Banjo Eyes: The Windemere Series, #3

By Marilyn Gardiner

Coming home for a high school reunion is not the sentimental, happy time Lily anticipated. Meeting Adam—the man she never forgot, the man who inexplicably disappeared from her life ten years ago—is painful and then, to her bewilderment, someone is terrorizing her. The line between love and distrust blurs as she contemplates a possible future with Adam.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9781597053563

Book preview

Banjo Eyes

Marilyn Gardiner

A Wings ePress, Inc.

Romantic Suspense Novel

Edited by: Lorraine Stephens

Copy Edited by: Sara V. Olds

Senior Editor: Lorraine Stephens

Executive Editor: Lorraine Stephens

Cover Artist: Barbi Gardiner

All rights reserved

NAMES, CHARACTERS AND incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Wings ePress Books

Copyright © 2008 by Marilyn Gardiner

ISBN: 978-1-59705-356-3

Published by Wings ePress, Inc.

Published In the United States Of America

Wings ePress Inc.

3000 N. Rock Road

Newton, KS  67114

Dedication

For my beloved daughters: Nelda, who inherited my love for nature and the out-of-doors, and Barbi, who shares my love of all animals, especially horses.

One

Lily Madigan had always thought of death in the terms of an old man with long, flowing hair, skeletal features and claw-like hands holding a scythe to separate the good from the bad.

He had skeletal features, all right, thanks to a plastic Halloween mask with cut-out, enlarged eyes, and claw-like hands. But he wasn’t old, he could hardly be out of his teens, and his skinny fingers clutched a horribly lethal-looking revolver.

Beneath the parking lot’s halogen lights, before she could even gasp, he appeared in the V of the open car door, and the cold bore of a gun pressed against her neck. Lily froze with one foot still on the pavement outside the car. Oh God, I’m going to die.

Everything seemed to be happening from a distance. In the window of the Mini Mart a neon sign boldly flashed the news that Budweiser was sold here. Traffic sounds echoed through what seemed to be a long, dark, hollow corridor. From the corner of her eye, she could see the young man bounce from one foot to the other, his dilated eyes darting everywhere. There was a faintly offensive odor. The gun waved in erratic circles. Gimme your purse and be quick about it!

Her brain slogged as if through eyeball-deep mud. She was being robbed!

I only have fifteen dollars, she managed in quivering tones. A ten and a five were all that remained after paying for her purchase. She remembered thinking that she needed to go to the bank the next morning. Would there even be a tomorrow?

Don’t lie to me! You got more than that. Lemme see!

The wildly gesturing gun caught the edge of his mask and the elastic popped, allowing the mask to dangle drunkenly to one side. She had a swift impression of greasy, long hair beneath a knitted stocking cap and a tower of glittering earrings marching up one ear. His arm showed a long-fanged and coiled snake tattooed on one bare bicep. Hurry up! I ain’t got all the goddam night!

With one hand he snatched her bag and the other became suddenly still as he aimed the gun at her forehead.

Lily closed her eyes. Our Father, which art in heaven...

IT HADN’T BEEN THE only reason, but the memory of that midnight run for caffeine-loaded cola and sugar-laden ice cream was the deciding factor in her decision to go home for the reunion. Her ten-year high school reunion. And maybe—just maybe—she’d even stay for a while. Reconnect with Bree and Kate and Zoe. Getting away from the city and all it represented sounded incredibly good.

There were responsibilities that needed attending to, as well. Luke wanted her to sell the property now that Dad was gone. In fact, by long distance, he was rather insistent upon it.

You can go to the reunion, and put it on the market while you’re there.

He’d always been impatient. Even as a toddler he’d wanted things done quickly. Just go. Get it done.

Chicago is closer to downstate Winsom than I am. You could do it.

You got along with the old man better than I did. I want nothing to do with the house or anything in it. I’m not going back.

He’s dead, Luke, she said sensibly. Dad can’t direct our lives from the grave.

I wouldn’t bet on it, he growled. Just sell the damn thing, Lily, and be done with it. Besides, I’m too busy just now. I can’t get away.

And it did make sense. Through the Internet, text messaging mostly, she’d managed to stay in touch, albeit long-distance touch, with her three best friends, Bree and Kate and Zoe. And, the more she thought about it, the better the whole thing sounded. The girls knew her dad had died six months ago, and they also knew the reason she hadn’t gone back for the funeral. They had neither urged her to make the trip from Washington D.C. to midstate Illinois, nor had they condemned her for not going. In all the world, they were the only ones who knew the whole truth.

