CHAPTER 1
“Take that, you dastardly, devilish dragon!”
Kelly tried the words aloud, shrugged, grimaced, then added more pencil strokes to her paper, resting her feet on the rungs of her chair as she surveyed her morning’s work.
Umm. Hard to judge. But this installment of the Dark of the Moon was due tomorrow, and she simply had to take care of the Fairy Queen and Daryl the Devilish Dragon by tonight.
“Easy,” she murmured to herself. “Slay him. Off with his head!” But she couldn’t do that, of course. Dark of the Moon was written for children, it took place in a fantasy land where mythical creatures learned lessons about life, teaching them to the children in the process. She couldn’t go around lopping off her characters’ heads.
“Okay, then, Daryl, what are you going to say here, huh?” she asked her character. Daryl—massive and muscular and mischievous—stared up at her with his big, slightly tilted eyes and defied his creator to reproach him.
She frowned slightly, wondering what was disturbing her, then realized that she really did have the capacity to tune out the world. The echo that was resounding in the air hinted that someone had been out on her front steps ringing her doorbell for quite some time.
“Jarod! Jarod, could you get the door, please?”
Kelly stared at Daryl again, knitting her brows and chewing her eraser. Come on, come on, Daryl, she coaxed him in silence. What are you going to say in return? Maybe I should have you cringe and cry; maybe I should have you lower those long eyelashes and beg forgiveness with such a wicked look beneath those lids that the kids will be ready for trouble next time.
The doorbell was still ringing. Kelly looked up in disgust. “Jarod!”
Was he even home? Maybe that was Jarod ringing the doorbell because he’d forgotten his key. He had become very forgetful lately—worse than she was.
“Oh, hell!”
Kelly tossed down her pencil and padded barefoot from her office to the hall and to the door. She should have looked through the peephole—Jarod was always warning her that she was too trusting—but she was annoyed at having been interrupted, so she merely threw the door open with a bang that threatened the old hinges.
“What—” she began, but her question, short as it was, never had a chance to be spoken.
“Where’s your father? I want to see him now, young lady. Right now!”
Kelly felt fury settle over her as she stared up at the total stranger blocking her doorway. She was accustomed to staring up at her son who stood over six feet tall, so she had no trouble meeting his eyes, her own narrowing with instant hostility. Yet, despite that hostility, she fought the urge to step back a foot.
His hair was dark auburn, and it cut a slightly disheveled swath across his forehead, as if he had been brushing it back in agitation, but had finally gotten tired of fighting with it. He wasn’t just tall; he was built as solidly as a wall, a fact made easy to notice by the snug fit of his worn jeans over his trim hips and long legs, and the way his navy shirt hugged his taut biceps and broad shoulders.
He had flashing dark eyes, a straight nose, and a square jaw. And he looked as furious as Kelly herself. People just don’t act like this around here, she thought.
He might have been handsome if his features hadn’t been so hard and angry. As it was, she couldn’t escape the feeling that she really should step back. He was clearly dangerous. Jarod had been justified in warning her that she shouldn’t open the door so readily, she realized.
“Where is your father!”
The words thundered out at her again, and she felt a rekindling of her initial fury. She didn’t step back after all. Instead she straightened to the limits of her barefoot, five-foot-two frame and squared her shoulders, lifting her chin regally and staring at him with what she hoped was total and absolute amusement and scorn.
Just who the hell did he think he was, and what did he want?
“My father, sir, is in Vancouver—I believe. I don’t keep a schedule of his whereabouts.”
The stranger paused slightly, gazing down at her with his dark brows knit together. He really was a very good-looking man, Kelly thought, her heart skipping slightly. Then she reminded herself that he was also rude and abrasive, and she set her hands on her hips, casting a glance of restrained impatience his way.
“Get me your mother then. Now—please.”
A sigh of irritation escaped her, and she felt her own temper rise to the boiling point as he brushed past her into the hallway of the old house, critically surveying everything in sight. He didn’t go any farther, though, just watched her with annoyance, as if she were a child who was purposely and willfully attempting to delay him.
