Authors: Suzanne Brockmann
“I don’t mind,” A.J. said as he kept sweeping.
“Then I’m not going to stop you. Who am I to say no to a man doing housework?” She closed the freezer door as she said, “Maybe Quinn hit Melody—and mind you, I am
not
condoning it—but just
maybe
the domestic violence happened because he found out that she was stepping out on him. She was so pretty and so young—much younger than he was. Plus, he was away so often …”
“He kept her under lock and key,” A.J. said. “Not so much in Jubilation, because the town was isolated, there was really nowhere for her to go. But in Kansas City and in Denver, he locked her in her room. Kept her under guard when he was gone.”
“Which could support my theory. That he had a compelling reason to keep her locked up—to him, I mean, obviously not compelling to modern standards,” Alison pointed out as she put two waffles in the toaster and pushed the button down. She got a plate from the cabinet. “I’m going to assume you’ll shout if you change your mind about having something to eat.”
“I’m good,” he said. “But yeah, thanks.” As he dumped the dust from the pan into the trash it hissed against the plastic liner. “May I just point out that even if your theory is true, it means we’ve caught Quinn in a lie. According to everything he wrote, his marriage to Melody was all sweetness and light. And if he lied about
that
…”
“I’m not sure that’s really lying,” Alison argued as she
watched him pick up his boots and set them down by the door. “It’s like when someone asks,
How are you?
and you answer,
Fine
, even though you’ve got a migraine starting and your car just broke down for the third time in a week.”
“Hmm.” A.J. wasn’t sure he agreed as he set his still-damp jeans and his yellow slicker next to his boots, and swept up the rest of the dust and grit from the worn linoleum floor.
Alison continued. “And Quinn’s omission of … whatever he omitted in his report of the gunfight at the saloon …?” Her waffles had popped, and she moved them quickly from the toaster to her plate and added what looked like real maple syrup from a tiny maple-leaf-shaped bottle. “If Melody
was
there, and he was trying to protect her, or … Okay. Maybe he was trying to protect himself. If word got out that she was there, people might’ve figured out that she was getting it on with the gambler on the side. And maybe you’re right. Maybe Jamie and Melody didn’t die, but Quinn said they did, because in his world a dead wife was better than one who’d run off with an outlaw.”
It should have been the perfect lead in. She was talking about lies of omission. And still the words stuck in A.J.’s throat.
“Lemonade or iced tea?” she asked, as she got two glasses down from the cabinet. “Or a mix of both?”
“A mix sounds good, thanks,” he said, and clearly it wasn’t his throat that was the problem. He got those words out easily enough.
He also had no problem saying, “The story Jamie told me is that he didn’t even speak to Melody for the first time, until early in the morning—before dawn—on the day of the shoot-out. And I believe him. I just … I do.”
Alison carried her plate and both glasses over to the table and sat down. Leaving him the chair that he’d sat upon earlier.
God, what was wrong with him? He wanted her again. Just watching her walk across the room in that pale-colored bathrobe, knowing that she had nothing on underneath it … It looked as if it were made of slippery fabric, soft to the touch, and he wanted it off her.
And the bitch of it was, he knew that if he sat down in that chair, and let his towel drop, let her see for herself where his thoughts had gone …
He could put off this conversation until the morning. Or day after tomorrow. Or next week, next month, next year …
Yeah, that wouldn’t work.
She wanted to go to Alaska. She wanted to talk to his mother and Bev. Adam. All zillion of his cousins. And one of them would let slip his secret.
And that would really suck—her finding it out from someone else.
“So let’s have it,” Alison said, and then laughed at what was, no doubt, his startled expression. She explained, “Jamie’s version of what happened on July 26, 1898.”
Ah.
“What did you think I was talking about?” she asked, laughing. “Sex? What are you, part Energizer Bunny?”
A.J. felt his cheeks heat as he adjusted his towel around his waist. Great, now he was blushing, too. So he went for honesty.
“I don’t really know what’s up,” he said. “I mean, besides what’s obviously … up. Again. I mean, you’re sitting there, eating waffles, and it’s turning me on. Which, I guess is kind of weird, but that’s what it’s been like, pretty much since I met you. I just … I can’t get enough.”
