on his face, her mouth open in shock as if she’d seen a ghost, was more than pretty. She was beautiful. Her long brown hair, flowing freely around her shoulders, shimmered with damp highlights caused by the misty rain. Her body had matured. Her breasts were fuller than he remembered, and she was slimmer. Not skinny, just trim.
“Hello, Cathy.”
She surveyed him from head to toe, taking in his deputy’s uniform. “I—I wasn’t expecting to see you. I thought you and Maleah had probably sold the house.”
“I thought I left my name when I called. Maybe I didn’t. I guess you hadn’t heard that Mike Birkett hired me as a deputy. I’ve moved back to Dunmore.”
“Permanently?”
He nodded. “Possibly. Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“If the deputy job works out.”
“Yes, of course. You’ve left the army?”
“Yeah.”
She glanced at the porch and front of the house. “And you’re going to restore this place?”
“That’s the plan.” When he moved toward her, she backed up as if she were afraid of him. Odd. “Why don’t you come on inside and take a look? I can put on some coffee, or, if you prefer, there’s beer in the—No beer. As I recall, you don’t drink. Unless your tastes have changed.”
She stepped out of his way as he retrieved the key from his pocket and headed for the front door. “I wasn’t sure who would show up,” Jack said. “I sort of thought it would be Lorie.”
“Lorie’s at an auction in Fayetteville.”
Jack held open the front door. “Come on in.”
When he noted her hesitation, he forced a wide smile, hoping to put her at ease. Apparently at least a part of the shy young girl he had once known still existed inside the adult Cathy.
“How about some coffee?” Jack asked. “We can go in the kitchen and talk. I can explain what I want to do to this old place, and you can tell me what you think.”
“All right.” After she entered the house, he came in behind her. Then she followed him to the kitchen. “If you’d prefer working with Lorie, we can reschedule. I’ve been away from the business for nearly a year, so I might be a little rusty.”
She was nervous.
Was she nervous because she was alone with him or because she only recently had left a mental-rehab center and was having difficulty readjusting?
“You’ll do just fine,” he said. “If you’d like the job. I haven’t even hired a contractor yet. What I need from you is someone who knows something about restoring and decorating historical houses, about fine antiques and things like that. I know little to nothing. I want this place to look the way it did when I was a kid, only better. Modern bathrooms, a modern kitchen…”
“The kitchen and bathrooms could be modern and yet reflect the Victorian style of the house. Claw-foot tubs in the bathrooms. A farmhouse sink in the kitchen. Cabinetry that has the look of antique furniture.” Cathy’s face lit up as she talked, her expression reflecting her enthusiasm about the proposed project. “This house could easily be a showplace.” She glanced at him, her gaze almost timid. “Returning this house to her former glory will be expensive.”
Jack grinned. “And you’re wondering how I can afford it on a deputy’s salary.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that you can’t afford—”
“I’ve invested my money wisely,” he told her. “Nearly twenty years in the army with no wife and kids, I was able to save a lot, and I made some lucrative investments over the years.”
“I’m sorry. It’s really none of my business.”
“Let me put on the coffee. Then, if you’d like, I’ll walk you through the house. You’ve never been inside before, have you?”
“Uh…no. No, I haven’t,” she lied. She had been here one other time.
Jack hurriedly prepared the coffeemaker and then began the tour of his home, taking her from room to room.
When he had phoned Treasures of the Past and set up this appointment, he had hoped Cathy would show up. Mike had warned him to stay away from her. During this past week, as he had gone over the file on Mark Cantrell’s murder, he had asked Mike a number of questions and had learned about the hell Cathy had been through these past eighteen months. The last thing he wanted to do was create more problems in her life. But he had been curious about Cathy. His Cathy. The only girl who had ever broken his heart.
Chapter Five
Father Brian hung up the telephone and immediately wondered if he had made a mistake by agreeing too quickly to his caller’s request. But how could he have refused such a pitiful plea for help? Not only was it his duty to help others, but he felt a deep kinship with the oppressed, children and teens in particular, because of what he had been through as a young boy. Having been subjected to drug-addicted parents who, stoned out of their minds most of the time, had beaten him on a regular basis, he knew how truly helpless the young could feel and how hopeless their lives could be. He had run away at thirteen and lived on the streets, where he had come into contact with the vilest human beings imaginable. But a kind and caring priest in Louisville had saved his life, both literally and figuratively.
Father James had not only taught the goodness of our Lord and Savior to Brian but had shown him that goodness in action on a daily basis. Thanks to the gentle old priest, Brian had come to realize that ministering to others, especially the young, was his true calling.
“Please, you have to help me,” the frightened, almost hysterical caller had said. “I can’t come to you. You have to meet me. It’s the only way. If you don’t, I’ll kill myself. I swear I will.”
His better judgment warned him against meeting his caller at a public park in Dunmore this evening, but his heart insisted that he must do whatever was necessary to save a life. The wisest course of action would be to tell Father Francis, but he knew that the parish priest would advise him against going, perhaps even forbid him to go. It wasn’t that Father Francis wasn’t a good and caring man. He was. But he was a priest who followed the rules, who adhered to the letter of the law, so to speak.
During his brief conversation with the caller, he had done his best to persuade the woman—or was she actually a teenaged girl or boy?—to come here to the church. But no matter how sincerely he had promised protection and anonymity, she had refused. The voice over the phone had been oddly hoarse, as if the person was trying to disguise it, but he believed the caller had been female. If a male, then his voice was alto in tone.
“No one must ever know,” she had said. “If he ever found out…” She had burst into tears.
“Everything will be all right. I promise that I will meet you this evening at eleven. And I will do what I can to help you.”
Father Brian had no idea who the mysterious he the caller had referred to was, but it had been apparent that she was terrified of this person. Her father? A male
