Cody Walker's Woman (16 page)

He stared down at her, one corner of his mouth teasing up into the little half grin she loved. “Okay,” he said finally. “Okay. But first I need to tell you some things about me. Things you’re entitled to know. Then...” He left the rest hanging, as if he wanted to leave Keira an out, just in case.

Keira searched his face, his eyes, and her breath quickened. There was so much she longed to know about him, so much she wanted to ask. Maybe tonight she’d get the answers she needed.
Maybe tonight’s the night for other things, too.

Part of her was afraid. Not of anything he might do to her, but of what she might reveal to him. And what she might learn about herself. But part of her wanted this, wanted
him,
as much as he seemed to want her. “Let’s get dinner,” she said before her courage failed her.

* * *

They finished the Italian take-out dinner in the small dining area of Keira’s condo and tossed the trash. “Want some coffee?” she asked, pretty sure she already knew the answer if the number of coffee mugs in his cabin meant anything. “I can’t cook, but I make good coffee.”

“Sure.”

“I seem to recall you prefer regular, not decaf.”

He smiled. “Night or day, it’s the same. I prefer the jolt of caffeine.”

He stood in the doorway of her tiny kitchen, dwarfing it, watching as she made the coffee. “Black, no sugar, right?” she asked when the pot was nearly finished brewing, feeling just a little flustered at his looming presence...and his silence.

“Right.”

She took a large coffee mug from the cabinet, filled it, and handed it to him. He took a sip and made a face of appreciation, then took a larger swallow.

“Let’s go into the living room,” she said, turning off the coffeemaker.

“Aren’t you having any?” Cody asked.

Keira shook her head. “Not at this time of night. But it won’t go to waste. I’ll reheat it in the morning.” She laughed at his look of horror regarding drinking coffee that wasn’t brewed fresh, then led him into the living room and indicated the sofa. For a minute she was undecided whether to sit in the armchair, but then—boldly for her—sat next to him, just an arm’s length away.

“Amateur,” she encouraged softly. “You were going to tell me....”

Cody looked away for a minute and put his half-empty cup down on the coffee table in front of him. His face reflected his indecision, but then his expression hardened. “There was a time when Callahan hated my guts,” he said finally. “And I felt nearly the same about him, just for a different reason.”

His eyes met Keira’s. “I’d loved Mandy all my life up to that point—you already know that much. But I had to watch her fall for O’Nei—Callahan—when he moved to Black Rock through the witness security program.”

He rubbed the side of his face, obviously uncomfortable with the memory. “Callahan didn’t know how I felt at the time. I don’t think Mandy knew, either—not then. Not until...” He broke off.

“Anyway, Callahan didn’t hate me when he first moved to Black Rock. We respected each other professionally, and worked together just fine. We probably could have been friends if not for...well, anyway, he didn’t grow to hate me the way I hated him until a long time later. I don’t blame him, though—I would have hated me, too, under the circumstances.”

“Why?”

One corner of his mouth twitched into a sad travesty of a smile. “Because I slept with Mandy.”

Chapter 12

“O
h.” It hurt, more than Keira had thought possible. She’d known there was
something
between the two men. And she’d known somehow it involved Mandy. But hearing Cody confirm her suspicions caused a physical ache in the region of her heart.

“She wasn’t his wife at the time,” Cody continued, his lips twisting. “But I’m not making excuses. On some level I knew it was wrong...and I did it, anyway. The only thing I can say in my defense is that I didn’t plan it...at least not consciously.”

“So, what happened?”

“It’s a long story. Are you sure you really want to hear it?”

She nodded, struggling to keep condemnation or any other negative expression out of her face. “I’d like to understand...if you want to tell me.”

Cody stared into the distance. “It started almost eight years ago,” he said. “Some other people you know were involved, too—D’Arcy and McKinnon.”

“Trace did tell me some things,” she offered.

“But he couldn’t tell you this story because he doesn’t know it. Not the important parts, anyway.”

“Then, you tell me,” she said softly.

Cody thought for a moment, as if he were trying to find the right thread to begin. “It’s a bit involved. I was the sheriff in Black Rock, but I was also working undercover in the militia way back then. Some people were openly members of the militia, but I wasn’t. My code name in the militia was Centurion.” He laughed humorlessly. “Pennington picked the name. He thought it was clever. Maybe it was.”

