by AE Rought
“Honey, I have some news.” The tremor in Susan’s voice ran through the phone line and into me. “Someone in South Dakota found your wallet. They mailed it and all your papers to Matt’s house yesterday. He stopped here this morning and threw it through the living room window.”
“Oh, good God, Sue! Is everyone okay? Were the kids hurt?”
“We’re fine, Kally. Jerry boarded up the window. I think Matt’s lost it. He stood there in the front yard screaming and throwing the rest of your things at the house and car. Jerry opened the door and told him he was calling the police and Matt charged up the front steps, shoved Jerry into the house and shouted at me.”
A lumped formed in my throat. Fear, sick and familiar, flooded me, and the rubbery feeling I’d had when I lost my wallet returned. I dropped into the chair beside the desk. I could picture Matt’s face, his brown eyes black with rage. How did I live like this? “What did he say, Sue?”
“He was wild, screaming at me, ‘Tell your damned sister I will find her and drag her home by her effing hair’. He knows you’re out West now, Kally, and I don’t think he’ll stop until he finds you.”
I was silent. Every bit of panic and pain I suffered boiled up and then over within me. Slade reached out, his hand hovered over mine. His need to comfort me was visible in the lines of his face. Tears falling, I reached for my cowboy, wrapping my fingers through his. “Hang on a minute, Sue.”
Covering the mouthpiece, I explained Matt’s actions to Slade. I told him about the present, not about my past with Matt. It was enough to light a fire in Slade’s eyes and set his jaw on edge. His brow furrowed, his chest heaved and his free hand clenched into a fist. “Give me the phone, darlin’.” His voice was steady and darker than the shadows in the corner. “I’ll take care of this.”
I shook my head. “I need to handle this myself, with some help from you.”
He nodded, his gaze locked on mine. “You know I’ll make sure you have anything you need.”
It was the truth. Looking at Slade, seeing the conviction in his expression, I knew I could trust Slade with my life. He was my cowboy, and he was an officer trained to handle situations of stress and violence. The thought of Slade’s past on the force brought an idea to mind. “What’s the address of the Hulett P.D.?”
Slade scratched the address down on a writing tablet. I gave it to Susan over the phone. “Please ship my things here. Matt won’t get the ranch’s address.”
“But why the police department? What are they going to do?”
“Slade used to be an officer in Hulett’s P.D. He has friends there. And this way, even if Matt’s friend Scott sees the package at the Saint Joe Post Office, the address will only lead Matt to the police.”
“Good idea, Kally.”
“I’m learning. Sue, I am so sorry about what Matt did to your house.”
“It’s just a house, no one was hurt. We were expecting something like this out of him. Don’t you worry about it. I’ll hold the fort here, you forge a new life for yourself in Wyoming.”
My gaze fell to Slade’s hand, which I’d taken back into mine. “I think I’ve made a good start.”
“Me too. I love you, honey. Call soon.”
“I will. Love you too.”
The miserable bastard was still affecting my life, even out here. My stomach returned, dinner roiling in it like a coming storm front. I clamped my jaws shut and tears soaked my eyes. I released Slade’s hand and wiped at the water on my cheeks. Slade stood beside me, one hand on my forearm while I pulled myself back under control. He lifted my chin until our eyes met. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Talking won’t fix what’s happened, or what he did.” I looked away. “I knew Matt would be upset, but I didn’t think he’d break my sister’s window and scream at her.”
He rubbed my arm. “Losing a good woman can make any man go mad.”
“You don’t get it, Slade.” I shrugged off his hand and stepped away. “He was already crazy—always crazy.”
After spilling a little of the venom poisoning me, I crossed my arms, walked out of the office and took the remainder of my fears and misery with me. Slade called my name, but I shook my head and hurried to the stairs. At the bottom step I stopped. Slade stood at the office door, his hands raised in a gesture of confusion. I wanted to run back, bury myself against his chest and tell him everything. I withdrew and ran away instead. Shaking my head I whispered, “I’m sorry.”
