by Jill Gregory
Deanna had been a freshman in high school when Zeke was a senior, and he’d barely noticed her, but that hadn’t stopped her from letting her crush on him become public knowledge. She’d stared at him in the halls, invited him to every school dance, and waited by her locker even after the bell rang for class, pretending to fidget with her lock just to be close to him when he walked by.
To his credit, he’d never laughed at her when his friends all did—but he’d always turned down Deanna’s dance invitations and ignored her stares and phone calls. Rumor had it he thought she had good taste but he’d been turned off by her whole stalker act.
They’d never dated in high school or after.
But a year and a half ago, shortly after Sophie and Rafe’s wedding, Mia and Zeke had started seeing each other. They’d gone out to long, comfortable dinners, to drinks at the Lucky Punch Saloon, and to the movies over in Livingston. She’d invited him over for barbecued chicken and lasagna and Gram’s famous chocolate frosted brownies, and he’d taken her to the rodeo and to a quilt show in Bozeman. Zeke was easy to be around, honest, and dependable, not to mention blond, nice-looking, and flatteringly eager for her company.
Getting engaged to Zeke after a little more than six months had seemed to Mia like a good idea at the time. Her biological clock was ticking on overdrive and her friends all had husbands and babies, and she could see herself having a future with him: children and family dinners and good times. Zeke was solid and kind. He had a big sweetheart of a dog. And just because he laughed at jokes she didn’t find funny and her heart didn’t race when he walked into a room, that didn’t mean they couldn’t be happy together, did it?
But two months after she accepted Zeke’s ring, she handed it back. Something was missing. She knew with each passing day that the engagement was a mistake. It wasn’t a case of cold feet.
Just cold truth.
Much as she wanted to, she didn’t love Zeke. Not even a little.
Marrying him wouldn’t be fair—to either one of them.
He hadn’t taken it well. Not at first. But after a few weeks he’d come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t going to change her mind. And less than a month later, noticing Deanna having a drink at the Double Cross, he’d asked to join her. They’d started dating, and from that moment on, Deanna never missed an opportunity to crow to everyone in town that she’d snagged the man of her dreams, the man Mia Quinn couldn’t hold on to.
Mia had ignored her, unwilling to dignify any of it with a response—or to give the town gossips more to talk about. But Sophie had lost it once and told Deanna off in the middle of the town library, and ever since then, the air had been frigid as the snow on the Crazy Mountains whenever Deanna Mueller and Mia Quinn found themselves in the same room.
“Saturday should definitely be an interesting night,” Mia muttered.
“You think?” Lissie’s laughter rang out on the sunlit street.
“Cooookieee, Mommmeee.” Molly jabbed a soft finger into her mother’s cheek. “Pwease!” Setting her down, Lissie grasped her daughter’s hand and started toward A Bun in the Oven.
“See you Saturday,” she called over her shoulder.
“Counting the minutes,” Mia called back. She could hear Lissie’s muted laughter behind her as she headed toward her Jeep.
Chapter Nine
Travis set his paintbrush in the metal tray as the front door opened and Grady trudged into the cabin.
“Hey, buddy. Ready to call it a day?”
It was pretty much a rhetorical question. The boy’s Diamondbacks T-shirt and jeans were coated with grime. He’d spent the last couple of hours scrubbing years’ worth of dead insects and mud from the outside cabin windows and his face was flushed with sweat and streaked with dirt. Despite this, he looked almost happy.
“More than ready,” he answered emphatically, wiping his filthy hands on his jeans. “Can I have a Coke, Dad?”
“You bet. You did a great job out there. The good news is,” Travis added, with one last glance at the sage green paint he’d just finished carefully applying to the tall living room walls, “another few days, a week at most, and we might actually be able to move into this place.”
“Why can’t we just hire someone to do the rest of it?” Grady swiped an arm across his sweaty face as Travis stepped over the drop cloth covering the floor. “You work for the FBI. They must pay you pretty good. Don’t you have money?”
