Carla Neggers - Night’s Landing

Wizards.

“I should have stayed on Conroy Fontaine,” Rob said. “I should have pushed harder. And Ethan Brooker. Nicholas Janssen. They were under my nose.”

“We’ll get Janssen. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Before Brooker does?”

“I hope so. Brooker’s all right. I’d hate to see him go down for taking out that murderous bastard.” Nate tried to smile. “Something about Longstreet seemed to get to him. Maybe he’s not so far gone in wanting revenge that he can’t make it back.”

“I knew my parents had hired him. I should have-”

“It worked out, Rob. We all got out of this thing alive.”

“No thanks to me.”

“Don’t do it to yourself. I was within yards of your sister when that sick bastard grabbed her. I was within inches when he threw the snake at her.” Nate could feel his pulse begin to race and knew he had to stop or he’d be no good to Rob, never mind himself. “Your damn tulips might have saved my life. Fontaine would have had a better shot if we’d stayed on Central Park South.”

“That’s something, anyway. I don’t know when I’ll be back on the job.” Rob shuffled another few steps. “Or if.”

“Just concentrate on getting well.”

He glanced at Nate with gray eyes that were so like his sister’s. “You?”

“It’s time I went home.”

Wes Poe arrived in Night’s Landing two days after Rob had made it home himself.

Except for the presence of the Secret Service, nothing had changed.

Visibly, at least. As he walked down to the dock and stared into the coppery water, Wes could feel the evil that had lurked here. He could taste the bitterness of how close he’d come to losing both Sarah and Rob.

He didn’t even remember Nicholas Janssen from Vanderbilt.

Sarah joined him on the dock. He smiled at her, saw that the snakebite had almost healed. “You always get in trouble when you’re between projects. Leola and Violet have been one huge, overarching project for you for a long time, but you broke it up into smaller projects-and every time you finished one, you’d get yourself into some sort of mess before you got started on the next one.”

“This was a big mess.”

“Nate Winter’s accepted a promotion to marshals’ headquarters in Arlington. He starts in a couple of weeks.”

He thought she squirmed, but she managed a quick smile. “Now, why do you think that’d interest me?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Because you’re in love with him.”

“I barely know him.”

“Sometimes you fall in love with someone first. Then you get to know them. It happened that way with Ev and me.”

“She’s a wonderful woman, Wes.”

Ev hadn’t come to Night’s Landing with him. This was his visit, his day of reckoning. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I think-” He slipped an arm over Sarah’s slender shoulders. “You and the cottonmouths are a big story around here. All over the country. I’m going to set the record straight on what happened out here fourteen years ago. I’m going to tell people what really happened that day.”

“Wes-”

“I should never have let it stand that I was the hero-that I’d been bit by a poisonous snake saving your life.” He squeezed her, holding her close. “I was bit by a poisonous snake. But you’re the one who saved a life that day. Mine.”

“You don’t know what you’d have done.”

“I wouldn’t have gotten medical attention in time. That I know.” He glanced at her. “You told our Deputy Winter?”

She nodded.

“That’s good. That’s very good, Sarah. You trust him.”

“I trust a lot of people.”

“But you don’t let them in, do you? You and Rob are so accustomed to being on your own, emotionally, physically. But you let Nate Winter in.” He didn’t wait for her to protest and argue and analyze, go Dunnemore and Ph.D. on him. “They tell me he’s solid. I wouldn’t want anything else for you. I remember that watery-eyed academic you brought home a few years ago-you rolled over him in two seconds flat. You need a man with backbone.”

“Wes! That was a perfectly nice man.”

“I’m sure he was.”

“Listen to those stereotypes. Never mind who saved whom from the water moccasin all those years ago, the media would skewer you for something like ‘watery-eyed academic.’”

He grinned at her. “I’m not making generalizations about every academic. I’m talking about you and this-what was he?”

“A well-respected medieval scholar.”

“Just what you thought you were looking for, hmm? I don’t think so. Your parents are worried Rob’s the throwback to Dunnemores of old. He probably is, but you-you are, too, Sarah, with a lot of Granny Dunnemore thrown in. You’re full of adventure, curiosity, drive. You hate being bored. Your father’s the same, but he managed to be a Dunnemore in a way that didn’t upset Granny after all she’d lost.”

He heard laughter drifting from the front porch. Stuart, Betsy, Rob. For a heartbeat, he thought he could hear Granny and Leola and Violet.

Sarah’s eyes misted. “Dad’s not as energetic as he used to be. You can see him starting to fail.”

“Your mother wasn’t tempted, Sarah,” Wes said softly, knowing what was on Sarah’s mind. “Not even for a second. I was here when she and your father met. I’ve been here all the years since. Nicholas Janssen was never a threat to what they have.”

She nodded. “I know. Oh, Wes. Leola and Violet would be so proud of you. They never wanted you to leave Night’s Landing, but the White House…” She smiled. “They’d have liked that. They’d have taken the train to Washington and gone to all the inaugural balls.”

He laughed. “Ah, yes, they would have.” And he could see them, the two strong, loving, impossible women who’d raised him. “I never believed their story about a Huck-Finn-type boy living on the river, did you?”

“I could never corroborate it. I wasn’t sure I never believed it.”

“He was in the cave that day?”

“I think so. The snake might have left the cave because of him.”

“Sarah…” He started back toward the house, the laughter of friends he’d taken for granted for far too long. “I’m flying back to Washington tonight.”

“After supper. I’m thawing a prune cake.”

Granny’s prune cake. He adored these people. “I love you, Sarah. You are truly the daughter Ev and I never had. I’m convening a press conference tomorrow morning. Wherever you want to be is fine with me. I just wanted to warn you that the proverbial shit is about to hit the fan. The media’s going to want to talk to you even more than they do now about our friendship.”

“I think-” She walked next to him and hooked her arm into his. “If I get a move on it, I’ll bet I could be in Cold Ridge tomorrow morning.”

“Cold Ridge, eh?” He grinned at her, loving her as much, he thought, as he could love any daughter he’d had. “Take your woolens. It’s still winter up there. Although from what I hear about you and Deputy Winter,” he added devilishly, “you won’t need any woolens to keep you warm.”

Nate warmed his hands in front of the stone fireplace in the brick house Abraham Winter, an ancestor, had built and where his brother-in-law, Tyler North, had grown up. North had broken open a six-pack. He was on leave for a few days. Carine was off taking pictures.

North, a skilled combat paramedic, had wanted to know all about the snakebites. He was the sort of guy who understood catching poisonous snakes for fun. He’d already said-more than once-that he thought he’d like Sarah Dunnemore.

“Gus tell you?” North got two frosted glasses out of the freezer, which were his new wife’s doing, since he was a drink-from-the-bottle type, and poured the beer. “Antonia’s having a girl.”