[Lonestar 01] - Lonestar Sanctuary

by Colleen Coble

  "Is there an intruder?" Fern asked, her voice barely audible but shaking.

  "Yep. But he seems to be gone. Did either of you hear anything?"

  Latoya tossed her rumpled head. "You mean other than you hollering at us to drag our booties out of bed? Not a thing"

  "How about you?" he asked Fern.

  She hesitated. "I thought I heard someone in the hall a while ago. But I was half-asleep."

  It could have been him or Allie. "What did it sound like?"

  "It sounded like someone opened the door, then closed it again. But like I said, I was half-asleep and didn't look up."

  "Wishful thinking," Latoya scoffed. "She's got a crush on Charlie."

  Fern flushed and looked down at her bare feet.

  Rick stepped back into the hallway. "Go back to bed. There's no one in the house, and I locked the doors."

  The girls shuffled back into their bedroom and shut the door. He could hear Latoya haranguing Fern about her ridiculous crush on Charlie. Poor kid. After running back downstairs to double-check the doors, he went back up the stairs and started toward his room. As he passed Allie's room, he decided to take one more look at the hall outside her door. The guy had slipped the paper under the door. If his aim was to hurt Allie, he could have just as easily gone into the bedroom.

  Why hadn't he?

  Rick didn't know what the guy's game was, but the thought that he'd waltzed in here and back out without detection really steamed him. He'd have to ask Brendan for help. Running his hand over Allie's doorjamb, he felt every nick and scratch. The guy wouldn't have had to pick a lock because there were none in this old house other than the outside door locks and the office.

  He knelt on the rug and lifted the edge of it. Nothing there. Rising, he stepped into the room and glanced around again. Everything was neat and in its place. A few cosmetics lined the dresser. Before he realized it, he'd picked up the gaudy nail polish and turned it in his hand. She was such a contradiction all cowgirl and competent then very feminine with bright nail polish and sleek hair.

  He put the bottle back, then picked up her cologne and brought it to his nose. It smelled sweet and dainty, just like Allie. He put the bottle back hastily.

  Don't go there. She'd chew his heart up for breakfast and spit it out. Backing away as if a rattlesnake lay coiled on the dresser, he turned to the closet. He'd checked it once, but he wasn't ready to give up finding whoever was behind this. Opening the door, he swept his hand through the hanging clothes, and the sweet scent drifted out again. Her shoes, two pair, were lined up evenly in the bottom of the closet. Betsy's shoes were just as precisely placed.

  She didn't seem the type to want everything so ordered. Maybe it was a way of controlling the things she could control when there was so much she couldn't. What was that eye problem she'd mentioned? Something about Irlen. He'd have to look it up. Maybe there was something he could do to help her.

  Shutting the closet door, he went down the hall to his bedroom. He tapped on the door. "Allie? It's me."

  He heard the bed springs squeak, then a few moments later, the scrape of the chair being removed from the doorknob. The door opened, and she looked up at him, her blue eyes wide with trust. Something shattered in the region of his heart when he saw how completely she believed in him.

  Had anyone ever looked at him like that before like he could conquer the world? Maybe Jon. At the reminder of his friend, he pulled his mental shield back into place. Allie and Betsy were Jon's, not his. He couldn't ever let himself forget he was just a stand-in.

  "Everything's okay," he told her. "I'll carry Betsy back to bed for you.

  She sighed at his perfunctory tone. "Thanks." She stepped aside to allow him space to enter.

  He went to the bed and lifted the little girl. Betsy didn't stir as he carried her back to her bed. "You'll be okay?"

  She nodded. "Fine. Thanks for checking" She hesitated. "Maybe we should leave, pack up and run."

  "He found you here," Rick pointed out. "Running is never the answer. This guy is tenacious. At least here we can see someone coming from miles away."

  "Just like tonight?" Her smile did little to take the sting from her words.

  "We know he's found you now. I'll get some friends on it tomorrow. We'll find him."

  Her eyes looked sad, but she nodded. "Thank you, Rick. I don't know what we'd have done without your help."