She stared at him with startled surprise, then smiled slowly—maliciously—in realization. He did think she was a child!
Kelly closed the door and leaned against it, crossing her arms over her chest—smiling as sweetly as she could. Her blond ponytail, bare feet and diminutive size had misled him, but that didn’t mean she had to show him any mercy.
“Where is your mother, please?” he said again, sighing with exasperation.
She swallowed back a touch of sadness and replied with a definite bite, “Six feet under. Now just what is your problem?”
“What?” He was definitely startled.
Kelly set her jaw grimly. “Deceased. My mother is deceased. Now, since you’ve barged into my home—”
“You live here alone?” he demanded.
“Not exactly. I live with my son.”
“You’re his mother?”
He spoke with such absolute astonishment that Kelly paused, touched by the irony of the situation. “If being ‘his’ mother means that I’m the mother of Jarod McGraw, then yes. Now—”
“You can’t be!”
“But I am.”
His eyes raked over her—so totally and assessingly that she longed to slap him.
“If you can’t—”
“Where’s your husband?”
Kelly gritted her teeth, wishing desperately that she had the size and strength to pick the man up by his collar and deliver him back to the step on the seat of his pants. Her eyes narrowed even further, and she said, “Also deceased, I’m afraid. So, since you’ve barged your way so rudely into my house, I suggest you tell me your business as quickly as possible. Otherwise, I’ll feel obliged to ask the police to rid me of your obnoxious presence.”
He didn’t scare easily. But then, he didn’t smile, either, only continued to stare at her grimly. “I’ve been considering the possibility of calling in the police myself, Mrs. McGraw. Somehow I had this ardent hope that I could come over here and in some miraculous way discover that it couldn’t be true. But it is true—I can see that right now. You must have been a true child bride, lady. And it’s more than obvious that you don’t have a bit of control over that overgrown, irresponsible Adonis you’ve raised!”
What? Now he was really in trouble! He could hold any opinion of her that he chose, but any intelligent many should have more sense than to insult a woman’s only child!
And especially Jarod, she thought with a pang. Jarod; bright, considerate—exceptionally sensitive. In almost eighteen years, she had never come across anyone who didn’t like Jarod!
Somehow she kept a smile on her face. She cocked her head pleasantly, then moved away from the door. “Excuse me, will you? I still don’t know who the hell you are, but I think I will call the police.”
His eyes flashed, and Kelly was torn between panic—he was barely in control, truly enraged!—and total indignation.
He wasn’t from the area. None of the locals would behave this way. Barging in, making demands. The man wasn’t even remotely civilized.
“Please, do call them,” he drawled, crossing his arms over his chest, leaning comfortably against her staircase.
“I’m going to—right now,” Kelly said warningly.
He nodded as she started past him.
“I really don’t know that much about the law,” he said evenly. “The charge might be statutory rape.”
“What?”
Kelly stopped dead in astonishment, then spun around to face the man. She wondered whether this was some hideous joke. She couldn’t believe any of this. It was all a fantasy.
Just like her world in Dark of the Moon, where nothing terrible was ever real.
But he was real. This stranger. Straightening now, no longer so comfortable against the wall. Tall and large and dangerously filling the peaceful sanctity of her world with his ominous presence.
“What—what are you talking about?” Kelly asked slowly.
“Rape, Mrs. McGraw. Statutory. Your son Jarod.”
She shook her head, furiously denying his words. She stepped a few feet backward. Shock had made her defensive.
Then her initial amazement at his accusation faded, and she stood her ground. He was insane, she thought, beginning to smile. He had the wrong boy. He didn’t know Jarod, couldn’t know Jarod. It was that simple. Serious, astute, charming, responsible Jarod. The kid with both academic and athletic scholarship offers coming in from the best schools in the country. A son in whom no parent could ever find a greater source of pride…
“You don’t take this seriously, Mrs. McGraw? Maybe I should have put the call in to the sheriff’s office first. Maybe I shouldn’t have come over her. I meant to be calm and reasonable—”
“Calm and reasonable? You’re a madman! And you don’t know what you’re talking about. Rape? Jarod? Never! I don’t know who or what—”
“Who? My daughter, that’s who, Mrs. McGraw. An innocent young girl with a good head on her shoulders until your overgrown barbarian of a half-back—”
“Jarod has more manners and style in his little finger than you’ll ever have in your entire overgrown body, mister! Now if your little tart of a daughter waltzed by my son, offering herself—”
“Lady, don’t you ever—” He reached her in a single stride, and his hands fell on her shoulders. She felt as if she were suddenly at the mercy of some maddened lunatic; Eric the Red, perhaps—or Satan himself.
