Her hands trembled as she steered her new Hyundai onto the ranch’s drive. A freshly painted sign proclaimed entrance to Twin Rivers Ranch. The track twisted and curved toward the western wall of mountains. After a seemingly endless drive, she pulled up in front of a large two-story building she assumed was the main lodge. Nestled in a stand of trees at the base of a box canyon, it presented an idyllic picture.
Her heart skipped a few beats and then restarted at an alarmingly fast pace. She hadn’t reacted well the first time she saw Jake. How would she handle it this time? Her eyes roamed the property looking for her son. How would she explain her abrupt appearance to Johanna? What if Pierce asked questions?
One fear after another bounced off her rattled brain. She shoved them all aside. Nothing mattered except seeing Jake one more time. Her desperate heart craved it like an undiagnosed diabetic craves sugar.
She entered the building by the main door and stood in the darkened front room trying to adjust to the dim interior. Someone inhaled sharply. She turned to see Johanna on the stairway at the back of the large front lobby. A chandelier decorated with deer antlers shed soft light over Johanna’s shocked countenance. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, I…I wanted to…I’m not sure.” She bit her lower lip.
Johanna looked as frightened as she felt. “You’ve come for the boy, haven’t you?”
Where had that come from? She hadn’t given Johanna any hint she planned to take Jake. There was no way Jake could come with her. He was safer with Johanna.
Just as she began to answer, Pierce entered the room. He stopped when their eyes met. She didn’t like the way he seemed to sum her up with one swift examination. He broke the uneasy silence. “Maybe you’d better come into my office.” Johanna turned without a word and walked toward an open doorway. Pierce motioned her to follow. She hesitated, uncertain whether to comply. She didn’t like his brusque manner. His craggy face split into a smile. “It’s all right, Miss Chandler. I don’t bite.”
Once Johanna and Peyton were seated in his office, he reminded them who was in charge. “If you want my help, you’ve got it, but you’ve got to tell me the truth.” She stared at Johanna in alarm. The other woman studied her chipped fingernails. Neither of them spoke. Pierce sat on the edge of his desk. “You do need help, don’t you?” Johanna nodded her head and Peyton gulped back a denial. “All right. First of all, Jake isn’t Johanna’s son or her sister’s, is he?”
Her eyes filled with tears. Once more, her son’s life was in the hands of a stranger. Johanna nodded her head again. She glared at the woman, but Johanna kept her head down. “No, he’s not. He’s my son,” Peyton declared through trembling lips.
“I don’t need details. That’s none of my business. I’m sure you have your reasons for your…arrangement with Johanna. I have only one other question and then we’ll discuss what we can do to protect the boy.”
She bristled at his attitude, but held her real reply in check. “What’s your question?”
“Is Jeff Corbin the boy’s father?”
Johanna’s head snapped up. Her eyes blazed with unmistakable heat. No doubt the two of them had been discussing Jake’s parentage.
“Absolutely not.” Why would he ask such a ridiculous question? But then…her stepson Jeff resembled his cousin Cory Powell, the boy’s biological father. It was a reasonable assumption…under the circumstances. Johanna had obviously told him very little. Appreciation for the woman swelled in her heart.
“Then I don’t need to know whose son he is. How can I help you?”
She wasn’t yet ready to trust this man. Maybe he was ready to trust her, but she didn’t trust anybody. Trusting Johanna had been a stretch. “I don’t think Jeff has left Colorado. He could never leave anything alone. Jeff hates me and probably would hate Jake…if he knew Jake was my child. I think my son is in danger, and I think…I think Johanna and Jake should leave.”
The first hint of suppressed emotion crossed the man’s face. “Do you think he knows the boy is your son?” He appeared to hold his breath. What was this? Could their departure affect the man so much?
“I have no way of knowing for sure, but Johanna seems to be pretty certain he does.”
