Wait Until Dark, page 39
From somewhere in the distance a phone rang and sleepily she reached an arm out to answer it, hands blindly searching on the nightstand. The ringing stopped and Val wondered vaguely who had picked it up. It was then that she realized that she wasn't in her own bed in her town house, and she opened her eyes. The room was familiar, but one she hadn't slept in for years. Liza's room at the High Meadow.
She sat bolt upright when she realized where she was - and why - and fought back a wave of nausea. It had been less than a day since a man had fallen dead at her feet, and the memory sickened her. That it had been Sky who fired the fatal shot - gentle Sky, who had never raised a hand to anyone, who rarely even raised his voice in anger - was almost incomprehensible.
The entire afternoon and evening seemed to have passed in a blur. The sound of the gun like an unexpected dap of thunder, loud enough to make Val's knees quake in the aftermath of its deafening blast. The look of sheer surprise on Daniel Rafferty's face. The rapid spread of red across the front of his crisp white shirt. His stumble and fall to the ground, the dense thud as he hit it, face first. Sky taking Val back down to the High Meadow and turning her over to his mother, while he and his dad, Hap, called the sheriff. Val sitting in the living room of the ranch house wrapped in an old quilt, shivering in spite of the summer heat, trying to make sense of what had happened. Sheriff Brown bringing the body down from the hills and sending it along to the county coroner, then staying a while himself to ask about Val's relationship with the deceased.
And later, still, Catherine insisting that Val stay there at the ranch for a few days. Val had been more than happy to comply. She simply wasn't ready to spend a night alone in the cabin.
Val wondered if Daniel Rafferty had a family, and what they would think when they found out what had happened. She glanced at the clock on the dresser across the room. Eight A.M. Perhaps they already knew.
Would they blame Val? Or Sky? Or might they somehow have known that something was not quite right?
Val desperately wanted - needed - a hot shower, wanted to wash it all away, the sights, the sounds, the smells. After foraging in Liza's dresser for an old, forgotten sweatshirt and a pair of shorts, she headed for the small bathroom that the Hollister girls had all once shared on the second floor of the ranch house. She turned on the hot water and let it fill the room with steam before stepping in and lowering her head, allowing the little spikes to first work on the muscles at the back of her neck, then on her left shoulder, which ached where she'd hit the ground the day before.
The aches and pains were insignificant, Val reminded herself, when one considered that, had all gone according to Rafferty's plan, she'd be on a slab at the morgue by now. In her heart, she couldn't help but feel sorry that Daniel Rafferty was dead, but not so sorry that she'd have sacrificed herself or Sky or their future together for his sake.
Val shivered again, and cranked the hot water up just a little higher.
Twenty minutes later, Valerie padded down the steps in bare feet. While she could fit into Liza's clothing, her feet were and always had been two sizes smaller than Val's.
Voices were heard in the kitchen, and Val followed them to find Sky at the old worn table with his parents.
"There you are." Catherine jumped up when Val entered the room. "How did you sleep, honey?"
"Much better than I'd have expected," Val assured her.
"You okay?"Sky asked with clear concern.
"All things considered, I'm better than I have any right to be."
"I'm glad to hear that, honey," Hap pulled out a chair for her and gestured for her to sit.
"We had pancakes, Valerie." Catherine went to the old white stove and turned a burner on. "I saved some batter so that you could have some when you got up."
"Thank you," Val said, knowing it would be fruitless to protest. Catherine had already poured batter into the frying pan.
"Here's your coffee." Sky brought her a mug of fragrant dark liquid, then passed her a small white pitcher covered with little red flowers.
"Liza's pitcher," Val said without thinking.
"Oh, my, Valerie, do you remember that pitcher?" Catherine turned and smiled.
"I was with Liza in Reynold's Drug Store when she bought it for you." Val nodded. "It had a little sugar bowl that went with it."
"I can't believe the sort of things that you women remember." Hap shook his head as he pushed back from the table to answer the phone that was ringing again.
"He's just covering for the fact that he was the one who broke the sugar bowl," Catherine nodded toward her husband.
Val sipped at her coffee and sniffed at the aroma from the frying pan, caught Sky's eyes and smiled. Sitting there in a well remembered room, surrounded by people who cared about her, was balm to her ragged nerves. There was a tranquility to the morning, even in the aftermath of what had happened the day before. The contrast was almost staggering, surreal, and made her feel lightheaded.
The storm had preceded the calm, she was thinking, as Hap hung up the phone.
"That was Sheriff Brown, again" Hap told them.
"Again?" Val raised her eyebrows.
"Third time he called already this morning." Hap nodded. "The first time, he called to assure us that no one would be charged with Rafferty's death."
"Why would someone be?" Val asked. "It was self-defense."
"It's just a formality," Hap assured her. "The second time was to tell us that the department Rafferty worked for in California called back a little while ago. He'd called them last night to tell them what had gone on up here yesterday. Well, they sent someone out to this fellow Rafferty's apartment."
"And?" Sky asked when his father hesitated.
"And ... they found that his walls were covered with pictures of Val. Some that he cut from magazines, some that he'd apparently taken himself."
"What?" Val's cup nearly slid from her hands.
"There were pictures of you everywhere, they said. Walking down the street, looking in a shop window, getting into your car, walking a dog, sitting on a deck...."
"The deck behind my town house." Val's skin crawled.
"And some photos of you in a wedding."
"Cale and Quinn's wedding." She looked up at Sky and grimaced. "The pictures that were stolen from my house. He answered the 911 call. He came and made the report. All the while he had the photos. He had the little porcelain box. And a pair of my shoes."
