LED ASTRAY Read online

  * * *

  LED ASTRAY

  Sandra Brown

  * * *

  * * *

  Contents:

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

  Epilogue

  * * *

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  ^»

  If they didn't stop talking about it, she was going to scream. But they weren't going to stop talking about it. It was the one subject on everyone's mind and the chance of them switching to another was remote. The topic under discussion had carried them through the pot roast dinner. It was the type of meal usually reserved for Sundays, as though this were an occasion to be celebrated rather than lamented.

  Sarah had outdone herself in preparing the food. There had even been hot, fluffy yeast rolls fresh from the oven to dip in the thick, savory beef gravy and a homemade pudding that was so rich, the calories fairly shouted.

  But Jenny's tastebuds might as well have been dead for all she had enjoyed the meal. Her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth with every bite, and her throat rebelled against swallowing.

  Now, over coffee, which Sarah was pouring into the china cups with the yellow primrose pattern, they were still talking about Hal's imminent trip to Central America. The trip would encompass an unspecified period of time, virtually make him an outlaw, and probably imperil his life.

  Yet everyone was excited about it, especially Hal, whose cheeks were flushed with enthusiasm. His brown eyes shone with expectation. "It's a tremendous undertaking. But if it weren't for the courage of those poor souls in Monterico, everything we've done and will do would be in vain. The honor belongs to them."

  Sarah touched her younger son's cheek affectionately as she resumed her chair after refilling everyone's cup. "But you've instigated this underground railroad to help them escape. I think it's wonderful. Simply wonderful. But—" her lower lip began to tremble "—you will be careful, won't you? You won't really be in danger?"

  Hal patted the soft hand that clung to his arm. "Mother, I've told you a thousand times that the political refugees will be waiting for us at the border of Monterico. We're only pick­ing them up, escorting them through Mexico, and—"

  "Illegally smuggling them into the United States," Cage supplied dryly.

  Sarah glanced at Hal's older brother sourly.

  Accustomed to such disdain, Cage remained unaffected by his mother's disapproving glance. He stretched his jean-clad legs far out in front of him as he slouched in his chair in a way that had always irritated Sarah. During his youth she had harped on his table posture until she was blue. Her lectures had never done any good.

  He crossed one booted ankle over the other and eyed his brother from beneath a shelf of dust-colored eyebrows. "I wonder if you'll be so fired up with fanatic zeal when the Border Patrol slams your ass in jail."

  "If you can't use better language than that, kindly leave the table," Reverend Bob Hendren snapped.

  "Sorry, Dad." Unrepentantly Cage sipped his coffee.

  "If Hal goes to jail," the pastor went on, "it will be for a good cause, something he believes in."

  "That's not what you said the night you had to come bail me out," Cage reminded his father.

  "You were arrested for drunkenness."

  Cage grinned. "I believe in getting drunk occasionally."

  "Cage, please," Sarah said with a long suffering sigh. "For once try and behave."

  Jenny stared down at her hands. She hated these family scenes. Cage could be provoking, but she felt in this instance he was right to bluntly point out the risks of Hal's involvement in this venture. Besides, even she could see that Cage's deri­sion was a response to his parents' obvious preference for Hal, who shifted uneasily in his chair. Though he basked in Bob's and Sarah's approval, their blatant favoritism made him un­comfortable as well.

  Cage relented by erasing the smirk from his handsome face, but he continued arguing. "It's just that this labor of love, this mission of Hal's, seems like a good way to get killed. Why is he risking his neck in some banana republic where they shoot first and ask questions later?"

  "You couldn't possibly understand Hal's motives," Bob said with a dismissive wave of his hand toward his elder son.

  Cage sat up straighter and propped his arms on the table, leaning forward for emphasis. "I can understand his wanting to liberate people marked for death, yes. But I don't think this is the way to do it." Impatiently he ran a hand through his dark blond hair. "An underground railroad, escorting political refugees through Mexico, illegal entry into the United States," he said scoffingly as he enumerated the stages of Hal's mission by ticking them off his fingertips.

