Late Last Night (River Bend) Read online

  What others are saying…

  “Lilian Darcy’s writing is wonderful, and the characterizations are rapier sharp.”

  ‑New York Times bestselling author Mary Jo Putney.

  “It’s the writing that grabbed me… reading [Cafe du Jour] is like talking with a friend.”

  ‑Jayne at DearAuthor.com

  “[Saving Gerda] was dark and yet it drew me in, pulled back, made me long to get back to it… My eyes are filling up as I type this… Stunning, stunning book. I am totally in awe.”

  ‑Liz Fielding, multi-award-winning author of Liz Fielding’s Little Book of Writing Romance, from Amazon

  “Lilian Darcy really brings the town of Marietta, Montana, to life with vivid descriptions that will have readers kicking up dirt, smelling the food from the concession stands and enjoying the beautiful scenery. Marry Me, Cowboy is a fresh and fun novella that makes for a quick and satisfying read.”

  ‑Chris Read of Romance Junkies

  “Darcy handles serious subjects with heartrending humor and laugh-out-loud wit. Her characters are a rare and refreshing mix of honesty and sincerity, and their love scenes are powerfully emotional.”

  ‑Debbie Haupt in RT Book Reviews on It Began With a Crush

  “Excellent storytelling and a strong conflict will keep readers turning the pages…”

  ‑Melanie Bates in RT Book Reviews on A Marriage Worth Fighting For

  “I totally loved this book! Whether you’re a first time Lilian Darcy fan or a returning reader you will be pleasantly surprised at just how powerful her writing can be.”

  ‑Sara of Harlequin Junkie on A Marriage Worth Fighting For

  “[Café du Jour is]… warm and witty, an excellent read.”

  ‑Dianne Dempsey in the Melbourne Age newspaper

  “I would give [Café du Jour] six or seven stars if I could.”

  ‑Amazon UK reviewer

  “Captivating novella. Marry Me, Cowboy had me hooked from start to finish.”

  ‑Amazon reviewer

  Late Last Night

  ©

  Copyright 2014 Lilian Darcy

  The Tule Publishing Group, LLC

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-940296-12-8

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Dear Reader

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Excerpt: Marry Me, Cowboy

  Excerpt: The Sweetest Thing

  About the Author

  Available Now

  Dedication

  For my American family, with love.

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome back to Marietta. I’m taking you back in time with this story – not all that far, just to 1996. ER was screening every Thursday night on TV. The movie Sense and Sensibility had recently been released, and Pierce Brosnan was playing Bond. Cell phones were still a rarity. And yet things weren’t that different to the way they are now.

  When you read the three longer women’s fiction titles that are coming up in this River Bend series, you’ll see why I needed to write Late Last Night. There’s so much you need to know about the fateful 1996 prom night at Marietta High. If you’d had to learn it all through flashbacks and character thoughts, you wouldn’t have had the full picture. And who better to show you the story through their eyes than Marietta ’s sheriff Harrison Pearce and high school English teacher Kate MacCreadie. You haven’t met Harrison before, but if Kate’s name sounds a little familiar, it’s because she’s the aunt of Jamie MacCreadie, hero of Marry Me, Cowboy. You’ll even have a glimpse or two of Jamie in this book, when he was a little devil of a kid, already crazy about rodeo.

  Hope this story makes you want to come back for the rest of the River Bend novels.

  All the best,

  Lilian Darcy

  CHAPTER ONE

  March, 1996

  Really, rock music wasn’t what it used to be.

  Kate fumbled for the tuning knob on the pickup truck radio and came up with a country station. She liked country, but not today when she was late and tired and stressed after a long day of teaching. The meeting after school with Neve Shepherd’s parents had gone on much longer than she had thought it would, and then she’d had several more tasks to complete after that.

  “We’re worried that her boyfriend is a bad influence,” Neve’s father Gary had said at one point.

  “Jay Brown,” Annette Shepherd had put in. “Do you teach him, too?”

  “Yes, I do.” Kate already knew that Neve and Jay were dating, and she’d resisted blurting out her instant response—Jay a bad influence on Neve? No, it was the other way around. Neve was getting seriously out of control.

  Careful with the speed limit, Kate.

  She needed rock, and she needed it LOUD, and the Smashing Pumpkins and Foo Fighters just weren’t the same as the bands she’d loved in her teens. Blondie, the Eagles, the Police, the Stones. Those were bands.

  I sound as if I’m forty.

  Which she wouldn’t be for ages. Not until three years into the next millennium. She was only thirty-two, for heaven’s sake. Meanwhile, if she didn’t find a song she liked, she might start screaming instead.

  She twiddled the tuning knob once more, finally found a halfway decent song, started singing with no style and no tune at the top of her voice—it worked a little, as a stress release—then saw the flashing red and blue lights in her rear-view mirror and her heart sank into the pit of her stomach.

  Please, no! Not again.

  She slowed and pulled over, pressed her forehead against the hard curve of the steering wheel and groaned while she waited for the long arm of the law to step out of his vehicle and arrive beside her.