  Her words sounded stilted and formal, and he wished she'd look at him with that trust again. He gave a curt nod and backed out of the room. "Put a chair under your door," he said.

  She shut the door, and he waited until he heard a chair scrape across the floor and lodge under the knob. Retreating to his bedroom, he listened to the wind howl through the eaves. He used to howl like that when his back was laid bare.

  He shut the door, shucked his jeans and shirt, and crawled between the sheets. The sweet scent of her in his sheets filled him with an emotion he couldn't bring himself to name.

  14

  EYERYTHING SEEMED DIFFERENT BY THE LIGHT OF DAY. BETSY CLUNG TO Allie's side all morning. Even though she'd slept through the whole upheaval in the night, she seemed to understand that something had changed.

  Her little girl sat by the refrigerator with her doll clutched in her hand and watched Allie slice roast beef and homemade bread for lunch. Allie hadn't seen her daughter have the doll out since they'd come.

  "How about if we go out looking for bluebirds after lunch?" she asked Betsy. "We'll see if Rick will go with us."

  She needed a distraction as badly as Betsy did. The realization that Yo was gone kept ambushing her.

  Betsy looked up and nodded, her smile breaking out of the gloom. Allie's eyes burned as she watched her daughter bend her head until her dark curls touched the golden head of her doll. She wanted so much for her daughter, but it seemed Betsy was living the life of the cinder maid.

  The haven they'd found here hadn't lasted nearly long enough. How could Rick protect them from a phantom who slipped in and out of sight like the fog?

  The screen door banged, and Latoya strolled into the kitchen, followed by Fern. The two girls were so different. Latoya came in like she owned the world, while Fern slunk in with her head down and her shoulders slumped. Allie wanted to take Fern by the shoulders and tell her to stand up straight, look the world in the eye, and chart her course.

  But had Allie done any better with her own life? She'd had big handicaps to overcome, and once upon a time, she thought she had done a pretty good job of scaling the mountains that had once seemed so daunting. But life had a way of dethroning you when you least expected it.

  Allie wanted to be more like Latoya, certain of herself and her power over other people. But maybe the teenager was just better at hiding her fears. Maybe people were all the same inside.

  "Girl, my stomach is growling like that lion I heard last night," Latoya complained.

  "Lunch will be ready in a few minutes," Allie said, snapping out of her reverie and turning back to her task. "Did you get all your chores done?"

  "That mare of Betsy's about chewed the bag up and spit it back out. She's one hungry mama. Did you go see her this morning, Bets?" Latoya squatted beside Betsy, who just nodded without looking at her. Latoya stood and went to the cabinet, where she began to pull down plates and glasses.

  Allie wanted to smile but hid it by turning away to get the mayo out of the refrigerator. A week ago, the teen would have sullenly agreed to set the table only after being asked numerous times.

  The pottery clattered on the wood table as Latoya carelessly tossed the dishes into place. "That little colt loves me like his mama," she said in a conversational tone. "He followed me all over that corral." She giggled like a five-year-old. "He kept nibbling on my shirt." She sank onto the chair and crossed her legs at the ankles. "I like it here."

  "Me too," Fern said, laying out the tableware. "I wish I never had to leave."

  Allie felt a pang at the wistful tones of both girls. She
might have thought her life was hard, but these girls had even more strikes against them. At least she'd had loving parents. She could see the attraction in helping kids like these.

  "We're going to go look for bluebirds after lunch. You girls want to come?" she asked them.

  "Bluebirds? What's up with that?" Latoya demanded.

  "Betsy loves them. Haven't you ever heard of the bluebird of happiness? Betsy loves the old Shirley Temple movie called The Blue Bird. We could watch it tonight after supper if you've never seen it."

  "I used to watch Shirley Temple at my grandma's," Fern said in a soft voice. "My brother had a crush on her. He never knew she was old enough now to be his grandma."

  "Shirley Temple? She that curly-headed Betty in the old black-andwhite movies?" Latoya demanded. "That's kid stuff"

  "Aw, come on, Latoya," Fern said with more animation than Allie had ever seen. "It's a really good movie."

  Latoya sniffed. "I'll watch it for a while, but if it gets too hokey, I'm outta there."

