by B. J Daniels
“Do I, Trask? I thought I knew you, but I’m not so sure I ever did.” She saw the hurt in his eyes and felt her own heart ache at the sight.
“I know you’re angry. That night when I told you I’d come for you, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t drag you into the mess I’d made of my life. I didn’t want to leave you behind, but I knew it was the best thing for you. You’d just bought this place with your brother, you never wanted to leave Montana, let alone go on the run with me.”
She said nothing, thinking of her heartbreak when she’d realized he’d taken off without her. She didn’t want to think how long she’d waited in the dark for him. Or how long she’d waited over the years for him to come back. She’d been ready to give up everything to be with him. He’d left her behind without a word all these years.
“Nice, you had the decency to come by to tell me that instead of letting me wait for you.”
“I knew that if I saw you, I would change my mind and ruin your life.” He noticed her sleeping attire and shot her a grin filled with devilment. “I see you still sleep in one of my old T-shirts.”
She’d been feeling nostalgic earlier and had seen it in the bottom of her drawer. Now she regretted putting it on, especially since the fabric was so laundry-worn-soft that you could almost see through it.
Lillie pulled the covers up to her neck. “Why are you hanging around here? Do you have a death wish? Flint is still looking for you.”
“I had to come back. I realized that I would risk everything for you. You’re all I thought about. Lillie, I never got over you.”
“Well, I got over you.” It was a lie and she figured he knew it, since he’d just found her alone in a queen-size bed wearing his old T-shirt.
“You loved me once. I’ll do whatever it takes for you to love me again.”
She shook her head. “Do you realize how dangerous this is, you being back here? You’re wanted for questioning in a murder.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about things over the past nine years. I understand now why your brother was so sure I’d killed Gordon. Someone set me up and I intend to find out who and clear my name.”
“So you haven’t gotten any smarter is what you’re saying?”
He gave her a sad smile. “I don’t have a choice. If I want you back, I have to clear my name. But first I had to see you. I had to tell you that I never stopped loving you.”
She thought she’d known him, had known him since they were kids. But the man who’d left her waiting for him that night... She didn’t know him. Wasn’t sure she knew this man before her now. Did he really expect her to pick up where they’d left off? She had no idea where he’d been all these years or what he’d been doing, and said as much.
“I’ll tell you everything once I’m a free man,” he said as he rose from the bed and stepped over to her vanity, where he picked up the bottle of perfume he’d bought her for their first-year anniversary. The smell had become a part of her as familiar as her skin—until Trask left. She hadn’t used the scent for nine years. It reminded her too much of him.
Trask sprayed a little into the air, the scent rushing at her with all the memories of the two of them. She felt that old pull, stronger than gravity. When he looked at her, naked desire burned hot in his blue eyes. Clearly, the scent had the same effect on him.
“Just know that leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Yet somehow you managed it.” She wished he’d put down the perfume and leave.
“I don’t expect you to believe me any more than your brother Flint does, but I didn’t kill Gordon. Yes, I punched Gordon, believe me he had it coming. Then I went for a long drive up into the mountains. I knew hitting him was wrong. But I was more worried about you being disappointed in me. I needed that job for us.”
“He was all right when you left him?” she asked, needing to hear him say it again.
“He got to his feet and threatened to have your brother lock me up on assault charges, so he was his normal self. That’s why I decided to lay low for a while. I stayed up in the mountains, built a campfire, slept in my truck. It wasn’t until the next morning that I came back into town. By then I’d decided to try to make amends. I knew I couldn’t work for Gordon anymore, but I thought I could get on at the construction site, where Johnny was working. I’d been paying on an engagement ring for you—”
“I don’t want to hear this.” She’d thought he couldn’t do anything more to hurt her. An engagement ring? She felt as if her heart would burst.
“It’s true. I was going to ask you to marry me as soon as I got paid and picked up the ring.”
She couldn’t take any more of this. How did she even know he was telling the truth? Maybe he was just saying what he knew she desperately needed to hear. She met his gaze, saw pain in his blue eyes and felt another piece of her heart break.
“Then I heard that Gordon was dead, that he’d been killed with a pitchfork in his barn and that your brother was looking for me. I got scared. But I swear to you, Gordon was alive and well when I left his ranch.”
Her voice cracked when she asked, “If all this is true, then why didn’t you stay and prove you were innocent?”
He raked a hand through his dark hair, making her own fingers ache at the memory of its silken feel. “That was just it. I couldn’t prove I didn’t kill him. I had his blood on my shirt. I had no alibi. And let’s face it, I’d been in enough trouble that I couldn’t blame your brother for thinking I killed him. Not to mention, I’d threatened to kill him earlier in the day.”
“So I guess you’re right back where you were nine years ago.”
“No, I was twenty-two, just a saddle tramp who courted trouble nine years ago. I had nothing. I had nothing to offer you. And all of a sudden I’m wanted for murder? You were the only person who believed in me. Your brother wanted me gone as it was.” He held her gaze, his eyes pleading for her to understand. “Running was what I knew. Look at my mother, my old man. Things get tough, bail.”
