Back on Bittercreek Ranch

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Damn. He was stuck with the woman. As if he needed a headache like this in his life right now.

  “I’m sorry to be such a bother,” she whispered again. To his dismay, her chin started to wobble a little and tears welled up in the depths of those blue eyes.

  Mason frowned, horrified that all he seemed to want to do was wrap his arms around this small, fragile creature and pull her against him. Anything to keep those tears away.

  He wasn’t sure where all these protective impulses were coming from but he’d better do his best to get rid of them.

  “I guess she can stay at the ranch for a few days.” His voice came out gruff but he was still rewarded with a pleased nod from Lauren, a measuring look from Daniel and a watery smile from Jane Doe herself.

  At least at the ranch, he could keep an eye on the woman, he thought. He was a highly trained intelligence operative for the United States government. If she was up to something, he would do everything in his power to find out what.

  * * *

  The children were thrilled to have the woman they considered their own personal discovery riding home with them.

  Charlie bounced in his seat and chattered a mile a minute to her in his native language and even Miriam consented to give a few hesitant smiles to their guest.

  Those smiles made his gray mood even darker. It was all he could do to get the little girl to look at him, forget about smiling. This strange woman waltzes in and suddenly she becomes the children’s best friend without even lifting a finger.

  “We were going to catch a fish today but we found you instead,” Charlie said in Tagalog.

  “English,” Mason said, a little more curtly than he intended. His reminder earned him long-suffering looks from Charlie and Miriam and a decidedly annoyed look from his mystery guest.

  “What harm can it do for them to speak their native language?” she asked him quietly.

  Mind your own damn business, he wanted to say. He wasn’t about to get into this with her in front of the children—especially since Miriam, at least, understood a great deal more English than she let on.

  He could smile, too, when the occasion called for it so he pasted a polite one on his face.

  “Despite the fact that Tagalog speakers suddenly seem to be dropping out of the sky today,” he said dryly, “for the most part no one around here will understand them if they don’t learn English. They won’t have friends and they won’t be able to keep up in school. I’ve told them they can speak Tagalog to each other all they want but I want them practicing English with me and with others as much as possible before school starts.”

  She opened her mouth and he saw arguments brewing in her eyes. Don’t do it, he thought.

  He was in no kind of mood for a lecture and the last thing he needed was parenting advice from a stranger who claimed she didn’t even know her own name. He felt inadequate enough about this whole fatherhood gig. He didn’t need her making it worse.

  Instead, she surprised him. “Yes, I can see the wisdom in your approach,” she murmured, her expression thoughtful. “I’m sure they will learn English more quickly and efficiently if it’s spoken to them often. Being a child in a new country where one doesn’t know the language can be quite lonely.”

  “How would you know that? The voice of experience?” Maybe this was a clue to her past, one he should mention to Daniel.

  Her brow furrowed and he could almost see her trying to concentrate. “I don’t know, precisely. Just an impression.”

  Mason seemed content to let the matter drop, to her vast relief. Trying to probe around in her mind only made her head throb with tension. Still, she couldn’t seem to keep from it. Without a past, she had nothing. She was nothing.

  She forced her mind away from those kinds of grim thoughts and turned her gaze out the window, letting Charlie’s aimless, cheerful chatter soothe her spirit.

  They drove through a raw-looking landscape of foothills covered in little more than a silvery-green brush—sage? she wondered—and dust. The landscape seemed huge here, wild and almost savage. If not for the occasional vehicle passing in the other direction, she would have thought they were alone out here save for the cattle; huge dark beasts contained by rusty barbed-wire fences.

  This all seemed so alien to her, vaguely frightening in its vastness and isolation. She had to wonder if the strangeness of it was due to her memory loss or whether she would have found it disconcerting even if she remembered everything.

  It was wild and harsh-looking, she thought after a few more moments of gazing out the window, but there was a raw and almost painful beauty to the landscape.

  “Can you tell me where we are?” she asked after a moment. “I seem to remember something you said earlier about Utah, but would you mind perhaps being a little more specific?”

  The look Mason sent her was full of suspicion. What made him so mistrustful? she wondered. Was it something about her or did he behave that way with everyone? It seemed a dreadful way to live, if the latter was the case.

  “The town you just left is Moose Springs, population about three hundred, give or take a few,” he said after a moment. “We’re about an hour northeast of Salt Lake City.”

  Useful information, she thought. If only she knew anything about Salt Lake City.

  “The ski resort community of Park City is just over those mountains as the crow flies but more like a half-hour if you’re in a car,” he went on. “The road we found you on was inside the Uinta Mountain Range, in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest, a vast tract of land that includes a wilderness area of about half a million acres.”

  For some reason, her stomach clenched at that. She had a feeling she wasn’t particularly enamored of anything with the word wilderness in its descriptor.

  “And where are we going now?” she asked.

  “My family’s ranch, the Bittercreek. It’s about three miles out of town. We should be there in a minute.”

  She had the sudden disquieting thought that she was traveling with a man she’d known less than a few hours to stay with him at his ranch, out in the middle of nowhere. She knew nothing at all about him. Perhaps she might have been better to throw herself on the mercy of the law officer back at the clinic.

