertained that only the middle-aged cook—and he had reason not to expect opposition from her—and one guard stood between him and Rachel. He’d waited until dark, risking the return of the jeep convoy, then climbed to the terrace outside the child’s room.

“Did you come to take me home to my mommy?” Rachel had shrilled, her eyes wide with hope, when he stepped in off the terrace, a finger to his lips.

Her voice carried, and the guard burst in from the hallway, shouting in Spanish.

There had been a brief struggle—Jack had felt something prick him in the side as the goon went down—but, hearing the sound of approaching vehicles in the distance, he hadn’t taken the time to wonder.

He’d grabbed Rachel up under one arm and climbed over the terrace and back down the crumbling rock wall of the house, with its many foot- and handholds, to the ground, running for the trees.

It was only after the reunion in Atlanta that Jack had suddenly collapsed, dizzy with fever.

The next thing he remembered was waking up in a hospital room, hooked up to half a dozen machines and surrounded by grim-faced Feds waiting to ask questions.

Chapter Three

Ashley did not expect to sleep at all that night; she had too many things on her mind, between the imminent birth of Olivia’s baby, lingering issues with her mother and siblings, and Jack McCall landing in the middle of her formerly well-ordered days like the meteor that allegedly finished off the dinosaurs.

Therefore, sunlight glowing pink-orange through her eyelids and the loud jangle of her bedside telephone came as a surprise.

She groped for the receiver, nearly throwing a disgruntled Mrs. Wiggins to the floor, and rasped out a hoarse, “Hullo?”

Olivia’s distinctive laugh sounded weary, but it bubbled into Ashley’s ear and then settled, warm as summer honey, into every tuck and fold of her heart. “Did I wake you up?”

“Yes,” Ashley admitted, her heart beating faster as she raised herself onto one elbow and pushed her bangs back out of her face. “Livie? Did you—is everything all right—what—?”

“You’re an aunt again,” Olivia said, choking up again. “Twice over.”

Ashley blinked. Swallowed hard. “Twice over? Livie, you had twins?”

“Both boys,” Olivia answered, in a proud whisper. “And before you ask, they’re fine, Ash. So am I.” There was a pause, then a giggle. “I’m not too sure about Tanner, though. He’s only been through this once before, and Sophie didn’t bring along a sidekick when she came into the world.”

Ashley’s eyes burned, and her throat went thick with joy. “Oh, Livie,” she murmured. “This is wonderful! Have you told Melissa and Brad?”

“I was hoping you’d do that for me,” Olivia answered. “I’ve been working hard since five this morning, and I could use a nap before visiting hours roll around.”

First instinct: Throw on whatever clothes came to hand, jump in the car and head straight for the hospital, visiting hours be damned. Ashley wanted a look at her twin nephews, wanted to see for herself that Olivia really was okay.

In the next instant, she remembered Jack.

She couldn’t leave a sick guest alone, which meant she’d have to rustle up someone to keep an eye on him before she could visit Olivia and the babies.

“You’re in Flagstaff, right?” she asked, sitting up now.

“Good heavens, no,” Olivia replied, with another laugh. “We didn’t make it that far—I went into labor at three-thirty this morning. I’m at the clinic over in Indian Rock—thanks to the McKettricks, they’re equipped with incubators and just about everything else a new baby could possibly need.”

“Indian Rock?” Ashley echoed, still a little groggy. Forty miles from Stone Creek, Meg’s hometown was barely closer than Flagstaff, and lay in the opposite direction.

“I’ll explain later, Ash,” Olivia said. “Right now, I’m beat. You’ll call Brad and Melissa?”

“Right away,” Ashley promised. Happiness for her sister and brother-in-law welled up into her throat, a peculiar combination of pain and pleasure. “Just one more thing—have you named the babies?”

“Not yet. We’ll probably call one John Mitchell, for Big John and Dad, and the other Sam. Even though Tanner and I knew we were having two babies—our secret—we need to give it some thought.”

Practically every generation of the O’Ballivan family boasted at least one Sam, all the way back to the founder of Stone Creek Ranch. For all her delight over the twins’ birth, Ashley felt a little pang. She’d always planned to name her own son Sam.