  This couldn’t be happening. And yet it was.

  A minute later, he appeared in his dark uniform at her window and she wound it down, the battered pickup not being a recent enough model to have push-button windows. It was the sheriff himself, not a mere junior deputy, and not the highway patrol. Sheriff Harrison Pearce had been with the county for just over a year, and had now pulled her over four times in less than three months for traffic violations. She’d run one stop light in town, and was caught speeding twice out here on the highway, but this time she didn’t even know what she’d done wrong.

  “I wasn’t speeding,” she said, before he could open his mouth. He loomed beyond the open window, big and unmoving, the uniform clinging to strong shoulders and well-worked thighs. “I wasn’t.”

  “You know, Miz MacCreadie,” he said in a slow Montana drawl, “we gotta stop meeting like this.”

  “I know we do. Why is it always you? Between the police department and the sheriff’s office and the highway patrol, there have to be other officers on the roads, you would think.” She shut her mouth quickly, before she began to sound completely hysterical.

  “I mean that.” He wore a sober, serious expression that made the planes of his face look as if they’d been carved by a sculptor in a thoughtful mood. He
had dark eyes and dark hair and the kind of short, neat haircut that looked terrible on any man who had a badly shaped head.

  Sheriff Pearce’s head was very well-shaped indeed.

  Almost as well-shaped as his body.

  Unfortunately.

  “I wasn’t speeding,” Kate said.

  “That is a plus,” he agreed. He sounded calm, and almost kind. “But your tail-light is out.” He put a hand on the roof of the pickup and leaned in a little.

  “One tail-light?” she said.

  “I’m sorry, Ma’am. It’s still a violation.”

  “I—I’m sorry, too, but I really didn’t know it was out, and I’m late getting home.”

  “Step out of the vehicle, and I’ll show you.”

  She stepped. Well, she opened the door with a slightly shaky hand, and stumbled out on tired, impatient legs. Every minute she was delayed here would only increase the likely chaos when she arrived home.

  Sheriff Pearce walked her around to the back of the pickup, his stride even and long. “See, it’s your left light, and these roads are pitch black at night. What if someone thinks you’re a motorcycle when they try to pass you?”

  “It’s not pitch black yet.” It was a plea, not an argument.

  “Will be, soon,” he pointed out, still sounding kind rather than stern. The last fiery edge of the western sun had dipped below the jagged and snow-capped horizon of the distant Tobacco Root Mountains some minutes ago.

  She shivered, standing in the cold. There were still thick patches of snow in the ditches, and she wasn’t wearing a coat. “Could I get the tail light fixed, and then bring the vehicle in and show you?”

  He was silent for a moment, and she breathed in the calm of him. She’d met him a couple of times outside the context of her shocking and heinous driving record, and she’d never seen a ruffle or a chink in the aura of strength and peace he gave off.

  It was amazing. It was wonderful. If he could bottle it, she would be in the market for a steady supply. Her own life and state of being was anything but calm, and that was why this kept happening, this traffic violation stuff. Really, it wasn’t like her. She was a schoolteacher for heck’s sake! A role model.

  “Bring it tomorrow,” he said. “Get the light fixed first thing. Can you undertake to do that?” He flicked her a narrow-eyed look, and spoke in the voice of the law.

  “I—I will. And if there’s any delay, I’ll call you.”

  “Here’s my card.”

  I have his card!

  Unfortunately it didn’t say “Harrison Pearce, Purveyor of Calm, Wholesale and Retail.” But he was still here, so she just kept breathing, hoping some of the calm might flow into her anyhow.

  “Miz MacCreadie…” he said.

  “Call me Kate,” she cut in quickly. “My students call me Miz MacCreadie. Anyone else and it feels…” She finished with a shudder and a flick of the hands.

  He laughed. “Better make it Harrison, in that case, so that we’re even.”

  “Harrison.” Calm, strong, steady as a rock Harrison. She liked it. She wanted more Harrison in her life. They’d also met at the rodeo last October and in line at the bank a few weeks later, not much basis for an acquaintance but she already knew that she liked him.

  Not that there was room in her life for anything like that.

  “So Kate,” he began again. “Seems to me like you’re not the type who usually runs stop lights or goes too fast on the roads.”

  He was looking at her again, seeing too much. It should have made her uncomfortable, but instead it felt like such a relief. She felt a ridiculous urge to fall on his shoulder and burst into tears and tell him her entire life story. Had to gather another calming breath-full of him, instead, in order to stop herself. What did he smell like? All sorts of good things. Cotton and pine and man-warmth.

  “Hm?” he prompted.

  “I know,” she said, ashamed. She couldn’t meet his gaze, but felt it on her, quiet and patient and thoughtful. “I’m just… in so much of a rush, sometimes. I have a lot on my mind, and when I’m driving I can’t stop it all going round and round in my head. I get tense and harried, and the needle creeps up and I don’t even notice. I’ve been really, really trying not to let that happen since—well, since the last two times you pulled me over.”