She’d stopped eating, and she set her fork down on her plate. She didn’t seem to know what to say, so he kept going.
“I just … I really love listening to you talk and … following the way your brain works? It’s just … You’re so smart and …
funny
and … I love making you laugh and I … I’m really falling for you, Alison. And maybe there’s a part of me that thinks that maybe if I, I don’t know, just keep making you feel good, you’ll … fall for me, too. Which … is as stupid as it sounds, isn’t it?”
A.J. turned away from her, because—talk about awkward. Even though he hadn’t said
I love you
, it was a mere few steps removed. And similar to
I love you
, any declaration like the one he’d made—
I’m falling for you
—had a perceived
appropriate response.
I’m falling for you, too
. But he didn’t want her to say it if she didn’t mean it.
And considering what he was warming up to, he was pretty certain he didn’t want her to say it, period. In fact, an
Oh, gee, Age, that’s so sweet, but … I’m just not that into you, babe
would be far better, considering that the dead last thing he wanted to do here was hurt her.
And
that
was something he should’ve focused on with far more intensity several hours ago when he was pulling off his jeans in order to get the best lap dance of his entire life.
She was silent, and he didn’t want to look at her, so he carefully picked up his jeans and went out the kitchen door, intending to shake them out over the porch railing—and nearly went right through Jamie, who was sitting on the top rail.
“Jesus!” A.J. said.
“Nope, it’s just me,” Jamie said. “Sorry about before. FYI, I didn’t see anything.”
“It’s not another snake, is it?” Alison called from back in the kitchen.
“No,” A.J. told her. “It’s not. It’s okay. I was just … startled.”
“I should have realized,” Jamie said. “You’re a Gallagher, and Gallaghers are—”
“Yeah, stop right there, thanks so much,” A.J. whispered from between clenched teeth as he shook his jeans over the other rail.
Alison appeared at the door. “You’re seriously going to say … what you said, and walk away?”
“No,” A.J. said, giving his jeans one more shake. “I’m not going anywhere. You, um, wanted to hear Jamie’s version of the story, right?”
He went back into the house, holding the door open behind him, so that Jamie knew he was welcome inside. “It’s not just Jamie’s version,” he told Alison, who definitely had more to say. But now he was terrified to hear it, so he just kept telling the story. “It’s Melody’s, too. Jamie told me she woke up to the sound of voices in the parlor. Bo Kelly was back, and he and Quinn were arguing again. It was about money, as usual.
Bo thought he was paying Quinn too much, Quinn thought it
wasn’t
enough and on and on it went. But then Jamie’s name came up. And they started arguing about how and when to kill him.”
“Kid,” Jamie said, but A.J. shook him off.
He just kept talking. “Kelly wanted to wait until Jamie was flush. He was in the middle of a losing streak, which meant there’d be nothing in his pockets to steal after he was dead.
“But Quinn wanted it to happen immediately. He was afraid of what Jamie knew, afraid of what he’d say and who he’d talk to. For Quinn it was worth two weeks of his share of the Kellys’ take—to have Kelly and his boys handle the problem that very morning. And Bo Kelly finally agreed.”
“She doesn’t want to hear this right now, kid,” Jamie murmured.
But A.J. plunged on. “The plan was for the Kelly boys to ambush Jamie on his way home from the saloon,” he said. “Apparently my gramps had spent the entire night in a poker game—a game that showed no sign of ending. The Kellys would hide in the alleys between the Red Rock and Jamie’s hotel, while Quinn provided insurance by putting himself with a rifle in the Red Rock itself, at a second-floor window. Even if the Kellys all missed, Quinn wouldn’t. Not with that weapon, and with a target as broad as Jamie’s back.”
“No.” Alison shook her head. “Silas Quinn never shot a man in the back. That was something he was very clear about. He never killed a man who wasn’t looking him in the eye. Everyone who knew him said the same.”
“Well, that might be true,” A.J. said, “because even though he was in position at that window, he never had the opportunity to shoot Jamie in the back. Because Melody heard about the plans for the ambush, and went to the Red Rock to warn Jamie. She told him that at a prearranged time, the barkeep would come into the main part of the saloon, shut the game down, and send everyone home. If she hadn’t warned him, if Jamie
had
headed for his hotel, he’d have been dead a matter of seconds later.”