  “Mr. Mason, he has many of the horses and cows,” Charlie Betran said in his careful English.

  “They are very big,” Miriam added.

  “You’ll get used to them,” Mason said to the girl with a surprising gentleness. “Like I’ve told you, once you’ve been here awhile you won’t be so nervous around them. I know you’ll like the horses once you let me take you for a ride. Charlie likes them, don’t you, bud?”

  The boy nodded his head vigorously, beaming at Mason.

  What was the story here, she wondered. Why did this strong, masculine cowboy have custody of these two children who seemed so far from home? They seemed such an odd mix for a family.

  At least they had each other.

  She had no one, she thought. At least no one she remembered. What a demoralizing thought. Could she have a child somewhere? A husband who might be looking for her?

  Helpless frustration washed through her and she let out a long breath. The lovely physician had said her memory would likely come back in a few days. She had to hang on to that hope. Worrying about something she couldn’t control would accomplish nothing and would only make her ill from the effort.

  Dr. Maxwell said she needed to give herself time to heal and she resolved to do just that.

  A few moments later, Mason turned the vehicle under an archway constructed of two massive upright logs topped by a horizontal one just as big with the word Bittercreek carved into it in letters that had to be at least two feet high.

  The rather grand sign out front turned out to be fancy wrappings for old rubbish, she discovered as he drove up a long winding driveway. She was surprised to find Mason Keller’s ranch had a tired, worn-out feel to it—weathered outbuildings in want of paint, sagging fencelines, old rusted farm mac
hinery hulking in fields.

  Odd, that, when the vehicle they were riding in smelled new and had to have cost him a pretty penny.

  Perhaps he spent all his money on vehicles—and on adopting two Filipino children.

  The ranch house squatted square and solid at the end of the long gravel driveway. It looked to be two stories, with a trio of gables and a porch that stretched across the entire width of the house. The whole thing was painted a bright white that gleamed in the hot afternoon sun, even though she could see it needed a fresh coat.

  Someone was making an effort to spruce up the place, she thought, if the raw plywood and cans of paint on the porch were any indication.

  The children climbed out on the driver’s side after Mason but Jane remained seated.

  She couldn’t seem to make her muscles cooperate. Her head still pounded and she was suddenly exhausted by all that had happened to her since she’d opened her eyes and found Mason looming over her.

  After a pause while they waited for her, Mason finally walked around the truck and opened the passenger door. “Are you coming?” he asked.

  Heat scorched her cheeks. He must think her a total idiot, which she was. “Ah, yes. Thank you,” she murmured.

  She straightened her shoulders and slid out of the truck, where she wobbled just a little before finding solid ground.

  “Welcome to the Bittercreek,” Mason said. His features were sardonic but she thought she detected something else. Not quite embarrassment, perhaps, but something close to it. “I’m afraid the red carpet is at the cleaners.”

  “It looks very comfortable and the view is lovely.”

  “I would apologize that it’s probably not what you’re used to. But since you claim not to be used to anything, I guess it doesn’t much matter how humble the accommodations might be, does it?”

  “Anything will be fine.” She wasn’t at all sure how to respond to the low antagonism in his voice so she decided to simply ignore it. “You’re very kind to take me in,” she went on politely. “Especially as I know how inconvenient it must be.”

  A muscle tightened along his jawline but he said nothing to either verify or deny her statement. “Sorry about the dust. We’re in the middle of about a hundred renovations. The place has been empty for a couple years and it seems like everything needs to be done at once.”

  Why had the ranch been empty? she wondered. Where had Mason and the children lived before they came here to open up the Bittercreek again? She didn’t have a chance to ask before the children grabbed her hands, one on either side.

  “Come, Jane.” Miriam gave one of those rare smiles. “You may sleep in my room.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Mason said. “We can air out one of the empty bedrooms for her. There’s plenty of room.”

  He led the way up the rickety porch steps to the front door and then inside. Instantly, the delicious scent of roasting meat and vegetables wafted to them.

  Antimacassars spread across the backs of armchairs.

  Tea in a silver pot gracing a carved wooden tray.

  A plump striped cat sprawled out on a rug before a merry little fire to take the chill out of a damp and dismal afternoon.

  The memories were tiny and fleeting, but they still stopped her in her tracks as she tried to pin them down.

  “Everything okay?” Mason asked.

  “I…yes. That smell seems very familiar, that’s all.”

  He gave her an odd look. “Smells to me like Pam’s making a pot roast for dinner.”

  “Pam? Is that your wife?”

  A shout of laughter greeted her question. She followed the sound to its source and found a woman standing across the room. She was short and slightly plump with a wild, curling mass of vivid red hair in a shade that couldn’t possibly be natural. The woman laughed again, her expression friendly and open as she walked into the room.

  “Better not let my Burnell hear talk like that. Though he’s never been the jealous type, he just might start if he thought a troublemaker like Mason Keller had designs on me.”

