“I have.” An older man who’d been working the grill came forward. “You keep right on this road, young lady. It’ll take you out along the shore. Watch your mileage. The Turner farm should be fifteen miles from here, on your left. The road is pretty overgrown, and the old sign board is hanging by a single nail, but you should be able to find it.”
“Thank you.” She turned to leave.
“Maybe you should take a place here in town for the night.” His words stopped her. “I hear the shore road is bad right now. Waves going over it in places. The police will likely be closing it soon. They do in most storms like this one.”
“I’ll manage.” She smiled her thanks and headed back to her vehicle.
****
That guy wasn’t exaggerating. What a night! What a road! What a storm!
Wind yanked at the vehicle as water gushed across the road in cascades. Several times, waves rose above the bank of the bay and hurtled in front of her, blinding her in a hard, white sheet.
Good God, how much farther?
The dial on her dashboard informed her she’d driven fifteen miles from the restaurant. Jessi slowed the Jeep. Squinting through the driving rain, she saw a faded sign hanging sideways on a single nail as it flapped in the wind. It read “Turner Farm.” She braked to a stop and perused the two water-filled tire ruts leading into a thick, dark coniferous forest.
It was like the entrance to an eerie, mysterious estate in one of those gothic novels her grandmother had left in the attic and which her mother still read during long winter evenings. Jessi had to admit she’d enjoyed a few herself, but this wasn’t a bit of dated fiction. It was miserable reality.
Laura’s son definitely knew how to choose a place to hide out. With a sigh of resignation, she eased her foot off the brake and turned the Jeep into the lane.
She’d gone what she estimated to be a half mile when the trail swerved and canted to the right. As the beams of her headlights swung around the bend, her breath caught in her throat. A huge fallen pine, its branches sticking up higher than her vehicle’s roof, blocked the trail.
Slamming her foot down on the brake pedal, she felt the Jeep lurch and slide before swerving to a stop. Jessi was flung forward against her seatbelt. The vehicle halted, half its hood buried in the branches.
Briefly, shock held her immobile. Then, turning off the ignition, she rallied and took stock of her situation.
Not hurt but, hell and damnation, where did that tree come from? Just what I needed to top off this miserable day.
She released the seatbelt, unlocked the door, and leaving it open to keep the interior light on, stepped out into the bucketing rain to survey her situation.
It wasn’t encouraging. Ducking back inside, she pulled out her cell and tried to place a call for roadside assistance. Not unexpectedly, all she got was static.
No cell towers in this backwoods, I suppose. Or maybe the storm has done a number on them. Well, no choice. I’ll have to walk the rest of the way.
The prospect disheartened her. Tired, wet, and hungry, she needed rest, warmth, and food, not a midnight hike through a torrential downpour in unfamiliar territory.
She gave herself a mental shake. The grill attendant had said the cottage was only about a mile off the main road. She couldn’t have that much farther to go. She picked up her purse.
No point in rummaging through my luggage for a raincoat. I’m already drenched. And to think I bought this suit to look businesslike and professional!
She slung the purse strap over one shoulder and across her chest, clambered out of the Jeep, and slammed the door shut. For a moment the intensity of the darkness blinded her. It was like being plummeted into a great, black, drenching hole.
Closing her eyes, she willed them to become accustomed to the darkness. When she opened them, she could discern what she hoped would be enough to keep her on the trail and out of the surrounding trees.
Here goes.
She locked the vehicle and headed down the rutted trail, head bent against wind and rain, stumbling over ruts and tree roots.
Chapter Four
Ross Turner took his third beer of the night out of the refrigerator. That appliance and a two-burner countertop electric stove were the only evidence of modernization in the dingy, dilapidated kitchen. He screwed off the long neck’s cap and then, grasping his cane, limped to a battered wooden chair and dropped into it. The old, scarred pine table beside him was littered with dirty dishes and containers from take-out restaurants.