The staircase was disguised in a blur of tears. My jacket crinkled in my hands when I opened the pocket and pulled out Susan’s hanky. The room dissolved in my tears. I could see nothing except the damned blood-crusted kerchief I twisted in my fingers. My heart ached, my throat was tight and I wanted badly to step out of myself, to lessen the wretchedness I felt.
I pressed my ear to the door while Slade stomped down the hall. Images of his face, those beautiful blue eyes rose in my mind. I wanted to nestle my face next to his neck and smell his cologne. I couldn’t. Ghosts held me back and I didn’t know how to get past them.
My hot bath did not help my shoulder or soothe my misery, but how could it? I harbored the hurt, horded it like a miser, keeping it from the one man who genuinely wanted to take it away. My new pajamas only reinforced Slade’s gentle, comforting presence in my life. Curling into bed, I clung to the pillow, wishing it was my cowboy.
Face wet with tears, I realized how broken I had become under Matt’s iron fist. He’d hurt me to the point even healing carried its own fresh pain. The love I had for Matt was never the same after the first beating. Fear kept me in his house. Fear muffled my cries. And fear confused life with existing. The truth of it all settled on me while I lay beneath my quilts. At one time, I had loved and hated Matt with equal measure. Somehow, the scales tipped and I was unaware. The passionate love I felt for him had long since died, and I had clung to hope it would revive, and called the hope “love” instead. I had not been truly in love with Matt for nearly a year. I survived on hope, misguided and false, for things to change.
At least a relationship with Slade wouldn’t be a rebound. You can’t bounce off from nothing. I embraced the revelation. It blanketed my mind and finally coaxed me into sleep.
Stubborn girl. Why are women so complicated? One moment they’re right there, soft and sweet, and the next minute they’re miles away and grouchy.
Slade dragged his range bag from the closet. He rolled the tattered, stained towel across his comforter, opened the main compartment and sighed. If I keep cleaning guns when I’m frustrated, I’m going to run out of firearms.
He understood why Kally would be upset about what happened at her sister’s house. Hell, he’d have been pissed off, but anger wasn’t what had put the fear in her eyes or sent her storming out. She had held his hand one moment, and the next moment she had withdrawn into her cracked porcelain shell. Her behavior was a textbook response of an abuse victim. And her ex-fiancé Matt’s actions were classic signs of someone with a liking for abuse and an obsessive complex.
Slade lifted his father’s revolver from his bag and some cotton patches and oil. He also grabbed his cell phone from the dresser. He looked at the gun and held the phone, debating on how far to stick his nose into where it hadn’t been invited. Waiting and wondering were never high on his list of things to do. Slade sat with his back to the door, not wanting to even see the hall light peeking beneath the oak panel. The light would remind him of her room beneath the light fixture, and his night would go down hill from there.
Blue light glowed around the keys when he flipped open the phone, and then flashed in the half lit room when he clicked through the menu to Baxter, Red. He pushed the green phone button and held the speaker to his ear while it dialed and rang.
Red’s voice was restrained. “Hullo?”
“Hey, Red. It’s Slade. I need ya to do a favor for me when you roll into the department tomorrow.”
“What’s up?”
“I want you to run the name
of a Matt Stransberg in Saint Joseph, Michigan through the computer and see what comes up. If you get so much as a hiccup out of the system, call me.”
“You betcha.” He paused, and Slade knew by the way he sucked air through his teeth Red had more to say. “Can I ask what this is about, Slade?”
“Call it a hunch.” Slade pulled absorbent cotton swatches from the small plastic pouch. “I’m sure you’ve heard about our guest at the ranch.”
“You mean the cute little blonde the town is buzzing about? Yeah, I’ve heard some, mostly gossip from Carly up at the Trading Post.”
Slade groaned. It sure didn’t take long for tongues to get to wagging around these parts. “Yeah, she’s the one. Miss Jensen is staying with us, and I believe she may have had trouble with Stransberg before she came here. The girl is scared, and I want to know why.”
“She won’t tell ya?”
