Anywhere (Sawtooth Mountains Stories, #3)

by Susan Fanetti

  “Your words don’t mean anything to me, deserter.” Evan said and lifted his eyes. He focused behind her, and then a hand was on her arm.

  “Mac, no,” Reese said and pulled her away, closing her in his arms.

  “I’m calling the sheriff right now,” Victor said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “So if we’re gonna make a mess, best get started. Because when law gets here, you’re goin’ down hard, buddy.”

  Evan’s face twisted into an angry snarl as he turned his attention to Heath. “I will have what’s mine,” he said. “I will take it back from you and leave nothing but good black earth where you stood.”

  Then he nodded, just once, and he and his gang walked across the road and faded into the woods.

  They were ten miles from the reservation. One of their trucks must have been parked somewhere nearby. But Evan liked a spectacle, and the gang loading up into an old Dodge pickup would have ruined the theme of his play. Cowboys and Indians.

  “Come on,” Reese said, his fire doused again. They all got back into Heath’s truck and drove on to the Twisted C.

  *****

  The Twisted C was packed. In addition to Heath, Gabe, and their two kids living in their house; and Morgan, the family patriarch, and Logan and Honor living in the big house; and Heath and Logan’s sister, Emma, her husband, Wes, and their two kids living in their house; and all the hands in the bunkhouses, they had a whole slew of guests as well, filling every spare bedroom in the big house: Victor and Natalie Thomas and their parents, Frank and Naomi, taking up three guest rooms, and now Reese and Gigi taking up the fourth.

  Just counting the Cahill family and their needy friends, it was seventeen people.

  And tonight, the Cahills had offered to bring Gigi’s family in as well, in the event Hall decided she was complicit in the crime of keeping Natalie from him—or whatever offense he’d decided warranted a direct attack on the Jack.

  Gigi had called home and, as she’d expected, the offer had been rebuffed. Except for Frannie’s work, they wouldn’t leave the reservation. Maybe all the years she’d spent away from them would provide a buffer for them now—she was the exile, the traitor, not them. If she stayed away, maybe Hall would leave them alone.

  Sheriff Murphy came out and took statements, then put a team of deputies on the ranch gate, so now they had guards on the place around the clock—deputies outside the gates, and ranch hands watching the ranch road—and they were keeping the lights on through the night. Everyone seemed to feel like Gigi did: simultaneously safe to be so thoroughly protected, and uneasy about needing it.

  Reese had been silent almost to the point of catatonia since the sheriff had left. He’d sat with the big group on the Cahills’ massive flagstone veranda and listened, or appeared to listen, as people caught them up on what they’d missed. There had been a cookout-style supper, and when Emma had handed him a plate mounded with ribs, corn on the cob, a baked potato, and a couple of biscuits, he’d eaten. Anytime somebody handed him a drink, he’d drunk it, whether it was beer, or bourbon, or water. But he’d barely seemed to notice.

  Gigi had sat beside him, watchful, worried. She’d tried to listen to the conversation and to answer any questions asked of her or of Reese, but her attention was on him. He was getting drunk without noticing. At any other time, she hated when he was drunk, but tonight she was glad. He needed his brain to turn off.

  The one bit of news she got a good hold on came from Honor, who said that the Feds had made their move not on Hall, but on key partners in his drug business, a gang in Boise. Almost the whole gang had been arrested and brought up on federal charges, and the bail had been set high enough that only a couple had been released.

  “They haven’t touched Hall yet, but they just kinked his pipeline,” Honor had explained. “Pulling in the OVers closes off most of his income stream, and puts him in jeopardy with his bigger clients. The ones he can’t piss off. My guess is Hall thinks Natalie gave them Boise, so she didn’t have to give them him.”

  Natalie had sat quietly, staring at her own plate. Nobody asked if the Feds had gotten the information from her, and Honor didn’t say. Gigi didn’t know if everybody knew the answer but her, or if they all knew not to ask, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t her place to ask either way.

