Cole Cameron's Revenge

The girl who'd wept the time he'd brought her a single rose didn't exist anymore. The truth was, she never had. Sweetly innocent Faith Davenport had been a scheming opportunist. The name, the house...

A child his brother had put in her womb.

Cole downshifted to climb a steep grade. He didn't want to think about that. About Faith and Ted making love. About any other man caressing her, tasting her mouth, inhaling her fragrance. He was older now and a lot smarter. Life had taught him that love was just a synonym for lust and yes, it drove him crazy that she could still affect him, but that had always been her talent. She was more beautiful than ever, more desirable-and much more treacherous.

Why had she tried to keep Peter's existence a secret? It didn't make sense. The kid was her trump card. She must have known he wouldn't hesitate to toss her out, but throw his brother's son to the wolves? No way.

Cole drove faster.

You couldn't always figure out if a good poker player was bluffing. The only thing you could do to protect yourself was make the ante so high that the other guy had to back down.

The houses thinned on the outskirts of town, gave way, as they had before, to pastures and then second-growth woods. Cole shut off the air-conditioning, let down the windows, took a couple of deep breaths of air redolent of pine. The digital readout on the speedometer flashed higher and higher.

This time yesterday, he'd been in New York having drinks with his banker in a bar perched so high in the concrete canyons that peregrine falcons nested just above the window ledge. He'd sat there in his three-thousand dollar suit, drinking single malt Scotch while he enjoyed the view, the financial report... and the assessing glances of a stacked brunette at the next table. Liberty, Georgia, and everything in it-everything he'd left behind-could easily have been on a different planet. If he'd thought about it at all it had only been in terms of regret at having missed Ted's funeral ... and of the pleasure he was going to get in denying Faith what she'd worked so hard to achieve. Ted's will, the pitiable condition of his estate, had played right into his hands.

But the game had changed. This wasn't about what had happened years ago, it was about the future. Peter's future. Ted had left his son penniless, and his widow's only talent lay in manipulating men for her own benefit. It didn't take a genius to figure out what the kid's life would be like.

Cole eased his foot from the gas pedal and pulled the Jaguar to the side of the road. A chorus of chitinous chirps and buzzes replaced the sound of the car's throaty purr. He clenched the steering wheel and stared out the windshield. Someplace along the way, late afternoon had given way to dusk. The first bright stars of the night sky hung over the valley, blinking like fireflies.

It was wrong. A child shouldn't have to pay for the mistakes of its parents, or for their failings, or for the untimely death of one them. Didn't he know that better than anybody? Peter was innocent. Kids always were, and they always ended up paying the highest price.

Darkness leached the last brushstrokes of color from the sky. The insect chorus rose to a new crescendo. He'd told Faith he'd be back in a couple of hours but it would take him longer than that. He had to make plans, come to grips with what those plans entailed...

Hell, he thought, and barked out a laugh, how was he going to do that?

After a long time, Cole sat up straight, started the car and headed back to town.

The evening had turned unexpectedly cool.

Faith sat, cross-legged, on a floor cushion before the fireplace in the den. She'd changed into jeans and a heavy sweatshirt, then built a fire to ease the chill. The flames warmed the room but they did nothing for the coldness that had seeped into her bones.

What a long, awful day it had been.

All her plans, her hopes, her dreams of making a new life for Peter, had been shattered. She couldn't blame Ted. He'd never intended to leave her and her son destitute. He'd talked a lot about Peter's future. Summer camp, when he was a little older. A private secondary school, in Atlanta. A top university and then a post-graduate degree.

"You've got him all grown up," she used to say teasingly, but she'd loved knowing her son would tread a path so different from hers, one free of uncertainty and poverty. So much for that theory. Planning never got a person anywhere. She should have remembered that.

A burning log slipped and tumbled onto the hearth in a mower of sparks. Faith uncrossed her legs and looped her arms around her knees. How was she going to tell Peter what lay ahead? That they had no money? No roof over their heads? He was just a child. He didn't understand the hatred that could blaze between adults, or the pain they could inflict on each

He could only endure.

Had he heard them shouting at each other? He must have because Cole hadn't been gone more than a few minutes when he'd come downstairs.