“Let’s just say I don’t want to push too hard.” He dripped oil onto a few pads. “I think the girl’s been hurt. She won’t even give her sister the ranch’s address. We’re having her things shipped to the P.D.”
“Roger. I’ll check into him, and I’ll keep it quiet for her sake.”
“Thank you, Red.”
“Glad to help, Slade. You know we miss you up here.”
Oh, drive the knife in, why don’t ya? Et tu, Brute? He’d hoped to get through a conversation with his old partner without Red reminding him how the Hulett P.D. was doing without him. “I get to missing the place too. Give me a holler when you hear anything, or if Miss Jensen’s packages arrive all right?”
“Will do. Good night, Slade.”
“G’night, Red.”
He snapped the phone shut and replaced it in the wicker do-dad basket on his dresser. Slade turned back to the bed, the damned hall light caught his eyes and churned up all the feelings he had tried to squelch. Part of him wanted to stomp down the hall, wake Kally up and drag the truth out of her. The other part wanted to hold her in his arms, run his fingers through her hair and drown in her jasmine and lavender.
Waiting was inaction, but when it came to Kally, he had to. Despite his suspicions and his call to Red, the abuse in her past was her truth to tell. It was up to her to find the right time to tell it, and if she couldn’t, there wouldn’t be any peace for her, no matter how hard he tried to provide it.
Slade dropped back to the bed and turned to the task of wiping a thin protective layer of oil over his father’s gun. A good weapon should be well taken care of, cherished, respected for its power and protected for its value and permanence.
Kind of like women.
He nestled Pine’s gun back into the protective sponge-lined case and then stowed the rest of his gun cleaning gear. A yawn rumbled through him, and he was damned tempted to rub his eyes. The oil on his hands made it a bad idea. Stifling another yawn, he wrapped his hand in the towel, turned the doorknob and braved the hall light and the emotions it illuminated in him. He stopped below the light and outside of her door. He stood with his fingers hovering next to the wood grain, suppressing the urge to knock.
Her room was dark and quiet. A soft snore filtered through the wood, and Slade nodded. Kally was sleeping, and she should be. He should be, too, but there he stood listening to her snores and imagining her beneath the quilt of blues with the stuffed animals supporting her sore shoulder. It was a better image than of her face, contorted with emotions, before she had retreated up the stairs.
He shrugged. Trying to figure women out was like asking Mother Nature “Why?” There was never a reasonable answer.
A well-placed nudge with his shoulder opened the bathroom door, and then Slade stood at the sink, steam obscuring his reflection while he lathered up and rinsed his hands. The passage back down the hallway was quick, and then he was under the covers and waiting for sleep, his fickle fair-weather friend.
Hours from dawn, he gave up the quest for elusive good dreams and set out to busy his hands with something other than guns. He crept down the hall after dressing and aimed for the stairs. The stairwell was cold, and the steps creaked, sending Slade dancing gingerly down the outside edge where he knew the boards were screwed into the framework. He stopped at the base of the staircase and listened, but the second floor remained quiet.
Bypassing the kitchen, Slade held the handle of the back door to keep it from slamming shut and then walked to the workshop where he and his father had spent so much of their time building the furniture for the Fourth Moon’s main house.
The door swung inward, and sawdust kicked up in the breeze. The lights came on with a click and a hum. The shop was just like he had left it, chairs in different stages of assembly or repair, including the rocker he’d started years ago, and when he turned, the rifle still sat in its place above the door. He chucked a few logs into the wood burner stove and fiddled with a tool while the warmth spread. In some ways, he hated this place. Carpentry had carved out a huge chunk of his teens and twenties. In other ways, it was a place to lose himself in the shaping and building to find himself again. And reshaping his moods was always good.
The house was empty, and the early morning shadows lay long and wispy on the floor. I rose and stood in the chilly, pre-dawn air. The door creaked and the oak panel swung in over the rug. I grabbed my quilt, Bonnie’s handiwork I’d learned, and wrapped it over my shoulders and crept out into the hall. Slade’s bedroom door stood open, and his room was vacant. The bed displayed the evidence of his troubled night. The blankets were twisted and the fitted sheet was rumpled in the middle.