  Allie wanted to gather the girl up in her arms and tell her it wasn't too late to regain her childhood, but she knew the words would seem empty. And maybe they were. Once innocence was lost, she wasn't sure it could ever be regained.

  THE SKY HAD CLEARED OF THE SAND THAT YELLOWED THE AIR AND PILED around the foundations of the buildings. Rick and Charlie spent the morning tramping the ranch, looking for any sign of the man who had broken into the house last night.

  Rick called the sheriff, and he came out too, but there was nothing to see, no one to interrogate. The two older hands had been here over twenty years, and Rick couldn't see Buzz or Guinn trying to frighten Allie. Charlie was just a kid. None of the help had any reason to terrorize her.

  He ruled out Emilio and the kids too. Her stalker must be lurking nearby after tracking her here.

  "You want me to stand guard tonight?" Charlie asked, a worried frown settling on his forehead when the men failed to turn up any clues. "Me and the hands could take turns."

  "Maybe. I asked the sheriff if he'd give her some police protection."

  Charlie snorted. "Good luck with that. I don't think he's got an officer smart enough to find his butt with both hands."

  Charlie had a point. The sheriff's good of boys weren't capable of anything beyond arresting drunk and disorderly residents. There wasn't much crime here beyond the occasional theft from a tourist's car and the fights that broke out in Long Branch Saloon.

  Maybe he should talk to Brendan, but he didn't see what his friend could do about the situation. He likely had his plate full saving the world. Still, maybe Brendan could at least put some feelers out and give him some indication of how the guy might have found Allic.

  His wife. The thought still made his stomach plunge. The realization that he was married kept playing hide-and-seek in his mind. Rick couldn't quite grasp the reality of it, even yet.

  Charlie was staring at him.

  "What?" he asked.

  "Allic told me."

  "Told you what?"

  "That you married her.You could have called dibs on her when she got here, but you kept mum." His glance was full of curiosity.

  "She's too old for you anyway."

  "I'm only ten years younger," Charlie said, his voice indignant. "Why didn't you say anything about knowing her?"

  Rick shrugged. "I didn't know her, Charlie. She was my best friend's wife, and she came to me for help. I told her husband I'd take care of her."

  Charlie pulled an aspirin bottle from his jeans and shook out three pills.

  "Migraine again?"

  "Yeah, my counselor says it's stress." Charlie pulled his canteen from his belt and uncapped it. Throwing back his head, he swallowed the pills and wiped his lips before resealing it and putting it away. "That's a rare brand of loyalty."

  "Jon's parents are trying to get custody of Betsy. It seemed the best thing to do to keep Betsy with Allie."

  Charlie grinned then. "Anything to get a woman like that in your bed, huh?"

  "It wasn't like that." Rick clamped his teeth against any more explanation. "It's about lunchtime. We'd better get back."

  Charlie's face took on its hurt expression again, and Rick wondered how the kid could have fallen for Allie so fast.

  Who's talking? The voice whispered in his head. You're just like Charlie. He shook the thought away. He was just doing his duty. Charlie might succumb to her charms, but he wouldn't.

  "I'm heading in," Charlie said.

  "Be right there." Rick sat on the back porch step and listened to the cattle low in the back field. He pulled out his cell phone and called Brendan.

  "Me again, buddy," he said when his friend answered. "Trouble came calling last night." He told Brendan about the intruder and the note. "How could he have tracked her here?"

  "She talk to anyone back in El Paso?"

  "No. Oh wait, yeah, she talked to her friend one day, then her friend's parents. The one who was killed."

  "Maybe the guy had their phone tapped. You know how easy it is to get hold of a listening device."

  "But she didn't tell them where she was."

  "She call on the house phone?"

  "Yeah," he said, his heart sinking. "Caller ID."

  "Yep. Nothing's secret these days. Anything else I can do?"

  "Nope, not unless you've got some personnel with nothing to do that you'd like to send me for protection."

  "Wish I did, Rick. Sounds like you need some backup."

  "I'll manage."

  "She couldn't be in better hands." Brendan gave a knowing chuckle. "Pun intended, Mr. Newlywed."