  "And how are they going to survive once you get them here to Texas? Where will they live? What will they do? Have you thought of jobs, shelter, food, medicine, clothing? Don't be naive enough to think that everyone will welcome them with open arms just because they're from a strife-torn country. They'll be thought of as wetbacks just as all illegal aliens are. And treated as such."

  "We're trusting all that to God's will," Hal said a little uncertainly. His steadfastness always faltered under Cage's pragmatism. Just when Hal thought one of his convictions was unshakable, Cage shook it—to the core. Just like an earth­quake, Cage's arguments opened up fissures in beliefs Hal had previously thought of as sound and indestructible. Hal prayed about it often and always came to the conclusion that God used Cage to test him. Or was Cage's astuteness a gift of the devil used to tempt him? His parents would no doubt opt for the second theory.

  "Yeah, well, I hope God has more common sense than you have."

  "That's enough!" Bob said sharply.

  Cage hunched his shoulders and propping his elbows on the tabletop, carried his coffee cup to his mouth. He didn't use the tiny handle. Jenny doubted his long finger would fit in that narrow china crook. He held the cup by folding both his hands around it.

  He was out of place in the parsonage kitchen. It had crispy ruffled curtains at the windows, a pastel plaid yellow vinyl floor, and a glass-fronted china cabinet that held delicate serv­ing pieces that were treasured and used only on holidays.

  Cage shrank the kitchen until its coziness became clutter. And it wasn't that he was inordinately muscular or tall. Phys­ically Cage and Hal were much the same. From a distance and from the back, the brothers were almost indistinguishable, ex­cept that Cage was slightly more robust than his younger brother. That added brawniness was due more to the differ­ences in their occupations than to a whim of heredity.

  But there the similarity between the two ended. The main difference between them was one of attitude. Cage had a pres­ence that made any room seem smaller when he entered it. An indefinable something surrounded him like an aura and was as much a part of him as his darkly tanned skin.

  Indoors he was like an oversized body straining at the seams of clothing that was too small. He seemed to be squeezed into most rooms, as though what he needed around him was wide open spaces, earth, and sky. An essence of the outdoors clung to him, as if he carried the wind inside on his clothes and in his hair.

  Jenny had never gotten close enough to him to find out, but she thought his skin must smell like sunshine. The ravages of long hours in the sun were evident on his face, particularly around his tawny eyes. Those web-fine lines made him appear older than he was. But then he had crammed a lot of living into his thirty-two years.

  And tonight, as always wherever Cage went, there was likely to be discord if not downright warfare. Mischief and malcontent followed him like a shadow. He was a predator, stalking through the jungle, upsetting the peaceable inhabi­tants, raising shackles and ruffling feathers and rustling the stillness even when he wasn't looking for trouble.

  "You're certain you've worked out all th
e rendezvous points?" Sarah asked. She was distressed that Cage had spoiled her perfect farewell dinner for Hal, but was valiantly trying to ignore her recalcitrant son and set things back on an even keel.

  As Hal rehashed his travels plans for at least the hundredth time, Jenny unobtrusively began to clear the table. As she leaned over Hal's shoulder to pick up his plate, he took her hand, squeezed it, raised it to his lips, and kissed the back of it, but all without a pause in his zealous dialogue.

  She longed to bend down and kiss the crown of his blond head, to clasp it to her breasts and plead with him not to go. But of course she didn't. Such an action would be outrageous and everyone at the table would think she had gone stark, staring mad.

  She suppressed her emotions and finished carrying the dishes to the sink. No one offered to help. No one even took notice of her. It had been Jenny's chore to do the dinner dishes since she had come to live in the parsonage.

  They were still talking fifteen minutes later when she dried her hands on the cuptowel and neatly draped it over the peg beside the sink. She slipped out the back door and went down the porch steps. She crossed the yard to the white rail fence and leaned her arms over the top.