  She looked up at him and realized how close she was standing, almost close enough that if she swayed forward, she could lean against his chest and listen to his heart, to its strong, steady beat. How long since she’d had a hug from anyone but Rob and Melinda’s kids?

  “Too much going on?” the Sheriff suggested.

  “Too much, in two different directions, and I feel as if I’m being pulled apart. I—”

  —had better stop right there, or he really will think I’m a lunatic, telling him my innermost thoughts and feelings by the side of the highway.

  “Problem is, I expect it’s not just showing up in how fast you go on the roads,” he said.

  “Probably not just, no.” She’d been having headaches, and periods in the staff room at school when she just sat slumped in her chair like a piece of overcooked spaghetti while the names of the students on her class lists turned into words that made no sense.

  “That’s a concern.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe you need just the one direction, find a way to achieve that.”

  “Well, yes,” she agreed again, although it would be easier said than done.

  He seemed to read her thoughts. The formal and somewhat starched law enforcement mannerisms dropped and he said quietly, as if he really knew her, “I mean it, Kate. If you keep going to pieces when you’re driving, because of the stress you’re under, you’ll end up killing someone. Or yourself.”

  “Th-thanks.”

  “I don’t want that on my watch.”

  “Thanks, yes, no, of course you don’t.” She was close to tears, now.

  Maybe he could see it. He pulled back a little, turned less personal once more. “Where are you headed?”

  “Where I’m always headed, this time of day. Home to our ranch.”

  “Up Paradise Valley and off a side road to the southwest, before you get to the Sheenan spread, and the Carrigan place.”

  “That’s right. You’re learning the geography, and the names.”

  He shrugged and smiled, both gestures unhurried. “It’s a nice part of the job, around here.”

  Then his manner gave another almost imperceptible shift and she knew he was about to let her go. Since she was in her usual crazy hurry to get home, it didn’t make sense that she wanted to stay here… keep talking… breathe in more of the calm… for a lot, lot longer. “How did you know I was feeling this stressed?” she said. “I—I’m shocked it’s that obvious.”

  He gave a slow smile, looked her up and down… or actually the opposite, down, then up… and reached forward, into her hair. He pulled off the sunglasses she’d pushed up there when the sun had dropped behind the mountains. Then he reached again, and showed her the glasses she’d spent ten minutes looking for after Annette and Gary Shepherd had left, back at school. They’d been on the top of her head the whole time.

  Finally, he took the spare pair sitting right on the end of her nose, that she’d been unconsciously peering over as she drove, and had totally forgotten about. The six earpieces of three sets of spectacles made a tangle in his big, upturned hand.

  “Ah,” she said, and took them from him. She would have been deeply embarrassed if he hadn’t been smiling at her. His smile was as calm as the rest of him. It quietly lit his face from the inside, twinkled deep in his eyes, and had a hint of wicked appreciation that might be purely her imagination.

  “So I’ll hear from you tomorrow about the tail light,” he said.

  He really was letting her off! “Yes. You definitely will. Thank you. Thanks so much.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “Oh…”

  “I mean seriously, don’t mention it to a
nyone, okay?” Definitely a twinkle in his eyes now. “Because I’m not supposed to do things like this.”

  “I—I won’t.”

  She climbed back into the pickup, started the engine and set off carefully, knowing he was watching her.

  Don’t speed.

  It was later than usual. Should she have said more to Annette and Gary Shepherd about their wayward daughter, back at school? Been more honest and blunt with them about how Neve distracted every other student in her class? Had she remembered to bring all the right folders for grading tonight? And what about on the home front? The kids would be starving. And Rob even more so. The likelihood of Melinda having a meal prepared was slim.

  Don’t speed. Remember your left tail light is out.

  Sheriff Pearce—no, Harrison—was right. The darkness was closing in fast, and as soon as she turned off Highway 89 the road narrowed. It carried very little traffic, but still, if someone did come up behind her and want to pass—which they might, since she was most definitely keeping to the speed limit now, if not ten miles an hour below it—the broken tail light could cause a problem.

  She shouldn’t be driving like this, every day.

  Something needed to change.

  A whole new set of thoughts started churning in her head and went nowhere.

  It was a relief to pull into the open space in front of the low-slung house that was her childhood family home on the MacCreadie ranch, but as soon as she walked in the door, the relief vanished as it always did.

  The TV was on, showing a Rugrats cartoon, but the kids weren’t really watching it. They were playing noisily instead.

  Fighting, really.

  All five of them.

  There was no sign of Rob, their father. He was probably in the shower, washing off the dirt from a day of ranch work that began at dawn or earlier and didn’t end until the light went again at the end of the day.

  The ranch herd of Red Angus cattle was calving right now, and Rob never had quite enough help. He might be up half the night if there was a cow having trouble. Every few days he would cut the “heavies” out of the herd and bring them down to the field by the calving shed, and he, Kate, and Melinda would take turns to check them every couple of hours during the night. The disruption to sleep could be brutal. Kate yawned, thinking about it.