Now, maybe it was time. The visit might reopen old wounds, scarred over and far from healed, but she didn’t actually have to go to the reunion if she felt like backing out at the last minute. Her father’s affairs truly did need to be settled, and since Luke absolutely refused to have anything to do with those affairs, it was left up to her to close that part of their lives. She could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, by flying home. Her thoughts went both soft and wary at the idea. Home was a small pocket of horse country nine hundred miles away and the farm she’d loved with all her heart, and from which she’d been forced to leave so precipitously.

After the mugging, the police had been adamant about the fact that she needed to change her lifestyle. Someone else, someone with possible sinister intentions, was now in possession of all her personal data. Even though she lived in a gated community, she’d had her locks changed and a security system installed. However, the fact remained that her address and her entire identity were in the hands of another person. That the mugger had not pulled the trigger, but after several heart-stopping seconds had muttered an unrepeatable oath and run off, remained a mystery for which she was profoundly grateful. A week later, her purse had been found, rain-soaked and reeking of garbage, in a dumpster three blocks away. Of course, her billfold, including driver’s license, photographs and credit cards, was gone.

The problem was, she couldn’t forget. Her dreams were colored with sweaty, heart-throbbing fear, and coming back to her apartment at the end of the day had become an effort of will. Her dreams were filled with writhing snakes and Halloween masks. Snakes, of all things. Ever since childhood, she’d been terrified of snakes. Somehow it had become an obsession. She couldn’t even watch a television documentary featuring snakes. The dream, of course, came from the one tattooed on the mugger’s arm, she realized that it hadn’t been a real, live snake, but the dreams went on night after night.

As if that hadn’t been enough, Lily had become obsessed with the feeling she was being followed. Not that she ever actually saw anyone acting furtive or suspicious—it was more a kind of prickling at the back of her neck and an instinctive need to turn her head and check behind her—but she constantly felt on-her-guard and vulnerable. And she didn’t like it. Twice she’d come home and felt an oddly uncomfortable, wary feeling that someone had been in her apartment. Nothing seemed to be missing, but somehow the small hairs at the back of her neck went stiff and quivered. She’d had to look in all the closets, under the bed and behind the draperies before she could relax with a cup of Earl Gray.

She told herself it was only leftover nerves from the mugging, no one could have a personal vendetta against her, she didn’t have any enemies certainly, but the police had been blunt the day they’d had her look through a three-inch-thick book of mug shots in an effort to identify her assailant.

City living requires focus. No shopping alone from now on. Never. Buy a large dog and have him ride in the back seat of the car any time you go out. Carry an old-fashioned, hooked beer can opener in one hand and be ready to use it. Mace is illegal in some states. Walk with your car door remote in the other hand and your finger on the panic button. No one may come to your aid, but it will attract enough attention that your assailant might feel intimidated by the possibility of identification and run. And do your errands in daylight.

It all seemed so much like being in jail! And she was tired of being defensive every time she stepped outside her front door. Getting away for a while looked better and better. Without giving herself time to reconsider, she’d checked the box on the reunion reservation form reading I’ll be there, and dropped it in the mail.

The problem would be in avoiding Adam.

Two

W ell? Is he here? I don’t see him.

Bree’s question, whispered from the side of her mouth was clearly audible to any who cared to listen. Thankfully the swarms of people around the door were falling on each other in a frenzy of excitement. No one was paying attention.

Lily felt herself crushed to a broad chest. Lily Ferguson! I’d know you anywhere. You haven’t changed at all. Voted the Most Likely All Around Champion Cowgirl in our senior class. Where’ve you been, gal?

She allowed herself to be hugged. I live in the East, Ty. How are you? Over the blue denim shoulder Lily could see a balloon-decorated sign above the registration desk: WELCOME CLASS OF ‘98. Music popular ten years ago pounded through the room and laughter seemed to vibrate off the walls. She should not have come. If it hadn’t been for her dad’s death, her exhaustion from too much work, and of course the mugging incident, she would not have even considered attending the reunion. The last thing in the world she’d wanted was to come back to Winsom.

It’s good to see you, Lily. Everyone’s been hoping you’d be here. He held her at arm’s length. You look great. Who’ve you talked to?