Suddenly he seemed to realize that he was touching her, realize his anger, realize his potential for violence. He drew his hands back quickly and stared at them, apparently stunned by his own behavior. But he was still staring at her, and his look seemed every bit as menacing as his touch could ever be. He was like Daryl, her fire-breathing dragon. Kelly’s heart beat painfully, and she could hear her breath rise and fall.
Perhaps we’re both barbarians, she thought. Parents defending their offspring. She gave herself a little shake.
“Don’t you ever—” she shouted back, and then she gasped for air to keep speaking. “Don’t you ever come flaming in here like a torch again, attacking Jarod! You have no right. You can’t—”
She broke off, a little dazed, as the front door flew open.
Jarod was there.
Beautiful, tall, blond Jarod, a frown furrowing his handsome brow, concern written all over his clean-cut features. He must have heard the shouting in the street. He had been frightened for her; he had obviously rushed in as quickly as possible.
“Mom?” He said the word as a question, staring at the strange visitor. A sense of relief flooded through Kelly. Jarod didn’t know this man. The stranger was obviously mistaken—some wild outrage and grief had sent him here, but he was in the wrong place, after the wrong boy. His terrified daughter had apparently just thrown out some name….
“Jarod?” the stranger asked him.
Jarod nodded. And then Kelly began to feel ill, really ill. Something like recognition had entered her son’s eyes, and he looked both anxious and wary.
“Sandy?” he gasped out, taking a step into the room. “She’s—she’s all right? She’s not hurt or anything?”
Kelly inhaled sharply. “You know this man?” she demanded.
Jarod barely spared her a glance. He kept walking anxiously toward the man.
A redheaded lunatic. A man in such a frenzy that he seemed quite capable of violence…
She told her self that this delicate offspring she was trying to defend was six-foot-two and weighed in at about two hundred pounds. He was a football player, for heaven’s sake.
It was just that this strange Eric the Red was even taller than her son—and broadened with the muscles of a man, while her son was still a boy in many ways.
No! she thought vehemently. There would be no fight. Not here.
“You’re Mr. Marquette, her father, aren’t you?” Jarod asked the stranger. “Nothing’s happened, has it? There hasn’t been an accident or anything, has there?”
Kelly was glad that he wasn’t speaking to her, because she had suddenly become speechless. She could only stare from her son to the man, feeling the room spin.
Jarod had just made her a spectator, a spectator in her own home. To his life! When she had given so much of her own life to him, when she had prided herself on the depth of her communication with her teenage child.
Not a child.
She had never realized it until now. Jarod was not a child. He would be eighteen in a few months. He was almost a man.
She blinked quickly, staring at the stranger. At the man who Jarod didn’t know—but recognized.
The man who was staring at Jarod. Marquette. Jarod had called him Marquette. It seemed like an eternity had passed since Jarod had spoken, but it had really been only seconds. And this Mr. Marquette seemed to have calmed down a bit at Jarod’s appearance.
Maybe he realized that Jarod’s concern was real and intense. That Jarod could never have hurt anyone, never attacked any girl. He just didn’t have it in him. Oh, he wasn’t that humble. He knew that he had magnetism. But he had never used it against anyone. In fact, he had always stood up for the weaker children. He always asked the wallflowers to dance, and he helped the weakest kid learn to get the basketball through the hoop.
“There hasn’t been any accident,” Marquette said with deceptive calm, watching Jarod carefully.
“Then…?”
“Jarod,” Kelly interposed. “Do you know this man? Who is Sandy?”
