raised a brow. “Sounds like the doc knows a good man when he sees one.”
“Now, I can arrest the outlaws in mommy’s tunnel. Have you seen the tunnel?”
The outlaw tunnel. Lifting his gaze to Kathryn’s, Clay saw that her face had paled. Was she thinking about all the nights she’d used the tunnel to sneak out of her house? About how he’d ride over to the Cross C after dark and wait for her in the stand of scrub oaks that hid the tunnel’s outer entrance so it couldn’t been seen from the house? Did she remember the time when a rainstorm whipped in and they’d had hot, wild sex in the tunnel?
When she tore her gaze from his, Clay had his answer. Yeah, Kat, you remember. He struggled against the urge to tell her there was no way she could detest him more than he detested himself for the way he’d treated her.
Instead he looked back at Matthew. “I’ve seen the tunnel. It’s a long stretch of land. Are you sure you can rustle up those outlaws all on your own?”
Matthew nodded. “Me ’n Abby can do it.”
“Who’s Abby?”
“My weenie dog.”
“Clay, your order’s ready,” the café owner said.
“Thanks, Norman.” As he spoke, Clay kept his gaze on Matthew’s compelling face. “Time for me to go, Deputy. I’ll be sure I stay on the right side of the law so you and Abby won’t have to come arrest me.”
“Okay.”
“Matthew,” Kathryn said while Clay rose, “you can look in the display case and choose one cookie.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
Realizing the café had gone quiet around them, Clay checked across his shoulder. The man and woman in the booth, and all the teenage girls were staring holes through Kathryn. Since she didn’t seem to notice, he assumed her years of marriage to the heartthrob actor had made her immune to that kind of attention.
When he looked back, her expression was impenetrable, her eyes unreadable.
“I was sorry to hear about your grandfather,” he said quietly.
“Thank you.” She closed her eyes for an instant. “And I’m sorry about your parents. Losing them that way must have been devastating.”
Clay felt the bright, swift pain twist inside him. There was no way she could know how closely linked she was in his mind to their deaths. He tightened his jaw.
“Guess we’ve both had our share of loss to deal with,” he said. “You’re doing a good thing by building the wing onto Layton’s hospital in Sam’s memory. He’d have been proud of you for continuing all he did for folks around here.”
She smiled now, her lips as thin as a blade. “I’m sure,” she said then looked toward the counter. “Hello, Mr. Adams, how are you?”
“Fine. I’m just fine, Kathryn. Seems like only yesterday you were sitting in my English class.” A blush settled under his skin and a muscle ticked in his cheek. “It was real nice, you mentioning my name when you won your Emmy award.”
“You taught me about writing. I owe a lot of my success to you.” She looked back at Clay. “You mentioned you were leaving. Don’t let us hold you up.”
Clearly she wasn’t interested in letting bygones be bygones. Couldn’t say he blamed her.
He touched a finger to the brim of his Stetson. “See you, Kat. Bye, Matthew. Norman.”
“Bye,” the boy responded. Norman nodded. The fact that Kathryn said nothing sliced Clay into a thousand pieces.
With guilt and regret sitting in his stomach like jagged rocks, he snagged his sack off the counter.
He headed for the door, deliberately distancing himself from Kathryn Conner for the second time in his life. This time, though, he was the one who felt all the pain.
KATHRYN WOKE the following morning feeling as if a spider had woven a thick, sticky cobweb inside her brain.
The sun’s rays slanted into her second-floor bedroom through the gauzy curtains, reflecting off the brass bed’s ornate grillwork. The light felt like ice picks stabbing into her eyes. She shoved at her tangled hair, thinking surely she hadn’t overslept. In the time she’d been back at the Cross C she had woken each day before dawn. As had Matthew.
She told herself to get up, willed herself to, but her eyelids felt heavy and refused to stay open. On top of her lethargy, faint waves of nausea lapped at her stomach. Sick, she thought hazily. She’d picked up a bug. Since Matthew hadn’t been in to pounce on her bed like he did almost every morning it was possible he’d come down with it, too. The thought shot a sharp pang through her. Her concern wasn’t just a mother’s general worry that her child might be ill. Any sort of bug—even a cold—could have devastating effects on his transplanted kidney.
That knowledge had Kathryn swallowing the sick taste in her mouth and drawing on all her inner strength. She forced her eyes open, instantly squinting against the sun’s glare. Her concern took on added weight when she focused on the clock on the nightstand. Ten o’clock. Good God, sick or well, she never slept this late!
Nor did Matthew.
She knew the distress she felt wouldn’t be rocketing toward the ozone if Willa were home—she sometimes kept Matthew occupied before breakfast in the kitchen. But just as she had done every Wednesday since Kathryn could remember, Willa had driven to Dallas yesterday evening to spend the night with her daughter. Today was her day off. And Pilar wasn’t coming this morning to clean because she had to take Antonio to the dentist. It was just Kathryn and Matthew in the house.
Matthew, she thought as she clamped her teeth on her bottom lip.
She pushed herself up against the bank of pillows lining the headboard, which intensified the nausea. A headache worked its way up from the base of her skull. Swallowing convulsively, she put her head back and waited for the sick feeling to pass.
Several long, slow breaths later she shoved back the sheet and antique wedding-ring quilt. Not trusting her legs to hold her, she flattened one palm against the nightstand and pushed herself up. Beside the clock sat the empty wineglass she’d sipped from the night before. She wished the glass was full of water so she could ease the dryness in her mouth. Thoughts of stopping in her bathroom to get a drink dissipated when her bedroom whirled once, then righted itself. She’d be doing good just to get down the hallway to Matthew’s room without adding a side-trip. Working hard to even her breathing, she forced her unsteady legs to take tentative steps, feeling like a drunk staggering against a current.
Although her head still felt like it was packed with gauze, her stomach seemed to be settling now that she was on her feet.
Good. This is good.
Dressed in a yellow cotton camisole and sleep shorts, she left her robe on the bed’s footboard and made her way across the bedroom, the wood floor cool beneath her bare feet. Her hand shook when she reached for the doorknob. She stepped into the hallway; except for the low hum of the central air-conditioning the house was ominously silent.
“Matthew?”