Not that she was in any danger of having children.

“C-Congratulations, Livie. Hug Tanner for me, too.”

“Consider it done,” Olivia said.

Good-byes were said, and Ashley had to try three times before she managed to hang up the receiver.

After drawing a few deep breaths and wiping away mostly happy tears, Ashley regained her composure, remembered that she’d promised to pass the news along to the rest of her family.

Brad answered the telephone out at the ranch, sounding wide-awake. The sun couldn’t have been up for long, but by then, he’d probably fed all the dogs, horses and cattle on the place and started breakfast for Meg, Carly, Mac and himself. “That’s great,” he said, once Ashley had assured him that both Olivia and the babies were doing well. “But what are they doing in Indian Rock?”

“Olivia said she’d explain later,” Ashley answered.

The next call she placed was to her own twin, Melissa, who lived on the other side of town. A lawyer and an absolute genius with money, Melissa owned the spacious two-family home, renting out one side and thereby making the mortgage payment without touching her salary.

A man answered, and the voice wasn’t familiar.

A little alarmed—reruns of City Confidential and Forensic Files were Ashley’s secret addiction—she sat up a little straighter and asked, “Is this 555-2293?”

“I think so,” he said. “Melissa?”

Melissa came on the line, sounding breathless. “Olivia?”

“Your other sister,” Ashley said. “Livie asked me to call you. The babies were born this morning—”

“Babies?” Melissa interrupted. “Plural?”

“Twins,” Ashley answered.

“Nobody said anything about twins!” Being something of a control freak, Melissa didn’t like surprises—even good ones.

Ashley smiled. “They do run in the family, you know,” she reminded her sister. “And apparently Tanner and Olivia wanted to surprise us. She says all is well, and she’s going to catch some sleep before visiting hours.”

“Boys? Girls? One of each?” Melissa asked, rapid-fire.

“Both boys,” Ashley said. “No for-sure names yet. And who is that man who just answered your phone?”

“Later,” Melissa said, lowering her voice.

Ashley’s imagination spiked again. “Just tell me you’re all right,” she said. “That some stranger isn’t forcing you to pretend—”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Melissa broke in, sounding almost snappish. She’d been worried about Olivia, too, Ashley reasoned, calming down a little, but still unsettled. “I’m not bound with duct tape and being held captive in a closet. You’re watching too much crime-TV again.”

“Say the code word,” Ashley said, just to be absolutely sure Melissa was safe.

“You are so paranoid,” Melissa griped. Ashley could just see her, pushing back her hair, which fell to her shoulders in dark, gleaming spirals, picture her eyes flashing with irritation.

“Say it, and I’ll leave you alone.”

Melissa sighed. “Buttercup,” she said.

Ashley smiled. After a rash of child abductions when they were small, Big John had helped them choose the secret word and instructed them never to reveal it to anyone outside the family. Ashley never had, and she was sure Melissa hadn’t, either.

They’d liked the idea of speaking in code—their version of the twin-language phenomenon, Ashley supposed. Between the ages of three and seven, they’d driven everyone crazy, chattering away in a dialect made up of otherwise ordinary words and phrases.

If Melissa had said, “I plan to spend the afternoon sewing,” for instance, Ashley would have called out the National Guard. Ashley’s signal, considerably less autobiographical, was, “I saw three crows sitting on the mailbox this morning.”

“Are you satisfied?” Melissa asked.

“Are you PMS-ing?” Ashley countered.

“I wish,” Melissa said.

Before Ashley could ask what she’d meant by that, Melissa hung up.

“She’s PMS-ing,” Ashley told Mrs. Wiggins, who was curling around her ankles and mewing, probably ready for her kitty kibble.

Hastily, Ashley took a shower, donned trim black woolen slacks and an ice-blue silk blouse, brushed and braided her hair, and went out into the hallway.

Jack’s door was closed—she was sure she’d left it open a crack the night before, in case he called out—so she rapped lightly with her knuckles.

“In,” he responded.

Ashley rolled her eyes and opened the door to peek inside the room. Jack was sitting on the edge of the bed, his back very straight. He needed a shave, and his eyes were clear when he turned his head to look at her.