  It was a lovely night, almost windless, which was a rare blessing in West Texas. There was only a trace of dust in the air. A huge round moon looked like a shiny gummed sticker someone had pressed against a black felt sky. What stars the city lights didn't diminish were large and near.

  It was a night for lovers to be clinging, snuggling, close whispering outlandishly silly and romantic things to each other. It wasn't a night to be saying good-bye. Or if good­byes must be said, they should be overflowing with passion and regret, seasoned with endearments rather than the details of an itinerary.

  Jenny was restless, as though she had an itch she couldn't quite locate.

  The screened back door squeaked open and then closed with the soft slapping sound of old wood against old wood. Jenny turned to see Cage sauntering down the steps. She brought her head back around as he moved to stand beside her at the fence.

  Without speaking, he fished in his breast pocket for a pack of cigarettes, shook it, and, closing his lips around one, drew it from the foil top. He lit it with a lighter whose flame flared briefly in front of his face. He clicked the lighter off and returned it and the cigarettes to his pocket as he drew the to­bacco smoke deep into his lungs.

  "Those things are killers," Jenny said, still staring straight ahead.

  Cage turned his head and stared at her silently for a mo­ment, then his body came around until he was leaning with his back against the fence. "I'm not dead yet and I started smoking when I was about eleven."

  She glanced up at him, smiling, but shaking her head. "What a shame. Think what that's done to your lungs. You should quit."

  "Yeah?" he said with that one-sided lazy grin that never failed to trip the hearts of women—young, old, single, or mar­ried. There wasn't a female in La Bota who could remain indifferent to Cage Hendren's smile. Some paused to consider exactly what it implied. Most knew. I'm male, you're female, and that's all that needs to be said.

  "Yes, you should quit. But you're not going to. I've heard Sarah ask you to stop smoking for years."

  "Only because she didn't like nasty ashtrays and the lin­gering smell of tobacco smoke. She never asked me to quit because she was worried about my health." There was the merest glimmer of bitterness in his amber eyes. Someone with less sensitivity than Jenny wouldn't have noticed it.

  "I worry about your health," she said.

  "Do you, now?"

  "Yes."

  "Are you asking me to quit smoking on that basis?"

  She knew he was only teasing her, but she played along. Her chin lifted a notch and she said decisively, "Yes."

  He tossed the cigarette into the dirt and ground it out with the toe of his boot. "Done. There. I've quit."

  She laughed. Little did she know how remarkably pretty she was when she threw her head back like that and laughed. Her throat arched gracefully, showing off her honey-toned com­plexion. Her soft brown hair swung free and silky against her shoulders. Her green eyes sparkled. Her pert nose wrinkled delightfully. She had a whiskey-husky laugh that was fla­grantly seductive, though Jenny never realized it.

  But Cage did. His body responded to the sultry sound and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. He lowered his eyes to her petal-soft lips and glistening teeth.

  "That's the first time I've seen you smile tonight," he said.

  Jenny sobered instantly. "I don't feel much like smiling."

  "Because Hal's leaving?"

  "Of course."

  "Because you've had to postpone the wedding again?"

  She ducked her head and scraped the fence rail with her thumb nail. "Certainly, though that's not important."

  "Why the hell not?" Cage demanded roughly. "I thought a woman's wedding was the most important day in her life. At least to a woman like you, it is."

  "It is, but when measured against this mission Hal's going on—"

  Cage muttered a scandalously obscene word beneath his breath which effectively silenced her speech. "What about the other times?" he asked brusquely.

  "You mean the other postponements?"

  "Yeah."

  "Hal had to get his doctorate. It was important that he finish his dissertation before we got married and … and started a fam­ily."