Looking out his window, I saw lights on in the little outbuilding between the house and horse barn. The staircase was cold. Slade must’ve let the fire die. Mounted mule deer heads in the great room regarded me with somber silence when I walked past. I pulled the quilt tighter around my shoulders and ran in stocking feet through fresh fallen snow to the small outbuilding. Frigid air bit my exposed flesh when I rapped my knuckles on the door.
Slade’s voice was garbled when he answered from the other side. I didn’t have a chance to ask him to repeat it, or knock a second time. Light and heat poured out when he opened the door. He was sweaty and shirtless, sawdust covered his jeans and he hastily wiped his hands on a work towel. Light poured over the contours of his chest and arms, displaying his lean muscles in high relief. If I wasn’t so wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself, I might have swooned right there.
“You’re up early. Are you feeling any better?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. The misery brought up from the night before had not left me completely, and the chills I’d thought finally gone had returned. Shivers climbed my spine and shook out through the hand clutching the quilt.
“No you’re not.” He stepped to the side, a hand extended to guide me in. “Come in here where it’s warm.”
Movement eluded me. I stood with my toes in sawdust and warmth, and my heels in snow. Slade’s eyebrows pinched together, and his extended hand reached forward to pull me into his workshop. His hand made it no farther than the blanket around my shoulders before I flinched in a knee jerk reaction. My gaze plummeted and I felt a sudden blush burn my cheeks. This man had been nothing but nice to me, and I still shied away.
“Don’t be so skittish, girl. You flinch like someone who’s been hit too many times.”
You have no idea.
It was the truth I had kept hidden from him.
The misery, a wound reopened by Susan’s news, bled out, seeping through the bandage I tried so hard to hide it beneath. A tear beaded on my eyelashes and I wiped it away on the corner of the quilt.
After my actions last night and the expression on my face, the truth was evident. His words were slow and heavy with shock. “You have been beaten.”
I dragged my focus from the sawdust on my socks back to his face. The emptiness of my reply spoke volumes. I clutched the quilt like a security blanket and fought tears. Slade stepped back a pace, his gaze locked with mine. Compassion burned bright. The warmth radiated
from him. I yearned to reach out and take it. I evaded it instead. His hand, once reaching for me, clenched on air and then pushed his wayward bangs back from his face. An awkward moment hung between us. His shoulders sank, and Slade turned back to the workbench.
A draft blew up the confines of my quilt cocoon and ushered me into the warmth of the cramped workshop. I reached for some safe topic of conversation, and then my gaze fell on a half-constructed piece of furniture. “I noticed all the Mission Oak furniture in the ranch house.” I waited for him to respond. He cast a quick look over his shoulder. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah? Thanks.” Slade turned toward me but shrugged his shoulders. “My dad made a lot of the big pieces. I made the end tables and the headboard in your room.”
“Where’d you learn to make furniture? Carpentry is a dying art.”
“Not around here.” He picked up a hand sander and passed it back and forth over an edge that no longer needing sanding. “Carpentry’s nothing special.”
Why didn’t he think it was something significant? I would treasure such a skill. “It is, Slade. Why don’t you see it?”
A shadow passed over his eyes, and he dropped the sander to the seat of the chair. He looked over his shoulder, jutting his chin in the direction of a project resembling a combination of rocking chair and giant 3-D puzzle. “My dad taught me. Like I said, it’s nothing special.”
“It is a skill, and your father teaching it to you is a gift. It’s a blessing.”
I stepped up to the workbench and let go of the quilt with one hand. I ran my fingers over the runners of the rocking chair, tracing the clear grain of the wood. He stepped closer. “I guess you’re right, if I look at it from your point of view.”
Smiling, I shook my head. “Not always, Slade. I see the beauty you forgot in this ranch, but you see the truth in me I try so damned hard to hide. And, somehow, it’s wrong.”
“You’re not hiding it, Kally. The pain is written on your face. The misery comes out in waves. I guess I was just waiting for you to find the right time.”
