"Dark Paradise" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoag Tami)CHAPTER 7 J.D. SAW the fire from a good distance up the hill. Swearing, he nudged Sarge into a gallop. Lucy MacAdam was proving to be as much of a nuisance in death as she had been in life. He cursed himself briefly for taking on the task of looking after her place, but if Miller Daggrepont hadn’t come to him, he would have gone to Bryce, and J.D. didn’t want Bryce getting any kind of a foot in the door. He intended to have first crack at buying the property. If that meant he had to put up with the headache of looking after the animals and calling the sheriff after vandals trashed the place, then that was a small enough price to pay. The sight of orange flames through the curtain of the trees put everything else out of his mind. Panic sparked instantly. If a fire weren’t contained immediately, there was every chance that it would sweep across acres of forest and grassland, charring everything in its path. He braced himself back in the saddle as the big gelding skidded down the steep trail. Berry bushes and saplings slapped at him and snatched at his clothes. Then they broke onto clear, flat ground and the horse exploded beneath him, hurtling toward the MacAdam place with his ears pinned and his neck stretched, his powerful body rolling beneath J.D. He lost sight of the flames as the ground dipped and the trail bent around a thick copse of tamarack. His brain raced, leaving the business of staying astride to reflexes developed almost from infancy. He had to formulate a strategy to fight the blaze, wondered how he would summon help, wondered if Bryce would still want the place if it burned to the ground. Mari stood in the corral, watching the flames lick high into the air. She felt a certain solemnity for the ceremony and a tickle of giddy excitement that stemmed from exhaustion and cognac. She had used the liquor to help start the blaze, then stood back and took a swig in honor of Lucy’s last wishes. It went down like liquid gold, burned in her belly, and spread its own fire through her, numbing the raw feelings and lending a certain romantic glow to the proceedings. She tossed the bottle into the blaze and saluted, then jumped back with a shriek as the glass popped and the remaining alcohol went up in a hot burst. Sheepishly she glanced at the Mr. Peanut tin, which stood on a gatepost and oversaw the bonfire from a safe distance, top hat tilted to a jaunty angle. Through the wavy haze of heat it appeared to be moving, wiggling like a hula dancer, dancing in celebration. Lucy would have approved of the festivities wholeheartedly. In fact, Mari had planned on her friend standing beside her for the ceremonial burning of the business suits. The bonfire signaled her change of direction as she stood at this crossroads of her life. In one direction lay the life her family had herded her down, a straight and narrow path paved in concrete and stripped of scenery, a toll road that took something essential out of her at each gate. In the other direction lay the great unknown, all the mysteries of life, all the possibilities her soul had yearned for. It was bumpy and hilly and wound through uncharted territory that may be a little scary but promised never to be dull. On the road less traveled there were no expectations, no standards to fall short of, no boundaries, no burdens-except her own hesitancy. She imagined her faintheartedness vaporizing in the flames. The funeral pyre of the pinstripes and peplums was a symbol of her decision. No one wore panty hose on the road less traveled. Mr. Peanut seemed to wink at her from the other side of the heat waves. Suddenly, a horse burst from the wooded slope beyond the gate, huge and red, ears pinned, eyes rolling, mouth opening wide as it abruptly changed gears from a dead run to a sliding stop. The head came up and the powerful haunches angled beneath him, scraping the dirt of the ranch yard, stirring an enormous, billowing cloud of dust. Mari watched, mouth agape, as the rider stepped down while the horse was still in motion. He hit the ground running, his hat flying back off his head. Rafferty. He barreled toward her, his face set in furious lines. Barely slowing down, he grabbed up a bucket, dunked it in the water trough outside the gate, and kept on running in a beeline for her pyre. “No!” Mari launched into motion, lunging toward him, arms outstretched to try to push the bucket aside. They collided ten feet from