  As always, Cage had made her stammer like an idiot. She wanted to ask him not to stand too close, but he wasn't that close. He only seemed to be. He had always had this effect on her. He caused her to go breathless, to suffer a slight ver­tigo. She felt a need to clasp her hands tightly together, to hold herself intact as though she might fly apart if she didn't. He unsettled her. She had never found a reason why that should be so, but it was. Tonight especially, when her nerves were already ragged and her carefully maintained control was frayed, she found it difficult to meet Cage's intent stare. He saw too much.

  "When did you and Hal actually start dating?" he asked abruptly.

  "Dating?" Her tone implied that the word wasn't part of her vocabulary.

  "Yeah, you know, going out. Holding hands. Necking at the drive-in. Dating. It must have been while I was up at Tech, because I don't remember it."

  "Well, we never actually started dating. It just … just evolved, I guess you'd say. We were constantly together. We were considered a couple."

  "Jenny Fletcher," Cage said, crossing his arms over his wide chest and staring at her incredulously, "do you mean to tell me that you've never had a date with anyone else?"

  "Not because I wasn't asked!" she retorted defensively.

  Cage put up his hands in surrender. "Whoa, girl. I wasn't hinting that. You could have had all the young bucks in town panting after you."

  "I didn't want them panting after me. It sounds very undignified."

  She blushed becomingly and Cage couldn't resist rubbing the back of his hand against her cheek. She averted her head and his hand fell to his side. "I figure a man could lose his dignity over you, Jenny," he said reflectively, then picked up in a lighter vein, "but you didn't go out with any other guys because that would have been unfaithful to Hal."

  "That's right."

  "Even while the two of you were at Texas Christian?"

  "Yes."

  "Hm." Cage automatically reached for his pack of ciga­rettes, remembered, and stuffed them back in his pocket. Never did his eyes leave Jenny. "When did Hal propose?"

  "A few years ago. I think we were in our senior year at TCU."

  "You think? You don't remember? How could you forget an earth-moving moment like that?"

  "Don't tease me, Cage."

  "The earth didn't move?"

  "It isn't like it is in the movies."

  "You've been seeing the wrong kind of movies." His eye­brows bobbed up and down lecherously.

  "I know what kind you see," she said, slanting him an accusing glance. "The kind Sammy Ma
c Higgins shows in the back room of his pool hall after hours."

  Cage tried to keep a straight face at her lofty tone, gave up the attempt, and let that dazzling smile break across his fea­tures. "Ladies are invited. Wanna come with me sometime?"

  "No!"

  "Why not?"

  "Why not? I wouldn't be caught dead seeing that kind of movie. They're disgusting."

  He leaned forward and taunted, "How do you know if you've never seen one?" She punched him on the shoulder and he moved back, but not without first filling his head with her fresh, flowery scent. Gradually his smile faded to a somber expression as he searched her eyes. "Jenny, when did Hal ask you to marry him?"

  "I told you, it—"

  "Where were you? Describe the surroundings. What hap­pened? Did he go down on bended knee? Was it in the back­seat of his car? In the daytime? At night? In bed? When?"

  "Stop it! I told you I don't remember."

  "Did he ever?" His voice was so quiet that she snapped to attention.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Did he ever voice the words aloud? 'Jenny, will you marry me?'"

  Her eyes fell away from his. "We've always known we were going to get married."

  "Who's always known? You? Hal? Mother and Dad?"

  "Yes. Everybody." She turned her back on him and started back toward the house. "I've got to go in and—"

  His warm, hard hand closed around her wrist and brought her up short. "Tell Hal not to go on this fool's trip."

  She spun around. "What?"

  "You heard me. Tell him to stay at home, where he be­longs."

  "I can't."

  "You're the only one he might listen to. You don't want him to go, do you? Do you?" he repeated with more emphasis when she failed to answer.

  "No!" she cried, wrenching her hand free of his. "But I can't stand between Hal and a mission he feels that God has called him to do."

  "Does he love you?"

  "Yes."

  "And you love him."

  "Yes."