Damn, his leg hurt. Maybe this god-awful night had something to do with it. Or was he just getting old before his time, complaining how damp made his bones ache? He’d heard enough of the old-timers talk that way but hadn’t expected to feel or sound like one at this age.
The gale, howling in off the bay, rattled the windows and shrieked down the chimney. The little dog he’d named Fox, because of her color, raised her head from where she was curled up beneath the table and looked up at him.
“Bugger of a night, right, girl? Well, at least now you’re not out in it and hungry.”
He dragged his chair closer to the warmth of the wood-burning cookstove and was glad he’d had the foresight to bring wood in from a pile by the barn before the storm struck. A pair of old oil lamps he’d found in a cupboard fortunately had been left full of fuel. Now one in the middle of the table and the other on the countertop afforded the only illumination in the room. He’d had electricity turned on shortly after he arrived, but the storm had apparently knocked it out of commission. All he had tonight were the lamps, their flickering shadows haunting the neglected farmhouse along with his thoughts and memories.
Mustn’t open the fridge any more than necessary. Have to preserve what cold there is inside. In an effort to bring himself back to the moment and the practical, he recalled his mother’s words of wisdom during power outages at the ranch.
He ran his thumb up and down the sweating long neck and thought about her phone call the previous day. She’d said she was sending someone to check up on him, someone who could help him recover.
Recover. As if it was as simple as getting over a bout of stomach flu. Didn’t she realize his life would never be the same, that what he’d lived for, ever since he’d been a kid of sixteen, had been taken from him? Didn’t she realize what limping around with a cane for the rest of his years would do to him? He loved the woman, but sometimes she just didn’t understand him at all. Not like she understood Chase.
Chase. His perfect brother. He suppressed a guffaw. He loved the guy but, hell, he made it hard. Chase who’d gone to college, who’d gotten a degree in business administration to come back not only to help with the physical running of their parents’ ranch but to make it a financial success. Chase who’d married Janet, a rancher’s daughter from the Peace River District, pretty, clever, the all-around perfect mate for a man who had dedicated his life to cattle, horses, and the rangeland.
He got up and went to add wood to the stove. The effort it took annoyed him. Would nothing ever be easy again? Sinking back onto his chair, he grabbed his beer and quaffed it down.
Maybe he was right where he belonged. He looked out the window into the storm-blackened night. Maybe he’d stay here forever, become the crazy old hermit, a local legend. He fingered the stubble on his chin. He’d grow a beard, and each night he’d drink himself into oblivion on cheap whisky or homemade wine.
“Ross!” His name accompanied by a pounding at the door snapped him out of his thoughts.
“What the…?” He jolted upright on his chair and grabbed his cane.
“Ross Turner, let me in right now!”
A female voice. Fox jumped to her paws, a growl rumbling in her throat.
“Hang on, hang on. Take it easy, Fox.” He got to his feet, stumped to the door, and pulled back the deadbolt.
A shaft of lightning accompanied a roll of thunder as a drenched woman tumbled inside. When she swung to glare up at him between long, rain-soaked planes of h
air, her expression made the storm outside pale in ferocity.
“Jess? Jessi Wallace?” His astonishment couldn’t have been more intense.
“What were you doing…sleeping? I was standing out there for…” She pushed past him into the kitchen.
“Jessi Wallace?” He shut the door after her.
“Stop repeating my name like a retarded parrot.” Anger belched out of every word. “I left home at four a.m. this morning, had a miserable flight from Calgary with lots of turbulence, and then a delay in Montreal, never mind the drive from Moncton to this God-forsaken place. I’m not in the mood to listen to you babbling my name and staring at me as if that last bolt of lightning had struck you.”
“No, I can see you’re not.” Ross let his gaze roam over her dark blue outfit. “God, what’s that you’re wearing? You look like a social worker…a very wet social worker.”
“It’s called a pantsuit. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a woman wearing one?”
“I’ve never seen you wearing one.”
“Well, considering how seldom we’ve met in the past ten years, that’s no surprise.” She glared up at him. “And I’ve never seen you looking like you do now, either.”