"They also found a journal he'd been keeping. He'd been planning this for some time, Val. He apparently felt you and he were somehow destined to be together."
Sky sat down next to Valerie and rubbed the back of her neck. In his eyes, she felt she could see her true destiny. But had Rafferty felt the same way, looking at her?
Catherine sat a plate of pancakes in front of her and put out a knife and fork.
"Then, that last time that the sheriff called, he wanted to warn us that the California press caught on to this story. He said they can't answer the phone fast enough down there, that we should expect an onslaught of reporters from all over."
"When ... ?" Catherine met her husband's eyes from across the room.
"Within the next few hours."
"Val, if there's a place you can go to stay - to sort of hide out for a few days, you might think about heading there this morning," Hap said.
"The cabin was always the place I'd go to when I needed sanctuary," Val told them. "There's never been anyplace else. I could go to Liza's - I told her when she called the other night that I'd be coming for a visit real soon."
"Sooner or later, someone will think to look for my sister," Sky said as he took her hand. "When you've finished eating, we'll run up to the cabin and grab your things. I know just the place where no one will think to look...."
The pickup bounced over the ruts in the dirt road, and Val was glad that the coffee she'd brought with her was safely in one of those cups that had a nice, tight lid. Val turned off the air-conditioning and rolled down the windows to listen to the sound of the long, thin reeds of grain that lined the road on either side and shivered in the late morning breeze. The sky was china blue and cloudless, the wheat still green, the barn off to the left a deep red, and the old farmhouse, still a quarter of a mile away at the end of the lane, was a cheery yellow.
The colors lay vivid against each other and the sun, now nearing its midpoint in the sky, shed a graceful glow over all.
"This is the most beautiful place I've ever seen," Val told him. "It takes my breath away."
"I thought you might feel that way." Sky slowed the pickup and tried - unsuccessfully - to avoid yet another large hole.
"Are you sure your grandmother won't mind?"
"She'll be delighted to have helped. You wait and see. She'll be sending someone over loaded down with strawberry preserves before the day is over."
They reached the end of the drive, and Sky stopped the truck. Val hopped out, took a deep breath, and hugged herself.
"You're looking better," Sky said as he wrapped his arms around her from behind.
"I'm feeling better." Val leaned back against his chest.
"Val, if there had been any way to have saved you without killing him..."
"I know."
"I never killed a man before," he said softly. "I never believed there could be any force powerful enough to make me take a life. But in that split second when I realized what he was going to do, I knew that I'd do anything - anything - to keep you safe. There wasn't even a choice. I just couldn't let him kill you. I love you too much, Val."
"I love you, too, Sky. I think maybe I always have."
"It's been a roundabout course we've taken to get to each other, wouldn't you say?" He gently rubbed the side of her face with his own.
"Ummm," she agreed. "But the point is, we got there. And look at us, Sky. We're both alive. We're here, together, in the most beautiful place on the face of the earth."
"Now, wait a minute. All of the places you've been - Paris, London, Hawaii, all those islands..."
"Can't hold a candle to this place," she insisted. "No other place even comes close."
"Then there's a chance you could get used to it?"
"Well, gee, holing up here for a few days could be a sacrifice." She nodded slowly.
"I mean, beyond just laying low until the press loses interest."
Val turned in his arms to look into his eyes.
"I'm thinking of taking over the farm for good, Val. My cousin Will and I are serious about breeding some fine quality horses here. It won't be a part-time thing. Can you give up what you've had - the travel, the ... "
She placed a finger to his lips.
"In a heartbeat."
He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed all ten of them.
"Farming's not an easy life."
"I don't imagine it is. But after the week I've had, it might not seem so bad." She smiled up at him.
"Come on then." He kissed the tip of her nose and took her by the hand. "It's time you met my babies."
He pointed to a pasture where several colts stood watching on spindly legs. "We have a few that hold great promise...."
They walked toward the fence, Sky pointing out the stallion he'd bought from a famous ranch in Texas to serve as stud for a mare he'd bought in Kentucky.
"Wait right here, and I'll bring her over to meet you."
Val leaned against the fence and watched Sky stride across the field to the large chestnut mare he'd identified as his favorite. The horse nuzzled at him and began to follow him back toward the place where Val stood waiting. The sun spread out across the landscape in golden strands of light.
A golden afternoon, Val thought, filled with golden promises.
Of a life to share.
A love to live for.
Truly, a love to live for.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARIAH STEWART is the award-winning author of nine contemporary romances and three novellas, all for Pocket Books. A three-time nominee for Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Contemporary Romance and a winner of Romance Times Reviewers Choice Award for Best Contemporary Romance of 1999, she has been called "one of the most talented writers of mainstream contemporary fiction in the market today." Brown-eyed Girl, her first romantic suspense, was a bestseller in 2000. Voices Carry - also romantic suspense - was a February 2001 release. She is the recipient of the Golden Leaf Award (New Jersey Romance Writers), the Award of Excellence (Colorado Romance Writers), and the Dorothy Parker Award for Excellence in Women's Fiction (Reviewer's International), and is a four-time finalist for the Holt Medallion. A native of Highstown, New Jersey, Mariah Stewart lives in a century-plus Victorian country home in a Philadelphia suburb with her husband of twenty-two years, two teenage daughters, and two golden retrievers. She is a member of Novelists, Inc.; the Valley Forge Romance Writers; and the Romance Writers of America. Write to her at P.O. Box 481, Lansdowne, PA 19050, or at MariahStew@aol.com.
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Andrea Kane, Karen Robards, Linda Anderson, Mariah Stewart, Wait Until Dark
