Patricia Potter (55 page)

If Weimer returned to Germany, Chris would do as he had promised. Temporarily. But he would eventually have to find a way to destroy or kill him; otherwise Meara and Lisa would never be safe. But it would have to be away from here. Far away, where nothing could touch the Evans family.

He knew he had taken a risk in showing himself to Weimer. But he had done it purposely. He had shown Weimer that he too had power, enough power that he wasn’t afraid to show himself, to confront Weimer directly. The mystery, the puzzle, would be more intimidating than a man hiding in the shadows.

Now he had to wait. The next few days were crucial, and he knew he could not leave Meara or Lisa alone. Not for a moment. Not until he knew Weimer was in Germany.

And if Weimer did indeed arrive in Bonn, Chris knew he would have to make more permanent arrangements.

Chapter Thirty

“N
O
,” M
EARA SAID
. “I won’t go.”

“You will,” Chris said, his eyes boring into hers as the sun set just beyond them.

“I’ve been running away nearly all my life. I won’t do it anymore.”

Chris wanted to shake her. “You’ve never run away from anything. You have more guts than any woman I’ve ever met.”

“No,” Meara said slowly, as if she were realizing it for the first time. “I’ve been running away from life since that night, from real commitment, from involvement. Sanders knew it. Lisa sensed it. I’m not going to do it anymore. This is my problem as much as yours. I’m the one who killed his father.”

“Only to save the children,” Chris said.

“Now I have to save myself,” Meara said.

“And Lisa?”

“I’ll send her away.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to enlist Kelly’s help. She doesn’t like being manipulated.”

For the first time that evening, Chris grinned. “Like her mother.” But then the smile disappeared. “I’d still prefer that you leave.”

“If he does come back, won’t he check to see whether I’m here before trying anything?”

Meara had immediately placed her finger on the one problem in his plan. He had intended to move into her house, and wait. But Weimer was no one’s fool, despite his anger.

Perhaps, he thought, he wouldn’t come at all. But Chris didn’t really believe that. He had seen the man’s glacial eyes, the hate that circled within them, the kind of hate that became senseless. He had seen it before in Germany, a fanaticism that fed on itself until reason was entirely gone.

He might well have pushed Weimer over the edge. But it was either that or allow Meara and Lisa to live in Weimer’s shadow all their lives.

After the meeting with Weimer, he had briefly told Matt selected portions of what had happened and saw the quiet disapproval of the man’s face. Matt didn’t like the idea of letting Weimer off the hook, but then he didn’t know the stakes. Chris had warned Matt to keep his people on Weimer until the man boarded a plane for Germany, and to be damned sure that it was Weimer who boarded.

Frankly unhappy, Matt agreed, and Chris had driven back to Jekyll and called Meara, asking her to meet him on the beach.

“When will we know?” Meara asked.

“I told him to take the first flight tomorrow. He knows now he’s being watched so I doubt if he’ll try anything now. He’ll wait until he believes we think we’re safe.

“I would like Lisa…and you…gone tomorrow.”

“No,” she said simply. “Lisa yes. But I won’t leave.”

His dark blue eyes studied hers, and his voice was very grave and quiet when he spoke. “I intend to move into your house.”

That statement stopped her momentarily. How could she possibly survive several days—and nights—with him? He had never been in her home, and yet in the past few days he was already everywhere, including the bedroom. Twenty years had not dimmed the exquisite, glorious pleasure of being with him. Perhaps those years had even magnified those memories until they no longer had basis in reality. She only knew whenever she was with him, she felt the old magic which she’d once thought she would never find again, that she wanted to reach out and touch him, to draw the etched pain from the lines around his eyes, and feel the treasured wonder of being held so gently against that strong, hard body. All of which spelled disaster with capital letters. He was still the same man, ever so competent with lies and deceit. And she would have to live with the fear that someday Lisa might learn who he really was.

Yet the prospect was irrisistible. She felt strong and brave and invincible with him. She realized now that she always had, even that night in the powerhouse. She had, somehow, known she was safe. She remembered the knife he accidentally dropped, the way he had distracted Weimer, the curious remarks Sanders had made. “He could have killed me,” he’d said.

“Why didn’t you kill Sanders?” she asked suddenly, the unexpectedness of the question piercing the armor Chris had constructed around the incident.

“The truth?”

“Yes.”

“Will you believe it?” It was asked with a note of hopelessness, as if he himself was convinced she wouldn’t.

“Yes,” she said again. Softly.

He turned to look at the sea, the red glow spreading like blood across its calm surface. The sky itself was crimson, violent shades of crimson, not the golden glow that usually spread peacefully across the water. It was angry, like that night had been angry. There would be a storm tomorrow, he thought absently, trying to put his thoughts, his words, in some kind of order.

When he turned back, his eyes were bleak, wary, his expression wry. “I knew he would take care of you,” Chris said simply.

The simplicity of the statement said so much more. Longing and despair echoed quietly in the air.

“And that mattered?” Her question was a cry of pain. For years, she had felt merely used by him, used and discarded as a convenient thing. It had destroyed her sense of self-worth, of confidence. Or had it? She had rebuilt in another way, and she’d had Lisa. And Sanders. She’d really had a great deal, and he had, in different ways, given it all to her. She looked at him, the aloneness she had noticed years ago so much more pronounced, his eyes dark and haunted and desolate. He
had
paid a much higher price than she.

She swallowed against the emotions welling up inside, against the need to reach up and kiss away the slight ironic grimace on his lips as he watched her. He was ready to accept her disbelief, just as he had accepted all her accusations and bitterness.

