They stayed like that for a few minutes longer, but when Tor began to restlessly stamp his feet, Cal used the excuse to lift her from his lap and stood. “I’ve got to take care of this horse,” he told her.
“And I’d better go check on dinner.” Lyn didn’t look him in the eye as she swiftly walked out of the barn, but in the doorway she paused and looked back. “Thank you.”
Her slim body was silhouetted in the light streaming in the open door and he wondered if she had any idea how appealing she was, with her quirky curls cascading over her shoulders and the rise of her breasts defined clearly. He felt his pulse double and his mouth grew dry. Before he could answer, she turned away and he was treated to the sway of her hips as she made her way to the house.
Damn if she wasn’t going to drive him crazy.
A dark, purpling mountain of thunderheads piled up over the Black Hills several days later. They could see smoke from several major fires on the Montana prairie, and he watched the news with a grim expression as the newscasters detailed the destruction.
They’d butchered a crippled heifer two days earlier and Lyn had started canning. He wandered into the kitchen and watched her methodically cutting meat into small cubes and filling canning jars, then setting them on one side of the sink to wait for their turn to cook.
“Is there anything I can do?” he asked, feeling guilty. She’d worked all day and she was still going strong while he’d been lounging in front of the television.
She shrugged her shoulders, never breaking her rhythm. “Not really. In a few minutes you could get those jars off the stove and set new ones in the water.”
He nodded, watching the way the muscles in her slender arms flexed as she wielded the knife. “I never knew how to do this before. Did you learn this from your mother?”
Her hands stilled on the knife. Slowly, she raised her head and looked at him, and there was an unreadable expression on her face. “My mother died when I was five. I learned to cook and can and clean from my aunt and the neighbors who were kind enough to let me hang around their kitchens.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “My mother isn’t dead but I was raised by my father, too.”
“I know. Silver mentioned it.” She resumed her methodical cubing. “You could take those jars out now.”
Cal rose and did as she asked. The clock on the wall caught his eye, and a memory made him grin. “Guess what we were doing this time last Friday night?” he asked her.
She thought for a moment and then the light dawned. A slow smile spread across her face, lighting up her small features until she glowed. “Watching Marty’s marriage candidate get pie-eyed.” She started to laugh, shaking her head ruefully, then added tactfully, “She was beautiful, wasn’t she?”
“I don’t remember.”
When she glanced at him with startled eyes, he chuckled. “That’s the diplomatic response any man who values his life would make.”
She shook the knife at him. “You can’t fool me, Cal McCall. If you don’t remember what she looked like, it’s because you were too busy staring at her other main attributes.”
“What attributes?” he asked innocently. “The woman was utterly forgettable. I don’t remember a thing.”
“Don’t you mean ‘udderly’?”
He laughed aloud. Then he sobered as he remembered the phone call that had come just before dinner. “The lawyer called today while you were out watering those bushes you planted.”
Her head shot up again. “What did he say?”
Cal sighed. “The sheriff’s department wants to talk to you. He believes it would be in your best interest to go in and talk with them before they issue a subpoena.”
“But I can’t tell them anything!” Her voice rose in agitation; she set down the knife and wiped her hands on a nearby towel. “They won’t believe me when I say I don’t remember.”
“Yes, they will.” He couldn’t stand the frightened look that froze her features; he came around the kitchen island to her side and put an arm around her shoulders. “If necessary, we’ll get a psychologist to say that you have a memory loss regarding those last weeks in Rapid City. And the medical report of your injuries the day Silver found you will support that.” He hesitated, then led her to a chair at the table and pulled her down beside him. “I know you can’t remember much, but tell me what you do remember.”
She shrugged helplessly. “My old boss, a veterinarian in Rapid City, offered me my job back after my divorce. I was living over in Sioux Falls but I didn’t like it and I wanted to come home, so I took him up on it.” Her hands clenched on the towel. “After I came back to town, my ex-husband came around again and wanted money. I called the police and got a restraining order…and that’s all I remember until I woke up in the hospital.”