  Now, she lay in a large bedroom, nicer than most of the hotels they’d stayed in on their trip, and watched Reese. The room was dark, it was still a couple hours before dawn, but outside the window, the ranch lights were bright and casting their glow into the room.

  Reese sat in an armchair by the window, his hands slack in his lap, his eyes aimed at a point on the floor. He’d gone to bed naked, as usual—he owned no underwear but thermals—but now he had his jeans on, the fly open.

  She was really worried. Pushing the covers back, she slid from the bed. He didn’t note her wakefulness, or her presence, until she was on her knees in front of him with her hands on his legs.

  “Hey. Talk it out with me.”

  His eyes slid to hers and found focus. “Hey.” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Gigi was quiet. She waited for him to find words, or to stop looking.

  “Everything, Mac. Everything was there. My whole life. My dad’s whole life. He died there. My mom died there. I was born there. Most of the stuff I had was theirs first. It’s all gone. Everything. I lost everything.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  His eyes moved over her face. “I didn’t lose you.”

  “No. Or anything else but stuff, stuff that can be replaced or doesn’t need to be replaced. Your mom isn’t in her pots and pans. Your dad isn’t in his desk. They’re in you. Your love for them, theirs for you, you carry it with you, and you can’t lose it, because it’s inside you. Your life, your history, your memories, none of it was ever in those walls. They were just walls, Reese. Just a roof. Nothing that can be burned down is a home. Just a house. Just a bar. Just stuff. Somebody else’s flea-market find. That’s it. You don’t need any of it to remember your parents and love them. You lost nothing you need.”

  A phantom smile floated at one corner of his mouth. “Pack light?”

  She answered that phantom with one that was real and true. “Pack light.”

  His hand came up to cup her cheek. “I love you.”

  “I love you. Come to bed.”

  She stood and offered him her hand. He took hold and let her lead him back to bed.

  He fell asleep with his head on her chest.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Gigi woke to the thick murk of a stormy day, with rain hitting the windows in a noisy, but soothing drone and the light so low outside that the bedroom was sunk in shadow. Reese slept on her exactly as he’d fallen asleep, his head pillowed on her chest, his arm hooked firmly around her, his leg lying over and between hers.

  She had no clue what time it was, or even if it was morning or afternoon, but judging by her profound need to pee, her growling belly, the ache in her lower back, and the thorough numbness of her arms, they’d slept for a good while. Under the white-noise hum of the rain, she heard occasional spikes of a deeper sound—bustle below, of the other people in the house.

  Trying to move only her arm, so she didn’t wake him, Gigi first got it to remember how to work and then reached blindly for her phone on the nightstand.

  Sheesh. They’d slept eleven hours, through breakfast and lunch. No wonder her bladder and belly were pitching a riot.

  For another few minutes, she lay where she was, in his arms, supporting him while he slept. He needed the sleep. Twice as burdensome as the jetlag was the stress of losing the Jack. She’d meant every word she’d said in the middle of the night, he hadn’t lost anything that couldn’t be replaced, but the shock and loss was intense nonetheless. Sleep gave him a respite from reality now, and the strength to face it later.

  But her bladder was going to explode if she didn’t relieve it. When that became an actual concern and not hyperbole, she eased from the bed, mo
ving in fractions, trying to replace her presence with pillows and blankets. He moaned and frowned, but didn’t rise to consciousness. His arms tightened around her pillow, and he sank deep again.

  Gigi hurried her stiff body to the bathroom—this guest room had its own bath, apparently all the bedrooms here did, which was as big a sign as any of the Cahills’ wealth—and sighed with blissful relief when her ass hit the seat.

  Fully relieved, with a quick wash of her face and hands to wake herself all the way up, she went back into the bedroom. Reese hadn’t moved. He was on his side, rolled forward a bit now that her body wasn’t holding his up, and the covers had slipped down to his waist. His gorgeous, broad back was bare, and his arm, strength swelling his biceps even in sleep. For a moment, she stood at the foot of the bed and took in the sight of him.

  Her man. Strong and steady. Until yesterday. Maybe this deep sleep would restore his balance. If not, she’d take the weight that tipped him over.