“I will do everything in my power to protect him.” He glanced at Johanna. “Just…please don’t ask Johanna to leave and please don’t take Jake away from her. That boy is her life…and she’s mine.” Johanna appeared startled by his revelation.
Her heart broke. After so many years, Jake had a family—a family she knew she could never be a part of. As much as it pained her, she knew Jake would be happier with Johanna and safer with Pierce.
Pierce leaned forward. Sincerity covered his weathered face. His dark eyes stared into her soul. “I’ll protect the boy with my life.”
“Pierce—” Johanna tried to interject, but he held up one hand to silence her.
Peyton gazed into the man’s dark eyes and made her decision, hoping with all her heart she wouldn’t regret it. If Johanna stayed in Colorado with Jake, then she would leave. She stood on unsteady legs and exchanged a knowing look first with Johanna and then with Pierce. “I think I should go. It appears you two have some things you need to discuss.” She headed for the door and then stopped short. “Uh…do you think I could see him?”
Johanna left the room and fifteen uneasy minutes later returned with Jake. Her eyes locked with her son’s. His uncertainty tore her heart to shreds. She moved to him, her hand extended to touch his face. He stepped back from her, fear clouding his adolescent features, and stood next to Johanna. His strong jaw set into a firm line, much like she’d seen her father’s jaw set. Johanna slipped an arm around Jake’s shoulders and squeezed. The tension in his jaw relaxed. Together Jake and Johanna faced her. She twirled on her heel, raced out the front door, and down the steps toward her car.
As she headed onto the highway, back toward Durango and the rest of her misbegotten life, her broken heart struggled to accept what she left behind. Her son was where he belonged and she would never be able to bring her baby boy home with her.
****
As summer turned to autumn, Peyton still hadn’t left town. The pain in her heart had subsided to a dull ache. She wasn’t sure what kept her rooted in Durango against her better judgment, but every time she dragged her suitcase out to pack, something stalled her. She held her breath every time the phone rang, braced for the inevitable every time someone knocked on her door. So far, her past didn’t arrive on her doorstep.
A crisp breeze blew through the open window of her vehicle, refreshing her after the stuffiness of the emergency room. Once more her mind had wandered at work. What she left behind consumed her. Her job suffered. The other nurses whispered behind her back.
A strong gust of wind tangled her hair around her face, and she pushed red strands out of her wet eyes. She turned into her driveway, anticipating the evening ahead, making a mental list of things she had to do. Emily and Conner were having a party. She suspected they planned to announce their much-anticipated engagement. She was glad the two of them seemed happy together, but no joy bubbled in her spirit. Tonight she would have to put on her happy face. The routine was getting old.
She crossed into the kitchen. The red light blinked on her answering machine. She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and hit the play button on the detestable thing. The first message was obviously a wrong number. The second was from Emily asking her to come early to the party. The third snatched her breath from her lungs.
The unmistakable voice of her stepson stabbed the quiet house with malice. She had a hard time thinking of Jeff Osborne as her stepson. At least, she thought he was still her stepson. As far as she knew, she was still married to Mason. Jeff had never been a son to her in the least. How could he when he was at least five years older? And when he had treated her like a… She cut the thought off and collapsed into a dining chair.
After taking a moment to steady her nerves, she replayed the m
essage. “Hello, Paula…I mean Peyton. I know where you are and I know where the boy is.” The phone call ended and left the irritating buzz that attaches itself to the end of a message not cut off soon enough.
She placed a shaky hand on the table next to her and the other on her chest. After a month of silence, she had begun to breathe easier, believing Jeff had moved on. How foolish she had been!
As she put her head in her red, chapped hands and cried, someone knocked on her front door. She grabbed a tissue and dabbed her eyes. Then she halted halfway to the door. Jeff might be on the other side. Was she going to spend the rest of her life paranoid? She peeked out the curtain and sucked in a shuddery breath. Brian stood on her doorstep. She wanted to pretend she didn’t hear the knock, but he glanced toward her just as she peered out the window. Concern spread across his features. “Are you going to just stare at me, or are you going to let me in? If this isn’t a good time, just say so.” Why was he so…cranky?