Damn. He could see how this could be a real ugly mess. She very well could have killed the guy, although he knew if she had it had been self-defense, and he wasn’t going to stand by and watch her be prosecuted for it. He put a hand over her fingers where they twisted the dish towel repeatedly. “Stop worrying. I told you I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
She stopped twisting the towel and slowly looked up at him. “Why are you being so nice to me?” she whispered.
He tried to ignore the full, pink lips that begged him to lower his head and kiss her. “Because I’ve gotten used to having a great housekeeper and I don’t intend to deprive myself,” he said, squeezing her hand lightly before forcing himself to rise and walk away. “I’m going on up to bed now. See you in the morning.”
Three
“Cal? Are you in here?” At the sound of Lyn’s voice, Cal looked up from the worn bridle he was repairing three days later. Another thing to put on the list of equipment to be replaced. He’d known the ranch would require a hefty cash infusion to restore it to what it had been during his father’s lifetime, but it was looking more and more like a bottomless money pit. Good thing his pockets were deep, thanks to his skill at working the market to advantage.
“Cal?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“The phone’s for you.”
Setting the bridle aside, Cal rose and walked toward the extension phone on the wall of the barn. “Who is it?” he asked Lyn.
She shook her head. “Sorry. I didn’t ask.”
“Thanks.” He reached for the handset, his gaze on Lyn’s smooth gait as she turned and walked toward the barn door. “McCall.”
“Mr. McCall. It’s Pat Haney.”
Damn. The lawyer he’d engaged calling again so soon probably didn’t mean anything good. “What’s up, Pat?”
“The Pennington Sheriff’s Department definitely wants to talk to Ms. Hamill. She needs to come to the office today at two o’clock. I’ll be going with her.”
“So will I,” said Cal in a grim tone. “I gather this is her only opportunity to come in on her own?”
“Yeah.” The attorney sighed. “Apparently they don’t have a hope of another lead. Has she remembered anything?”
“No.” In the days since they’d discussed the murder, he hadn’t brought the subject up because he’d seen how it upset Lyn. “I doubt she ever will,” he said somberly. “She had some pretty ugly injuries when Silver found her. The doctors say she may never regain any memories from the time immediately preceding her beating.”
Haney sighed again. “Damn. I’m not sure they have enough to charge her on, but I have to be frank with you, they’re surely looking hard at her. This could be tricky.”
“What do they have?”
“Next to nothing, other than the coroner’s estimated time of death, which places it fairly close to Ms. Hamill’s hospitalization. And that’s the problem. There’s no indication that anyone else was involved. This looks like a domestic dispute that turned nasty.”
“Lyn wouldn’t kill anyone. If she did it, it was accidental. Did you get the copies of the hospital records? You can see what was done to her. Maybe she struck back in self-defense
and got lucky.”
“The man was shot between the eyes and stuffed in a closet.”
“She didn’t kill him on purpose,” Cal repeated, his voice firming. “If you don’t believe that, then I’ll have to look for someone else to represent her.”
“You might have to, anyway, if they charge her with murder. I’d want someone better versed in defense to step in if that happens.” The attorney paused. “I believe you. And I know you believe her. I just hope you’re right.”
As he hung up the phone and stepped out of the barn, the words rang in Cal’s head. I just hope you’re right. He was. He knew Lyn hadn’t murdered anybody as surely as he knew he himself hadn’t. Maybe, as he’d said, she’d tried to defend herself and accidentally killed her former husband…but that didn’t explain how he’d come to be hidden in a basement. There had to be someone else in the picture.
Three hours later, he sat beside her as two detectives from Rapid City questioned her about her ex-husband. Pat Haney sat on her other side, interrupting occasionally when he felt the detectives’ questions stepped over boundaries better established early on.
“Tell us about your relationship with Wayne Galloway,” demanded the younger man. His name tag read Det. Amick. Detective Amick had a face like a bulldog and the disposition of a rabid wolf. His hard brown eyes doubted every word Lyn uttered.
