by B. J Daniels
This time, no matter who came out of that trailer, she planned to be ready. She wasn’t going to have Clay say she’d helped the culprit get away. Not again.
He’d reached the side door to the trailer. She watched him grasp the door handle. So sure of himself, so confident that this time he’d catch Raymond. And catch her as well.
She edged back when he wasn’t looking, slinking into the darkness behind the trailer, then working her way around to the other side.
Her horse trailer was old with a stall in the back and an antiquated camper of sorts in the front. It had been her father’s when he used to show horses. He’d replaced it with newer, fancier ones as his sons took to the road to show the O’Malley Ranch horses. He’d given his old one to her.
It was supposed to be some sort of punishment because she was often at odds with him over any number of things including his methods of horse training. But she loved the old trailer. To her it was a status symbol. She hadn’t sold out. She’d held fast, and if an old horse trailer was the price, then it was well worth it.
The only exit other than the locked horse stall door at the back was the door Clay was guarding, but she knew that a person could get out one of the side windows. She also knew she’d left it open to air out the old camper.
From the other side of the trailer came the sound of the door creaking open, followed instantly by hurried movement. Then a cry of surprise, trailed by a loud oath.
She had the pipe raised and ready when the intruder came flying through the torn window screen. She swung on pure instinct, but fortunately missed as a large raccoon took off across the pasture.
A laugh escaped as she dropped the pipe, relieved tension rushing out of her like air from a busted balloon. But as Clay came around the side of the trailer and she caught the embarrassed expression on his face in the yard light, she burst out laughing.
“Raymond got away again,” she said between hiccups of laughter. “Only this time I think he was wearing a mask.”
“Very funny,” he said, dusting at cobwebs on his jeans. “You’re in trouble and you and I know it. Sooner or later it’s going to come home to roost. Maybe it already has.” He turned and started up the hillside without looking back.
She took a deep breath, the truth of his words stilling the laughter. But she couldn’t help smiling at the memory of the raccoon flying out the window—and the look on Clay’s face.
Her smile faded at the sudden memory of another face. This one staring out of a stand of pines. Watching her and Ivy.
Clay was right. Except her troubles had already come home to roost. When he’d blown into town, bringing with him her past mistakes.
The problem was, she didn’t know yet what to do about it.
Chapter Seven
The breeze made the tall grass ripple like water in the moonlight. She could see Clay’s broad back ahead of her. His strides long. Angry. His head down, thoughtful.
Thoughtful worried her.
She felt a pang of guilt when she remembered him today with Ivy. When she thought about him watching her work with the horses. Surprise went without saying. But almost admiration. As if he were finally seeing her. Why now of all times?
She shook off the memories. Her days of mooning over Clay Jackson were long behind her. No more daydreaming about what could have been. She knew where she stood with him. And things between them could only get worse.
She quickened her step, anxious to get back to the cabin. She never thought of it as home, even after this long. Home was Texas.
As she neared the cabin, she saw that Mildred and Ivy hadn’t returned from the neighbor’s yet. The realization gave her a start until she noticed that it was still early.
But a nugget of fear lodged itself in her stomach. Who else had blown into town along with Raymond and Clay on this ill wind?
Clay had stopped and now stood by the porch, waiting.
“Thanks for walking me home,” she said, breezing past him to mount the steps to the porch. She hoped that was subtle enough. She wanted to be alone. She needed desperately to think, and with Clay so near, he made it impossible.
He said nothing. Nor did he move as she crossed the porch and opened the front door.
As she stepped into the cabin, she started to reach for the light switch and stopped, sensing something different, something wrong.
Clay must have seen her hesitation. He was up on the porch in two strides and at her side, gently drawing her hand away from the light switch.
In a shaft of moonlight that sliced in through the window, she could see that the room had been ransacked. Her only thought was: Thank God Mildred has taken Ivy to the neighbor’s.
“Stay here,” he whispered next to her ear.
He brushed past her, stepping through that wedge of moonlight to disappear into the shadowed darkness of the cabin. Behind her, she could feel the cooler night air coming in through the still-open door.
She saw Clay move, a dark shadow, large and ominous, toward the back of the cabin. But the noise she heard came from upstairs. A rustling sound. Like the one she’d heard the night before in the stables. Her heart leapt into her throat. Raymond?
Clay must have heard it, too. She saw him start up the open stairs at the left of the living room. He moved quietly, cautiously. Although unarmed, he could be as powerful and deadly as a large mountain cat, she recalled, remembering his fight with Odell that day in his stables.
Unable to stand by idly, no matter what he’d said, she slipped across the living room to where she kept a can of pepper spray. Perfect for the stray grizzly she might meet on horseback. Perfect for the stray thief ransacking her cabin.
Quietly, she retraced her steps, going back out the front door into the night, across the porch and down the steps. There were two ways out of the cabin. Through the front door. Or off the second-floor deck. She didn’t think whoever was in the cabin would get past Clay this time to go out the front door. That meant the intruder would go for the deck and the stairs that dropped down into the pines below.
She couldn’t keep hoping it wasn’t Raymond. This wasn’t some random thief here to steal a little horse tack or a few dollars off her bureau.
