by Tami Hoag
Mari gave him a wry look. “I was under the impression cowboys are anatomically incapable of listening to women. Tuned in to a different wavelength or something.”
He didn't smile. He stared at his old boots and sighed.
“Look, J.D., you had no reason to suspect what was going on. No one could have guessed.”
“I knew Lucy was into something,” he admitted. “She was always making sly remarks, then watching me, like she was waiting to see if I could figure them out. I ignored her because I didn't want to believe her world had anything to do with mine. And then when she was killed, I just kept thinking—Jesus, what if Del did it? What would I do? How could I turn him in?”
The questions tormented him still. He stared straight ahead as he searched for answers within himself, the muscles in his jaw working, his short thick lashes beating down hard. “After all I said about outsiders coming up here, it would have been my finger on the trigger as much as his. What does that make me?”
“Don't beat yourself up, cowboy. Nobody can blame you for wanting to protect what's yours.”
She reached out and stroked her fingers along the back of the hand that gripped his thigh. A strong hand. Work and weather-rough. Slowly he turned it palm up and laced his fingers between hers and held her tight. In many ways it was the most intimate act they had shared.
Emotion swelled in her chest and filled her eyes. I love you. The words were bittersweet on her tongue. She would not say them. He would not want them any more than he would want her sympathy. Too bad, because after living in a dormant state for so long, she finally felt alive, brimming with life, full of feeling. She needed to give. She needed someone who wanted her love. No more half-life, no more half-love. No more clinging to the wrong things for the wrong reasons.
J.D. looked down at the pale hand twined with his and felt unworthy. He had set out to use her. He had hurt her a dozen times. All in the name of a higher purpose—a clever guise for his own fear. He had accused her of much and given her little, and he was the guilty one. He boasted a code of honor; Mary Lee had lived it. She had risked her life for the truth, for her friend. She had stood up to him and stood up for herself and for justice. She lay in a hospital bed, an escapee from death's door, and yet she reached out to offer him comfort.
He had never felt so ashamed of himself.
How long had he told himself he didn't want a woman's love, that it was a burden and a curse, a pernicious thing that fed on a man's weakness and left him less than whole? When the truth of it was, he didn't deserve it. He had spent so long hardening himself against it, he wouldn't have known how to accept it had she offered. And so he let the moment and the opportunity slip past and told himself it was just as well for both of them.
“Well,” he murmured after a long while. “There's chores need doing.”
He looked up at Mary Lee, his heart squeezing in his chest. She had fallen asleep, her face turned toward him, tears on her cheeks.
Gently, he tucked her hand beneath the covers, leaned down, and kissed her. Then he walked out of her life.
CHAPTER
33
DARLING, are you certain you're feeling up to this?” Drew asked for the ninth time. He slid Mari's guitar case carefully in the back of the Mystic Moose courtesy van and turned to her with one of his concerned-brother looks.
In spite of the tension that lingered between them, Kevin joined forces with Drew in this effort, his brown eyes as hopeful as a spaniel's. “Really, Mari, you can stay as long as you need to. We hate thinking of you way out on that ranch all alone.”
In a symbolic gesture, Mari swung the van door shut and gave them both a wry look. “Then you'll have to come out and visit me, guys. It's only nine miles. Besides, I won't be alone. I'll have Spike with me.”
At the mention of his name, the black and white rat terrier she had adopted from the Eden Valley Veterinary Clinic jumped out from beneath the shade of the van and set up a yowling that made Drew and Kevin cringe. Mari grinned at him and praised him, leaning down to rub his head with her good hand. Her left arm was still immobilized, though she was due to begin physical therapy soon to rehabilitate the damaged muscles.
Two weeks had passed since that terrible day on the mountain. In that time, she had been visited and pampered and fussed over by her new friends and bullied by Doc Larimer. She had spoken at length with the district attorney and the federal prosecutor and Sheriff Quinn, who brought her a plate piled high with his wife's caramel-fudge brownies as a gesture of apology. She had declined interviews with no less than a dozen newspapers and broadcast news people.