the fire, Mari bouncing off J.D. like a rag doll that had been hurled at the side of a moving bus. Crying out, she stumbled and went down on her hands and knees in the dirt, only able to watch in horror as he attacked her tribute. The water splashed into the center of the blaze, dousing the magnificent flames like a blanket. Rafferty kicked the edges of it, scooping the powdery dirt of the corral into it with his boots and with his hands, suffocating the peripheral flames and sending up mushroom clouds of black smoke tinged with dust. Mari’s heart sank with the dying flames. She sat back on her heels, tears pooling in her eyes as he ran to the water tank and returned with another sloshing bucket. The fire hissed its last agonized breath as he doused it. Her fire. The symbol of the death of her old life. Her tribute and sendoff to her old friend. Ruined. Snuffed out, the way her old life had tried to snuff out the fire inside her; snuffed out as Lucy had been snuffed out. The anger and the frustration and the cognac swirled inside her, rose up like a tide, and Mari rose with it. “You stupid son of a bitch!” she hollered, hurtling herself at him as he backed away from the detritus of her grand gesture. “You stupid shit-for-brains! That was mine!” She hit him hard in the back, knocking him off balance, pummeling him with her small fists. J.D. dropped the bucket and twisted around, catching a knuckle in the mouth. Swearing, he stumbled sideways, trying to fend off her blows with his hands and forearms. She came at him like a wildcat, teeth bared, eyes narrowed, all hiss and claw, her tangled hair tumbling into her face. “Knock it off!” he bellowed, staggering back. Mari lunged at him again, half jumping on him, arms swinging wildly as all rational thought burned away in the face of her temper. She caught him leaning back, and they both tumbled into the dirt, coughing and swearing at the dust that gagged and choked and blinded. “That was mine!” she shouted again. “Ouch! You bit me!” J.D. shouted, outraged, overwhelmed by the sheer force of her fury. His own anger kicked in as her knee came perilously close to ramming his balls up to his tonsils. Grunting, he twisted and rolled, tumbling her beneath him, pinning her with his weight. Gritting his teeth, he tried to catch her fists as she rained blows on his head and shoulders, grabbing one and then the other and pinning them to the ground beside her head. “Dammit, I said, quit!” His voice boomed in her ears. Mari strained and struggled in one final burst, but to no avail. J. D. Rafferty outweighed her by eighty pounds at least, every ounce of it muscle, and all of it pressed down on her, stilling her against her will. Mari glared up at him, too aware that she was powerless against him. Powerless J.D. met the blue fire in her eyes and it triggered something primal in him. Or maybe it was the way she felt beneath him. Or the memory of the way she tasted in the moonlight. “You have a real way about you, Rafferty,” she snarled. “Where’d you go to charm school-the World Wrestling Federation?” A growl was the only reply he gave her as he shoved himself to his feet. Mari scrambled up, trying to shake the dirt out of her clothes. It had gone up her blouse and down the back of her jeans, working its way into private cracks and crevices. It was in her hair and in her teeth. “What the hell did you think you were doing?” J.D. demanded, swinging an arm in the direction of the charred remains of her fire. “None of your damn business.” She stalked past him, feeling the need to put herself between him and the mess. The ceremony had been personal. She hadn’t planned on witnesses or conscientious objectors. The idea of Rafferty probing into it made her feel exposed, vulnerable. Vulnerable didn’t seem a very smart thing to be around a man like him. He was too tough, too forceful to show much in the way of understanding or compassion. She had seen that firsthand. Of course, it was impossible to hide the evidence. It spread out behind her, a black, smoldering, oozing stain in the middle of the corral. She couldn’t hope to keep him from it. He walked around to the other side, scowling down into the ashes. “What the hell-?” With the toe of his boot he dragged a magenta gabardine sleeve from the cinders. He picked it up gingerly by the unburned end and dangled it down, grimacing as if there were still an arm inside it. “It was a suit, okay?” Mari snapped, snatching it from him and tossing it back into