This man had been a good friend, once. She’d known almost every facet of his life. Now she had to ask about his livelihood.

I just got here. Are you still farming? Married? Who’s the lucky girl?

A look of old pain, disappointment, crossed his face.

Farming. With a partner. We’ve got two thousand acres in corn and beans this year. No wife.

Oh, well— Ty had been the biggest flirt in their senior class, playing the field with grand panache. No wife? And that look she couldn’t interpret. She fumbled. Two thousand acres sounds impressive. Actually, what it sounds like is a lot of work.

You got that right. He grinned. But, somebody’s got to feed the world. And I have a girl and a boy, the lights of my life. He glanced up. Here comes Zoe. Coming like a Brahma bull. Pregnant with her third, I think. Take care, girl. I’ll talk to you later.

Zoe (as in ‘Joey,’ she had informed everyone in first grade) bore down with her arms wide. Lily. Oh, Lily, I’m so glad to see you. If anyone had told me before graduation that it would be 10 years before we’d be together again—

Lily opened her own arms. Zoe! I can’t believe you already have two babies, and another on the way. After that terrible time, I’m so glad you are happy now. They hugged, swaying back and forth, reluctant to break contact. Unexpectedly, Lily’s eyes flooded. Oh, Zoe. I’ve missed you so much. E-mail and telephones just don’t get it.

We’ve got to talk, somewhere quiet, this weekend. There’s so much to tell.

Lily nodded as Bree joined them. All four of us. Together. Like we used to be. Where’s Kate? Is she here?

Bree indicated Kate’s very pregnant presence on the other side of the room and promised to get them all together soon.

Zoe’s head went up Wiley is motioning to me. We’ll talk later. She gave Lily another hug and moved away. Bree waved to someone across the room, her attention averted for a moment.

Lily breathed a sigh of relief. As much as she loved these two women, crowds bothered her. Up close, hugging crowds. Not that she minded them in the arena, but people in a stadium, reacting to her expertise and the beauty she and the horse wove together was one thing. Those crowds didn’t touch her. This was something else.

Bree said, I don’t think he’s here yet.

Maybe I got lucky and he won’t show. They both knew who they were talking about. Even though she’d known this moment might come, Lily found herself tensing at the thought of being in the same room with Adam again. Had he changed? Did he still hate her?

Bree scanned the flat-crowned Stetsons near the door, their owners pounding each other on the back and shaking hands. Of course, he’ll come. I’m on the committee and his name is listed. Besides, he lives here. He’ll come. He’ll be curious if nothing else.

Curiosity could easily get his heart cut out.

Bree sighed. Listen, Lily. That man has been hurt enough. He doesn’t need another knife in the gut.

Him? What about me? No, never mind. I’d like to enjoy this night if I can.

You’re still running. You won’t even let me talk about him. And then at Lily’s quelling look, All right. I’ll get us something to drink. She moved off toward the waiting line at the punch bowl.

Bree, Kate and Zoe had been her best friends growing up, and it was amazing, really, that they could pick up seemingly where they left off a decade earlier. The four of them had been inseparable once, and it appeared it would be easy for it to happen again.

They had been closer than some sisters, each knowing what the other was thinking, trading clothes, daring to have their ears pierced all at once, each drawing courage from the other. Sad that they’d drifted apart. Bree teaching at the elementary school here in town, Zoe happily married and living on a farm after all that unbelievable trouble, Kate painting her beloved orchids on silk and the soon-to-be mother of Cass’s twins. And then there was herself, riding show horses almost a thousand miles away and teaching promising youngsters the fine art of performance on horseback.

She knew it had been her fault for the distance between the four of them. She hadn’t wanted any contact with anyone from home after she’d left, until finally Bree had connected them all via the Internet. Once-in-a-while, impersonal contact was about all she could manage. Thinking about the way it used to be, about the hopes and dreams they’d all had for the future—about Adam—hurt too much. She had deliberately tried to block the whole thing out of her mind.

Yet, seeing them again, it was as if the intervening years had fallen away, and everything was as it had been in the days before graduation. Surely Tubby’s, the local hamburger joint, still served greasy burgers and cherry cokes. Pearly June and her twin, Ruby June, must still run the bakery, offering the flakiest pastries in fifteen counties. Did the kids still swim in the lake out by the dam?