Neither of them paid her the slightest heed. They kept staring at each other over her head.
“I demand to know—” she began, still bewildered, afraid to face the dawning truth.
She never finished. That dawning truth broke over hr full force with Marquette’s next words.
“Sandy is pregnant.”
Jarod hadn’t known that, Kelly realized. He stumbled slightly, turning white.
He looked broken. Well, he should, Kelly thought. He wasn’t even eighteen yet. Every promise in the world lay open to him. Destroyed, if this was true. Destroyed. How well she knew.
She reeled under a new onslaught of fury. There was Marquette, standing like an avenging angel, so convinced of his little girl’s innocence. Well, it couldn’t be true! Jarod simply wasn’t like that! Marquette’s precious daughter might have been running around with the entire senior class; she might have chosen Jarod’s name simply because he was every young girl’s fantasy!
Kelly stepped forward and said scornfully, “Come on, Mr. Marquette. Perhaps we should call in the police. Or perhaps…perhaps you should take greater care with your accusations. The father is so often the last to know.”
“Just what do you mean, Mrs. McGraw?” His eyes were narrowed again.
He was about to breathe fire, she was certain. But Kelly wasn’t about to let Jarod take the rap if the man’s daughter had been running around with every kid in town.
“What I’m saying, Mr. Marquette, is that it just might be possible that your daughter seduced not only my son, but half of the senior class. What I’m say is that—”
Kelly wasn’t sure quite what happened then. Marquette stiffened, the expression on his face explosive, and took a step forward. Jarod let out a gasp and came charging in. He swung at Marquette who ducked.
Jarod’s fist—a powerful weapon—connected with his mother’s jaw instead. Kelly felt the ringing pain; then she felt the world spin. Fury faded, and she slumped to the floor, seeing nothing but black.
Marquette reached for her, stooping quickly. Jarod fell to his knees beside his mother, still trying to defend her. He looked up quickly into Marquette’s eyes.
They were Sandy’s eyes, except that Sandy’s were so much softer. This guy’s were hard—like his frame.
“Don’t touch her!” Jarod rasped out.
“Son, you hit her,” the older man said in an ironic tone.
Marquette seemed to have lost a lot of his anger. He ignored Jarod and reached beneath Kelly’s shoulders. Jarod reached for her, too. “She’s my mother!”
Marquette actually laughed. “Take her, then. It won’t do any good for the two of us to sit here fighting over her unconscious body!”
Unbelievably, Jarod found himself grinning as he lifted Kelly.
“Why did you fly at me?” Marquette demanded.
“I thought you were going to—to—”
“To hurt her? Your mother?”
“Well, she was talking about your daughter. She doesn’t know Sandy, sir. If she did…” Jarod’s voice trailed away. “Well, you see, Mom is small, but she’s a fighter.” He paused, swallowing again. “You know how you feel about Sandy. Well, Mom feels the same way about me, I suppose.”
Marquette nodded, studying Jarod. It was impossible not to like the boy. It wasn’t just looks—Sandy would never have been swayed by looks alone—it was the honesty about him. It was something about those eyes, about his clear stare, that promised integrity.
You should have thought this one out first, Marquette! he warned himself, too late. He just hadn’t been able to help himself. Sandy was all the beauty in his life; she was his pride, his joy. Somehow he had never realized that she had grown up. He had always thought of her as his little girl, as pure as a white lily, and some primal instinct had told him that she had been taken, attacked or seduced, that she couldn’t be to blame.
Even if no one was to blame, he felt ill. She was so young! A baby about to have a baby! There were alternatives, of course. There were a host of things that could be done.
What had to be done was the right thing, of course. And they had to have help, these two. They were so young….
Jarod was still standing there, holding his mother. Dan Marquette frowned suddenly. “My God, she’s tiny. I thought at first that she was your sister.”
Jarod laughed, a little proudly. “She’s always been the best-looking mom in town!” he said. Then he realized that they were both just standing there. Sandy’s father—and him. He-who-had-just-struck-his-own-mother!
