She wasn’t as beautiful as Tess, but Rance appreciated the way her curves filled the orange-and-gold-print summer outfit she wore. She looked accessible and real.
The sight of the two women knocked the rest of the bluster out of him, and Rance shoved his hands into his pockets. “I have a problem with all the noise your kids are making.” Five kids and two women looked at him expectantly, and Rance felt suddenly more awkward than a decorated military officer should in the face of mere civilians.
“Go on into the backyard, kids. This is grown-up business.” The redhead shooed the gaggle of kids away. Grumbling their protests, they headed around to the back of the house.
Rance didn’t know how to proceed. He hadn’t had much to do with civilian women in the past, and he didn’t know what to say. He’d learned some stock statements to use when it was necessary to converse with the other officers’ wives. But none of them would do here. He was accustomed to issuing orders and having people jump. Polite requests didn’t come easy.
“I just bought the old Hightower place down the road,” he began.
“Yes?” The redhead’s eyes widened when she looked Rance square in the face. She damn sure wasn’t making it easy for him.
Something squealed shrilly in the backyard, followed by the rattle of a string of firecrackers. Rance resisted the urge to duck, and tried to ignore the noise.
“You see...I have this pregnant bitch at my house—”
“What you do in the privacy of your own home is your own business, Mr., uh...” The redhead waited.
He got the message. “Rance.”
“...Mr. Rance,” she continued. “But you could find a nicer way to refer to your lady friend. There are children around.”
The blonde snickered.
What the hell was the redhead talking about? Then he noticed the twinkle in her luminous turquoise eyes.
“Dog,” he said. “I’ve got a pregnant dog at my place who’s due any time now, and all that noise isn’t helping her.”
“Enough said.” The redhead called to the herd of kids, who were now peering curiously around the corner of the house. “Put away all those noisemakers.”
Tess finished the instructions. “You can take them over to Grandma’s.”
“Aw, Mom...” came the collective refrain.
“Gather up your stuff and go on over. Now! Maybe Grandma won’t mind the noise. Let’s not upset Mr. Rance’s dog while she’s trying to have puppies,” the redhead said.
Rance watched as the group of kids pocketed their paraphernalia and picked up their strings of firecrackers. With dejected looks, they trudged down the red dirt lane, leaving him alone with their mothers.
He groped for an excuse to leave. He had accomplished what he’d set out to do, but now he wasn’t sure how to get away from this awkward situation. “As you were ladies,” wasn’t going to work.
“I’m sorry I spoiled the kids’ fun,” Rance remarked lamely. He looked down to where his booted toe had scuffed up the rust-tinged dirt, then quickly looked up again. Carrot-red hair and turquoise eyes compelled him to linger.
“Believe me, you did me a favor.” The redhead smiled. “Now I can have some peace and quiet. At least until later, when we commence with our Annual Popwell Family Reunion and Independence Day Extravaganza. But don’t worry about the noise. We’ll be about a mile off in the woods by the pond.” She gestured in a direction some distance away. “Your dog shouldn’t be able to hear us.”
“You’re welcome to join us,” the blonde interjected.
“Thanks. No.” Rance looked down at his paints-pattered T-shirt. “I’m in the middle of painting. And I’ve got—”
“The bitch?”
Was the redhead teasing him again? “Yeah.”
“Well, maybe some other time,” the blonde suggested. “Oh, and if you run into trouble with the dog, give us a holler. My husband, Tom, is a veterinarian. He can take a look at her.”
Rance was too near drowning in the turquoise pools that were the redhead’s eyes to care what Tess had just said, but he saved himself before he was too far gone. “Thanks,” he finally said, and turned. He climbed into the truck and pulled the door shut. With a wave, he started the engine and backed out to the main road.
“Damn,” he muttered as he shifted into first gear. “I didn’t get the redhead’s name.”
He was certainly no grizzled, potbellied sergeant, Maggie thought as she watched the truck retreat down the paved county road. His belly was flat, and his muscles had molded the tight T-shirt just like a washboard. And his black hair, though lightly streaked at the temples, was far from gray. This was a man unlikely to be run off by a ghost, real or imagined. She drew in a deep breath to stop the unexplained flutter she felt in the region of her heart.
“What a hell of a man,” Tess announced from somewhere behind her as the red pickup turned into the lane about a quarter mile down the road.
Tess’s comment brought Maggie back into the world of the here and now. “Really, Tess. You’re a happily married woman.”
“I can still look, can’t I? Just because I shop doesn’t mean I have to buy.” Tess turned and looked evenly at Maggie. “Maybe I was in the market for a gift. You know, something for someone else. If you get my drift.” Tess looked down at her manicured hands. “I didn’t notice a wedding ring.”
“Only you would look for a wedding ring on the hand of a man who’d just threatened to break your son’s arm. Besides, his hands were in his pockets.”
Tess laughed. “I saw how you stared after him when he drove away. You’re interested.” Maggie rolled her eyes at Tess’s statement, but the message had struck far closer to the target than she was willing to admit. “And he didn’t mean it, anyway.”
“Mean what?” Maggie usually had no trouble following her sister’s meandering conversations, but today was something else. And she sure wouldn’t admit that she couldn’t think straight because her mind was stuck on her handsome new neighbor.