But Jamie was right. She wasn’t really listening, she was just shaking her head and waiting for him to stop talking.
So he stopped. And braced himself.
“A.J.,” she said. “I need to be honest with you. You scare the crap out of me because … Well, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. If this is, I don’t know, some kind of elaborate con …? But I just don’t know what you get, if it is a con, because I don’t have that much money. And you know, maybe you’re a player and you get to score, which you did, and maybe it’s somehow worth more if you get me to fall in love with you …?”
“I’m not conning you,” A.J. said, “and I’m not playing you. I’m just …” He took a deep breath. “Will you sit down? I kind of need you to sit down.”
Alison sat at the kitchen table in her quirky little rented house in Jubilation, Arizona, as a man who claimed to be the great-grandson of the infamous outlaw, Jamie “Kid” Gallagher, sat down across from her.
A man she’d spent most of the evening having sex with.
Great sex.
Fabulous sex.
Creative, inventive, extraordinary, laughter-filled, passionate sex.
In the single overhead light, in the chair he was now in—the very chair upon which they’d first made love, not all that many hours ago—the way he was sitting put his face into shadows. And because of that, he looked older, harder, more weather-beaten and world-weary.
And just a little bit dangerous.
He looked up at her, meeting her eyes as he cleared his throat. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Not the words one wanted to hear from a new lover. But it could be anything. It didn’t have to be disastrous. Maybe he was allergic to peanut butter and he needed her never to eat it again. Maybe he had some kind of weird obsession with cleanliness that meant he would have to sweep her kitchen floor and clean her bathroom every morning.
Alison nodded, because he seemed to be waiting for her to say something. So she said, “I’m listening.”
But he still hesitated, looking down at the table as he fidgeted with her napkin tray.
And every second that he delayed, she knew whatever he
needed
to tell her was going to be a disaster.
He’d lied about not being married. He was gay—no, probably not. She had very good gaydar. And then there were all those hours of sex. He could be bi
—that
was possible, but so what? Maybe it wasn’t about sex. Maybe he was terminally ill. Or HIV-positive—there was a scary thought, except they’d been careful about using protection. Still, if it were true, she was going to kick his ass for not telling her first. That was just wrong not to talk about first with a new sexual partner.
But it seemed so unlike him—unlike the him, at least, that he was pretending to be.
Maybe he wasn’t married, but he was engaged. Or he had a girlfriend.
Maybe he was an undercover cop, a superhero in disguise, a vampire with a soul, a priest on vacation from the Vatican …
“There’s someone else in this room with us,” A.J. told her.
“I’m sorry …?” she said. His words didn’t make sense. His mention of
someone else
meant she was right about him having a girlfriend or fiancée, the rat bastard, but the rest of what he’d said didn’t line up.
“We’re not alone.”
They weren’t …? She pulled her feet up. “You said there wasn’t another snake.”
A.J. shook his head. “No snakes. Just … Jamie.”
“Jamie,” Alison repeated, and it was weird, because she knew they were alone in there—the room just wasn’t that big—and yet, she suddenly had the urge to turn and look behind her.
“You can’t see him, but he’s here. He’s … over there. Right now.”
And then she did look around—at a kitchen that was definitely empty, save for the two of them. “Jamie?” she asked. “As in …
Jamie?”
“Gallagher,” A.J. said. “My great-grandfather. His, well, ghost, actually.” He looked over her shoulder. “Spirit. He prefers spirit.”
Alison laughed. “Very funny,” she said.
But A.J. didn’t laugh, too. “I’m not kidding, Alison.”
Or …
Maybe …
He was crazy.
That was one possibility that Alison hadn’t considered.
Dear God.
He was dead serious. She could see from his eyes that he wasn’t teasing. He
wasn’t
kidding. He truly believed that there was someone—some
invisible
one—in the room with them.
She didn’t know what to say. The other shoe hadn’t just dropped—it had kicked her solidly in the face. Of all the potential problems and issues she’d imagined …
“I know it sounds nuts,” A.J. told her, looking like he wanted to reach across the table for her hand, so she dropped hers into her lap. “I didn’t believe it myself at first, and me, I
can
see him. But I’m the only one, and—”