the embers. “ Mari ground her teeth. “I was cremating my past. It was symbolic.” He stared at her as if she had just claimed to be from the moon. “Men. You wouldn’t know symbolism if you sat in it. I’m at a life crossroads. I needed to make a grand gesture.” “Yeah, well,” he drawled, “burning half of Montana to the ground would have been a gesture.” “I didn’t burn anything that wasn’t mine.” “What if the barn had caught fire? Or the house? Or-” “What’s it to you?” Mari challenged, sticking her chin out as she glared up at him. “They’re mine too, so-” “They’re what?” J.D. felt as if he’d just run blind into a brick wall. He actually fell back a step from the force of the mental blow. A relapse of guilt deflated Mari’s truculence. She felt… unworthy, undeserving. She couldn’t remember the last time she had called Lucy just to shoot the bull. She seemed to shrink as the fight went out of her on a sigh. Raking back a handful of hair, she looked away from Rafferty toward the beautiful log house. “It’s mine,” she said quietly. “Lucy left it to me.” J.D. watched her carefully as he tried to digest the information. He wasn’t sure how to react. He wanted this land for himself, for the Stars and Bars, as an added buffer against the encroachment of outsiders-of Bryce in particular. He had hoped it would be offered for sale by Daggrepont to settle the estate, though that scenario held no guarantees the land wouldn’t go to Bryce. Still, Daggrepont was a local. Mary Lee Jennings was a wild card. There was no telling what she would do with it. The only thing he knew for certain was that she thought he was a jerk. And she was right. He’d been nothing but a bastard to her from the word go. “Swell,” he muttered. Mari wheeled on him, eyes flashing. “Thank you for your kind condolences. It means so much to know people care.” “I won’t pretend I liked her,” he growled. “Fine. Then I won’t pretend I like you either.” She started to walk away from him, but his hand snaked out and caught hold of her upper arm. Furious, she twisted around and glared at him. “Get your hand off me, Rafferty. I’m sick of being manhandled by you. And I’m sick of your snide remarks about Lucy. I don’t give a shit what she did to you. She was my friend. I didn’t always like her. I didn’t always agree with her. But she was my friend, and I’ll be damned if I’ll put up with your smart-ass remarks. If you can’t manage to master any of the greater social graces, you can at least show a little respect.” J.D. let her go, watching pensively as she stalked to the gatepost and took down a big tin Mr. Peanut. She stood with her back to him, holding the thing against her. Guilt gnawed on his conscience. She was right. He should have had better manners than to speak his mind about Lucy. Especially with the woman who had just inherited her property. The addendum sat about as well as a gallstone in his gut. His personal code didn’t allow for ulterior motives. A man conducted himself accordingly, regardless of circumstance; it was a matter of honor. Well, he thought, chagrined, Lucy had always managed to bring out the worst in him. Seemed she was still doing it, manipulating him from the next dimension. He blew out a heavy breath and jammed his hands at the waist of his jeans. Women. They were more trouble than they were worth, that was for damn sure. His mouth twisted as he stared at the back of Mary Lee Jennings. She was crying. He could tell by the jerky movements of her shoulders. She was trying valiantly not to. He could tell by the halting breaths she snatched. A sliver of panic shot through him. He didn’t know what to do with a crying woman. The only things he knew to do with women were avoid them or have sex with them. Neither option applied. Feeling awkward and oversize, he walked up behind her and debated the issue of touching her. An apology lodged in his throat like a chicken bone, and he wished fervently that the world would just leave him alone to tend his ranch and train his horses. And people like Mary Lee Jennings and Lucy MacAdam and Evan Bryce would just stay down in California where they belonged. “I-a-um-I’m-a-sorry.” He practically spat the word out of his mouth. Mari would have laughed if she hadn’t felt so miserable. She suspected words didn’t come easily to a man like Rafferty. He didn’t need an emotional vocabulary to deal with horses and cattle. Clutching the peanut tin to her chest, she sniffed and tried to swallow her tears, embarrassed to shed them in front