“You’re better,” she said, surprised.

He gave a slanted grin. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

Ashley felt her temper surge, but she wasn’t about to give Jack McCall the satisfaction of getting under her skin. Not today, when she’d just learned that she had twin nephews. “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Bacon and eggs would be good.”

Ashley raised one eyebrow. He’d barely managed chicken soup the night before, and now he wanted a trucker’s breakfast? “You’ll make yourself sick,” she told him, hiking her chin up a notch.

“I’m already sick,” he pointed out. “And I still want bacon and eggs.”

“Well,” Ashley said, “there aren’t any. I usually have grapefruit or granola.”

“You serve paying guests health food?”

Ashley sucked in a breath, let it out slowly. She wasn’t about to admit, not to Jack McCall, at least, that she hadn’t had a guest, paying or otherwise, in way too long. “Some people,” she told him carefully, “care about good nutrition.”

“And some people want bacon and eggs.”

She sighed. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

“It’s the least you can do,” Jack wheedled, “since I’m paying triple for this room and the breakfast that’s supposed to come with the bed.”

“All right,” she said. “But I’ll have to go to the store, and that means you’ll have to wait.”

“Fine by me,” Jack replied lightly, extending his feet and wriggling his toes, his expression curious, as though he wasn’t sure they still worked. “I’ll be right here.” The wicked grin flashed again. “Get a move on, will you? I need to get my strength back.”

Ashley shut the door hard, drew another deep breath in the hallway, and started downstairs, careful not to trip over the gamboling Mrs. Wiggins.

Reaching the kitchen, she poured kibble for the kitten, cleaned and refilled the tiny water bowl, and gathered her coat, purse and car keys.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she told the cat.

The temperature had dropped below freezing during the night, and the roads were sheeted in ice. Ashley’s trip to the supermarket took nearly forty-five minutes, the store was jammed, and by the time she got home, she was in a skillet-banging mood. She was an innkeeper, not a nurse. Why hadn’t she insisted that Tanner and Jeff take Jack to one of the hospitals in Flagstaff?

She built a fire on the kitchen hearth, hoping to cheer herself up a little—and take the chill out of her bones—then started a pot of coffee brewing. Next, she laid four strips of bacon in the seasoned cast-iron frying pan that had been Big John’s, tossed a couple of slices of bread into the toaster slots, and took a carton of eggs out of her canvas grocery bag.

She knew how Jack liked his eggs—over easy—just as she knew he took his coffee black and strong. It galled her plenty that she remembered those details—and a lot more.

Cooking angrily—so much for her motto that every recipe ought to be laced with love—Ashley nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard his voice behind her.

“Nice fire,” he said. “Very cozy.”

She whirled, openmouthed, and there he was, standing in the kitchen doorway, but leaning heavily on the jamb.

“What are you doing out of bed?” she asked, once the adrenaline rush had subsided.

Slowly, he made his way to the table, dragged back a chair and dropped into the seat. “I couldn’t take that wallpaper for another second,” he teased. “Too damn many roses and ribbons.”

Knowing that wallpaper was a stupid thing to be sensitive about, and sensitive just the same, Ashley opened a cupboard, took down a mug and filled it, even though the coffeemaker was still chortling through the brewing process. Set the mug down in front of him with a thump.

“Surely you’re not that touchy about your décor,” Jack said.

“Shut up,” Ashley told him.

His eyes twinkled. “Do you talk to all your guests that way?”

As so often happened around Jack, Ashley spoke without thinking first. “Only the ones who sneaked out of my bed in the middle of the night and disappeared for six months without a word.”

Jack frowned. “Have there been a lot of those?”

Jack McCall was the first—and only—man Ashley had ever slept with, but she’d be damned if she’d tell him so. After all, she realized, he hadn’t just broken her heart once—he’d done it twice. She’d been shy in high school, but the day she and Jack met, in her freshman year of college at the University of Arizona, her world had undergone a seismic shift.

They talked about getting married after Ashley finished school, had even looked at engagement rings. Jack had been a senior, and after graduation, he’d enlisted in the Navy. After a few letters and phone calls, he’d simply dropped out of her life.

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