One Summer’s Knight

expertly over the little animal’s shivering body. When he’d gone, she looked up at Riley and said gravely, “She’s badly hurt. She needs a vet.”

“You’re a vet,” he reminded her, balancing on the balls of his feet beside her, his hand on the back of her neck.

She shook her head. “She needs a hospital-X-rays. Her leg’s broken, for sure. She could have an injured spine, internal injuries-”

“We’ll go,” Riley promised “As soon as the storm’s over.” He didn’t stop to ask himself how they’d get there through all the storm debris; he knew he’d find a way somehow.

When Jake Redfield arrived a short time later, Riley and Summer were in Riley’s big bed, fully clothed with the two sleeping children curled like kittens against their sides. Beatle lay on a pillow on Summer’s lap cocooned in blankets, also sleeping, shivering and whimpering only fitfully now. Summer was much encouraged by that. With the immediate threat of severe shock seemingly over, she felt the little dog’s prospects for a full recovery were good.

“Brave little Beatle,” she whispered, gently stroking the dog’s glossy black hide. “My hero…”

Riley’s arms tightened around her and he started to say something, but before he could the FBI agent knocked softly and stuck his head through the open door

“Sorry,” he said in a low voice as his eyes swept dispassionately over the bed and its occupants. “Your man Denby let me in-told me to come on up. Thought you’d like to know…” His dark, exhausted eyes came to rest on Summer. “Your husband’s vehicle has been found, Mrs. Robey. In the river just west of here-witnesses tell us he drove off a washed-out bridge. According to those same witnesses, the car that was chasing him saw it happen and stopped in time. Then turned around and took off. I don’t think they’ll be back.” He paused, then said stiffly, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” His eyes were dark with frustrated fury.

Summer nodded and mumbled through the ache in her throat, “He saved us, you know. In the end…”

Redfield nodded, frowning. “Yeah… well… What I can’t figure out is what brought him back here in the first place. Why was it so important for him to find you?” He shrugged, though the speculation remained in his eyes. “Guess we’ll never know that now.” He turned to leave, then abruptly came back and handed her a small package wrapped in brightly colored paper. “Oh-Denby asked me to give you this. Said he found it downstairs in the hallway- looks like it might belong to one of your kids.”

Summer took the package and held it. “This is why,” she said thickly as a tear rolled down her cheek. “Hal brought this for the kids. He said he’d come to see them. He’d brought them a present. This…”

Redfield had come closer, moving stiffly, suddenly alert as a wolf smelling prey. “Ma’am-if you wouldn’t mind opening that?”

“Oh-sure.” She tore off the paper with unsteady fingers and pounding heart, then relaxed with a sigh of exasperation. “Oh, Hal… I swear to God, he never changes.” She held up several shrink-wrapped packages. “He always does this. Computer games-look at this. Most of them completely inappropriate for a child. Amazon Rangers! Doctor Death! What on earth was he thinking?” She sighed and began wrapping the games back in their festive paper. “Oh, well…I guess I’ll just have to hide these, like I did the last batch.”

Redfield turned away, his shoulders sagging with disappointment. At the door he paused and looked back. “Mrs Robey, you know it was your husband they wanted, not you or the kids. You were just leverage. Now they know he’s dead, they’d have no more reason to harm you. Looks like you’re perfectly free to go now.”

After the FBI man left there was silence, filled only with the sounds of sleeping dog and children and the rain and slowly dying wind. Summer could feel her heart pounding against Riley’s arms where they crisscrossed her chest She closed her eyes and tears oozed between them. I must not cry, she thought. I must not let him know.

And then she felt a shudder go through his body, and his breath gusted in her hair. “I can’t do it,” he said in a ragged voice. “I can’t let you go.”

“Riley…” she began, brokenly. But his arms tightened around her. He lowered his face to her ear, to the side of her face, and to her astonishment she felt the coolness of tears on his cheek.

“I mean, all of you-you, them, the animals-all of you. I want you to stay here with me. Please.”