Lyn’s hand fluttered. “He was my husband. We divorced eighteen months ago.”
“Your marriage wasn’t a good one, was it?”
“No.” She was so pale Cal was worried that she might faint, and her voice was barely audible.
“You filed a restraining order last March. Why?”
Her hands were linked in her lap, clutching each other so tightly her fingertips went white. “Wayne started harassing me after I came back to the area. He came to my apartment several times asking for money. I told him I was barely making it as it was and he got angry. Abusive, like he’d been when we were married. So I called the police and he was warned to stay away.” She raised haunted eyes to the men across the table. “Judging from my condition when I woke up in the hospital, I don’t guess he did.”
“What happened that day, Ms. Hamill?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t remember.” Amick uttered the words in a sarcastic tone.
Cal put a hand over Lyn’s where they were still clutching each other in her lap. “If she remembered who beat her, she’d want to tell you, wouldn’t she? Why would she hide that?”
“That’s what we’d like to know,” said the older man in a placatory tone. Biddle was the one they’d met at the ranch, and though he wasn’t exactly friendly, his partner’s attitude made him seem positively cuddly. He sounded like a television cop playing the good-guy role, hoping the poor, off balance subject would confide in him.
“How long have you known Mr. McCall?” Detective Amick’s voice was so brusque Lyn’s head came up and a deep red suffused her neck, quickly spreading up her cheeks clear to her hairline. “I— I, ah…”
“My sister found her after she’d been beaten damn near senseless,” Cal said. “I needed a housekeeper and my sister talked me into giving Lyn the job.” He shot a warning look across the table. “We met in July when I visited her at the women’s shelter. She’s been an exemplary employee and I don’t appreciate your insinuations.”
“Ms. Hamill is cooperating fully with your investigation,” Lyn’s attorney reminded the men. “Do you have further questions?”
The detectives looked at each other. The look said that they were convinced Lyn had killed her ex-husband, but equally clearly, they had no proof. “Not at this time,” Amick said grudgingly. “But we might need to talk to you again so don’t go anywhere.”
Cal leaned across the table, watching both men steadily. Although neither detective moved, the tension level in the room rose a notch. “Are you telling Ms. Hamill she is forbidden to travel? On what authority? Can she leave Rapid City? How about Jackson County? Or does she have to stay inside the state borders—”
“We’re not restricting her movements,” said the older detective quickly. He addressed Lyn again. “We’d just appreciate it if you’d be available should we want to ask other questions.”
“Thank you.” Pat Haney didn’t give either man a chance to comment further. “If you’re finished with Ms. Hamill, we’ll go.”
Outside the building, the air was mild and the sun was shining. It was a pleasant day for early October, when the temperature could be anywhere from twenty to sixty. Lyn was shaking visibly as they stood on the street corner waiting for the traffic to pass. Pat had left them to head over to the courthouse and Cal put an arm beneath her elbow as they waited.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “They can’t prove you killed him.”
She pulled away from his hand. “I didn’t kill him. I just can’t believe I would forget that if I’d done it.”
“All right.” He kept his tone low and soothing. No sense in getting her stirred up about it. “Stop worrying. We’ll get it straightened out eventually.”
“That was awful.” Her voice trembled. “I wish I could remember what happened. I’d like to be able to look those men in the eye and tell them I didn’t have anything to do with Wayne’s death.” She shivered even more.
He passed his arm around her waist and tucked her into his side as the light signaled them to cross, matching his longer stride to hers. “Maybe you’ll remember what happened one of these days.”
“Maybe.” Her voice was doubtful. She heaved an immense sigh. “Let’s get out of here. I just want to be home.”
And so did he. He liked the way the word sounded rolling off her tongue. The easy rhythm of his days on the ranch had come to be defined by Lyn’s presence. By the meals she made, the way his clothes smelled after she’d laundered them, by the silence that lay comfortably between them at night as she crocheted while they watched the evening news.