of a man who was embarrassed to see them. But they pushed back hard, slamming up against the backs of her eyes, swimming up over the rim of her lashes. The shoulder she would have cried on had been reduced to ashes. She felt bombarded-by the decisions she had made about her own life in the past week and by the shocks that had been delivered since her arrival in Montana. All mental circuits overloaded and blew up. Sobbing, she turned and fell against Rafferty. Any port in a storm. It didn’t matter that he was a jerk. He was something big and solid and warm to lean against. And he owed her, dammit. After all his insults, the least he could do was hold her while she cried. She buried her face against his shoulder and pinned the peanut tin between them, heedless of the thing’s edges. For a moment, J.D. was motionless and dumb-founded, panic bolting through him. Then, almost of their own volition, his hands came up and settled on her shaking shoulders. She was small and fragile. “Hush,” he whispered, his fingers stealing upward into the baby-fine hair at the nape of her neck. The soft, fresh scent of her hooked his nose and lured his head down. “Shh. I’m sorry. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.” The peanut tin was poking him in the stomach. J.D. ignored it. Dormant instincts stirred to life inside him-the desire to protect, the need to comfort. They slipped through the wall of his defenses in a spot made soft by this woman’s tears. She cried as though she had lost everything in the world. He told himself a man had to be made out of stone not to feel sympathy. She turned her face and shuddered out a breath, and his head dropped another fraction. His cheek pressed against hers. “Shhh. Hush,” he whispered, his lips moving against her skin. Soft as a peach. Warm. Damp and salty with tears. His fingers slid deeper into her tangled mane, cupping her head, tipping it. “Hush now,” he murmured. Mari stared up at him. His eyes were the warm gray of old pewter, the pupils dilated and locked on her mouth. He seemed to be breathing hard. They both were. His lips were slightly parted. She remembered the feel of them, the taste of him. He wanted to kiss her now. The message vibrated in the air between them. She wanted to kiss him back. Would he blame her for it afterward? She stepped back as J.D. started to lower his mouth toward hers. He didn’t like her. She ripped herself up one side and down the other for wanting to kiss a man who had treated her so badly. She may have done a great many stupid things in her life, but falling for Neanderthals was not among her faults. “I need to blow my nose,” she said. “Have you got a tissue?” J.D. fished a clean handkerchief out of his hip pocket and handed it to her. Mari blew her nose and tried to ignore the adolescent surge of embarrassment at her body functions. “I never mastered the art of crying delicately,” she said, folding the handkerchief and stuffing it into her pocket. “My sisters can do it. I’m pretty sure they don’t have any sinuses.” She wiped away the last tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt and shot a sheepish glance at Rafferty. “Thanks for letting me cry all over you.” He shrugged, feeling awkward and hating it. Annoyance pulled his brows down. “You didn’t give me much choice.” “God, you’re so gracious.” The big sorrel horse he had charged in on and then abandoned stepped toward her, his big liquid eyes soft with what looked for all the world like concern mixed with curiosity. He was a handsome animal, his coat a dark, glossy copper, a big white star between his eyes. He inched toward her, his reins dragging the ground. Slowly, he stretched his head out and blew on her gently, then stepped a little closer and bussed her cheek with his muzzle. The gesture struck Mari as being sweet and comforting, and a fresh hot wave of tears rose inside her along with a weak laugh. “Your horse has better manners than you do.” “I reckon that’s true enough,” J.D. said softly. Sarge caught his subtle hand signal and stepped back from Mari, nodding his head enthusiastically. She laughed, and J.D. ignored the fact that the husky sound pleased him. He hadn’t done the trick to impress her, just to stop her from crying again, that was all. “What’s his name?” “Sarge.” He gave her the information almost grudgingly, as if he thought admitting he had given the animal a name showed some kind of hidden weakness. Mari bit down on a smile. “He’s beautiful,” she said. One arm still