A cloud cloaked the moon, leaving the sky black as she made her way around the outside of the cabin. The pines stood at the back, the needles even darker than the night. The shadows under them, black as holes and colder.
Josie thought of the face she’d seen looking out of the pine branches across the pasture two evenings ago. Could it have been Raymond? He and Odell did look a little alike. Both dark, both tall, but Raymond was definitely not handsome. Maybe the waning light in the pines had played a trick on her. Or just seeing Raymond reminded her of Odell, since they’d been inseparable—except in death, she thought.
The rich smell of pine permeated the late-spring night behind the cabin. She moved to the bottom of the steep stairs that came straight down from the deck.
Carefully, she positioned herself in the trees opposite the last step, suddenly afraid. From this spot, she would see anyone who came down the stairs.
The thought of seeing Raymond Degas again chilled her more than the cool Montana night air. She clutched the pepper spray and waited.
A thud resonated on the second story. Suddenly, the back door slammed open and footfalls hammered across the weathered deck above her, then thudded loudly as they descended the plank steps. Right toward her.
Finally, she’d know the truth. If this man was Raymond. If what she’d feared most was actually coming true.
Another set of boots hit the deck overhead. Clay? He’d never be able to catch whoever was now almost to the bottom.
She held her breath, the pepper spray clutched in her hands, aimed man-high. The moon broke free of the clouds, dappling the deck stairs with silver, distorting the dark shape coming toward her.
He dropped down the last stairs in a flurry of movement. Half running, half falling, hitting the bottom step and stumbling forward—righ
t to her.
It happened so fast. As he fought to get his feet under him, he looked up as if sensing her there. The moonlight fell over his features. Or what would have been his features. A black ski mask flattened his face, making it unrecognizable, monsterlike. Especially the slice of red pressed against the thin slit for his mouth and two marble-size holes for his eyes.
Her finger twitched on the pepper spray trigger.
In that microsecond, their eyes met. His dark and cold and familiar behind the mask. Her heart leapt to her throat, choking back the cry on her lips. He reached out to catch himself. Reached out toward her.
Something glittered in the moonlight. The ring on his right hand. He grabbed the limb right in front of her, the ring just inches from her face.
She fell back against the tree trunk, banging her head. He caught himself on the branch over her head.
Then he was gone, enveloped by the blackness in the pines. Disappearing as if he’d never been there at all.
Before she could take a breath, Clay clambered down the steps, sliding to a surprised stop at the sight of her.
She said nothing, just stared at him, the pepper spray still in her hands. In the distance, an engine turned over. A vehicle sped off into the night.
He swore as he took the pepper spray from her hands, sniffed the nozzle, then tossed it aside. Grabbing her upper arms, he jerked her from the tree branches.
“You saw him?” He sounded angry and frustrated, his tone accusing. “He must have come right past you, so close you couldn’t have missed. Why didn’t you spray him?”
She looked up at Clay. The moonlight played across his face but couldn’t soften the hard lines of his jaw. Nor lighten two-days’ growth of stubble. He’d lost his hat. His black hair shone, a raven’s wing tumbling over his forehead. She’d never known a more handsome man.
She had the strangest urge to push herself up on tiptoes and kiss him. To lose herself in his kiss. She yearned to be wrapped in his strong arms. To be safe. To be reassured. To be protected.
But the urge lasted only an instant. There’d be no safety in Clay’s arms. No reassurance in his kiss. He hadn’t come to Montana to protect her. He’d come to catch a thief. Or two. There was no doubt he thought she’d been one of them.
She looked into his eyes and shivered at the cold, searching darkness she found there. Why did he mistrust her so? And how much would he hate her when he finally learned the truth?
“You could have stopped him,” Clay said, his words pelting her like hailstones. “You let Raymond get away. Why?”
She looked away, toward the darkness behind the cabin. Toward the darkness of her past. Her mind felt as numb as her body. Every fear she’d ever had—and some she hadn’t even dreamed of—seemed to be coming true.
Clay shook her gently as if to bring her back.
She turned her head to look at him again in the silver web of moonlight that sifted down through the tree limbs.
“It wasn’t Raymond,” she said, her voice hoarse from the tears that now threatened to close her throat.
He let go of her, stepping back, his gaze hard, unforgiving, unbelieving, reminding her of the last time he’d looked at her like that in Texas. “What do you mean it wasn’t Raymond?”
What did she mean? Who had she seen? Her mind refused to let her voice her fear. To say it might make it true.
“He wore a mask,” she whispered. And a ring—one she’d seen before.
He pulled her closer, his fingers still locked around her slim upper arms. “A mask? What kind of mask?”
“A black ski mask.” The moonlight shone on her face, making her appear even paler, her eyes the light-glazed silvery blue of a sleepwalker.
He wanted to shake the truth out of her, but the tremor he felt in her limbs and the lost look in her eyes stopped him. What had she seen tonight that had terrified her so?
More than a masked man coming out of her cabin. He’d stake money on that.
Was it possible that she really didn’t know what was going on? Was that why she was so frightened?
He knew that’s what he wanted to believe. That Josie had nothing to hide.
