by Nora Roberts
He was quick, but not quite quick enough to stop her from getting in, from seeing what was spread out on the floor of the cave.
“Get out.” He blocked her view with his body, took her hard by the shoulders. “Go out now.”
“But how?” Blood, a sea of it. The gaping throat, the split belly, the brutal lifting of the trophy of hair. “Who?”
“Get out.” He turned her roughly, shoved her. “Stay out.”
She made it as far as the opening, then had to lean on the rock. Sweat had popped cold to her skin, and her stomach heaved viciously. She sucked in air, each breath a rasping sob until she was sure she wouldn’t faint or be sick.
Her vision cleared, and she watched Adam bundling Lily into his coat. “I have a thermos of coffee in my saddlebags. It should still be warm.” Willa straightened, ordered her legs to hold her weight. “Let’s try to get some into her, then we’ll take her home.”
Adam rose, lifting Lily into his arms. When his eyes met Willa’s, the sun flashed into them as it would on the edge of a sword. “He’s already dead, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he’s already dead.”
“I wanted it on my hands.”
“Not like that you didn’t.” Willa turned and went to her horse.
W ILLA PACED THE LIVING ROOM OF ADAM’S HOUSE. SHE was useless in a sickroom and knew it. But she felt worse than useless out of it. They’d barely been back an hour, and she’d already been dismissed. Bess and Adam were upstairs doing whatever needed to be done for Lily. Ben and Nate were dealing with the police, and her men were taking the rest of the morning to recover after the long night.
Even Tess had been given an assignment and was in the kitchen heating up pots of coffee or tea or soup. Something hot and liquid anyway, Willa thought, as she paced past the window again.
At least she’d had something to do before. Streaking down from the high country to alert the police, to call off Search and Rescue, to tell Bess to ready a sickbed. Now there was nothing but useless waiting.
So when Bess came down the stairs, Willa pounced. “How is she? How bad is it? What are you doing for her?”
“I’m doing what needs to be done.” Worry and lack of sleep made her voice sharp and testy. “Now go on home and go to bed your own self. You can see her later.”
“She should be in a hospital,” Tess replied, as she came in with a tray, the bowl of soup she’d been ordered to heat steaming in the center.
“I can tend her well enough here. Fever doesn’t break before long, we’ll have Zack fly her into Billings. For now she’s better off in her own bed, with her man beside her.” Bess snatched the tray away from Tess. She wanted both of these girls out of her hair, where she wouldn’t have to worry about them as well as the one upstairs in bed. “Go about your business. I know what I’m doing here.”
“She always knows what she’s doing.” Tess scowled after Bess, who flounced back up the stairs. “For all we know Lily might have frostbite, or hypothermia.”
“Wasn’t cold enough for either,” Willa said wearily. “And we checked for frostbite anyway. It’s exposure. She’s caught a bad chill and she’s banged up some. If Bess thinks it’s worse, she’ll be the first to send her to the hospital.”
Tess firmed her lips and said what she’d been harboring in her heart for hours. “He might have raped her.”
Willa turned away. It had been one more fear, a woman’s fear, that she’d lived with during the long night. “If he had, she would have told Adam.”
“It isn’t always easy for a woman to talk about it.”
“It is when it’s Adam.” Willa rubbed her gritty eyes, dropped her hands. “Her clothes weren’t torn, Tess, and I think there was more on his mind than rape. There’d have been signs of it. Bess would have seen them when she undressed her. She’d have said.”
“All right.” That was one hideous little terror she could put aside. “Are you going to tell me what happened up there?”
“I don’t know what happened up there.” She could see it, perfectly. It was imprinted on her mind like all the others. But she didn’t understand it. “When we found them Lily was delirious, and he was dead. Dead,” she repeated, and met Tess’s eyes, “like the others were. Pickles and that girl.”
“But—” Tess had been sure that Adam had killed him. That they would put a spin on it for the police, but that Adam had done it. “That doesn’t make any sense. If Jesse Cooke killed the others . . .”