clutching her peanut tin, she reached up and stroked the gelding’s face, indulging his begging for an ear-scratching. He closed his eyes and groaned in appreciation. “He’s a good horse.” The words betrayed no overt sentiment, but Mari caught the carefully even tone and her gaze sharpened on the seemingly mindless pat on the shoulder he gave the horse as he caught his reins and hooked one loosely around a rail in the corral fence. The gelding wasn’t fooled either. He gave his master a hooded look and nipped at the flap on his shirt pocket. Grumbling, Rafferty fished a butter mint out and handed it over. Some tough guy. Mari tried to steel herself against the insidious warmth curling around her heart. Just because the horse liked him didn’t mean he wasn’t a jerk. “So what are you doing here anyway, Rafferty? Besides spoiling my fun.” “I came to look after the stock,” he said, shooting her a sideways glance as he loosened the cinch on his saddle. “Nobody told me not to.” Stock. She’d forgotten there were animals here, hadn’t given a thought to the fact that she owned them now too. In fact, she had yet to see them. She hadn’t gotten any farther than the corral in her exploration of the place. The burning of the business suits had demanded all her attention. She couldn’t have considered accepting Lucy’s bequest until she had officially broken that symbolic tie to her past. Now she thought of livestock and panicked. “Stock?” she said, falling into step beside Rafferty as he headed toward the old barn. “What kind of stock? I’m not sure I’m ready to handle anything that could be considered ‘stock.’ “Come to think of it,” she went on, suddenly pensive, “I can’t see Lucy handling ‘stock’ either. Christ, she never even wanted to open her own beer cans for fear she’d chip a nail.” But then, there were a great many things about Lucy that suddenly made no sense. Mari bit her lip and cast a worried look down at the peanut tin in her arms. “What is that thing?” Mari blushed a little. She had almost gotten used to the idea of Mr. Peanut, but when she thought about it, it seemed too bizarre to share. “You don’t want to know. Trust me.” J.D. let it go as unimportant. “You know how to ride?” He led the way into the dim interior of the barn. The thin scent of dust and the sweet aroma of hay filled her head. Beneath it lay the earthy undertone of animals and their droppings, not exactly perfume, but real and natural. J.D. lifted a lid on a grain bin and scooped mixed feed into a coffee can. Mari dug a hand into the grain and sifted it through her fingers, fascinated by the strange shapes and textures. She could identify the kernels of corn and the slivers of oats, but the rest were a mystery. “Yes, I can ride,” she answered absently. “My mother thought it sounded impressive to tell people I was taking riding lessons. Until I expressed an interest in learning to ride circus horses standing up on their backs. Really, I mainly wanted to wear a glittery leotard, but she wouldn’t go for that either.” “Gee, you poor kid,” J.D. drawled sarcastically. Mari gave him a sharp look. “Dreams don’t have to be practical. It still hurts when they get broken.” Brushing the grain from her palm, she took the coffee can as he handed it to her. He moved to the next bin, lifted the lid, and started dumping brown pellets into several mismatched buckets that stood on the concrete floor. When the buckets were full, he scooped them up and led the way out a side door. “Here’s your ride, if you’re of a mind to,” J.D. said, feeling small for sneering at her childhood fantasy. “Get yourself a sparkle suit and knock yourself out.” Mari stopped dead and stared at the creature in the grassy paddock. “A She wouldn’t have been surprised at a sleek thoroughbred or a handsome quarter horse. Lucy loved anything beautiful and expensive. But a “Some actress up Livingston-way bought one last summer. Now they’re all the rage,” J.D. said dryly, rolling his eyes. He had been raised to see animals as useful and necessary, not trendy. He looked the mule over quickly and expertly, automatically checking for any signs of illness or injury. “Tack is in the barn.” Mari slipped between the bars of the fence and circled the mule slowly. The creature kept his nose buried in his grain, but followed her with his eyes. When she squatted down beside his dish, he raised his head a few inches and stopped chewing, giving her a vaguely peeved look out of the corner of his eye. “Hey there, Clyde. How you