  "It's not like that," he said for the second time in five minutes.

  "Whatever." Brendan's voice became brusque again. "Listen, I've gotta go. Keep me posted, and call if there's anything I can do."

  Rick put his phone away and got up. Protecting Allie and Betsy lay squarely on his shoulders, and he wasn't sure he was up to the task anymore. He'd gotten soft living here on the ranch, where the only danger was from animals and the weather. Humans could be more treacherous and more deadly than any of their counterparts in the animal kingdom.

  THEY FOUND TOO MANY BLUEBIRDS TO COUNT. ALLIE'S MUSCLES ACHED IN a pleasant way from the hike as she rested at the bottom of a rock formation Rick called Eye of the Needle. A thin plume of dust billowed up from the car that pitched and rocked its way along the potholes in the lane to the house. She watched it travel toward the buildings. The vehicle looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite determine the make from this far away. Betsy and the girls sat among the bluebonnets, and she turned back to them to take their picture.

  Betsy's smile radiated up at her, and Allie smiled back. All seemed right with the world this afternoon, and she wondered how she could feel so happy when she knew her enemy had found her. But he wasn't here today. Today she could lift her face to the hot sun and breathe in the aroma of sage and creosote.

  She snapped the picture and put her camera back into her shirt pocket. When she turned to look back at the house, she saw a man step out of the car. The lawyer. Wally Tatum. Maybe he brought news about the adoption.

  "I'm ready for some iced tea. How about you?" she called to the girls.

  "Ice cream sounds better," Latoya said, getting up and dusting the dirt from her shorts. "With hot fudge."

  "I think there's some in the freezer. How about you and Fern go fix it, and I'll be in shortly. I need to talk to the man down there."

  "We'll take Betsy," Fern said, clasping the little girl's hand.

  "I'll walk you to the house."Allie wasn't about to let Betsy out of her sight until they were safely inside.

  As they neared the buildings, she saw Rick step off the front porch to greet Wally, and she quickened her steps. The girls ran ahead of her, and once they were inside, she stopped at Rick's side.

  "Mrs. Bailey." Wally tipped his hat.

  Mrs. Bailey. She saw the start Rick gave and knew the words had shocked him as much as they did he
r. She wasn't a Siders anymore, wasn't part of Jon's family. She hadn't even thought about that. Something squeezed in her chest, a sharp pang at just how much her life had changed. She'd thought she would die a Siders, would lay beside Jon in the little cemetery in El Paso.

  Her fingers curled into her palms. "Mr. Tatum. Any news?"

  "Please, ma'am, if you call me Wally, I'll call you Allie. We don't like formality here." Wally gestured to the rockers on the porch. "How about we set a spell, and I'll bring you up to speed."

  Rick took Allie's arm, and they stepped onto the porch. She settled onto the swing while the men took the rockers. "Is it good news?"

  Wally smiled broadly. "About as good as you can get. With most adoptions the child needs to reside with the adoptive parent for six months. The judge is waiving that requirement in your case since she knows Rick here. The home study will be done the first of the week if you're agreeable, and we can set the finalization of the adoption at the end of the month."

  "You're kidding," Rick said. "I had no idea it would move that fast."

  Wally grinned and put his boots on the porch railing. "The judge thinks you're a saint, and she was mighty fond of Elijah. Betsy's his great-granddaughter. Stands to reason the judge would do everything in her power to help out."

  Allie could hardly believe it. All the dominoes were falling into place. She was so used to things going wrong that it didn't seem possible the adoption would be this easy. "No problems at all?"

  "Nope. The road is clear before us." Wally stretched his arms over his head. "I could go for some iced tea right about now."

  "With news like that, you deserve a hot-fudge sundae," Allie said, getting to her feet.

  "I wouldn't turn it down," Wally said.

  "How about you?" she asked Rick.

  "A celebration sounds good," he said.

  His eyes were smiling, and he looked as relieved as she felt. Had he thought it wouldn't go through? She knew so little about Rick. Was she doing the right thing? When he adopted Betsy, he would always be in their lives, even after the divorce. What if she found out things about him later when it was too late?