She was staring him up and down, and he realized what she saw. A man with shaggy black hair curling below his ears and a scruffy beard shadowing his jaws and chin. A man wearing grubby jeans and the same rumpled chambray shirt he’d slept in for the last few days. A man who hadn’t bothered to shower…recently. Behind him, a table littered with the empty containers of take-out food and a cupboard sporting an array of empty beer bottles. In the lanterns’ light, the house must look like the den of a derelict.
I look—and smell—the right broken-down bum…in a perfect setting.
“Are you the faith healer my mother told me she was sending?” He pulled his thoughts away from his appearance and let the annoyance he was feeling reflect into his remark.
Damn it, a family friend. Not someone a man could just throw out without a by-your-leave. Laura Turner, you’ve screwed me over this time, for sure and certain.
“I seriously doubt she used those words.”
“Maybe not, but something to that effect.” He reached past her for a jacket hanging on a peg near the door. “You’ll have to stay the night. You must be nuts to have driven out here in this storm. I’ll get your stuff and you can change out of that wet…pantsuit. Where did you park your vehicle?”
“About a half mile down the road.” She swiped dripping hair back from her face.
“What?”
“There’s a tree across your lane…a great big ol’ pine. I had to walk the last half mile or so.”
“Hell!” He withdrew his hand from the jacket and stepped back.
“Yeah, hell. Now, I’d be obliged if you’d lend me something to wear. I’m soaked to the skin.”
“Do I have a choice?” His surprise at her appearance vanishing, his annoyance at his mother’s sending Jessi Wallace—Jessi Wallace, who worked with injured horses—blossomed. “Down the hall to the right, you’ll find a bathroom. Hanging on a peg behind the door, there’s a robe. Don’t try to shower. The power’s out, so the water pump isn’t working. I have to conserve what’s in the tank.”
“The perfect way to end this crazy day.” Looking about as happy as a wet kitten and twice as belligerent, she glanced toward the black hallway.
“I’ll need a light.”
“Here, take this.” He indicated the lamp on the table.
“Thank you.” The words mirrored her undiminished annoyance. She picked it up and, holding it aloft, headed off into the darkness.
Damn and double damn! A horse healer, for God’s sake! Will she try to rub me down with liniment prescribed by some veterinarian? What was my mother thinking?
****
Inside the bathroom, Jessi placed the lantern on the floor and glanced around. The small room, probably once a pantry or large closet of some sort, had been outfitted with a shower stall, a toilet, and a wash basin with a mirror above it in the barest, most purely utilitarian manner. The fixtures looked new, even though the basin and toilet sported rings around their bowls. A clump of towels lay heaped on the floor, with a couple more stuffed onto a rack between the shower and basin.
The robe hung where he’d said it would be. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell. Would it work after the drenching it had gotten? She tried to reach her parents’ ranch but got no response. Maybe she could make contact after the storm. She shoved it into the pocket of the robe and began to remove her soaked clothing. When she was free of it all, she took the garment from its peg and wrapped herself in its soft, navy blue terrycloth.
Relieved to be dry and comforted by the robe’s luxurious texture, she paused to look into the mirror and grimaced. Not only had she come on bitter and nasty, she looked like a creature from a black lagoon. Definitely not the way to start to gain a man’s confidence…or respect.
She picked up a comb lying on a small shelf under the mirror and tugged it through her bedraggled hair. Finally, deciding it was the best she could do, she gathered up her wet clothes, hung them on the peg, and sucked in a deep breath.
Okay, let’s try this again.
Lantern in hand, she headed back to the kitchen.
She found him at the woodstove, stirring something that smelled delicious in a pot.
“Figured you could do with something warm,” he muttered without turning to face her.
“Most definitely.” She stifled the urge to go to help him as he reached into a cupboard for a bowl and staggered as he tried to balance on his good leg. “That smells wonderful.”
“Seafood chowder.” Turning toward her, he paused and stared.