“I’ll, uh, carry her to the couch,” he said, ashamed of not having thought of that right away.
“I’ll get some ice. Where’s the kitchen?”
Jarod indicated the far side of the house. Then he lifted his mother and headed into the den. Bookshelves lined the walls, and the warm, golden oak furniture ranged from a desk at one end to an entertainment center at the other. He laid his mother on an afghan-covered couch close to the television. If she’d been conscious she could have looked out the window to the lawn and the street below.
He stared down at his mother worriedly. She was very pale, except for a place on her chin where a dark bruise was already forming.
“Oh, Mom!” Jarod whispered miserably. Pregnant. Sandy was pregnant. They hadn’t been very careful. Yes, they had—after the first time. You only needed one time. Pregnant. With his child.
Jarod’s fingers trembled as he smoothed the blond hair from his mother’s forehead. He was going to be a father. He and Sandy were going to be parents. The responsibility of it was overwhelming, but at the same time he felt a wonderful, mystical beauty and pride. They were going to have a baby. Sandy, his Sandy, was carrying his child.
His mother was going to be so disappointed. And Sandy’s father was—well, enraged.
But they had to understand. He and Sandy loved each other.
Marquette came in, carrying ice wrapped in a cloth and a bottle of Kelly’s best brandy.
Jarod gazed at him anxiously. “You think she’d all right, don’t you? Maybe I should call a doctor.”
Marquette didn’t look at him as he knelt beside the couch, his dark eyes intent upon Kelly McGraw. He frowned slightly and shook his head. “No, you just nicked her. She’ll be fine.” He set the ice down, but held on to the brandy. “You have any ammonia or smelling salts around?” he asked Jarod.
Jarod shook his head and lifted his hands lamely. “No one here runs around passing out. Usually.”
Marquette nodded and poured out a small shot of brandy. He lifted Kelly’s head and forced a little brandy between her lips. She coughed, and some of the liquor trailed down her cheek. Her eyes fluttered, and Marquette set the brandy down, satisfied.
Jarod stared at him over his mother’s form. “Mr. Marquette…”
He glanced up, and Jarod studied his face. There was a lot of him in Sandy, yet he was as masculine as a man would get, while Sandy…
There had never been anyone more feminine, more beautiful. Where her father’s features were hard, Sandy’s were fine. Those dark eyes, with the spark of fire and life in them, those were the same. He would have recognized Marquette anywhere.
The man no longer seemed angry, just resigned, disappointed. He wanted to hate me, Jarod thought. But he doesn’t. And that made it all the more imperative that he explain.
“I love her, sir. I love Sandy with all my heart. We intended to marry each other…anyway.” He lowered his eyes when he finished speaking.
Marquette studied him for a moment. “Jarod, you and Sandy have to take time. You have to look at all the options. Hand me that ice, will you?”
Jarod guiltily remembered his mother and passed over the ice. Marquette pressed it against Kelly’s chin. She blinked again, and tried to sit up.
It wasn’t a nightmare. That was her first thought. She had wanted to awaken and find that it had been a dream. That this red-haired, fire-breathing monster had been a figment of her imagination, created because she was so desperate to get her work done.
But it was real, Kelly acknowledged instantly. The fire-breathing monster was still here—holding ice against her chin. She was stretched out on the couch, and he was knelling over her. Jarod was there, too, staring down at her. And her chin hurt like blue blazes.
Jarod had struck her. Of course, he hadn’t been trying to. He’d been aiming for Marquette. And Marquette…
Her eyes flew open wide with alarm, her heart thundering painfully, and then she relaxed, feeling a little bit ridiculous. Obviously Marquette hadn’t taken up the fight. Jarod looked just fine. They were both there, calm, rational, staring at her.
“Oh, God,” she breathed, and closed her eyes again. A hand fell on her forehead, Marquette’s. Long fingered, yet light. Massive. She swallowed sharply and swung her feet to the ground, rejecting his concerned touch with a wave.