“Not a matter of money. Sometimes elbow grease is good for the soul.”
Grady shot him a skeptical glance. “In L.A., my mom and Drew hire people to do everything. Plant the gardens, clean the pool, cook all the food when they have parties…”
“Well, this isn’t L.A.”
“That’s for sure,” the boy piped up, but a slow grin seeped across his face. He stared down at his filthy hands with a kind of pride. “It was sort of fun to get all dirty and stuff. If Mom were here, she’d be yelling at me right now to get into the shower.”
“Yeah, well, she’d be right.” Travis laughed. “Now that the water’s turned back on and the bathrooms have been scrubbed down, we can start bringing over some clean clothes and towels so we can shower and change here before going back to the ranch. That’ll make it easier not to mess up Aunt Sophie’s nice clean house.”
“That’ll work.” Grady bobbed his head in agreement and trooped after Travis toward the kitchen, where soap and rolls of paper towels waited on the granite counter.
“I’m kind of hungry. All that work, I guess,” he added, trotting past wide windows looking out onto rolling grassland backed by a forest of ponderosa pines and a spectacular view of the mountains.
“Do you know what Aunt Sophie’s cooking for dinner?”
“Heard something this morning about steaks on the grill.” Travis began scrubbing paint off his hands. “Thought I’d rustle up some double-baked potatoes and corn on the cob, too.”
“Awesome!”
For a second there, if Travis wasn’t mistaken, his son almost looked—and sounded—like a perfectly happy kid. He was seeing glimmers of smiles these days. Even a laugh now and then.
But too much of the time, Grady still clung to the reserved and slightly sullen attitude he’d exhibited on their drive from Arizona.
The first day they’d driven over to work on the cabin, Grady had seemed surprised upon seeing the place. Apparently he’d been expecting a shack, not a roomy two-story house tucked away in a wide clearing that was as pretty as any Travis had ever seen.
His cabin was surrounded by miles of open land and graceful cottonwoods, and it was close enough to Sage Creek that in the hush of night, if you listened real hard, you could hear frogs and crickets chirping away, owls hooting, and the whisper of rushing water.
There were three big bedrooms, three and a half baths, a dining room that could easily seat ten, and a good-sized kitchen, but Travis had it in his head to add on—maybe another bedroom, a game room with a pool table, an office for when he got his company up and running—possibly a Jacuzzi in back on a wraparound deck facing the woods.
He hadn’t opened up the place in a couple of years so it had been sorely in need of sweeping, scrubbing, sanding, and paint, but after a good part of all that was done, he’d discovered that the hickory floors were still in great shape and that the drop cloths on the furniture had protected the fawn-colored leather sofas and the chocolate armchairs. The floor-to-ceiling walnut bookshelves in the library had been smothered in dust but now they, too, gleamed like the floors.
Not a bad week’s work, he thought as he and Grady finished cleaning up and he handed the boy a can of Coke and a snack bag of pretzels. They let themselves out the kitchen door and trekked toward the winding, tree-lined driveway.
In four or five days they could most likely move in, start settling down, Travis thought. That would give them even more one-on-one time together.
Who knows? Travis told himself as he and Grady piled into the Explorer. This place might e
ven start to feel like a real home….
An image popped into his brain as he backed out of the drive. For a split second he saw himself sitting on the deck with Mia—the deck that wasn’t even built yet. It was almost dusk, and he saw Grady catching fireflies near the woods and the sun going down over the mountains in a splash of fiery color. Mia’s head was resting on Travis’s shoulder, and she was cuddled close against his side….
Where the hell did that come from?
He blinked, and almost swore aloud.
He hadn’t seen Mia since the day she’d come to borrow a pie.
And not because he didn’t want to. He just didn’t think it was a good idea. For either one of them.
There was plenty on his plate right now—including getting the cabin whipped into shape so he and Grady wouldn’t need to impose on Sophie and Rafe the entire summer. And getting his new business up and running.