She eased the door open and stepped back to let him in.
“What’s wrong?”
She walked the few paces to the far side of her living room. “I’m not up to talking about it right now.” She motioned him toward the sofa.
He lowered his six-foot frame with a grunt. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I really need someone to talk to.” His eyes pleaded with her. She couldn’t resist those awesome, amber eyes. Now wasn’t a good time, but maybe if she concentrated on his problem, she could get her mind off her own.
“Okay, I’m listening.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. Emily’s party was only an hour away, and she wasn’t dressed yet.
He blew out his breath. “I had a really awful argument with Chris.”
She could hardly contain her irritation. “I’m not sure I want to know about that.” She shook her head for emphasis. He ruffled his hair in agitation and she regretted her quick response. “I’m sorry. You want to tell me about it?”
“She irritates me like nobody else I’ve ever met.”
She wasn’t about to comment on that revelation. She had her own opinion of Chris Smith. “What was the argument about?”
“I wanted her to go to the party with me, but she not only turned me down, she was hot about it. Like I had insulted her or something.” He shifted a sofa cushion behind his back. The irritation on his face increased. “She’s still waiting for someone to come out of nowhere and find her.” He yanked the pillow from behind him and tossed it at the other end of the sofa. “I told her whoever he was, he probably wasn’t looking for her anymore. I feel awful. I apologized, but I feel like I didn’t apologize enough.” He finished his confession with an angry scowl.
She fingered the trim on the front curtains. Her emotions ran amok. She had to control them before she responded. He cleared his throat as if demanding her attention. She swallowed her annoyance. “The real problem isn’t her lack of interest in adjusting to her new life. The problem is yours. You want to be her knight in shining armor, but she isn’t cooperating with you.” She drew in a steadying breath and faced him. “She has a past that she might be suppressing, but she’s clearly unwilling to give it up. There must be something…or someone…she still wants to hold on to regardless of the amount of pain she’s endured.” She understood the strange dichotomy of a difficult past. There were things you wanted to remember, there were things you wished you could forget. “You’re jealous of someone you don’t know and haven’t even met.”
“I’m jealous? Jealous of someone from her past? That’s ridiculous.” His angry protest sputtered all over the living room.
She flinched at his vehemence and lowered her head. Something rubbed against her memory. She had never gotten past the feeling she had seen Chris somewhere before, maybe in her past life in Texas. But she couldn’t explore this possibility with Brian. How could she? She couldn’t bring herself to tell him about her past.
“Are you okay?”
She struggled with indecision. Should she tell him she couldn’t concentrate on his problems because her own consumed her every waking thought? “I’ll be all right.” She dared to lift her face. He gazed at her for a long, penetrating moment. She had to change the subject…now. “You look tired.”
“I have a lot going on right now.”
“You mean besides Chris—”
“I’m still trying to figure out who stole my stock.” He rubbed his finger up and down the cording on her sofa arm.
“Your stock was stolen? I didn’t know that. When did that happen?”
“August.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
“Any idea who did it?”
“No. Absolutely no idea.” He leaned forward, pulled a silver chain out of his pocket, and passed it to her. “I found it on the ground near the place where they moved the cattle. It’s not mine.”
She examined it closely. It looked familiar. Its polished silver caught the light and shimmered. Why was the man carrying evidence in his pocket? “It’s not mine either,” she said with a slight smile.
“I didn’t think it was.” The first hint of amusement tinged the tension between them.
Her shoulders relaxed. “It looks familiar, but I can’t quite remember where I’ve seen it. It’s an unusual piece of jewelry. It looks like a man’s bracelet.”
“I think I’ve seen it before, but the memory isn’t coming back to me.” He scratched his neck below his left ear. His hair had gotten a little longer than he usually wore it. “Then there’s this other thing.” He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his shirt pocket. “What do you think that’s about?”