“I don’t have any answers.” She picked up her hat, her coat. “I need air.”
“Willa.” Tess laid a hand on her arm. “If Jesse Cooke didn’t kill the others?”
“I still don’t have any answers.” She shook her arm free. “Go to bed, Hollywood. You look like hell.”
It was a weak parting shot, but she wasn’t feeling clever. It felt as though her legs were filled with water as she trudged across the road. She would have to talk to the police, she thought. She would have to bear that one more time. And she would have to think, to get her mind in order and think of what to do next.
Too many rigs in the yard, she thought, and paused to study the official seals on the sides of the cars flanking Ben’s truck. If there had ever been a police rig on the ranch when her father had been alive, she couldn’t recall it. She didn’t care to count how many times one had been there since his death.
Gathering her forces, she climbed the steps to the porch and went inside. By the time she’d removed her hat, hung it on the hall rack, Ben was coming down the stairs.
He’d seen her from the office window, watched her almost staggering progress toward the house, her deliberate squaring of shoulders as she saw the police cars.
And he’d had enough.
“How’s Lily?”
“Bess won’t let anyone but Adam near her.” Willa took her coat off slowly, certain that any sudden move would bang her aching bones together. “But she’s resting.”
“Good. You can follow suit.”
“The police will want to talk to me.”
“They can talk to you later. After you’ve gotten some sleep.” He took her arm and towed her firmly up the stairs.
“I’ve got responsibilities here, Ben.”
“Yeah, you do.” When they reached the top of the stairs and she turned in the direction of the office, he simply picked her up bodily and carried her toward her room. “The first is not to end up in a sickbed yourself.”
“Let go of me. I don’t appreciate the caveman routine.”
“Neither do I.” He kicked her door shut behind him, strode to the bed, and dumped her. “Especially when you’re playing the caveman.” She bounced up, he shoved her down again. “You know I’ve got you outmuscled, Will. I’m not letting you out of here until you’ve had some sleep.”
Maybe she couldn’t outwrestle him, but she thought she could outshout him. “I’ve got cops in my office, a sister too sick to say two words to me, a bunkhouse full of men who are speculating on just what the hell happened up in high country, and a ranch nobody’s running. What the hell do you expect me to do, let it all go to hell while I take a nap?”
“I expect you to bend.” She’d been wrong, he could outshout her too. The explosion might have knocked her back if she hadn’t already been down. “Just once in your damn life, bend before you break. The cops can wait, your sister’s being taken care of, and your men are too damn tired to speculate on anything but who’s snoring the loudest. And the ranch isn’t going to fall apart if you turn off for a couple hours.”
He grabbed her boot, wrenched it off, then heaved it across the room. She reached for the second, gripped the top in what would have been a comic struggle if his eyes hadn’t been so raw with temper. “What the hell crawled up your butt?” she demanded. “Just cut it out, Ben.”
The second boot slid out of her fingers and went flying. “You think I didn’t see your face when you walked into that cave? That I don’t know what it did to you, or how you were holding yourself to
gether by your fingernails all the way back down?” He grabbed her shirtfront, and for a moment she was certain he intended to haul her off the bed and toss her after her boots. “I’m not having it.”
She was stunned enough that she didn’t react until he’d unbuttoned her shirt and yanked it off her shoulders. “Just take your hands off me. I can undress myself when I’m ready. You’re an overseer around here, McKinnon, but you don’t run my life, and if you don’t—”
“Maybe you need somebody to run it.”
He lifted her off the bed—clean off, she thought in wonder, as her feet dangled inches above the polished wood floor. And she realized he was as furious as she’d ever seen him, and she’d seen him red-eyed furious plenty. She’d never seen him like this.
He added a quick, teeth-rattling shake. “Maybe you need to listen to somebody besides yourself now and again.”