He had about a hundred phone calls to make, starting with a dozen or so to his former co-workers—retired FBI field agents, all of them top-notch—and expanding to a list of buddies who’d retired from the military and might be interested in a private security gig. He also needed to read through and sign the rental agreement for the office he’d found on Oak Street in a building three blocks off Main, and he had to start reaching out to potential clients….
Coward, a voice inside his head mocked.
You’ve taken on serial killers and white supremacists. Terrorists and kidnappers. Not to mention the scum who deal in human trafficking and arms smuggling.
And you’re scared of a woman.
Not exactly scared. And not just of any woman.
One particular woman. A stunning, sexy-as-hell blond schoolteacher who no doubt hated his guts. And he couldn’t much blame her.
He remembered how she’d looked at the ranch in that skimpy tank top and jeans—lush, tanned, and gorgeous, her hair piled on her head, her shoulders and throat and arms gleaming golden. And those incredible amber eyes a man could get lost in, so cool and steady on his.
She’d looked as delectable as an ice cream sundae on the hottest day of the year.
He’d been trying to erase that image from his mind ever since, but it wouldn’t go away.
Not good, Tanner, not good.
Suddenly he noticed Grady staring at him.
“Hello-o-o—Earth to Dad.”
“Yeah. Dad to Kid. I’m here.” With a grin, he reached over to the passenger seat and ruffled the boy’s hair, pleased when Grady smiled.
Concentrate on your kid, Travis reminded himself, realizing he was damned lucky he wasn’t on a case right now, where losing concentration—thinking about Mia as if the two of them could ever actually be together again—could get him fired, or killed. Of course, he’d already fired himself, he reflected as he watched a hawk soar high above the pines.
“We should just about have time before supper for a quick horseback ride.”
“Can we go back to the creek?”
“Again? Don’t you want to head into the foothills for a change?”
“Nope. I like Sage Creek. So does Pepper Jack.”
“Then the creek it is.”
Grady had proven to be a natural rider, and a hard worker once he got started. He didn’t complain or try to slack off, and he’d done a damned good job washing the windows, sweeping the floors, and helping Travis clear away all the old leaves and brush that had piled up around the porch, the perimeter of the house, and the grounds.
“So why don’t you tell me some of what happened at school last year?” he asked conversationally as Grady swallowed the last of the pretzels.
“What do you mean?”
Just like that, the tension was back in the boy’s tone. Resentment stiffened his shoulders.
Travis kept his voice even. “Your mom told me she’s worried about you. She’s pretty upset about those grades you got in earth science and English. According to your teachers, you weren’t even trying.”
Silence filled the space between them. The boy twisted toward the passenger-side window suddenly, his face hidden from Travis. He appeared to be studying the sky, where a western meadowlark swooped against an expanse of hard-edged blue.
“I know you’re smart, Grady,” Travis continued matter-
of-factly. “Your mom’s smart and your dad was, too. He was a doctor. That takes a lot of smarts, so I know you have it in you.”
Suddenly he had Grady’s full attention. “You…knew my dad…my real dad?”
The boy sounded amazed. And eager. Glancing at him, Travis saw a kind of hunger in his eyes. Damn, hadn’t Val ever told him anything about his biological father?
“I never met him, but your mom talked about him when we first got to know each other. He was in line to be chief of staff at the hospital where he worked when he came down with the cancer. If he hadn’t gotten sick, he’d have been one of the youngest chiefs of staff in the country. Your mom must have told you that.”
Grady shook his head. “She told me he was a doctor and helped people. That was it. Mom doesn’t like talking about him. So I stopped asking.”
What the hell? Val, what’s up with that? Travis chose his words carefully. “Sometimes when people are sad about something they try to avoid talking about it.”
He hoped to God he was handling this right.
“But it’s usually easier to just talk about it, get it out. You can always ask me about your father, anything you want, and I’ll tell you what I know. But you should try asking your mom again, too. Now that some time has passed, she might be ready to talk about him and answer your questions—”
“Mom doesn’t want to talk about anything. Not in front of him.”