Unfortunately, not even his weakening resolve to nail her to the wall for the jewel theft could make him believe that.
“If there’s some reason you’re protecting Raymond—”
She seemed to snap out of her trance. Her gaze flew up to his. “The only person I’m protecting is my daughter. Ivy is my only concern.”
He felt a shock run through him as he looked into her face and saw something that chilled him. The incredible intensity of a mother’s love for her child and a desperate need to protect her daughter. Josie would do anything to protect Ivy. Anything. Maybe she already had.
“Look, I didn’t mean—”
“You have no idea what we’ve been through,” she snapped angrily. “What we still have to get through.” Her eyes glistened shiny with anger and tears. “Don’t you think I know my daughter’s in danger? What you don’t seem to realize is that Ivy’s been in danger from the moment she was conceived.”
He stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“Odell.” She looked away. “He threatened to…hurt her if I went through with the pregnancy.”
Clay felt fury burn through him like flames. He wanted to kill Odell and wished he wasn’t dead so he could. He looked over the top of her head to the dark pines, feeling like he might explode. It was a good thing Odell was dead. But his best friend Raymond was still alive.
He barely heard the sound of a vehicle coming up the road to the cabin. Mildred bringing Ivy home?
His gaze dropped to Josie’s face. It shone in the moonlight, raw with fear. He felt his heart break at the thought of her alone and afraid and pregnant.
“You’re right.” He hesitated to let her go, as if he might break his only connection to her, a tenuous connection at best. “I don’t know what you and Ivy have been through. I only wish you’d have come to me when Odell threatened you.” Come to me before that. Beside the creek. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up at him.
He let her go, fighting the conflicting emotions his heart pumped through him. “I have to leave for a while. Can you ask Mildred to stay with you and Ivy until I get back?”
She nodded.
“Are you going to be all right?” he asked.
She squared her shoulders, brushing her knuckles across her cheek at the escaping tears. “Yes.”
He picked up the pepper spray from where he’d tossed it and handed it to her. “I have to go,” he repeated, as if she gave a damn. Actually, she’d probably love it if he left and never came back. No such luck, Josie.
But he had to find Raymond. Had to get to the truth. Now more than ever before. He knew damned well that he’d tailed Raymond from Texas to the Buffalo Jump Ranch—and Josie. Now he just wanted to know why. He wanted to hear Raymond say it.
He’d been wrong about so much. He wanted desperately to be wrong about Josie. But he knew this had to be about the jewels. There wasn’t any other explanation. Too much money was involved. Too many people. If it really hadn’t been Raymond who’d ransacked Josie’s cabin, then someone else was also looking for the jewels. He didn’t like the feeling that he was the only one who didn’t know the score. And Josie O’Malley was right smack in the middle of it all.
“I’ll be back,” he said as he started across the field to where he’d left his pickup.
She didn’t acknowledge that she’d heard him. Not that it mattered. He’d be back, anyway. Hopefully with some answers from Raymond Degas. But he’d be back. One way or the other. Because he wasn’t finished with Josie. Only now he wanted to prove her innocence. If he could.
JOSIE ACTUALLY DID as he’d suggested. She knew she had to do something. She couldn’t just keep hoping he was wrong. Not after what had happened the past two nights.
Just the thought of the masked man who’d come flying off her d
eck chilled her to the bone. Who had he been? She refused to let her mind even speculate—let alone taunt her with the one possibility she couldn’t accept. Not yet.
But she also could no longer pretend this would all blow over. She hugged herself, trying to get warm, as she went to meet Mildred.
“How was Ivy?” she asked, smiling at the sight of her daughter’s tiny sleeping form in the back of the car as Mildred opened her door and the dome light came on.
“A bit tuckered out,” Mildred said. “Me, too. But she has so much fun with Rachel. I didn’t let her eat too much cake or ice cream, though.”
“I’m sure you didn’t.” Josie bit back the tears that threatened. What would she have done without Mildred and Ruth?
“What is it, Josie?” Mildred asked now with concern as Josie got her daughter from the car seat.
“The cabin’s kind of a mess,” she answered as they climbed up to the porch, Josie carrying the sleeping Ivy in her arms. The front door still stood open.
“Oh, my,” Mildred exclaimed when she saw the ransacked interior. “Was it the same person who was in the tack room?”
“Probably,” Josie fibbed, not wanting to upset Mildred more. “I wish I could tell you what’s going on. Clay still thinks someone is looking for missing jewels from a robbery in Texas.” She headed up the stairs with Mildred behind her carrying Ivy’s things.
“What do you think?” Mildred asked as she helped her slip off Ivy’s party clothes and dress the toddler for bed.
“I don’t know why anyone would think the jewels were here.”
She tucked the blanket around Ivy and leaned down to kiss her again, loving the warm, baby-soft feel of her. Ivy smiled in her sleep and let out a tiny sigh. Josie smiled down at her through her tears and made a silent prayer.
“Are you afraid this might have something to do with Ivy’s father?” Mildred asked.
She looked up in surprise. Mildred had no idea how close she’d come to the truth. “Yes.”
“Where is Mr. Jackson?” Mildred asked accusingly.
