“If you’re referring to the incident with the Mercedes, I believe that was your idea.”
“You were driving,” came the lazy response.
“And as I recall, that didn’t make one iota of difference to your mother. Maddie took a frying pan to both our butts.”
They grinned simultaneously at the memory, the awkwardness between them fading. “Imagine that,” Jack Hudson said ruefully, shaking his head. “Sixteen years old and my mother spanking me in front of my best friend.”
Drew chuckled. “The best friend got it just as hard as you did. I couldn’t sit down for a week, but I must say, I lost my affinity for Dad’s new Mercedes in a hurry. Your mother could be very persuasive.”
“Couldn’t she?” Jack agreed ruefully.
“What are you doing up and around this time of the morning?” Drew asked with a certain amount of suspicion.
“You forget I was raised on a farm. Half the day’s gone. Besides, I knew you had a meeting with Sam McCauley this morning. I wanted to catch you before you left.”
Drew stared at him for a moment, his eyes narrowing. “How the hell did you know that?”
Jack grinned crookedly, and for the first time his expression took on a hint of the devil-may-care look he’d always sported as a teenager.
Back in the old days Jack Hudson had been the most carefree soul Drew had ever met. They’d been kindred spirits from the moment their paths crossed. If Drew’s parents had thought moving and getting their growing boy out of the city would keep him out of trouble, they hadn’t figured on Jack Hudson and his twin cousins. They had been holy terrors that first summer, and Drew had quickly become their willing accomplice. They might all have ended up in reform school or worse if Angel hadn’t kept a sensible head for all of them. Their guardian Angel, they’d teased her. She hadn’t much appreciated that, Drew remembered wryly.
“Haven’t you learned yet that every move you make in this town is reported five minutes later by no fewer than a dozen eye witnesses? Nothing’s secret in Crossfield. You should know that as well as anybody.”
“Yeah, well, I guess some things never change,” Drew said dryly.
“Some don’t,” Jack agreed, his expression sobering as his gaze cut back to Drew. “But Ann has.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I hear you drove out to see her last night after the meeting.”
Drew shrugged. “So? I’m seeing and talking to a lot of people. Ann’s a member of the town council as well as a property owner. Why wouldn’t I go see her? I’m sure you’ve heard that’s why I’m here,” he added with a faint trace of bitterness.
“As long as that’s all it is.” Jack’s voice was low and even, but there was a subtle note of warning in it. He stared thoughtfully at the toes of his worn Nikes for a moment. “Frankly, as Ann’s attorney, I’ve advised her all along to sell to Riverside. She’s spent a mint on that old house the last couple of years—a new roof last year, a new pump a couple of months ago. The plumbing’s a constant battle, and the wiring—that’s a nightmare in itself. Uncle Adam named me executor of his estate so that I could keep an eye on the trust funds he set up from their mother’s inheritance, but Ann’s is dwindling faster than I can keep up with it. I don’t mind telling you, it worries me.”
He paused for a moment, and Drew said, “I sense there’s a `but’ in there somewhere.”
Jack’s gray eyes narrowed to a squint. “I don’t want to see her hurt again.”
“I have no intention of hurting Angel.”
“I’m glad to hear it, because she’s been through enough in the last several years. She’s lost her father, she’s lost her sister. Mom was like a mother to her and now she’s moved to Houston. I’m all the family Ann has left around here, and I intend to look out for her. I wouldn’t like to think that this sudden interest in her after all these years has anything to do with your company wanting to acquire her property.”
Drew’s head snapped around in a sudden blaze of anger. “I ought to punch your face in for that remark.”
“Yeah, you probably should,” Jack agreed amiably. “But I had to say it just the same.” He ran an admiring hand over the dark green surface of the car hood. “Anyway, looks like you’re doing all right for yourself.”
Drew smiled coolly. “I could say the same about you,” he said, nodding briefly in the direction of the new red Vette sitting beside the Jaguar.
“Yeah, I guess you could,” Jack agreed. “But as we both know, appearances can be deceiving, can’t they?”
* * *
It was still early, but the sun was already hot against her neck as Ann walked along the mossy bluff overlooking the river. Below her the wide green river slid along lofty banks where water irises grew in violet profusion in a morning light that was misty yellow. A white crane skimmed the glassy surface of the water, searching.
Rising over the treetops, she could see the rusted, towering rafters of the the old river bridge, which had been a ruin for as long as Ann could remember.
The very sight of that bridge always terrified her. Many of the iron supports were missing and the wooden floorboards had been rotting away for half a century. As children, she and Aiden and Jack had been instructed never to play there, but to Aiden and Jack, that had been the equivalent of putting ice cream before them and telling them not to eat it. The temptation became irresistible.
Ann could still remember standing on the road in the hot sun watching them walk across that bridge one summer afternoon. Her heart had pounded with fear, and her stomach had revolted from the terror. She’d lost her lunch right there in front of them, and Aiden and Jack had taunted her from the other side of the bridge, laughing at her and daring her to join them.
For a long time afterward, Ann had had recurring nightmares about that bridge, about seeing Aiden in the middle of it, one minute laughing and calling out to her, and the next minute gone. Ann would inevitably wake up screaming until she heard her father’s brisk voice penetrating the nightmare and, reassured, would stop.
With a start Ann realized someone was on the bridge now, staring down at her from his lofty view. She shaded her eyes with her hand, and as she watched, he lifted a hand to wave at her.
“Drew?” She whispered the name in the early morning silence. What was he doing here? And on that bridge of all places! Didn’t he know what that would do to her? Her stomach knotted painfully as she saw him start across the crumbling floorboards.
Her heart in her throat, she watched him near the end. Something buzzed past her cheek. Absently, she swatted the air, and then her movements froze as something struck the tree beside her with a loud thwack. A fraction of a second later the sharp crack of a rifle split the silence of the river.
For one heart-stopping moment she stood in stunned disbelief, her eyes still glued to Drew. Then terror sliced through her like a saber as reality sank in. Someone had been shooting in her direction, had almost hit her! Dazedly, she realized Drew was shouting something, a heated warning at the careless hunter, but she couldn’t hear his exact words.
Behind her several thrushes were startled from a hedgerow. Ann whirled in panic at the sound, her toe snagging an exposed root. With a shriek she went sprawling to the ground, hands splayed wildly in front of her.
Panic detonated inside her at the sudden stillness all around her. Whether the hunter was moving toward her or away from her, she couldn’t be sure. She lay motionless for several minutes, listening to the quiet.
“Ann! Where are you? Are you all right?”