doing?” The mule gave a little snort, chewed some more, watched her. Mari smiled and held a hand out for him to sniff. Clyde reached over and pretended to nip at her, then stuck his nose back in his feed. “Clyde?” J.D. said skeptically. “Why Clyde?” “Why not? He strikes me as a Clyde. How does he strike you?” “As a mule.” “What an imagination you have. Must be a real struggle to keep it from running away with you.” They left Clyde to his grain and continued on through the small pasture to another gate. Gathered in the feeding area were about twenty llamas. The colors of their shaggy coats ranged from black to white, solid to spotted. They stood expectantly around the feed tubs, their magnificent, long-lashed brown eyes fixed on J.D. and Mari. “Here’s your stock,” J.D. said with no small amount of sarcasm. “Llamas! Cool!” She stood still and watched as a fuzzy white baby came to nibble at her shirttail, her eyes wide with wonder. “Lucy never said anything about llamas!” “Yeah, well,” J.D. grumbled. “She was just full of surprises, wasn’t she?” He watched her as she got acquainted with the peculiar creatures, trying not to be swayed by her obvious delight in them. It would have been better for him if she had run screaming in fright. He never liked a person who didn’t like animals. They almost always proved untrustworthy. He didn’t want to like Mary Lee. He couldn’t associate anyone from Lucy’s world with trust. Mari ignored him, her attention absorbed by the curious animals that came to inspect her. They craned their long necks, sniffed and nibbled and hummed softly. Their gazes were sometimes direct, sometimes shy, always with a quality of secret wisdom in their limpid brown depths. She had never met a llama up close before. Now she wanted to know everything about them at once-how soft their woolly coats were, what they were saying when they hummed at one another, what they ate, what they thought about. The peanut tin curled protectively in one arm, she touched them and stroked them and let one rub his soft upper lip against her palm. She chatted with them as if they were people, introducing herself, explaining her connection to Lucy. One poked at the peanut tin with its small nose, and she laughed and backed away, a little apprehensive as they followed her en masse. “Bring me up to speed, here, Rafferty,” she said, making a face as a black one tried to lick her cheek. The smell of them filled her nose like the scent of damp wool sweaters left on a radiator to dry. “What exactly do llamas do? I mean, they’re not dangerous or anything, are they?” J.D. snorted. They were next to worthless by his scale, a curiosity. Not that that was their fault, he admitted as he absently scratched the back of a black and white male. “If they don’t like you, they spit on you.” “Ah. Big, hairy, smelly things that spit. It’s like junior high revisited,” Mari said dryly, narrowing her gaze on the one that had gotten a firm hold on her shirt cuff. “In fact, this one looks exactly like the guy who sat behind me in science class. I’d recognize those ears anywhere.” She leaned toward the llama as she gently extricated her sleeve from its teeth. “You didn’t happen to be called Butt Breath in a past life, did you?” The llama drew its head back and regarded her with what looked like offense. Mari arched a brow. “What did Lucy do with them?” she asked as she watched J.D. pour their feed pellets into various tubs. The llamas abandoned her for their supper. They took dainty mouthfuls and chewed delicately, following her and J.D. with their eyes. “Made money, I expect,” J.D. said, his mouth twisting. “I can grow a steer that’ll feed a family of four for a year and get next to nothing for it. Grow a llama-which is good for exactly nothing-and the whole damn world beats a path to your door.” Mari gave him a look as they slipped back out the gate. “Not everything has to be edible to be worthwhile.” He just grunted and headed back toward the barn, his long, powerful legs absorbing the distance so that she had to almost jog to keep up to him. “This is all a little overwhelming,” she said, scooping her hair back behind her ear. “I just can’t picture the Lucy I knew toting feed and shoveling shit.” “She didn’t. She had a hired hand.” That news stopped Mari in her tracks. The ranch, the llamas, a hired hand, the “Who? Where is he now?” Rafferty’s broad shoulders rose and fell. “Just some hand. They drift around, pick up work here and there. I imagine he took off