Lily’s glance swung wide around the room. The crowd was thinning. Almost everyone had registered and was wandering around with a drink in their hand, greeting former friends and beginning to gather together in groups, chattering, reminiscing, laughing self-consciously. Making plans for later. She began to relax. It was late. He wasn’t coming.

Automatically, from force of habit, she reached with one hand to fondle the charm bracelet at her left wrist. She was rarely without it, but it wasn’t on her arm now. And she remembered. When she’d packed for the trip she couldn’t find the delicate chain. At bedtime, every night, she removed her watch and earrings, and the bracelet, and laid them together on the bureau beside the small ring holder she’d brought from England the year she studied in London.

But when she was gathering the jewelry she wanted to take to Winsom, the bracelet was not to be found. Hurriedly, she’d rooted through drawers, got down on her knees to peer beneath the furniture, checked in the kitchen beside the sink, but it was as if the bracelet had been swallowed up by the night. It was gone. The charm bracelet was important to her and, damn it, it couldn’t just disappear! Almost frantically, she’d notified the building superintendent to watch for it, but he thought it had probably dropped off during her working day and if so, could be anywhere. Grudgingly, she admitted that it was likely gone for good. She still missed the delicate chain with a miniature, winged horse dangling from one of the links. The bracelet had been her mother’s and was one of her most treasured possessions. There were precious few things of her mother’s left to her, and the idea of it lying somewhere in the mud and being trampled underfoot was abhorrent. How could she have been so careless?

From across the hall, Bree motioned for her to join the group she was talking with, but Lily shook her head and turned to the wall of trophy cases behind her. He wasn’t coming. For some reason she felt deflated. Like a neglected balloon, bowing its head to the ceiling.

Actually, they’d only been married for a matter of hours. And admittedly it had been a long time ago. He’d called her Banjo Eyes. Her eyes, he’d said, were the color of morning glories in the dawn and as big as banjos. He had talked about her eyes a lot. But then so had others, since then. None, however, had stayed in her memory like Adam. In fact, none had stayed, ever, except Adam. She’d made sure of it.

Over her father’s strenuous objections, she and Adam had gone steady for the last three years of high school, simply because she wouldn’t go out with anyone else. Adam was refused entrance at her house, but she had sneaked out her bedroom window many nights and they’d gone down to the creek and listened to the peaceful gurgling of the water, and talked and kissed until they were both senseless. Or, during the winter, they sat in Caleb’s battered old car, the Green Goose, with the heater turned up full blast, and talked and kissed until, as always, they were both gasping for breath. And, always, Adam managed to stop before he’d gone too far. He wouldn’t do that to her, he said.

She remembered him, breathing hoarsely, head dropping and both hands slung loosely over the steering wheel. Night after night, he’d said, My mom had to marry Dad because I was on the way. That isn’t going to happen to you.

It was true—Adam’s mother had made a bad bargain. His dad had proven to be a poor provider, preferring to laze around the house rather than hold a job, and was an even worse father. He’d beaten Adam unmercifully, until the day the man just left. Disappeared and was never heard of again. Adam and his mother had come to live with her brother, Caleb, on a horse farm outside of Winsom, and the only things that made getting up in the morning worthwhile for Adam were Lily and the horses he was able to ride. In that order. His Uncle Caleb had taken in boarding horses to make ends meet and Adam wrangled himself a job with the owners, exercising them and cleaning stalls.

But Adam, Lily said, turning to face him. There are ways... We can make sure that doesn’t happen.

He shook his head firmly. No. I won’t take that chance. I’d better get you home.

There had been horrific fights with her father. Once he caught Lily coming in through the window and locked her in her room for three weeks. Lily did, after all, have some of her father’s blood in her, and she fought back, but she never won. She wished, many times, her mother hadn’t died. Maybe her life would have turned out differently. But her mother had passed away when Lily was not yet a teenager and her father had raised her alone. His authority was absolute.

When, in the spring of her senior year, her father dug in his heels about sending Lily away to college in the east, Lily and Adam panicked. There was no hope that her father would ever allow them to marry. On the night of their graduation, two weeks before her eighteenth birthday, they eloped.

There had been an idyllic afternoon and evening of finding a preacher, and riding in the rolling hills and meadows out Fenton Hollow Road, oblivious to the fire and brimstone they knew to be waiting at home. They’d lolled in the waist-high grasses, fragile and soft as a baby’s breath, gathered flowers that Adam painstakingly arranged in her sorrel-colored mane of hair, and consummated their love under a star-spattered sky in air so pure it almost hurt to breathe. Then, they’d found a cheap motel in a neighboring town.

