Finally a click and a beep and Rachelle let out her breath. Her hands were trembling as she poured herself a cup of coffee. Just the mention of Jackson could shake her up. It had been twelve years. Twelve years! How could she still be so affected by a man who had turned his back on her when she’d been his only friend in a town that had branded him and wanted him hung from the tallest tree?
The answer was simple—and complicated. Despite her down-to-earth nature, Rachelle had once had a romantic side, a part of her personality that had believed in fairy tales and castles and knights on white chargers. And bad boys? Hadn’t she believed in the myth of the bad boy with the heart of gold? Well, Jackson Moore had killed that fantasy, which, all things considered, was probably for the best.
She shrugged out of her jacket and draped it over the cane-back kitchen chair. Water dripped from the sleeves to the floor, but she didn’t care. She considered calling Heather, but decided against it. Why have an argument with her younger sister? She could picture Heather, blond hair neatly cut, silk pants and matching top, perfect smile. One of San Francisco’s elite, or she had been, during her marriage to Dennis Leonetti, a rich man whose father owned the Bank of The Greater Bay. Now Heather, divorced and a single mother, was trying to make her own living by converting the art she’d dabbled in for years into a career. She’d bought a loft, studio and gallery not far from Ghirardelli Square.
Heather had enough problems. She didn’t need to worry about her older sister—the confirmed career woman, the reporter who was always championing the cause of the underdog and who thought nothing of storming into the office of any public official for a quote.
The reporter who still quaked at the mention of a man she hadn’t seen for over a decade.
Rachelle glanced at the cluttered kitchen table and the manila envelope that contained a copy of the article she’d already left with her editor at the San Francisco Herald. Her first article explained that for the next ten weeks her syndicated column would be written from Gold Creek, California, the town where she’d grown up. Her introductory column in the series Return to Gold Creek would appear in newspapers across the country tomorrow. And her editor, Marcy Dupont, expected more—a lot more. Marcy wanted an interview, by telephone of course, with Jackson Moore. That request would probably prove impossible.
Frowning thoughtfully to herself, Rachelle kicked off her sodden boots. Her socks were waterlogged, and she yanked them off before tossing the wet hosiery into the bathroom sink. Padding barefoot into her single bedroom, she finger-combed her tangled hair and spent the next ten minutes braiding the wet strands into a single auburn plait that swung past her shoulders as she walked.
She’d decided to go back to Gold Creek and, come hell or high water, she was going. No amount of talking from Heather was going to change things. She’d already worked out the details with her job; Marcy was all for a column of self-examination about herself and the town in which she’d grown up. Rachelle bit her lower lip and felt a tiny jab of guilt that she’d have to draw Jackson into this. Too bad. Especially now, when she was over him—completely over him.
Now she had David—kind, understanding David. Hadn’t he insisted she return to “find herself” or some such sixties mumbo jumbo? What he’d really meant was that he wanted her to be able to lock away the past once and for all and return to him. He wanted her to move in with him, marry him, and accept his teenage daughters as her stepchildren. And he wanted her to be fulfilled. Because he didn’t want to start another family—not at the age of forty-five. David was sixteen years older than Rachelle, which wasn’t all that much, but he’d done his fatherly bit and he wanted a new wife with no hang-ups about starting a family. A new, younger wife who would look good at company parties and cook his dinners for him, yet still have an interesting, vital career of her own. Rachelle filled the bill. Except she had a few problems of her own to work out first.
So she was returning to Gold Creek. For David. For her job. For herself.
For Jackson?
Not in a million years.
All she had to do now was pack. But she stared at her closet, her throat dry. Her stomach tightened into a hard knot when she spied the yearbook of Tyler High, and next to it a scrapbook filled with yellowed, time-worn pages from her youth.
Knowing she was making a mistake that could cost her all of her hard-fought independence, she crossed to the closet, yanked out the scrapbook and slid to the floor where she sat cross-legged on the braided rug. One knee poked out of the hole in her jeans as she slowly opened the dusty volume and stared at the aged articles from the Gold Creek Clarion. The pictures were grainy, brittle with time, but Jackson Moore seemed as real now as he had then. He stared at the camera as if it were an enemy.
His eyes were dark and brooding, his sensual mouth curved into a defiant frown, his wet hair plastered to his head. He was looking over the shoulder of his black leather jacket and his hands were cuffed behind him. His jeans were dirty and crusted with blood. A policeman, riot stick in hand, was leading him through the glass-and-steel doors of the county jail.
Rachelle’s heart slammed against her ribs and her eyes stung with unshed tears. The print in the newspaper had faded, the picture of Jackson was wrinkled and unforgiving, but in Rachelle’s memory the night that had changed her life forever might just as well have been yesterday… .
BOOK ONE
Gold Creek, California
Twelve Years Earlier
CHAPTER ONE
THE NIGHT WAS WARM, a harvest moon glowed behind a thickening layer of clouds and there was excitement in the air—a sense of adventure that caused Rachelle’s seventeen-year-old heart to race. The football field shimmered green under the lights, the crowd loud and anxious and yet there was more: an undercurrent of electricity that seemed to charge the atmosphere.
Maybe it was because tonight was homecoming and the parade of students had serpentined through town. Maybe it was because the Tyler High Hawks were taking on the rivals from Coleville. Or maybe it was because Rachelle, after spending her life doing exactly what was expected of her, was about to step out of her quiet, studious, “good-girl” image. She’d already unwittingly lied to her mother and felt more than a tiny twinge of regret.
But she wasn’t turning back. It was time to experience life a little, walk on the wild side—well, at least touch a toe on the wild side; she wasn’t ready for out-and-out rebellion yet.
With an earsplitting shriek, feedback whined from the speakers.
Rachelle winced, but aimed her camera at the plywood platform that had been set up for the pregame ceremony. As a reporter for the school paper, she sometimes took pictures and tonight, because Carlie, the staff photographer, was scouting out drinks at the refreshment stand, Rachelle was stuck with the camera. She didn’t mind. Looking through the lens sometimes gave her a clearer view of the person she was interviewing and actually helped her write her article.
She zeroed in on Principal Leonard, who, with a big show to the packed stands, turned to one of the students operating the public-address system.
“…And I want it on now! Oh. Testing, testing. Uh-oh, there we go.” He managed a foolish-looking grin as he tapped the microphone loudly and his voice boomed into the stadium. “Well, now that we worked out all the bugs in the PA system, let’s get on with the festivities.” He droned on about Tyler High for a minute, then added, “I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Thomas Fitzpatrick for his generous donation to the school.”
Across from the stands on the far side of the field the new electronic scoreboard flashed with a thousand lights. Fitzpatrick Logging was scripted across the top of the scoreboard and the company insignia was stamped boldly across