She had spent time with both Will and Samantha, who were working hard at starting their young marriage over. Samantha had a lot of healing to do—emotional as well as physical, and Will had a tough row to hoe beating his drinking problem, but at the heart of the matter their love was real and sweet and tender. Mari wasn't going to bet against them. As far as she was concerned, true love needed all the backers it could get. Too much of what passed for love wasn't real, and too much that was died on the vine. And too many people never got the chance to find out one way or the other.
She had not seen J.D. once since the day they had held hands in silence in her room.
Tucker had come to pay his respects. Chaske came with him and presented her with a Ziploc bag full of powdered rattlesnake skin that was supposed to give her body strength. He told her the recipe was handed down to him from a Sioux medicine man, a claim that made Tucker roll his eyes. The two had entertained her for nearly two hours bickering with each other and telling stories. They had offered her small glimpses of J.D. as a boy, as a teenager, as a young man shouldering the burden of running the ranch after his father died.
Mari had pictured in her mind's eye the events that shaped him into the man he was today, and she felt she understood him a little better than she had, but she couldn't see that the knowledge was going to be of any use to her. J.D. himself didn't come, he didn't call. Nor did she go to him. As much as she ached to see him, to touch him, to have him hold her, she wasn't so sure they weren't better off apart. She had a new life to begin. J.D. had an old way of life that was shifting and changing, leaving him on uncertain ground.
Maybe in time . . . or not. She had to keep reminding herself that J. D. Rafferty was not the reason she had come to Montana in the first place.
She had come for a break. To clear her mind. To get in touch with her soul. She intended to do just that. Permanently. There would be no going back to California. There would be no more living in limbo at the Moose. She felt as if the Marilee Jennings who had first piled her business suits in the back of her Honda and set out from Sacramento had ceased to exist. The false shell of that woman had been shed and the real Mary Lee was just beginning to emerge. What a wonderful feeling that was. A little frightening, a little painful, but so right.
Kevin kissed her cheek and gave her right hand a squeeze. “Promise me you'll come to dinner Wednesday.”
“Scout's honor.”
She climbed into the passenger seat in the front of the van and Spike promptly launched himself into her lap and propped his feet on the dashboard, ready for adventure.
“You're certain you can manage—” Drew began as he buckled himself into the driver's seat.
“Yes, Drew,” Mari said in a tone that was both patient and patronizing, as if she were answering a two-year-old. “I manage very well with one arm. Juggling is a trick, but the day-to-day stuff? No sweat.”
He frowned and made a humming noise, as if his brain were stuck in neutral.
They made their way through town at a leisurely pace. The usual wave of summer tourists had swelled with the ranks of the morbidly curious who had seen the town spotlighted on national network news. The sidewalks were busy. All parking spaces were full. The traffic on Main Street was enough to drive the locals to alternate routes. The ranch dogs stayed in the backs of their pickups, guarding their territory and leaving the sidewalks to the strangers
.
The businesses were prospering. Still, Mari couldn't help but wonder what J.D. would make of it. She could almost hear his growl of disdain as they passed the Feed and Read, where tourists were emerging licking stick candy and carrying an odd assortment of souvenirs—seed packets and bottles of horse liniment and stacks of western novels and cookbooks from the Lutheran church ladies' auxiliary. Outsiders. Outsiders were becoming the life's blood of his hometown, with or without the permission of J. D. Rafferty. The town would change or the town would die, and Rafferty would stay on his mountain until God or the bankers drove him down.
Stubborn. Unyielding. Uncompromising. Those weren't supposed to be compliments, but she could imagine the hard gleam of pride in his granite-gray eyes when those words were applied to him.
In front of the courthouse Colleen Bentsen had herself an audience as she worked on her pile of twisted metal. M. E. Fralick was giving a one-woman performance of Evita under the shade of the bandshell. Her rendition of “Don't Cry for Me, Argentina” carried across the park to clash with strains of Joe Diffie coming from a boom box.