She wanted to say something. She wanted to say so much, yet they were feeling their way so gingerly. Years couldn’t be dismissed easily. Change couldn’t. She had thought she knew him once, and she hadn’t. Despite all the warm, curling feelings she was experiencing now, she didn’t want to make that mistake again.

Instead, she said with a small, uncertain smile. “You’d be welcome in my house.”

He stood stiffly, his expression a little like a prisoner winning a reprieve, uncertain as if not quite believing his sudden change in fortune. He raked his hand through his hair in that gesture that was so darned endearing to Meara.

“Are you sure?” he said finally.

“Yes,” she said, her eyes clear, and she knew he was asking more than whether he would merely be there to protect her.
Welcome
meant more than
allow.

He nodded, as if uncapable of saying more, and Meara felt ridiculously light-headed and trembly and warm inside. And safe. Despite his fears about Kurt Weimer, she knew she would be safe with Chris Chandler, just as she knew now she had been with Michael Fielding.

“What about Lisa?” he said, trying to concentrate on anything but the sudden light in her eyes. It was fear, fear and need and even, maybe, a little gratitude. Nothing else.

“I’ll talk to Kelly,” she said, suddenly tense as she wondered how much she would have to explain.

“Would you like me to do it?” he said gently.

“What…could you say…explain why we don’t go to the police?”

“Trust me, Meara,” he said.

Surprisingly, she knew she did.

The rented house was lonelier than ever when he returned. But he hadn’t wanted to push Meara. He could scarcely allow himself to believe they had come this far. Hope had flared briefly in him, but he knew in the depth of his soul that he and Meara had no future. The past was still too raw and painful, and though she trusted him now, in this matter, he could never hope that she would trust him completely.

He read over some contracts Allen had sent, and then called him. Seattle time was three hours earlier, which made it seven o’clock there. Allen was still in the office.

They discussed the contracts briefly, Chris grateful for the distraction, but he knew he surprised Allen when he again told his vice president to “do what you think best.”

“When will you be back?”

“Within a week,” Chris said crisply. It would all be over then. One way or another, it would all be over. Meara would get on with her life. He would return to his. The thought was excruciating. Three months ago, the contracts he held would have absorbed all his attention, all his interest. Now they were merely pieces of paper. His life. As flimsy and inconsequential and austere as those damn pieces of paper.

Matt’s call came two restless hours later. There was a certain admiration in his voice. “I don’t know what you said to him, but it sure as hell worked. He’s cancelled the rest of his sessions here and booked a flight tomorrow morning with connections to New York. He also made reservations for a flight Thursday to Germany.”

“I want people with him every step,” Chris said. “When he gets off the planes. When he gets back on.”

“You think he might try to come back.”

“I think it’s a possibility.”

There was a pause. “What else do you want us to do?”

“Just make sure he’s in Germany. Then your job is done.”

“And the ladies?”

Chris thought rapidly. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to have one watch remain. If Weimer did somehow escape through his net, another safeguard might be wise. “Keep a twenty-four-hour watch until I call you off.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep me posted.”

After Matt hung up, Chris looked at his watch. It was too late to call Kelly. He would do it in the morning and try to make an appointment for lunch. It would be a very ticklish conversation, but he was much better at prevarication than Meara, God help him.

Lunch was at The Deck. The urgency in Chris’s voice had prompted Kelly to cancel another appointment. He was filled with curiosity when he met Chris Chandler.

Despite his often misleading relaxed, good-natured disposition, Kelly had always been very sensitive and intuitive about people. He disguised it well, but he knew when to bore in and when to extract gently. He had almost immediately sensed the currents between Chris Chandler and Meara Evans at lunch and then dinner at his home, and they had been much more than those usually between old acquaintances. The way they had avoided each other’s eyes had spoken volumes to him, although he doubted anyone else had noticed.

Now as they were seated, he waited. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Can you get Lisa out of town?” Chris said directly, without preamble.

“Can I ask why?”

“She might be in danger.”

“Might be?”

“Yes,” Chris said without elaboration.

“Meara mentioned something like that,” Kelly said cautiously. “The German. That he might have some grudge?” It was a question.

Chris nodded.

“What’s your interest in this?”

“I told you. I was a friend of Evans.”

Kelly’s face showed open disbelief. “I don’t understand why you don’t go to the police.”

“Because,” Chris said slowly, watching Kelly’s face very carefully, “there’s some history involved that could hurt Lisa if she knew. And nothing might come of it. It probably won’t. This is only a precaution.”

“Something about the kidnapping years ago?”

Chris’s eyes snapped up. “How did you—”

“After I talked to Meara a week ago, I started thinking. I go over a lot of old documents and even newspapers in my work. I started wondering about Meara, and I suddenly remembered another Meara, a Meara O’Hara, who was something of a heroine years ago. Yet she has never talked about it, and I know Lisa doesn’t know. There had to be a reason.”

Chris was silent, reevaluating Kelly Tabor.

“What about Meara?” Kelly said finally. “Why doesn’t she take Lisa someplace?”

“She wants to stay.”

“Is she in danger?”

“I don’t know. Possibly, but I think I can handle that. If Lisa’s out of the way.”

“This sounds like a bad detective novel.”

A muscle worked in Chris’s cheek, giving away the first emotion Kelly had seen. “Meara believes…you will help.”

Kelly hesitated. “I’ll have to call Meara,” he said, wanting Chris to know he wasn’t entirely trusted.