He breathed deeply. “D’Arcy knew I was undercover. He was responsible for Ryan Callahan, and it was his idea to send him to Black Rock after Pennington’s trial, and Callahan agreed. I know I already told you D’Arcy figured if Pennington somehow tracked Callahan down, I’d get wind of it and would be able to warn him.”

She nodded.

“It actually worked out better than that—when Pennington located Callahan I was given the assignment of eliminating him. But I’m getting ahead of the story.”

His eyes took on a faraway expression as he looked into the distant past. “You already know Callahan came to Black Rock under an alias—Reilly O’Neill. He fell for Mandy. Hard. It was the same for her. Two months after they met, they...became lovers.”

Keira closed her eyes momentarily at the pain in Cody’s voice, a pain she felt twisting inside her.

“Some of this I inferred by what happened later. Neither of them actually told me, of course, but I...I had my suspicions early on. Mandy never was good at hiding how she felt. And even if she’d wanted to, I don’t think she could have hidden it from me. I knew her too well.”

He stopped and took a deep swallow of coffee, then stared down into the cup. After a minute Keira said, “Go on.”

“Callahan had been in Black Rock about six months when Pennington tracked him there. I was ordered to kill him, but not just in any way I saw fit. Pennington was obsessed with seeing Callahan in hell—a vow he’d made after Callahan testified against him and put him in jail—so Callahan
had
to die by fire.

“D’Arcy, McKinnon, Callahan and I set it up to fake Callahan’s death. We rigged his truck with explosives, and D’Arcy even arranged for a cadaver to be burned in the truck.” He grimaced at the memory. “We also had a fake autopsy report all ready, identifying the corpse as Callahan, to make it more realistic.”

Cody paused for a moment. “Callahan was afraid that if Pennington had tracked him down once, it could happen again, so he insisted we not tell Mandy. He said he’d rather give her up than risk having anything happen to her.” A wry smile played over Cody’s lips. “That’s the throwback part of him. In his world a man doesn’t put the woman he loves in jeopardy. Even if it means breaking her heart.” The smile faded.

“We planned it for a Saturday, Mandy’s busiest day at her bookstore. Neither of us counted on her showing up at the reservoir where she thought Callahan was working, where the explosion was set to go off.”

Keira’s gaze was glued to his face. “Why? Why did she show up?”

Cody’s expression was grim. “She went there to tell him something. Something important. She just didn’t get there in time.”

“So, what happened?”

“She saw the explosion from the road. She thought Callahan was inside the truck. She crashed trying to reach him. She lost their baby. She almost lost her life.” The choppy little sentences were spoken without emotion, but Keira knew Cody was bleeding inside.

A long silence followed, and Keira waited patiently. Then Cody said, “Callahan had to disappear for the deception to work. D’Arcy had arranged for federal marshals to whisk Callahan away to safety immediately after the explosion. McKinnon was one of them. For security reasons, I wasn’t told where he was going. But everything was in place to convince Pennington that Callahan was dead, and that I’d obeyed orders. We, none of us, considered how Mandy would take it, and Callahan didn’t find out about the crash...or the baby, until a year later.”

“So she lost the man she loved, and she lost his baby,” Keira said, trying to imagine what Mandy had gone through. Now that she’d witnessed firsthand the love between Ryan and Mandy Callahan, the enormity of what Mandy had to have felt swept through her, leaving her more shaken than she wanted to admit. “If I were Mandy I wouldn’t want to live,” she whispered under her breath, but Cody’s sharp ears heard her.

“Yeah, that’s exactly how she reacted. I was there when she regained consciousness in the hospital. I didn’t have to tell her—she already knew. But...” His eyes darkened with remembered pain.

“Part of me was tempted to tell her Callahan was still alive, but would that have made it any easier on her with him gone? To know the explosion was faked, that her desperate attempt to save him was meaningless? That her baby didn’t have to die?”

Keira blinked against the prickling sensation that was a precursor to tears, and waited until the sensation subsided. “No,” she confirmed softly. “It wouldn’t have been any easier to bear.”

“I don’t know what I would have done if I’d been in Callahan’s situation,” Cody said. “His choices were limited. Maybe I’d have done the same thing—I just don’t know. But Callahan had decided Mandy needed to be protected, no matter what. He chose to leave her, chose to let her think he was dead. He didn’t know....”