They drove out the ridge road past the Paradise Motel in silence. Since the incident on the mountain, Drew had had little to say about the revelation of Bryce's private game reserve. He had kept their conversations focused on Mari, fussing over her well-being and her state of mind. An obvious diversion, but she had allowed it, too tired and too fresh from the ordeal to want to talk about it any more than she had to. The questions came to mind now, but she didn't ask them. She just sat there, scratching Spike's ears.
Drew glanced at her sideways, trying twice to find the right words. Finally he just plunged in like a penitent in the confessional. “I knew about Bryce's hunts. I pieced it all together from odd bits of conversation I picked up, rumors, that sort of thing. Hints Lucy dropped. She was a great one for leaving a trail of bread crumbs, then standing back to watch who followed it and what they did. I didn't do a bloody thing,” he said, his voice sharp with self-loathing.
“Why?” Mari asked evenly.
“Fear, I'm ashamed to say. At first there was the fear of what Bryce might do to our business if we meddled in his. Then the fear that what happened to Lucy might happen to anyone.”
“That wasn't an unreasonable fear,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as Drew. She was disappointed in him. She felt let down, betrayed.
“No, but somehow that doesn't make me feel any more a hero,” he said. “Perhaps if I'd spoken up earlier, you and Samantha would have been spared your ordeal. Perhaps Lucy would still be alive.”
“Sharon killed Lucy out of jealousy. She was after Sam for the same reason. She didn't want another woman getting close to Bryce.”
“Still, if Bryce's activities had been revealed sooner, she might never have had the opportunity.”
“There's no way of knowing that.”
“No, and that's something that will haunt me the rest of my life.” He took his eyes off the road long enough to give her his most sincere look of apology. “I'm so sorry, luv.”
“This is what you and Kevin were fighting about, isn't it?” Mari said.
He sighed as he let off the gas to negotiate a curve. “Yes. He wanted me to go to the sheriff. I refused. He accused me of condoning what Bryce was doing. In a way, I suppose I was. But I was also trying to keep my friends from getting hurt. Hear no evil, see no evil, and all that.”
“Will you work it out?”
“I don't know,” he said softly, staring out at the road, then he shot another glance across the cab at her. “Will you and I?”
Mari said nothing for a moment, thinking about the value of friendship and forgiveness. She had nearly lost her life, but Drew's intent had been to save her.
“Let's not be sorry,” she said quietly as they started up the switchbacks. “Let's just start over. That's what I came here for.”
Drew carried her bags in for her, then headed back to town. Mari didn't invite him to stay. After two weeks of media madness, she wanted some time alone. Time apart from Drew to let the raw feelings fade seemed a good idea as well. They could start over with their friendship in a few days, start fresh.
The house was exactly as she had left it—half restored, half disaster area. Mari walked through, making a mental list of the things she would do in the coming weeks, of the things she would change to make the house her own. Everything that had been Lucy's would go. She couldn't bear to look at a chair or a painting and wonder whose secrets had been used to buy it. She would scavenge through antique shops and flea markets for things of her own. The expensive artwork would go. She would replace it with local folk art. She had already made arrangements for a plumber and a carpenter to come out and repair the damages made by Bryce's people during the search that had passed for vandalism. The cars would be sold and the proceeds, along with the cash Lucy had left behind, would go to pay the inheritance taxes.
When all was said and done, she would have an empty house and an empty bank account, but her new life would not be tainted by the old.
In the great room her eyes landed on the Mr. Peanut tin on the mantel above the fireplace. The peanut regarded her with a cynical, knowing look, as if it had foreseen everything that had happened and was amused with her response to the challenges. With a heavy heart she took it down and packed it in a box.
“You're outta here, Luce,” she whispered, blinking back tears.
With Spike scouting the way ahead of her, she walked out to the barn with the box tucked under her bad arm and checked on Clyde. The mule was unimpressed by her return and went on eating grass. The gash in his side was healing nicely. The vet had told her he would be ready to ride before she would be ready to ride him.