It occurred to him that without her, his home would be just another house, a place for his physical needs. With Lyn around, it was a place to soothe his soul. He’d come to depend on her presence. Not, he assured himself, in a romantic way, but as a part of his life that would leave a void if she weren’t there.
Oh, he wasn’t above lust. He was definitely interested in the feminine shape that was revealed occasionally beneath her work clothes, and there were times when he was sorely tempted to pursue the attraction that tugged at his senses.
But he wasn’t about to pursue anything more than the employer-employee friendship that they currently shared. Lyn was too valuable to him as a friend and employee for him to go screwing it up with sex.
Someone was chasing her. She’d been hiding and he’d found her! She screamed as she ran frantically through a maze of rooms, each leading into another but none leading to an exit from the menace behind her. She could hear him breathing as he approached, and she knew, with a fatalistic kind of acceptance, that she couldn’t run fast enough to escape—
Lyn started upright, the sound of her own whimpering still echoing in the night calm. A trickle of sweat rolled from her temple down her cheek and she absently dabbed at it with the sheet before throwing back the cover and rising. She paced the length of the room several times, collecting herself. After downing most of a cup of water, she marched to the bed and climbed in, pulling the sheet over her and staring at the darkened ceiling.
You just had a bad dream. Relax. Go back to sleep. But she couldn’t shake the dream memory of the sick feeling of discovery.
Forty minutes and a lot of clock-watching later, she was still staring at the darned ceiling.
She couldn’t get back to sleep because she simply couldn’t close her eyes and turn off her brain. Had the detectives believed her this afternoon? She doubted it. Were they going to arrest her? Who had killed Wayne? A thousand things were parading around in her head.
To distract herself from the worries gnawing at her, she let herself think about Cal. Hi
s arm around her today had been a sweet moment. Though she was sure he’d only intended it to be a comforting gesture, her stomach had contracted sharply when his long muscular legs had brushed hers and she’d taken a deep breath around the butterflies that invaded her chest when his big hand settled at her waist.
Thinking of Cal led to another thought, the most dangerous one of all, a thought that had nothing to do with her worries for her own liberty. Instead, a very different memory insistently called for her attention.
I just need to get laid. And I’d prefer to do it with somebody I like and enjoy spending time with.
She’d come downstairs for a glass of water that night just in time to hear Cal’s deep voice growling out his frustration. Electrified, she’d stood frozen to the floor for a moment, but when the sound of his voice grew louder as he looked toward the door, she’d turned and fled back to her bedroom.
But his rough voice had lingered in her memory ever since.
He’d held her against him a few days ago when she’d been so upset and he’d comforted her—and part of her had wanted to press her lips to his, forgetting about anything besides the hot, thrilling touch of his hands and mouth. And that was when the daring idea had come to her.
Could she offer herself to him?
He’d said he needed…a woman. She was a woman.
He’d done so much—given her a place to live, food, the very clothing she wore…but even more important, he’d given her back her self-esteem. If he needed a woman, couldn’t she be that woman?
And if she was a woman who wanted him so badly her knees shook when he walked into the kitchen at the end of the day, he’d never have to know. But she wasn’t just a woman who wanted him. It wasn’t hard to admit it to herself. She loved Cal McCall like she had never loved anyone in her entire life.
She sat upright on the side of the double bed in the room Cal had given her and reached for the water on the table beside the bed. Taking a deep swallow, she considered her courage. Could she do it?
Sex with Wayne had been uninspiring, occasionally painful and always mercifully short. She’d taken steps early in the marriage to prevent a pregnancy when she’d realized what Wayne was like, but she’d stayed with him, like a stupid cow, for three years. Years during which the sex had gotten worse and worse, degenerating into nothing more than another way for Wayne to break her spirit and force her submission. She’d come to loathe it, and with the loathing had come a slow but growing need to fight for herself, both physically and mentally. Her efforts had been futile until she’d woken up one morning with two black eyes and a broken rib and realized she might not live to see thirty if she didn’t get away from him.
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