Secrets and Lies: He's A Bad Boy / He's Just A Cowboy

He’d been stunned at the sight of her. While in high school, she’d been pretty, now she was beautiful, not in a classic sense, but beautiful nonetheless.

But beauty usually didn’t get to him. He was surrounded by beautiful women, women who were interested in him because of his notoriety or his money. He usually didn’t give a damn.

Rachelle was different. She looked more womanly now than she had twelve years before; her face had lost all the round edges of adolescence. Her cheekbones were more pronounced and her body language gave the impression that she was a woman who knew what she wanted and went after it. Until she’d taken the phone call. The atmosphere in the room had changed then; she’d seemed more submissive somehow, a little less secure.

Whoever the guy was on the other end of the line, Jackson didn’t like him. And so, he himself had come on to Rachelle.

He pulled into the parking lot of his motel and gritted his teeth. Leave her alone, he kept telling himself as he pocketed his keys and climbed the stairs to his room on the second floor. She doesn’t want you and she’s better off with the jerk who called her.

Inside the room, he tossed off his jacket and headed to the bar. He needed a drink. Seeing Rachelle again was a shock. His reaction to her was even more of a shock. And what he was going to do about the next couple of weeks scared the hell out of him.

* * *

AVOIDING JACKSON DIDN’T prove to be easy, Rachelle learned to her chagrin. Gold Creek was just too small to get lost in. She’d seen him walking into the Buckeye and caught him having breakfast at the Railway Café. She’d even watched him work an automatic teller machine at one of the two banks in town.

Now Rachelle half expected to see him at Fitzpatrick Logging where she was rebuffed by a sweet-smiling receptionist. “I’m sorry, but there must’ve been some mistake. Mr. Fitzpatrick is out of town for several days,” she was told.

“But I’ve got an appointment with Mr. Fitzpatrick,” she replied firmly. “My editor set it up a week ago.”

The receptionist, Marge Elkins, lifted her plump shoulders and rolled her palms into the air. “I’m sorry. There must’ve been some mix-up, but if you’d like to speak to Mr. Fitzpatrick’s son, Brian, I could fit you in within the next couple of days.”

Why not? Rachelle thought. She may as well start with someone she knew, someone at the top of Gold Creek’s economic ladder. “I’d like that.”

“Mmm.” Marge flipped through an appointment book. “He’s free Wednesday morning,” she said. “How about eleven?”

“That would be fine,” Rachelle agreed, her curiosity aroused. “So Brian works here with his father?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Fitzpatrick, Mr. Brian Fitzpatrick is president of the company,” the friendly woman told Rachelle as she scratched a note in the appointment book. “His father only works a few days a week—more of a consultant than anything else. He’s busy with the rest of his businesses. Oh, here—our annual report.” She reached into a drawer and pulled out a glossy folder. Inside, along with pictures of the board members, which consisted mainly of the Fitzpatrick family, were graphs and charts on productivity at the logging company as well as a list of other enterprises that comprised the Fitzpatrick empire.

Rachelle thumbed through the report as she walked away from the receptionist’s desk. Brian? In charge of the logging company? Rachelle was surprised. In school, Brian had always been more interested in sports than academics. She’d heard from her mother that Brian had married Laura but, of course, Rachelle hadn’t been invited to the wedding. During the remainder of their senior year at Tyler High, Laura had made a point of keeping her distance from Rachelle.

All because of Jackson, Rachelle thought with a trace of bitterness. Though, if given the same set of circumstances, Rachelle would have stood up for him again. He was innocent, damn it, and no matter what else happened, she’d never believe him capable of murder.

Frowning at the turn of her memories, she shoved open the door and stepped outside. The air was clear, a hint of sunshine permeating thin clouds. Behind the low-slung building housing the offices of Fitzpatrick Logging was a huge yard surrounded by a chain-link fence and guarded by a pair of black Doberman pinschers who paced in a kennel that ran along the fence. Warnings were posted on the chain link. A few signs cautioned employees to wear hard hats and work safely. Other signs threatened would-be trespassers.

Trucks, loaded with logs, rumbled in and out of the yard. Cranes lifted the loads from the trucks, to be stacked in huge piles, while other trucks hauled their cargo away from the yard, presumably to a sawmill down the road.

Rachelle’s boots crunched on the gravel of the parking lot and so immersed was she in the report she’d received from Marge Elkins, she didn’t notice Jackson leaning against the dusty fender of her Escort.

“Short meeting,” he commented, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Wha—oh!” Her hand flew to her throat and she almost dropped the shiny-paged report. Though she’d thought he might show up, still he startled her. “What’re you doing here?”