  She pulled from her bags the cleanest clothes she could find—wow, she needed to do laundry—and slipped on jeans and a t-shirt as quietly as she could. As she picked up the bracelet from the nightstand, it dawned on her: for virtually all of her adult life, for almost exactly eleven years, she’d lived out of two packs. All of her possessions fit in a backpack and a duffel. Even when she’d put down a stake for a few months, she’d accumulated nothing she couldn’t walk away from. Even now, after beginning a real life, with real roots, with Reese, the fire had consumed almost nothing that could have been called hers. The map he’d given her for Christmas was the only thing of any value, real or sentimental, she’d lost. Her one and only material ‘treasure’ was this bracelet she’d worn every day since her sixteenth birthday. A gift from her father, a way to carry him with her everywhere.

  What she’d told Reese last night was true—he still had everything he truly needed—but she’d been wrong, too. With her truth, she’d slighted his. His mother’s pots and pans, his grandfather’s desk—for a man like Reese, so deeply rooted in one place, those things were the roots. He’d come to know himself inside that building that no longer existed, surrounded by those things that had been destroyed.

  She was a wanderer, but he’d never been lost. Not until now.

  Gently, careful not to disturb his rest, Gigi bent down and kissed his temple.

  He’d helped her find her way home. Now she’d return the favor.

  *****

  Downstairs, she found the house far emptier than she’d expected. Naomi and Natalie Thomas, mother and daughter, were in the huge kitchen, and a housekeeper was vacuuming in the equally vast living room, but otherwise, no one was around.

  Naomi and Natalie were hard at work—three loaves of bread were rising on a board on the butcher-block island, and they stood at the range frying fry bread together.

  They were talking to each other, but Gigi couldn’t hear the words over the sizzle of the oil in the skillets and the vacuum droning at the front of the house. They didn’t notice her, either, until she said, “Morning.”

  Naomi looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Morning’s long past, sweetheart. But I’m glad you got some good rest. Reese still down?”

  “Yeah. He’s zonked.”

  “Good. He needs it.”

  Gigi nodded her agreement. “Where is everybody?”

  Natalie answered as she turned to the island and dug her hands into a bowl of dough. “Let’s see ... Dad’s at work. Heath and Honor, too. And Wes. Um ... Gabe’s at their house with Matthew and Maria, and Emma’s gone to pick up Kendall and Anya at school. Uncle Morgan and Logan went off somewhere, and Vic’s in town, keeping watch over Honor.” She smiled like a girl who didn’t feel the weight of the trouble she was in, or that she’d caused. They were all refugees on the Twisted C because she’d hooked up with a bad boy more than twice her age. “And Mom and me are cooking. Is this the best kitchen you ever saw?”

  “It’s nice, yeah. Is there coffee?”

  Naomi turned and wiped her hands on the towel draped over her shoulder. She nodded toward a corner of the room, near the sink, where a big coffeemaker sat. “There’s half a pot. It’s a couple hours old, so help yourself to make fresh if you want. Everything you need’s in the cupboard above.”

  “Thanks.” She went to the coffee, took a cup down from the cupboard and poured herself a cup. Yeah, it was a little stale, but it was strong and hot, which was what she needed. She added an extra spoon of sugar to ease the slightly burnt taste. “What can I do to help?”

  “We’ve got a lot of mouths to get supper into, so there’s plenty to do. How do you feel about snapping beans?”

  Gigi flexed her fingers. “Point me to ‘em.”

  A batch of fresh green beans filled a colander the size of her lap. Gigi took them and a couple smaller bowls and made herself a bean-snapping station at the table. For a while, they chatted lightly while they worked. Naomi and Natalie asked questions about Europe, and Gigi spun stories of the sights they saw.

  She knew the Thomas family in the way that people who lived in a tiny community knew each other—not as friends, but friendly, and close enough to know fairly intimate details of each other’s lives.