“So you bailed. I ask again, what’s changed?”
He put down the perfume bottle and stepped toward the bed. “I needed to grow up and I did. I spent those years working hard, saving every dime and investing that money. All I could think about was coming back and making things right with the law, but especially you.” She started to interrupt, but he stopped her. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get you back because all I’ve ever wanted is you.”
These were words Lillie had dreamed of for years. But she couldn’t let herself trust them. He made it sound so easy, as if he could just come back and clear his name. The case had gone dead cold in nine years. How could he possibly prove his innocence? He’d run. He looked guilty. Maybe was guilty, she thought, even though in her heart she didn’t believe it. Would never believe it.
“Lillie, tell me there’s a chance for us once I’m free of all this.”
No fool would trust her heart to this cowboy. She thought of the years she’d yearned for him, hoping for just a word, anything. She hadn’t even known if he was still alive.
“I’m sorry, but it’s too little, too late,” she said with a shake of her head. “Nine years ago I was in love with you. Nine years ago I would have done anything to help you. But you left me waiting for you. You broke my heart.” The admission came out on a ragged breath before she could stop it. She raised her chin in defiance and lied through her teeth. “I’ve moved on.”
He cocked his head. “I don’t think so. You’re sleeping in a queen-size bed all by yourself wearing my old T-shirt. I know you’ve hardly dated since I left.”
He’d been keeping tabs on her through someone here in town? She bristled, outraged. “You kept track of me, but you didn’t bother to contact me?”
“I couldn’t. I knew your brother would expect that.” He sat down on the edge of the bed again. She
moved to the far edge away from him. “I’m so sorry I hurt you, Lillie. I was a fool. But I never stopped loving you. No matter what happens now, I’m not leaving until I get back what I lost.” He reached for her.
Lillie jumped up, dragging the quilt with her to put distance and clothing between them. She’d seen that look in Trask’s eyes too many times. It had always sparked a burning desire in her that matched his own. She didn’t know how much Trask had changed, but how he made her feel hadn’t. It would have been so easy to fall back into that empty bed with this man, this man she’d ached for all these years. Just to feel his arms around her...
“You need to leave before I call Flint,” she said, her voice warbling with both fear and a yearning that made her sick with need.
“You won’t do that, even if it is true and you don’t love me anymore. I only came here because I couldn’t let another day go by without telling you how I felt. I can understand that you’ve moved on.” His look said he didn’t understand it, couldn’t accept it. “But know this, I am no longer running when things get tough. I’m sticking it out. I love you, Lillie. That will never change no matter what.”
She said nothing. They stayed like that, eyeing each other across the empty bed, the crumpled sheets between them a reminder of what they’d once shared.
“I’m going to clear my name. Once I do, I’m coming for you. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. Or fighting for you, if that’s what it takes.” With that, he stood, turned on his boot heel and headed for the door.
“Wait a minute.”
Trask turned expectantly and almost took a step in her direction.
“How did you get in here?” she demanded.
He looked surprised. “Seriously? I was picking locks before I was ten.” Sometimes she forgot the kind of family Trask had come from. His father had been a trick roper, traveling all over the country with a carnival. Trask’s mother had taken off when he was a boy. He’d had a stepmother of sorts for a short while, just long enough for him to think his life was going to settle down, before she took off with her son, Emery, from another relationship.
Trask had been raising himself most of his life. But after the so-called stepmother had left, Trask, then fifteen, had started getting into trouble. Nothing big, just enough trouble that the local law knew him well and would come looking for him when something happened—like the murder of Trask’s boss after there’d been an altercation that had been witnessed.
Lillie followed him at a safe distance to lock the door behind him. Not that it would do any good if he decided to come back. She’d have to get better locks if she hoped to keep him out. Too bad there wasn’t a lock for her heart.
She felt a chill and realized she was still wearing his old worn T-shirt. She raced back up the stairs, shivering. She could still smell his male scent mixed with the night air and the cloying scent of her perfume. It made the ache deep within her hurt even worse.
Stripping off Trask’s old T-shirt, she threw it in the hamper and dug in the bottom of her dresser for the brand-new flannel nightgown some aunt had given her for a college graduation present. Pulling it on, she stepped to the window, opened it and let the cold breeze cool the heat that had her cheeks flushed, her body damp with perspiration.
She heard the sound of a truck engine start in the distance. Would he head for town? She listened until the sound died off in the distance, relieved when the truck headed for the mountains. At least he was smart enough to hide out. But then what?
Her mind reeling, she closed the window and climbed into bed, even though she knew she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep tonight.
* * *
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Maggie Thompson picked up her scissors and cut one-hundredth of an inch off the hank of hair spread between her fingers, her mind on her date tonight with the sheriff instead of this morning’s long list of difficult clients.
She felt a bubble of excitement rise in her at the thought of tonight. Her relationship with Flint—she could think of it as that now—was about to go to the next level. They’d taken it slow, since both of them were leery after their former bad experiences. But they seemed to click. It was time to see where this was going.
