A Willing Murder Read online

  The minister finally stopped his flowery lies—and people say I write fiction, Sara thought—and the funeral was over.

  She gave a curt nod and left as quickly as possible. She didn’t go down the gravel path with the others and have to listen to their fake words of sympathy. Instead, she cut across the lawn. There was a gravestone she needed to see. Or maybe she shouldn’t see it, shouldn’t remind herself that a man she’d loved so very much was forever gone.

  As she rounded the little building that sat in the center of the cemetery, she halted. If she’d been hit by lightning, she couldn’t have stopped more abruptly.

  Another funeral service was going on. But unlike her mother’s, this one was attended by what looked to be half the town. A big photo of Henry Lowell was on an easel.

  Standing on the far side of a casket, like a vision from a nightmare, were three women Sara had known long ago. It was like a Lachlan High School reunion—something she’d avoided for so many years. Tayla Kirkwood, Donna Wyatt and Noreen Stewart stood there, side by side. They’d been close friends in high school and were widows now.

  Ate your men alive and threw the bones away? Sara wondered.

  But in the middle were two men who took Sara’s breath away. She hadn’t seen them since Cal had passed and they looked so very much like him. His dark looks, inherited from his Brazilian mother, had always made Cal stand out in a sea of blond heads and pale skin.

  One was Cal’s son, Roy, the bane of his father’s life. Liar, cheat, thief. As bad as Randal but without her brother’s finesse, his sense of showmanship, his likability.

  For all of Roy’s sins, he was still a very good-looking man. There was gray in his dark hair and he had unshaven cheeks, but they just made him look more interesting. His eyes hadn’t lost the sparkle of his lust for life.

  He was standing beside his ex-wife, Heather, who looked like she’d been crying for days. It was obvious how much she’d loved her husband, Henry. And as Sara watched, she saw Roy glance at the diamond on Heather’s hand. Saw him stare at her pearl earrings.

  On Roy’s other side was a young man who looked so much like Cal that Sara thought she might faint. When Cal was eighteen years old, his senior year of high school, he had been a glorious creature: tall, dark, athletic, smart. He and his two friends had been dubbed The Magnificent Three—and they well deserved the title.

  That Sara had been the girlfriend—the true love—of one of them had been a great source of pride to her. The world that she and Cal had outside of school, away from the spotlight of sports and school intrigues, was what fueled her entire life. It was what gave her the strength to survive her mother and the horror that was her home life.

  That it had all ended badly didn’t take away the seed that had rooted so deeply and strongly. Love lasts forever, even if the lovers are rarely together.

  The boy who looked so much like Cal was his grandson Jackson, grown up now and bursting with health and energy—and, from the expression on his handsome face, anger.

  When Sara saw Roy put his arm around Heather in a proprietary way, then saw the scowl on Jack’s young face deepen, she knew that war was to come. She could foresee the future: Roy would move back in on his ex, now a rich widow, and Jack would do what he could to stop it.

  I must get him away from here, Sara thought. When the funeral service ended, she went forward.

  No one seemed to be surprised to see her. But then, news always spread quickly in Lachlan. Cal’s widow, Donna, snake that she was, wisely slithered away through the crowd. She had always been one to do things in secret, never in the open.

  Tayla still wore that “forgive me” look, but Sara ignored her. Noreen Stewart didn’t deign to look at a Medlar.

  Roy was so intent on leading pretty Heather away that he barely glanced at Sara.

  Bet if I had on my Cartier watch and some pearls he’d run to me, she thought, then dismissed him.

  Jack stayed by the coffin, watching as it was lowered into the ground. His eighteen-year-old eyes had a look of age and turmoil that were too much for him.

  She didn’t know if his grandfather had ever mentioned her to him. But she did know how close they’d been. Jack was what Cal had hoped his son would be.

  She went to stand beside him. They were the only mourners left. “I’m Sara,” she said softly and didn’t know if he heard her.

  For a long moment he didn’t move, but then he took her hand in his and held it tightly—and that was when Sara’s tears started. She’d never met Henry Lowell, but this tall, beautiful boy should have been her grandchild. Hers and Cal’s.

  They stood side by side, holding hands, a tall young man and a short older woman, two strangers who should have been family. Their tears fell as they stared at the coffin with the red roses on top.

  It was a while before Jack turned away. He released Sara’s hand. Without looking at her, he said, “Are you hungry?”

  “Always.” She was at her heaviest then. Years and years of sitting and writing and eating from deli delivery had packed on the pounds.

  He turned to look at her, seemed to study her, then nodded. “You have a car?”

  “A rental parked over there.”

  “Leave it and let’s go in my truck.”

  “Sure,” she said. At her age, it was always a pleasure when a young person didn’t ask her if she needed help lifting her handbag.

  Jack’s truck was about two feet off the ground and her short legs had a hard time getting up into it, but she didn’t ask for help. When he took off so that he left a strip of rubber, she laughed like she was again sixteen. Cal had been brilliant with cars and his engines rumbled as they rode.

  Jack took her to a drive-through hamburger place and ordered for both of them.

  “Onions okay?”

  “Why not?” She was beginning to realize that what he was doing was courting her. The driving too fast and greasy burgers were a teenager’s idea of caviar and champagne. He wants something, she thought.

  Had it been anyone else, she would have said, “Let me out here.” If success had taught her nothing else, it was that everyone in the world claimed to be the basis of all that she’d achieved—and so she should give them money.

  But Sara didn’t protest. Whatever Cal’s grandson wanted, she would do her best to give it to him. She could feel the pain radiating from him, and something inside her felt called to heal him however she could.

  He drove down a gravel lane and parked under a big oak tree. Sara knew it was one of the make-out sites for Lachlan kids. In fact, she and Cal had often made love on a blanket about twenty feet away from this very spot, hidden under the trees.

  She leaned back against the door and took one of the huge hamburgers and a giant Coke. When he said nothing, she began. “So where are you going to college?”

  “Can’t. Gotta protect Mom from Roy. And Ivy and Evan.”

  He didn’t say this in a “feel sorry for me” way, but as fact.

  “I’ll pay for your college,” she said. “Ivy League. Anywhere you want. You don’t have to worry about being away from your family—it’d just be for a few years. You’ll be back in no time. Unless you go to law school.”

  “Nope.”

  “Medicine?”

  He shook his head.

  She chewed awhile. “You know exactly what you want, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “Granddad Cal told me that if I ever really needed help that you’d give it.”

  “Did he?” Sara’s voice was hoarse. “So he talked about me? Bet Donna loved that!”

  “He spoke of you only to me. He never mentioned you to anyone else. But he said that you and I are alike.”

  “How so?”

  “I’d like to think that we’re just plain lovable, but it’s more likely that we’re hardheaded and stubborn. Fight to the death when we see a wrong