after the accident. Guess he figured a dead woman wouldn’t pay him.” The news he delivered so matter-of-factly rested uneasily on Mari. Lucy had been shot. Her hired hand took off immediately afterward. She caught hold of J.D.’s arm as he reached for the barn door. “Did the sheriff ever question this guy?” “There wasn’t any call for it. The dentist or whatever the hell he was ’fessed up.” “But he claimed he never saw Lucy.” “Idiot shoots a woman instead of an elk. Doesn’t surprise me he claims he didn’t see her.” He opened the door for her and closed it behind him. The feed buckets rattled as he set them down next to the bins. “What about your uncle?” Mari asked, following him as he dumped dry cat food into half a dozen dishes and felines of all descriptions came running from every nook and cranny of the barn. “The one who found her body? Did he see anything?” He turned around abruptly, suddenly much too close and much too large. He loomed over her, his features set in angry, uncompromising lines that were exaggerated by the shadows of the gloomy barn. “I told you last night to steer clear of him,” he said, his voice a low growl. He poked her sharply in the sternum with a forefinger, making her blink. “I meant it.” “Why?” Mari asked, amazed she’d found the nerve. “What has he got to hide? If he didn’t do it-” “He didn’t do it,” J.D. snarled through his teeth. “Leave him alone. He’s been through enough.” Mari swallowed hard as he stepped around her and stalked out of the barn. She rubbed at the sore spot on her breastbone, dimly aware that her heart was knocking hard behind it. A dozen questions rushed through her mind about the mysterious Del Rafferty, about the hired man who had conveniently slipped away. She bit them all back. Rafferty’s temper was at the end of its leash, straining for an excuse to rip into her. She really didn’t feel up to giving him one. The sun was disappearing behind the mountains to the west, casting the ranch yard into long shadows and tall silhouettes. J.D. stood beside his horse, snugging up the cinch, preparing to leave. Thoughts of drifters and faceless men with guns slid into Mari’s mind like dark, oily serpents. The eerie sense of abandonment the place had given her that first night began creeping in with the shadows. “Rafferty, wait!” she called, trotting away from the barn. He swung into the saddle and settled himself, resting his hands on the saddle horn, waiting. “Look,” she said, laying her free hand against the sorrel’s warm neck. “I don’t know anything about llamas-except that they seem very… spiritual. I don’t know what I’m going to do with this place or with them. This has all happened so fast, I’m not so sure it’s even real.” He didn’t say a word, just sat up there, staring down at her from beneath the brim of his hat. “What I’m saying is, I need some help.” What she wasn’t saying was that she wanted him to answer her questions. She needed answers. She needed to achieve some kind of closure concerning Lucy’s sudden departure from the present tense. What she wasn’t saying even to herself was that the idea of seeing him again held a certain attraction. Ornery, obstinate jerk that he was, he wasn’t hard to look at. And those small chinks in his armor intrigued her-his affection for animals and his reluctance to let her see it, the gentle way he had held her while she cried. Besides that, he was a link to Lucy, she reminded herself. “If you wouldn’t mind,” she stumbled on, uncertain of the local etiquette, wishing he would simply pick up the ragged threads of the conversation and finish the thought himself, as anyone in her past life would have done. “It’s just for a week or two. I’ll pay you-” “I don’t want your money,” he said sharply, offended. “I don’t take money from neighbors.” A part of him was sorely tempted to turn her down all the way around. He didn’t like the feelings she shook loose inside him. He didn’t like where she came from or who her friends were. But she owned this land now, land that he wanted. If he didn’t help her, she would turn elsewhere. She looked up at him, her dark brows tugging together in consternation. “But-” “I’ll see to the stock,” he said, pulling down the brim of his hat. He lifted his reins and Sarge instantly brought his head up, ready for the next command. “I just won’t take money for it.” Mari shrugged, at a loss, feeling once again like a visitor in a foreign land. “Suit yourself.” “Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, nodding. “I