Free Fathers and Sons (Harlequin Super Romance) by Carolyn McSparren

you’re my lawyer, you’ve got to do what I tell you, right?”
    “Within reason.”
    “Then go down to that D.A. and see what kind of a deal you can make me.”
    Kate’s heart fell. “So you did kill her.”
    Jason swarmed off the bed and bolted toward the window. Kate came up out of her chair. For a moment she was afraid he planned to jump.
    “I’m responsible for her death.”
    “You hit her with your tire iron?” Kate tried to keep her voice level.
    He turned to look at her. “What tire iron? No. Man, I’d never hit a woman, and I don’t even have a tire iron.” He seemed genuinely puzzled.
    “Why not? They come with the car.”
    “Yeah, well, last August I was trying to break my out-board-motor mounts loose on the ski boat and I kind of dropped the tire iron in the lake.” He shrugged. “I guess I forgot to get another one.”
    Kate took a deep breath. “That’s one of the things the police have against you—your missing tire iron. If you didn’t hit her, then responsible or not, you are not guilty of her death.”
    “But I left her on the road in the middle of the night. Man, it was real warm for Thanksgiving weekend, you know, but it was still cold. And I just drove off and left her.” His voice broke, and Kate suddenly saw not a truculent young man, but a very frightened nineteen-year-old boy, eaten up with guilt and pain.
    “Tell me something, Jason. You’ve been at school for less than three months and California is a long way to fly for Thanksgiving. Why did you come home?”
    He flushed. “It’s just the three of us, you know? I thought my granddaddy would be lonesome.”
    Not his father, but his grandfather. Kate continued gently, “How about you?”
    “Yeah, okay, I missed everybody, all right? It’s not like we can’t afford it or anything.” He turned back to the window. “Man, I wish now I’d gone to Carmel like they wanted me to.”
    “Who wanted?”
    “Some friends, that’s all.”
    “So you came home when?”
    “I told you this yesterday.”
    “Tell me again.”
    He heaved a cavernous sigh and sat on the bed. “My dad picked me up in Memphis about eight Wednesday night. Thursday we had Thanksgiving dinner around two, and then I lazed around here watching football for a while.”
    “Who called who?”
    “Waneath called me. Said some of the old crowd were getting together Saturday night and would I pick her up. I mean, she sounded like it was no big deal, you know?”
    Kate nodded. “But it was.”
    “The party was out at the Blue Jack. We had a couple of beers, and I was having a good time seeing everybody, but Waneath kept trying to drag me out. Finally we had a fight about it.”
    “But still you went.”
    “Yeah. I mean she was my date, right?”
    “And you thought you’d have sex.”
    “Okay, so I thought we’d have sex. What’s wrong with that? It’s not like it was the first time.”
    “Can you show me where you were?”
    For the first time Jason hesitated. “Why’d you want to go over there?”
    “I want to see the place you say you left her.”
    “I did leave her there. I mean, we had sex, and then she hit me with...” He took a deep breath. “Okay, this is the truth.”
    It was Kate’s turn to heave a sigh. “Well, finally.”
    “She wanted us to get married.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “She told me we could get married at Christmas, and then she could go back to California with me.”
    Kate narrowed her eyes. “To do what? Go to school?”
    He shrugged. “To be the next Pamela Lee to hear her tell it.”
    “And you weren’t interested.”
    “I’m a freshman in college, for God’s sake. I don’t want to get married!”
    “Then she told you she was pregnant.”
    “No! She never told me she was pregnant. I didn’t know she was pregnant until the sheriff told me.”
    “It wasn’t yours?”
    “No way.”
    Kate leaned back in the desk chair and stared at him wordlessly. He squirmed. She was certain he was still holding