Her pulse jumped as she read the brief message. There’s an impostor in town. A Concerned Citizen. She knew the handwriting. She had seen it recently. She hoped her face revealed none of the suppressed anxiety the note created within her. “I don’t know,” she replied as lightly as she could manage.
“It looks like a left-handed male wrote it.”
Jeff was left-handed. “How can you tell?” She handed the paper back to him. He didn’t appear to notice her inner turmoil. That was good. She was clearly the impostor Jeff Osborne referred to.
****
Shelly leaned her elbows on the kitchen table. “I wonder where he got that much money,” she repeated for the umpteenth time and worried her lower lip.
Peyton poured water into the powdered formula, shook the bottle, and set it aside with the others. “He didn’t say.” Several days had passed since Shelly’s ex-boyfriend Curt knocked on her front door and handed Peyton a fat envelope filled with money for Shelly and the baby. Shelly had already dissected Curt’s strange behavior a dozen times. Peyton pulled up another ounce of patience.
The conversation drifted into nothingness. Jeff and the note about the impostor plagued her subconscious.
Shelly moved to stand next to her. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Good. She could address Shelly’s concerns and move away from her own. “I wasn’t sure I should tell you this, but I think maybe you ought to know.” Brian’s whispered conversation after Emily’s engagement party the other night gave her all sorts of things to consider.
Shelly tensed. “What is it?”
“Curt left town, and Brian is looking for him.”
“What? Why?”
“You know Brian’s cattle were stolen, right?” Shelly nodded. “Well…he found Curt’s bracelet on his property. Brian brought the bracelet over to show me because he thought I might remember who it belonged to—”
“Why would he think you would know?”
“Because I’ve been out to his place—”
Shelly’s face lit with enthusiasm. “Oh, really?”
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You and Brian…” Shelly smiled large.
“Oh, please!” She shook her head. “That’s beside the point…Brian left it on the table in my living room, and I noticed it missing right after Curt left here in a real big hurry.” It didn’t take
much imagination to figure out the bracelet belonged to him. “Curt left the door wide open. Then I remembered…Curt was wearing it the night Brian brought him into the emergency room.”
“Curt was in the hospital?”
“He was in a fight.”
“Was he hurt bad?” Shelly’s anxious question betrayed her continued concern for her ex-boyfriend. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. I’m over him. I hope one day I can find a man as good as Brian. You’re very lucky.”
“Brian and I aren’t…I’m not…he isn’t…” She fell onto the nearest chair with a thud. “Brian and I aren’t involved like that.”
“Oh?” Shelly didn’t look convinced.
The phone rang. She was glad for the distraction, but once she heard the caller’s voice, her heart sank to her knees. She left Shelly and took the call in the bedroom.
“What do you want?”
“Aw, c’mon, Peyton…I mean Paula…I haven’t seen you in such a long time. Don’t you want to catch up for old time’s sake?”
“Stop leaving those stupid messages on my answering machine.”
“You turned your machine off, didn’t you?” She had done more than that. She had ripped the insidious monster from the wall plug. He laughed. “Meet me—”
“No.”
“I think you should.”
“We have nothing to talk about.”
“I sent the sheriff a little note telling him there was an impostor in town. I could explain to him what I mean.” He cackled like a magpie.
Of course, she knew about the note. “Leave me alone.”
“Make it worth my while.” His antagonism toward her punctuated his demand. “Cliff Palace. Mesa Verde. Take the two o’clock tour.” The call ended abruptly.
She shuddered. Jeff had a perverse streak wider than the state of Texas. Her mind stalled. The irrelevant took precedence. She stared at the ragged bedroom throw rug next to her bed. Its threadbare stickiness felt like glue on the soles of her feet. All she could think about was purchasing a new rug.
An Impostor in Town (Colorado Series) Page 4