“What?” She glanced down at her bare feet and back up at him.
“Nothing, nothing.” He shoved aside Styrofoam containers to put the bowl onto the table with more vehemence than necessary. “Sit. Eat.” He dropped a spoon beside it.
“Fine, Tarzan.” She attempted a joke.
“What?” He scowled over at her as she took the chair he indicated.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Ross, give it up. We both got off on the wrong foot, what with the storm and all. Let’s declare a truce.”
“Yeah, well, okay.” He dropped down into the chair opposite her.
“Better. Now why don’t you introduce me to your friend?” She indicated the little red dog.
“I call her Fox. I found her on my doorstep the day I arrived. A stray, I guess.”
“Hello, Fox.” Jessi smiled at her. The little canine backed up against Ross’s leg and sat down to stare up at the newcomer.
“Like master, like dog.” She spooned into the steaming chowder and tasted. “Hmmm. Delicious. I had no idea you could cook.”
“I didn’t make it. A neighbor sent it over.”
“Let me guess.” She paused, spoon hovering over the bowl. “Dr. Shelby Masters?”
“She made it, but it was her wrangler Grady Wilson who delivered it. How did you know?”
“Your mother told me…”
“Of course. She’d have given you a crash course not only about me but my surroundings.” Sarcasm laced the words.
“She was being considerate. After all, she was sending me into unfamiliar territory. She thought Dr. Masters and I might become friends.”
“Aha. Two horse healers. Makes sense…that is, if you were going to be here long enough to get familiar with the neighbors.”
“I don’t know exactly how long you think it takes a person to become a friend to another, but I’m here for two weeks. My return ticket is dated fourteen days from now.”
“Jesus.”
“I can do without the cussing, thank you very much.”
“I’d apologize, except that I know you’ve been around men and horses long enough to have heard worse.”
“Ross, Ross.” She shook her head and returned her attention to her chowder.
She finished her meal
in silence except for the raging of the storm about the house and the sounds Ross made as he grappled to his feet and went to the refrigerator for his fourth beer.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” She jerked her head toward the three empties on the table as he screwed off the cap. “If you’re taking any pain medication…”
“Ah, so now it begins.” He slumped back onto his chair.
“What begins?”
“The list of do’s and don’t’s.”
“That wasn’t a don’t. It was simply a caution. Beer and painkillers aren’t a good mix.” A memory of Clint high on the combination after he’d taken a major spill flipped across her mind.
“Consider me warned. Now,” he continued, “I’ve been sleeping in the parlor on the couch. You can take it tonight. I’ll use a chair.”
“Aren’t there bedrooms upstairs?”
“Yeah, but falling ceiling plaster has pretty much made them unsafe.”
“Okay.” She resisted the impulse to tell him to take the couch and stood. “I’ll head in there now.” She carried her bowl and spoon to the counter and caught herself as she reached to rinse them. No electricity, no water pump.
“Good night.” Picking up the lantern she’d used to find her way to the bathroom, she headed down the hallway.
“Parlor to the left,” he muttered after her.
****
After he’d finished his beer, feeling a nasty little tingle of defiance as he did, the storm appeared to be lessening. At least the lightning had stopped and the old place no longer shook from thunder.
He heaved himself out of his chair and grabbed a jacket from a peg by the door. “I’m guessing she’ll have confiscated my bedding, such as it is. Best be prepared. Come on, dog. Time to hit the hay…or whatever we can find to sleep on.”
Taking up the remaining lantern, he followed the way she’d taken down the hall a half hour earlier, the little dog at his heels.
In the ragged Victorian parlor, he paused in the doorway to stare at her asleep on the couch. She’d left the lantern burning low on the mantel, and now she lay swathed in the soft shadows it created. She’d wrapped herself in his sleeping bag, her head pillowed on a shabby needlework cushion. With her long, golden brown hair now nearly dry and spread out over the old pillow, she gave him a start.
Cowboy Confessions Page 4