It was the shake that snapped it. The humiliation of it. “If I do, it won’t be you. And the only place you’re going to be running is for cover if you don’t turn me loose—” Her hand was fisted and ready when he dropped her onto her feet.
“Take a swing at me.” He ground out the dare. “Go ahead, but you’re going to bed if I have to tie you to the headboard.”
She grabbed the hands that grabbed at her shirt. “I’m warning you—”
“He worked for me.”
That stopped her, stopped them both as they struggled with her thermal shirt. “What?” Now her hands covered his, dug in. “Jesse Cooke?”
And her hands went limp as she remembered. That day on the road to Three Rocks, that pretty, smiling face at the window of her rig. They’d been that close, as close as Ben and she were now, with only that thin shield of glass between them.
What would he have done, she wondered, if her door hadn’t been locked, her window up?
“That’s where I saw him.” She shuddered when she thought of how he’d flashed that grin at her, called her by name. “I couldn’t put it together. He was right there all along. He’s been here, playing poker with the men. Right down in the bunkhouse playing cards.”
She shook herself, looked at Ben, and saw the weight he was carrying. Not anger so much as guilt, she thought. And she knew the sharp edge of it too well. “It’s not your fault.” She touched his face, and her words were as gentle as fingertips. “You couldn’t know.”
“No, I couldn’t know.” He’d chewed over that until it had made him as ill as spoiled beef. “But it doesn’t change it. I had him work on Shelly’s rig. She had him in for coffee—her and the baby alone with him. He fixed my mother’s bathroom sink. He was in the house with my mother.”
“Stop.” She did bend, enough to put her arms around him, to draw him down until he sat beside her. “He’s done now.”
“He’s done, but it’s not.” He took her by the shoulders, turning her so they faced each other on the edge of the bed. “Whoever killed him, Willa, works for you, or for me.”
“I know that.” She’d thought of it, thought of it constantly on the racing ride back from the cave, during her helpless pacing of Adam’s living room. “Maybe it was payback, Ben, for the others. Maybe Jesse killed the others, and whoever found him did it for them. Lily wasn’t hurt. She was alone, and sick, but he didn’t touch her.”
“And maybe one at a time’s enough for him. Will, the chances that we’ve got two men who do that with a knife are slim. Cooke carried a small boot knife, a four-inch blade hardly bigger than a toy. You don’t do that kind of damage with an undersized blade.”
“No.” It all played back in her head. “No, you don’t.”
“Then there’s that first steer we found, up toward the cabin. No way he did that. I’d barely signed him on. He didn’t know his way around high country then.”
She had to moisten her lips, they’d become so dry. “You’ve told all this to the police.”
“Yeah, I told them.”
“Okay.” She rubbed her fingers dead center of her brow. There wasn’t a headache there yet, just intense concentration. “We go on the way we have. Keep the guards, the men working in teams and shifts. I know my men.” She rapped a fist on her knee. “I know them. The two new ones I just hired on—Christ, I shouldn’t have taken on any new hands until this was done.”
“You have to stop riding out alone.”
“I can’t take a damn bodyguard every time I’ve got cattle to check.”
“You stop riding out alone,” he said evenly, “or I’ll use the old man’s will to block you. I’ll put down that I consider you incompetent as operator. I can convince Nate to go along with me.”
What little color she had left drained out of her face as she got to her feet. “You son of a bitch. You know goddamn well I’m as competent as any rancher in the state. More.”
He rose as well, faced her. “I’ll say what I need to say, and I’ll do what I have to do. You butt against me on this, you risk losing Mercy.”
“Get the hell out of here.” She whirled away, balled fists at her sides. “Just get the hell out of my house.”
“You want to keep it your house, you don’t ride out without Adam or Ham. You want me out, you get into bed and get some sleep.”
He could have forced her down again. It would have been easier than saying what he had to say. “I care about you, Willa. I’ve got feelings for you, and they go pretty deep.” It was harder yet when she turned and stared at him. “Maybe I don’t know what the hell to do with them, but they’re there.”