  The Thomases were tribe leaders, and considerably better off financially than the Mackenzies, though the scale within the tribe went from dirt-poor at the Mackenzies’ end to middle-class at the Thomases’. Naomi was the head cook at the Moondancer Ranch, and Frank was on the Council of Elders—and he was County Clerk as well. He’d accomplished that, despite the sovereign status of the reservation, because he’d bought land immediately outside the reservation boundary. Just a few acres, but enough to make his family residents of both worlds. He used that unusual situation to exert influence in both places, and give voice to the tribe in the world beyond the reservation.

  She’d always felt a little intimidated by the Thomases. Every one of them seemed to know their place in the world. Except, maybe, for Natalie, but she didn’t seem to know what she didn’t know. Gigi envied that innocence a little.

  Had she ever felt it? She didn’t think so. Always, she’d known her place: at the bottom. And always, she’d fought for more. Or run somewhere she had no place at all.

  After the fry bread was done, stacked in a big basket and covered with tea towels, the loaves of bread were in the oven, the beans were snapped and washed, and all three women stood at the island to break apart five chickens for frying, the idle curiosity about Europe had run its course. Gigi asked the question that had weighed on her since the airport and remained unanswered. She asked the only person who knew and could tell.

  “Nat, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.” Her hands didn’t paused at all in their work of mixing the breading ingredients together.

  “What did you tell the Feds? Why did you get probation?”

  Now she froze. So did her mother.

  “Gigi,” her mother said, in a voice full of maternal protection. “That’s not a question to ask.”

  “I know it’s not my place. But Reese—the Jack—I don’t know. I’m trying to understand how much danger we’re all in. What does Evan know? Who does he blame?”

  “I didn’t tell on him,” Natalie said, speaking to the bowl of breading. A braid fell over her shoulder and dangled for a moment before she shoved it back with the back of her wrist. Colorful beads were strung on a slender clutch of strands and woven into the braid.

  “Natalie, hush.”

  “It’s okay, Mama. She’s right. People are getting hurt.” Natalie lifted her eyes and faced Gigi. “I told him I didn’t tell on him, but I lied, too. I told him I didn’t tell on anybody. I said the Feds went easy on me because I was underage and didn’t have a record. He believed me. All this time, he believed me. He wanted me back, but he kept his cool. But then they raided Emilio and the other OVers, and now he thinks I told on them. Which I did. But I didn’t tell on Evan. I love him.”

  Naomi huffed loudly and shook her head. The
chicken she was piecing lost a leg with extraordinary violence.

  “So last night, when Honor said she was guessing about what Evan thought, that’s what really happened.”

  “Yeah. She can’t say it like a fact. I’m not supposed to say, either. So it can’t leave the ranch. But I think everybody here knows, even if I haven’t said it out loud. It’s pretty obvious.”

  “Does he want to hurt you?”

  “I don’t know. He loves me. He really does. But he’s angry. I shouldn’t have lied to him.”

  Naomi’s chicken was going to be nothing more than nuggets, the way she was ripping it apart, listening to her daughter.

  “Listen to yourself. That man is forty years old. You are barely nineteen. He’s a drug dealer and a statutory rapist. He’s a vandal and a bully. Now he’s an arsonist. Who knows what he’ll do next to hurt the people he considers enemies. And yet you speak of love. You were raised better than this, Natalie. I know you love him, but what he feels for you, it’s not love. It’s possession, or obsession, or both. But it’s poison, either way. And now others are getting hurt.”

  Natalie shoved the breading bowl away and stalked from the island. She brushed past Gigi, headed toward the door to the veranda. With her hand on the handle, she turned and showed her mother a face crimson with pain and anger. “I know he’s doing bad. I know he’s dangerous. I’m sorry for what happened to the Jack. But don’t tell me it’s not love!”

  She ripped the door open and stalked outside. The door shut with a slam that rattled all the windows in the room. It was still raining, but she clearly didn’t care.

  Her mother stared at the door for a long time. Then she took in a deep, slow breath, squared her shoulders, and turned back to Gigi. “People will be back soon, looking to eat. There’s a lot left to do. Let’s get a move on.”

  “If you want to go after—”

  “No. It won’t do any good.”