Spade in hand, she wandered out into the llama pasture. The llamas had all gone down to the other side of the creek to graze and to lie in the shade of the cotton-wood trees. Spike caught sight of them and sent up an alarm that caused the whole herd to raise their heads. He charged toward them, ready to do battle. Mari called him back and explained to him that the llamas were cool and he didn't need to worry about them. The little dog cocked his head and listened to her with perked ears. When the lecture was over, he picked a shady spot and curled up to watch her dig a grave for Mr. Peanut.
The task was awkward and time-consuming because of her temporary handicap, but Mari dug steadily, pushing the spade into the ground with her foot and levering it up with her good arm. The spot she had chosen was far away from the house, on a little knoll of land that overlooked the creek and was shaded by a clump of young aspen trees. An exile of sorts, but a peaceful one.
She buried the box with the peanut tin inside and transplanted wild bitterroot on the grave. When the task was finished, she stood back, leaning on the spade, and stared down at the vibrant pink flowers. Bright, pretty, tough with bitter roots. Like Lucy.
The flood of feelings that came with thoughts of her friend were a muddy mix of loss and hurt and disappointment and gratitude. She longed to grab her guitar and try to pick through the tangle with the divining rod of her music. But she couldn't play with one hand, and so she packed the feelings away in her heart to be sorted through another day when time may have given her the gift of perspective.
Turning back toward the house, she looked up the mountain and wondered if time had given J.D. any perspective.
She missed him. Damned ornery cowboy. She missed his toughness and the tenderness beneath it. She missed his hard opinions and the vulnerability behind them. She missed his arrogance and the rare glimpses of humor that tempered it. She missed his touch. She missed his kiss.
“So what are you gonna do about it, Marilee?” she asked out loud.
In her past life she would have done nothing but make excuses. They were wrong for each other. It wasn't meant to be. Just this morning she had tried to tell herself it was best to do nothing. To accept. To settle.
The hell it was.
“Come on, Spike,” she said, starting ba
ck toward the ranch buildings. “We need a plan.”
J.D. slapped his catch rope against the leg of his chaps and shooed the two calves that had wandered back toward their mamas. The youngsters darted to the herd with their skinny tails lifted high. His horse fell out of the canter and dropped to a walk.
He had come up the mountain with the herd three days after the “Incident at Bald Knob,” as the newspapers had labeled it, and stayed on. He needed to spend some time with Del, to decide what to do about him. Beyond that, he needed some time to decide what to do about himself. A lot of things had turned around on him and shifted beneath him in the past few weeks—perspectives, philosophies, long-held beliefs. He needed some time to let it all settle into place.
He needed this—long days in the saddle, trailing after cows and calves, days on the mountainside and in the lush meadows with nothing but time to think and reflect. It was a luxury he seldom afforded himself, too busy with running the ranch and protecting the ranch and fighting off the outsiders. But he wasn't the only one fighting and he wasn't the only one capable of doing the work and it wasn't his sole responsibility. It was Rafferty land and Will was a Rafferty too.
J.D. had left him in charge. The irrigation had to be seen to and plans made for cutting the hay crop. Will's first concern was to see to Samantha's recuperation, but he had accepted the jobs without complaint. By Tucker's accounts, Will was applying himself with a seriousness heretofore unknown to him; Samantha was healing; the two appeared to be very much in love.
Good news. Something they had been short on for a long time. So why did that last part leave him feeling empty?
J.D. turned his thoughts away from the question and turned his horse toward the southeast. The day was waning. It was Friday, seventeen days since he had seen Mary Lee. Again he ducked the issue and focused on the prospect of lasagna for supper. Tucker brought supplies and lasagna on Friday.
He met Del at the edge of the basin and they rode up toward Bald Knob in silence. Del stared down at his saddle horn as they rode past the knob, the muscles in the shattered side of his face twitching with tension.