Her heart hurt all over again, but in a way she didn’t expect. “Threatening me is sure a damn fool way of showing them.”
“Maybe. But if I asked you nice, you wouldn’t listen.”
“How do you know? You never ask nice.”
He dragged a hand through his hair, regrouped. “I’ve got to get through my day too. Worrying about you’s putting a hitch in my stride. If you’d do this one thing for me, it’d make it easier.”
This was interesting, she thought. When her mind was clear again, she’d have to ponder it. “Do you ride out alone, Ben?”
“We’re not talking about me.”
“Maybe I’ve got feelings too.”
That was unexpected—and something worth considering. So he considered it, sticking his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. “Do you?”
“Maybe. I don’t want to punch you every time I see you these days, so maybe I do.”
His mouth curved up. “Willa, you do have a way of flushing a man’s ego and then shooting it down. Let’s take it forward a step.” He came toward her, tilted her face up with his finger under her chin, and brushed his lips against hers. “You matter to me. Some.”
“You matter to me too. Some.”
She was softening. He knew she wasn’t aware of it, but he was. Under different circumstances it would have been time to make gentle love to her, perhaps say more. Perhaps say nothing. Because he knew that was just what she’d expect, he kissed her again, let it deepen, let himself sink into her, into that sensation of intimate isolation.
Her arms came up, circled his neck. Her body went pliant as he gathered her closer. The muscles he stroked, kneaded, began to relax under his hands. This time, when he lifted her onto the bed, she sighed.
“You’d better lock that door,” she murmured. “We could have the cops in here. Get ourselves arrested.”
He kissed her eyes closed as he unfastened her jeans. He kissed her curved lips as he drew the jeans down her legs. Then he threw a blanket over her, got up, and lowered the shades. Her eyes were heavy, smiling lazily as she watched him move back to her, bend down, touch that warm mouth to hers again.
“Get some sleep,” he ordered, then straightened and strode to the door.
She popped up like a string. “You son of a bitch.”
“I love it when you call me that.” With a chuckle, he closed the door.
Steaming, she plopped back on the pillows. How was it he always seemed to outmaneuver her? He�
��d wanted her flat on her back in bed, and by God, that’s just where she was. It was mortifying.
Not that she was staying. In just a minute she would get up, take a bracing shower. Then she’d get back to work.
In just a minute.
She wasn’t closing her eyes, wasn’t going to sleep. If she did, she was certain she’d be back in that cave, back in the horror. But that wasn’t the reason, she assured herself as she struggled to force her eyelids open again. It wasn’t fear that was pushing her along. It was duty. And as soon as she got her second wind, she was getting up to fulfill that duty.
She wasn’t going to sleep just because Ben McKinnon told her to. Especially since he’d told her to.
She fell like a rock and slept like a stone.
PART FOUR
SUMMER
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
—Shakespeare
TWENTY-FIVE
T HERE WASN’T A DISH IN THE SINK, NOT A CRUMB ON THE counter or a scuff mark on the floor. Lily stared at the spotless kitchen. Adam had beaten her to it. Again. She stepped to the back door, through it. The gardens she’d planned were tilled, with the hardier vegetables and flowers already planted.
Adam and Tess. Lily hadn’t even gotten soil on her garden gloves. And oh, how she’d wanted to.
She struggled not to resent it, to remember that they were thinking of her. She’d been ill for two weeks, and for another, too weak to handle her regular chores without periodic rests. But she was recovered now, fully, and growing weary of being worried over and pampered.
She knew the freezer was stuffed to overflowing with dishes that Bess or Nell had prepared. Lily hadn’t cooked a meal since the night Jesse had come through the door where she now stood looking out at the tender green buds on the trees, feeling the gentle warmth of the May air on her face.
It seemed like years since that cold and bitter night. And there were blank spots still, areas of gray she didn’t care to explore. But she was to be married in three short weeks, and her life was more out of her control than it had ever been before.