“Him? You mean Drew?”
“Who else?” Grady was staring straight ahead now down the road.
“Things aren’t so good between you and Drew, huh?”
Grady looked down. “We rub each other the wrong way—that’s what Mom says. But I…Dad, can I tell you something?” he burst out.
“You can tell me anything, buddy.”
“I can’t stand that guy!”
“Yeah? What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s a jerk. He bosses me around and yells at me all the time, even when I don’t do anything wrong. He yells at Mom, too. Sometimes she tries to stick up for me, but he doesn’t ever listen. He just gets mad at her, too.” Grady shook his head, seemed about to say more, then suddenly changed the subject. “I still don’t understand why you think I’m smart. Kids don’t always get their parents’ brains, you know. Sometimes they just get their athletic ability or their singing voice or their ears that stick out, and that’s it.”
A half smile broke across Travis’s face, despite the tension that had started searing through him the moment Grady began confiding about his stepfather. “Don’t forget I’ve been spending a lot of time with you since we came to Lonesome Way. And I’ve noticed things—like what you just said to me about what kids inherit from their parents. That was a pretty smart observation. And then there’s how quickly you catch on to things.”
“I do? What kind of things?” He felt Grady staring at him with an eagerness that ripped at his heart.
“I only had to show you once how to saddle Pepper Jack, remember? And how to cinch the bridle, adjust the stirrups, all that stuff. You picked it up quickly, and you remembered how to do it every time. Same for how to pitch hay.
“And,” Travis added, “the other night when you played Scrabble with Ivy, you came close to beating her. Ivy’s smart as they come and she’s almost three years older than you. You have a good brain, Grady.”
“Yeah, well, try telling that to my teachers. I suck at school.”
“Why is that?”
“I’m no good at memorizing stuff out of books. It’s boring to just sit around and study. And what difference would it make?” His face darkened. “Drew says I’m dumb.”
“Drew’s wrong.” Travis fought to control the surge of anger bandin
g across his chest. What the hell right did Drew Baylor have to tell his boy he was dumb?
“What else does Drew say?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s okay, Grady, you can tell me. I’ve met guys like him before; nothing you can say will surprise me. What does he say?”
“He says I’m lazy.” Grady’s voice was a low mumble. “And a loser. He said he can tell I’m headed for trouble.”
“That’s a load of crap.”
As the boy glanced quickly at him, Travis saw uncertainty in Grady’s eyes.
Damn that asshole. He’d never met Baylor, but what he knew was bad news. Any man who went off on a kid, basically told him he was worthless and would never amount to a hill of beans, was a son of a bitch. Why in hell did Val put up with it?
They were almost at the ranch. Pines whipped by as he chose his words carefully. “The only place I see you headed, Grady, is where you want to go. Wherever that might be. You’re in control of your life. You have it in you to achieve whatever you set your mind to. And don’t let Drew or anybody else tell you different.”
“But…in a way, he’s right, isn’t he?” Grady sounded miserable. “I messed up last year in school and I…I got into fights and stuff. And now it’s too late. Everyone thinks I’m stupid and a troublemaker. I can’t fix it. No one can. That day Mom put me on the plane, I overheard her on her cell. She told her friend Annie that I’m going to flunk fifth grade.”
He hunched back toward the window, and Travis couldn’t see his expression any longer but the hopelessness in the boy’s tone hit him in the gut.
“So I’ll have to repeat the whole stupid year, while all my friends…” His voice quavered and he gulped. “I really only had one friend. One real friend. His name’s Scott. And he’s gonna be a year ahead now. Everyone will be, for the rest of my life. They’re all going to think I’m stupid. A loser.”
Travis tried to remember what it had felt like to be ten. To feel that kind of peer pressure, where what everyone else thought and said and did was the end all and be all. It was hard to fathom—he didn’t remember worrying about what everyone thought when he was young.