usually do.” She watched him ride away, frustration and weariness rubbing at her temper. Something else thrummed beneath it all, something she didn’t have the patience to deal with. She didn’t have the patience to handle attraction to a man who made her want to scream and tear her hair out. Men like that, attractions like that, were good for only one thing-wild, hot, mind-numbing sex. She hadn’t come to Montana for wild, hot, mind-numbing sex. She had come for friendship and a fresh start. But as she walked toward the house with the Mr. Peanut tin tucked in the crook of her arm, her mind drifted to a line from Lucy’s letter and a warm blush washed through her from head to toe. She climbed the porch steps and sat down on a bench with her back against the log wall and her eyes on the hillside where Rafferty had disappeared among the trees. She had more important things to think about, such as what she was going to do with this ranch and the llamas, and what she was going to do about the uneasiness that tightened like knots inside her when she thought of Lucy’s death. The sun slipped farther behind the mountains. Shadows crept in from all sides. The knots twisted in her belly. A killer who never saw his victim. A drifter who vanished. A man J. D. Rafferty didn’t want her near. A lifestyle that cost the moon. A last letter that made no sense. “You’ve got a lot to answer for, Luce,” she muttered, her arm around the peanut tin, her eyes on the hillside that suddenly felt as though it were staring back. He watched the woman through a Burris Signature 6-24X bench rest/varmint scope, clicking the iris adjustment to get the lighting just right. A Ruger M77 Mark II held tight into his shoulder, he rested against the trunk of a fir, silent, still, so still he blended in with his surroundings as if he were a rock or a tree. It was that quality of stillness that had made it possible for him to live as long as he had. Not that that was such a good thing. Automatically, his mind calculated range and bullet drop. He had learned the ballistics tables not long after he had learned the multiplication tables, and he knew them better. He wouldn’t use the figures now. It was just good to work the mind, that was all. Keep the wheels oiled and moving. He had told himself to stay away from this place, to stay away from the blonde. But she had haunted him badly the last two nights and he had finally decided he needed to see if she had come back to the house. This wasn’t the woman he had expected. She was blond, like the other one had been, but different. Much different. He could tell not only by the way she dressed, but by the way she moved, the way she sat. Relief flooded through him, weakening his limbs. The Ruger bobbed in his hands, suddenly weighing a thousand pounds. She wasn’t the one. The woman laughed, a husky, healthy sound that floated up the mountainside and brushed across his ears like sweet music. Not like the other one. Her laugh had held an edge to it, a bitter sharpness. The echo of that laugh brought flashes of memory, like a strobe light in his head. Darkness. Dogs. The crack of a rifle. The sight of blood. The smell of death. He dropped the Ruger down and pressed the heels of his hands against his eye sockets, as if the pressure might blot out the scenes. Panic rose inside him, clogging his throat, stiffening his lungs, making him shake. The images in his head tumbled into a confusing mix of the distant past, the recent past, the present. Sounds of war, sounds of laughter, screams of the wounded and the dying, orders, shots, explosions, the stench of death and decay and swamp. His heart pounded like an angry fist against his sternum. Sweat soaked his clothing, robbing his body of heat as the cool evening air closed around him. Sucking in as much air as his aching lungs would allow, he held the breath and concentrated on pushing every thought from his mind. As the mental screen went blessedly blank, he exhaled slowly, counting the seconds, concentrating on slowing his heart rate. Every moment of his life was like taking a shot-he had to stay centered, in control, tight within himself. Focus, aim, take a breath, exhale half, caress the trigger, start again. That was how he made it. One shot at a time. No distractions. No pretty blondes with husky voices. Taking up the rifle, he rose from his crouch and started up the mountain, letting the darkness swallow him up like a phantom. |
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