  “Jane, this is Pam Lewis. She and her husband own the closest ranch down the road a way and they’ve been running things over here for me for the last few years. She’s helping me out with the kids and the cooking temporarily, until we find our feet.”

  The woman stepped forward with a smile. “You must be our Jane Doe. You’re even prettier than I heard.”

  Mason raised an eyebrow. “The Moose Springs grapevine has certainly been busy.”

  “Mase, you know your sudden return to town is the most exciting thing to happen around here since Doolley Shaw hit the cold medicine a little too hard and drove his truck clean into the side of Ben Palmer’s barn.”

  Pam grinned at him. “Anything you do starts tongues flapping. What do you expect the gossips to do when you show up at Lauren Maxwell’s clinic with a beautiful mystery woman on your arm? The phone lines are bound to start buzzing.”

  “I figured I’d at least have an hour or so lead time.”

  She laughed. “Coralee called to give me fair warning the minute you pulled out of the clinic’s parking lot.”

  Mason’s handsome features tightened into a grimace. “Surely there’s something more exciting to gossip about.”

  She shook her head. “I, for one, don’t know what that might be. I guess until Doolley gets the sniffles again, you’re all we’ve got, boy. Better get used to it.”

  The woman shifted her attention to Jane and the amusement in her gaze gave way to compassion. “You poor little thing. You look dead on your feet. When was the last time you ate?”

  Jane stared at her blankly and Pam slapped her forehead. “I’m such a dunce. You probably have no idea, do you? Well, are you hungry?”

  She had to think about it. Though her stomach felt hollow, she wasn’t sure she would be able to keep anything down with her head still throbbing. She had to try, though.

  Common sense told her her body needed food to heal and she had a feeling her mind wouldn’t heal until her body did.

  “I am a little hungry,” she admitted. “And I must say, your roast beef smells delicious.”

  “What you need is some food in your stomach and then a hot bath with a good book. I’ve got just the thing for you. Come on now, Auntie Pam will take care of you.”

  The woman looped her arm through Jane’s and headed across the room. Left with little choice in the matter—and feeling rather as if she was caught in the whirl of a typhoon—Jane followed her with one last, bewildered look toward Mason.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Bittercreek ranch office was just down a short hallway from the kitchen. As Mason held the phone to his ear, waiting eternally on hold, he could hear through the open doorway the soft, musical voices of women and the occasional higher sounds of Miriam and Charlie chiming in.

  He heard a small laugh, strangled before it really began, and realized it was Miriam’s voice. How long had it been since she’d even attempted a laugh? he wondered. She had been a silent, watchful wraith since the day he’d showed up at her school in Butuan with the grim news about her parents.

  He wanted fiercely to hear her give in to it. What would he give to hear her giggle and laugh like any other nine-year-old girl? Would that day ever come? She sure didn’t laugh around him. She treated him with the same cool politeness he would employ with a slightly-less-than-adequate waiter.

  The worst part was, he didn’t have the first idea how to reach her.

  He’d contacted a couple of grief counselors over the Internet and they’d both said it would take time for the children to adjust to their new life. In the blink of an eye, the spark of a fire to plastic explosives, their lives had changed completely.

  They had lost everything they knew. First their parents had died and then he had dragged them away from all that was comfortable and secure, into a strange country with different customs and even a new language.

  How could he blame Miriam for being slow to accept some of t
he changes in her life?

  The music in his left ear continued to drone on. Over it, he heard Jane say something in that proper British accent, though he couldn’t quite catch the words.

  Low though it was, the sound of her voice seemed to slither through his skin and his insides clenched in response. This was getting ridiculous, he thought in disgust. It was only a voice. He had no business letting it slide across his nerve endings like a silk caress.

  He couldn’t trust her. This whole situation bugged the hell out of him. Yeah, she had a head injury. X-rays and CT scans didn’t lie. But he still wasn’t buying the whole amnesia story. It seemed entirely too unlikely.

  What reason would she have for concocting the story, though? What could she be hiding? And how had she ended up on that mountain road in the first place?

  His mind couldn’t stop running through the possibilities, even as he waited on hold with the FBI. He couldn’t help it. He’d been wading in counterintelligence waters too long to turn off the tap at will.

  Scenario one, she’d had a car accident somewhere up in the mountains and wandered away from the scene, disoriented and injured. That could certainly be possible, but only if Daniel’s deputies managed to stumble on to a damaged vehicle up there. Even if they did find a car, that still wouldn’t explain why she might have been driving the dirt backroads of Utah in the first place.

  Scenario two, this one a whole lot less palatable. Somebody who wanted to get rid of her whacked her over the head and left her for dead up in the mountains. She needed a convenient hiding place and found it here at the Bittercreek.

  He didn’t like considering that one. What could she have done to piss somebody off enough for that? If this theory were true, was anybody still looking for her? Was he placing the children in harm’s way by allowing her to stay at the ranch?

  He pushed that theory away as the telephone music changed to a murdered Elton John tune. He winced and went back to his speculations.

  Scenario three was his least favorite. What if Jane was faking the whole thing—the head injury, the amnesia, everything—for nefarious reasons he couldn’t quite work out yet?