She said nothing for a long time, crying silently. When she could, she whispered, “Why?”

“Why?” He repeated it in an incredulous, broken voice. “Because I love you. Surely you must know that.”

She nodded, crying harder. “Of course. And I love you. And we both know it’s not enough. Not for me. Not for us. What’s changed? You didn’t want-”

“I was afraid.” The word as he whispered it was so bleak it chilled her. “And then…I almost lost you. All of you. And that’s when I knew there was something I was afraid of even more…”

“But why? Riley, what is it about us-the children-that scares you so much? I’ve watched you with them. You’re wonderful. They adore you. I don’t understand.”

Again there was silence, and she felt his body tense against hers, as if he were gathering strength. Then, with his face pressed tightly against hers, he sighed and began in a slow, careful voice, “I told you my father died when I was twelve. What I didn’t tell you was that he died in prison. He was murdered while serving time for manslaughter.” He paused, then softly explained, “Other inmates don’t like child-killers much.”

Summer had gasped, but he went on before she could ask. “The child he killed was my brother. He beat him to death two weeks before his sixth birthday.” She made a wounded sound. He held her more closely, rocking her, asking her to let him finish it “My father was a brutal man. I learned early on to stay out of his way when he’d been drinking, which was most of the tune. My mother…found her own means of escape. My brother wasn’t so lucky. He wasn’t big enough, strong enough…to get away, and my mother wasn’t strong enough to protect him. My father hated him, I think, because he always believed he wasn’t his child. He could have been right-I I don’t know…

“I knew when he came home that day it was going to be bad. When he started in on Rusty I took off-ran to Brasher’s to get help. Brasher called the police, and then we both ran back to our place, but we were too late. When we got there, my father was passed out drunk on the bed. My mother was sitting on the couch, holding my little brother in her arms, rocking him. Singing to him.” He paused, then said softly, “She’d always been an alcoholic. But she was never sane after that. I left before the police came.” His voice was flat “Never went back.”

“My God…” Summer was shaking so hard she could barely speak. “And you think-My God, Riley, you don’t-you can’t believe you’d ever be like them…that you’d even be capable-”

“I made a vow,” he said, his voice hard as stone, “that I’d never give myself the opportunity to find out. I couldn’t take the chance. Whatever the evil that was in them, it would die with me.”

“Riley Grogan,” she said fiercely, twisting in his arms to take his face between her hands, “you are the strongest, most self-assured man I’ve ever met. So strong I thought you didn’t need anything or anybody-certainly didn’t need me! And strong men do not hurt those who are weaker than they are! They don’t. You couldn’t possibly harm a child. Surely you know that!”

“I do now,” he growled. “Maybe deep down I always did, but I needed-” he grabbed a breath as if it were pure oxygen “-someone to make me believe it I needed-” He broke off and caught her hands, pressed them one at a time to his mouth. It seemed a long time before he drew a shuddering breath and murmured, “You have a healer’s hands, Mrs. Robey. Did you know that? I do need you. I need you to heal me…” And the words flowed through her fingers like balm.

“I’ll be happy to-” her voice was ragged, torn between laughter and tears of exasperation “-if you’ll just please stop calling me Mrs. Robey.”

“I will-I promise.” Then he cleared his throat and continued in an endearingly stiff and formal tone, “I would much prefer, as soon as it can be arranged, to call you Mrs. Grogan.”

There was a bemused pause; then in a voice soft with dawning wonder, Summer said, “All right.”

“David-wake up, wake up,” Helen whispered. “Hurry-you’re gonna miss it! Mommy’s kissin’ Mr. Riley!”

Jake Redfield stood in the early morning fog and watched the uniformed sheriff’s deputy stride toward him. Behind him on the banks of the river, other men, some wearing diving gear, were gathered around the shrouded body of a man.

“Fingerprints will have to confirm it,” the deputy said as he drew near. “But it’s Robey, all right. Everything matches.”