He drew in his breath sharply. “Mandy says I should have found a way to tell her the truth. Callahan says he trusted me to watch over her while he led the wolves off the scent. I was damned either way.”

“A no-win situation,” Keira agreed.

“All Mandy’s friends were worried about her after Callahan ‘died,’ not just me.” Cody’s next words came out harshly. “She lost weight. She wasn’t sleeping. She looked like hell. We were all afraid she’d—” He broke off, obviously suffering with the memory.

“Suicide?” Keira asked, feeling she already knew the answer.

Cody nodded reluctantly. “She’d tried once before, in the hospital right after it happened. I don’t think she really intended to...but...we were all still afraid for her afterwards.” He fell silent, and Keira knew he was back in that time, reliving the events as they occurred.

Then he picked up the thread of the story. “It started snowing the day before New Year’s Eve—a real three-day blizzard. As sheriff, I always checked on the local residents when there was bad weather, especially the most vulnerable ones, the ones who lived alone.”

Keira could see where this was heading. “So you went to check on Mandy.”

“Yeah. New Year’s Day. I should have sent one of my deputies,” he said roughly, “but I...didn’t.”

“What happened then?”

“Mandy had downed the remains of a bottle of whiskey the night before. She told me she just wanted to sleep for once without having nightmares. She wasn’t drunk that next morning, but she was in bad shape emotionally.” Cody’s gaze was turned inward, and Keira knew he blamed himself for everything that followed.

“There’s some excuse for Mandy—Callahan was dead, or so she thought. I knew he was alive—there’s no excuse for me.” His eyebrows drew together in an expression that combined both self-condemnation and honest bewilderment. “Callahan once accused me of planning it. I’ve gone over it in my mind a thousand times since then, and I don’t think I did, but...who ever really knows why we do what we do?”

He swallowed hard. “Mandy was grieving, and I loved her. I just wanted to...but it was the worst mistake of my life. Afterward, she wept as if her heart was breaking. God!” he said. “I never want to hear a woman cry like that again, especially if I’m the cause.”

He was silent for so long Keira finally asked him, “Then what?”

“Then Callahan returned for Mandy almost a year after his ‘death.’ He’d had plastic surgery to disguise his face, but he had no way of knowing his cover was already blown, that his ‘death’ had already been revealed as a fake. Pennington’s conviction had been overturned by the appellate court, the prosecutors were panicking because without Callahan there was no case left to prosecute, and D’Arcy had no choice but to disclose to them that Callahan was still alive, still available to testify.”

He looked at her, his eyes bleak. “Remember what I told you, and what D’Arcy said about Larry Brooks betraying Callahan’s partner, Josh Thurman? D’Arcy still didn’t know Brooks was in the militia, and he dispatched Brooks and McKinnon to bring Callahan in. As soon as he heard Callahan was alive, Brooks informed Pennington, and I had to do some fast tap dancing to explain how it came about I
hadn’t
killed him the year before.”

Keira thought about asking him how he escaped Pennington’s wrath, but decided against it. She wanted to hear the end of this story first.

“Brooks firebombed Mandy’s house on Pennington’s orders to get Callahan. It almost worked. Everyone thought Mandy was dead—only Brooks and Pennington knew the real target was Callahan, and they thought he was dead, too. Callahan figured it was safer for Mandy and him to play dead until he could work out a plan. They hid out in my cabin—just as they did after Tressler’s death.” He sighed. “Most of the rest of the story you already know. But Callahan and Mandy almost didn’t reunite...because of me.”

Keira knew she had to ask. “Who told him?”

“I think Mandy intended to, but before she could find a way, he guessed. He confronted us, and...I...I told him the truth.” He shook his head and added softly, “He deserved to know. It wasn’t right not to tell him—I know how I would have felt. But he’s a proud man. Very possessive of Mandy.”

“That had to hurt him where he was most vulnerable.”

“Yeah.” Cody’s tone indicated this was a gross understatement. “Even worse, he still needed my help setting the trap for Pennington. It galled him—I know that—but he didn’t have much of a choice. It wasn’t just his life at stake. It was Mandy’s, too. And despite everything, he still loved her.”