“I’m all right—”
But she broke off because her head was spinning. Not just with pain, but with the truth that was growing more evident and undeniable every second. Jarod had gotten this man’s daughter pregnant. Jarod wasn’t denying anything. Jarod was concerned. Jarod was…
For a moment her mind went blank. Then it whipped into action again. There were options. All kinds of options. They had to do what was best for all of them. No, she acknowledged honestly, not all of them. The two of them. Jarod and—what was her name? Sandy.
Sandy! Damn you, Sandy! she thought vehemently. How could you? Why didn’t you…?
But that wasn’t fair, and she knew it. She of all people should know it. Jarod was every bit as responsible as the girl, and he was going to behave responsibly now.
“Here.”
She tried to blink and open her eyes again. Marquette was stuffing something into her hand. He was still staring at her, silent but concerned.
“Are you all right?” he asked quietly as she wrapped her fingers around the brandy glass.
“No, not at all,” she murmured, grinning dryly. “But my jaw isn’t broken or anything.”
He stood. She wished he hadn’t. She liked dealing with him much better when he was on his knees.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. McGraw,” he said suddenly. She stared at him, a bit incredulous at his change.
But he hadn’t really changed, she thought. He was as hard as ever, as determined. Just more polite.
“I shouldn’t have come over this way. I acted without thinking. Maybe you can understand what I felt when I first talked to my daughter. Maybe…you can’t. I’m afraid I reacted out of pure anger. I wanted to be reasonable, and I wasn’t.”
Kelly lowered her head, wishing for a moment that they had remained on the battleground, because now she was forced to admit that she had replied in kind. She had all but called his daughter a little whore, and really, she didn’t normally behave that way, either. Then again, when one was attacked…
“If you’re all right, I’ll leave you. I’ll call, to see when we can discuss this situation.”
To Kelly’s amazement, Marquette turned and strode from the room.
Suddenly Jarod stood. “Mr. Marquette! Wait, please!”
The man was already out the front door, but Kelly saw him pause on the walkway. Jarod saw him, too, and started to follow.
“Jarod!” Kelly called.
He looked back at her, and sorrow flashed through his eyes. He started to walk away, then came back. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, looking at her anxiously, but then he stood.
“Are you okay, Mom? I’m sorry. I’ve never been so sorry about anything in my entire life. Honest to God. But I’ve got to go. I have to see her. I have to see Sandy. She’s—she’s pregnant. She’s going to have my baby. I have to see her. Can you understand?”
He kissed her forehead again, then started for the door to catch up with Marquette.
“Jarod, wait! This is serious! We have to talk. We have to—”
“Mother, please! I just have to see that Sandy is all right! I’ll be back, I promise, and then we’ll talk.”
The door banged. Kelly was on her feet, her fury aimed at her only child, but standing made her dizzy, and she had to drop back to the couch. She could see them through the window, though: her tall, handsome son, and the even taller red-haired man. Leaving together.
“Jarod, I’ll…I’ll clobber you for this!” she swore. But of course she wouldn’t clobber him. She’d never clobbered him. And he’d been way too big for ages, anyway.
She poured herself more brandy and gulped it down.
“Oh, Jarod!” she whispered. She stood again, and began pacing the room, still half in shock. She tried to retrace everything that had happened. Marquette bursting in like a maddened lunatic with his accusations…
Accusations that were in part true. She’d heard it straight from Jarod’s own lips.
Kelly finished off the brandy as she continued to pace. She barely noticed the dull ache in her jaw.
Jarod—and Marquette! Standing up at the end and acting so damn noble. Sorry, I’ll call you. Then walking out, after everything he had caused.
Kelly moved to the couch, poured another brandy and sank back on the cushions. She stared blankly out the windows.
“Jarod. Jarod, Jarod, Jarod.”
And then she started to think about Marquette again.
She threw her glass across the room into the fireplace, gritting her teeth at the sound of the shattering glass.
“Damn you, Jarod! If you had to get a girl pregnant, couldn’t you have picked one with a different father?”
Then she started to laugh, because the thought was so ridiculous. And then, all alone, she started to cry.
Because it was just like history repeating itself, and she didn’t know if she sympathized more with her own son—or with the girl she had never seen.