“Not too short,” Mrs. Appleby warned. “You know Herbert complains if it’s too short.”
“Yes, Sandra. I’m just trimming off a tiniest bit just to shape it up.” They’d had this conversation so many times that Maggie could have recited it from memory.
Sandra Appleby touched her thinning gray locks and considered her profile in the mirror. “Did you hear about Jenna Holloway?”
Beauty shops were a hotbed of gossip. Maggie didn’t encourage it, but she also knew that her clients came here to relax and catch up on who was pregnant, who was getting a divorce, who had gone into the nursing home and who was seeing whom since their last visit.
Some clients thrived on being the first to know what was happening in town—and spreading it. It was the nature of a beauty shop in a small town. Maggie did her best to keep out of it. She didn’t want to hear in town that she’d said something she hadn’t. So she kept quiet as she finished the haircut.
“I heard she’s missing,” Sandra said. “How could she be missing?”
Maggie had no idea and said as much. Sandra was one of those who loved to be the first with the town news. It helped that she had a niece who worked as a dispatcher at the sheriff’s office.
“I thought the sheriff would have told you,” Sandra said, eyeing her in the mirror. “You two are still seeing each other, right?”
“I don’t tell him about my clients and he doesn’t tell me about his cases,” she said.
“Well, I suppose that’s for the best given some of your clients.” Sandra chuckled at her joke. “Still, you can’t help but wonder if Anvil did something to her.”
In the second chair, Irma Tinsley piped up. “He kept her on a short leash, that’s for sure. Maybe she just got tired of it.”
“She was so sweet and shy,” Daisy Caulfield said as she combed out Irma’s short do. Maggie had hired Daisy after she’d come out of beauty school looking for a job. She was young and full of life and was darned good at her job.
“I did her hair not all that long ago,” Daisy was saying thoughtfully. “I remember because she didn’t have an appointment. Just walked in and said she wanted something different.” Daisy’s eyes widened in alarm as she met Maggie’s in the mirror. “Maybe the haircut was the start of something.”
Maggie laughed and brushed it off, though it was strange that Jenna of all people would just show up without an appointment. “We hope all our haircuts are the start of something for our clients.”
“I’d like to start up something,” Irma said with a laugh. A small dark-haired woman in her late fifties with a great sense of humor, Irma had been widowed now for five years.
“There is always Merrill Forster,” Sandra said, tongue in cheek.
Irma laughed gaily. Merrill was the over-fifty bachelor who apparently read the obits regularly because he turned up at each new widow’s door like clockwork.
“I already gave Merrill a whirl,” Irma said, making Sandra gasp.
“She’s joking,” Maggie assured her client.
Sandra looked disappointed. “I’ve heard stories about Merrill. I was hoping you could verify them.”
Everyone laughed but quickly stifled it as the sheriff pushed open the door. Flint stood for a moment just inside the door. He looked afraid to come into this female domain.
“I was just leaving,” Irma said as Daisy finished with her. “You can have my chair. Looks like you could use a trim.”
Maggie smiled at him. “I believe he prefers Tim’s Barbershop down the street.”
“That’s where Herbert goes,” Sandra said. “You think they don’t gossip like old women do
wn there? Ha!”
“I’m almost finished,” Maggie said, running a brush through Sandra’s thinning hair. “What do you think?”
Sandra studied herself in the mirror. “It makes me look younger, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would,” Maggie agreed.
“Definitely,” Daisy agreed and thanked Irma for the tip she gave her.
Flint held the door open for Irma and waited as Sandra settled up and left, as well. “Can you sneak away for lunch?” he asked Maggie.
“Sorry, not today. I have a highlight coming in.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Actually, Angie should be here.” Angie North was running late. That surprised Maggie. Angie was always early. She loved to come in and visit with whoever was getting their hair done before her appointment.
Maggie always got the impression that Angie had too much time on her hands. Either that or she was just glad to escape the house for a while. Not that her husband, Bob, didn’t call at least once while she was in the chair to see when she’d be home.
“I’m going to run over to the drugstore for a milk shake,” Daisy announced. “Can I get you something?”
Both Maggie and the sheriff declined.
“Smart girl,” Flint said.
“She can take a hint.” She smiled at the man she’d been dating for several months now. It still seemed too good to be true. Sometimes she had to pinch herself. It also scared her. Flint Cahill could break her heart without even trying.
He stepped to her, looked toward the street as if to make sure no one was watching and gave her a quick kiss. “I can’t wait to see you tonight.”
She nodded, making him smile. Flint seemed as excited as she was. Neither of them had actually come out and said that they would make love tonight. But somehow, they both seemed to be on the same page and knew that they would.
Flint cleared his voice and went back to sheriff mode. “I also wanted to ask about Jenna Holloway.”
“We heard that she’s missing,” Maggie said. Flint seemed surprised for a moment. Like her, he probably forgot sometimes how news traveled in this small town.