One day I’ll get us rooms in a Hilton, Adam said fiercely. You deserve more than this and I promise I’ll get it for you.

Standing in the lobby of her old high school, Lily winced as a familiar, visceral pain slashed downward through her middle. That night, so long ago, was when she realized that love could be so exquisite as to be painful. The pain had been even worse when her father appeared at the door with his loud voice and swinging fists. He had knocked Adam unconscious and forced a screaming Lily away, slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain.

Once home, she had pleaded tearfully, Please, Daddy. I want to be married to Adam and live right here in Winsom.

Stay married to that useless tramp? He has no education. No background. You’d be piss-poor all your life and live in some cold-water shack. Is that what you want?

Adam is smart and he’s a hard worker. He’ll make something of himself. I know he will!

"I’d be the laughing stock of the town. Raising you in this house, with all the advantages in the world, and then to have you throw it all away and choose to live like trash! He’ll never amount to anything. He’ll turn out just like his dad. And you are not going to do this thing! I won’t allow it. Get it out of your head. The subject is closed."

Lily shut her eyes and drew a long cleansing breath. That had been long ago and far away. Behind her was a swirl of dance music and the happy hum of voices renewing acquaintances. Ice clinked in glasses, shouts of erratic laughter erupted, and a hard-driving drum beat rode over it all.

She straightened her back. Just now, she stood in front of a showcase of trophies, many of which she and Adam had won for the school in calf roping competition and barrel races. Those had been good times. They’d begun working with the horses in 4-H and graduated to serious competition on the rodeo circuit as they grew older. At fifteen they had been state champions in their age group and broken all sorts of records. With enormous pride, at graduation, they’d decided to donate their trophies to the high school. Now, she was twenty-eight and rode dressage and show jumping. Alone. The way she wanted it.

Who needed family? Who needed roots? Roots could strangle as well as support. Families were more pain than they were worth. No, she was alone by choice and she intended to stay that way.

At least Adam had always had his Uncle Caleb. As poor as they were, the Larimores were more of a family than she’d ever had. She and her brother, Luke, were always welcome there. Uncle Caleb had been such fun. They had laughed a lot in Adam’s house. Those were the only happy memories she had of family life.

She wondered what Adam did for fun these days. No, she didn’t. She didn’t give a damn what he did or who he did it with. He’d abandoned her, after all. Left her to cope with her father, the end of the marriage, and the decision of what to do with the rest of her life. She wanted nothing of Adam now, and hoped with all her heart he would not come to either the mixer tonight or the banquet tomorrow night. He had, after all, proven faithless and a coward, and not to be depended upon. Her father had been right, after all. Adam had deserted her when she needed him most.

She’d been in town exactly three days, begun an inventory of the contents of the house, scheduled appointments for the lawyer, the bank, and the ranch foreman. She hadn’t even started her father’s Buick and taken a ride through town to see what had changed. God only knew why she’d agreed to come to the reunion. Some perverse need to reach back, she guessed, to put a finger on the pulsing difference between reality and what might have been. Stupid!

The last bronze rays of the dying sun slanted through the front door and across the glass cabinet as she watched, gilding the central trophy with her name and Adam’s etched on the front.

The voice came from over her right shoulder. Seven seconds, four, he said. And it still stands as the high school state record.

Lily stiffened and stared straight ahead. She would have known that voice in the bowels of a submarine below the Arctic ice cap. He was here. And, in some nameless place, deep inside, she realized that this was the reason she had come. She had to know. Had to see. Touch. Adam. Her tongue lay lifeless in her mouth.

How you doing, Banjo Eyes? he asked softly. The deep, slow drawl stopped the breath in her throat. She’d always likened his voice to Sam Elliot of cowboy-movie fame. Deep and smooth as chocolate ice cream. Roped many calves lately?

Her pride came to her rescue then, and loosened her tongue.

They don’t rope too many calves from English saddles, she said, turning but not quite meeting his eyes. How are you, Adam?

Making it, he said, his eyes skimming over her. He still wore his dark hair fairly short, but he’d added a crisp mustache and a few pounds of muscle since graduation. The fact slammed home that she was not looking at a boy. This was a man. Very little remained of the fun-loving, easy-going, eighteen year old she’d loved so desperately those many years ago.