“He didn’t mean he was going to break Tom’s arm. Big Tom threatens like that all the time.”
“Yeah, but you know Tom. You just met this Rance character today. And what kind of a name is Rance, anyway?” Maggie remembered the way his black eyes had snapped with heat and anger and then cooled down, and she felt an unaccustomed warmth deep within her. “He could be an ax murderer.”
“Well, if I need any axes murdered, I’ll know who to go to.”
“Tess, I’m serious. We don’t know him from Adam. What were you thinking—inviting him to the folks’ tonight?”
“Just being neighborly.”
“He’s not your neighbor.” Maggie snorted. “You were meddling.”
“So sue me. I knew he wouldn’t come.”
“And what made you so certain he wouldn’t come?”
“The whelping dog and the paint,” Tess answered smugly.
“So now you’re psychic. He didn’t mention painting until after you invited him.”
“No, I’m not psychic. Or psychotic, before you go accusing me of anything else. I’m just a very observant person,” Tess replied.
“Don’t go pulling that ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’ stuff on me.”
“Margaret Rose Popwell Callahan, you wound me to the bone. And you would have noticed the paint, too, if you hadn’t been staring into those gorgeous black eyes and flirting.”
“I did not flirt.”
“It looked like a pretty good imitation, then.”
“You’re the flirt in the family, Tess, though I can’t understand why. You have quite a hunk of your own, you know.”
“Southern women always flirt. It’s in our job description,” Tess answered defensively. “You should try it.”
“I guess I’m out of practice after fourteen years away.”
“You’ll be sorry when the hunk goes looking elsewhere.”
“I don’t need a matchmaker.”
“You need a man. It’s been two years now.”
>
“I don’t need a man. I already had my one great love. I have to adjust to living without him.”
“Maggie, you’re still a young woman. There’s no reason for you to spend the rest of your life alone.”
“I’ve adjusted to my life, Tess. Get a life of your own, so you’ll stay out of mine.”
“Okay. I promise to drop it for now,” Tess conceded. “But I think Mr. Rance Whatever-the-Rest-of-His-Name-Is has definite possibilities.”
Maggie threw up her hands. “I give up.”
Rance looked down at the dog and her brood of nursing pups, nesting in a cardboard box in a corner of the kitchen. The makeshift mattress on a pile of rags and clothing included his favorite running suit. He had thought twice about tossing it in there, but the dog needed something soft to rest on. It was time he got a new one, anyway.
He had never witnessed birth before, animal or human, and he was still struck by the wonder he’d seen. The dog had looked up at him with her beautiful, trusting brown eyes and gone about the business of giving birth, in spite of his bumbling attempts to help. And now she was a mother.
It had taken two long hours for the dog to deliver her litter of four tiny pups. After what they’d been through together, Rance knew he would have to keep her. And he knew he couldn’t go around calling her Dog forever. Or bitch. He laughed as he remembered the silly exchange with his attractive red-haired neighbor. He would have to come up with something to call the dog. And the redhead, too.
He sorted through a list of likely names for the dog, all Irish, in honor of her predominant bloodline. All the names he’d come up with seemed very appropriate for an Irish colleen, but not for a rusty-colored Irish setter. Rusty. No, that was too masculine. But he supposed it was appropriate. Rusty. That was it. Rusty, for the color of the dog’s silky hair.
The dog whimpered and looked up at Rance with soulful eyes. She turned her head toward the window, in the direction of the Popwell place. It was dark now. Had they begun their annual extravaganza? Rance couldn’t hear anything, but Rusty had better ears than he.
Rance reached down and rubbed the soft red fur on Rusty’s head. “Your name is Rusty now, girl. And I’m going to take good care of you. Do you like that?”
The dog whimpered her assent.
The window was open in deference to the sultry July heat, but Rance crossed the room and manhandled it down. The wood was old and warped, just another thing on his list of many to be fixed. Rusty seemed to settle as Rance closed the kitchen door quietly behind him, shutting out the sounds he couldn’t hear. Satisfied he’d done all he could to make the dog comfortable, he stepped through the empty front parlor and out to the front porch, into the steamy summer night.
Yes, the Popwells had begun their annual extravaganza. He could see the flares of the rockets exploding above the trees. He just couldn’t hear anything. Rance leaned against the wooden roof support and watched what he could of the fireworks display. As he looked, he took a wooden match from his pocket—the last vestige of the bad habit he’d kicked—and chewed on the rough sliver of wood. It wasn’t as satisfying as a cigarette, but it was healthier.
The show lasted about thirty minutes, but Rance remained on the porch long after it was over. He lingered and imagined being included in the family fun. He had been invited, but he’d been right to refuse. Not because he had to paint. Not even because of Rusty. That kind of family gathering was too intimate for someone who didn’t belong.
But he did belong here, Rance reminded himself. He had finally found and bought the place that had been the driving force behind everything he did in his life. He might have tried to please his grandfather Montoya by taking his name, but he hadn’t been able to forget his birthright. He still carried the genes, and he hadn’t been able to ignore the force that had drawn him relentlessly toward this run-down house and his mission.
A sound from the road drew Rance from his deep thoughts. The headlights of a car winked through the pines that stood between the house and the road. Then another set of lights. And another. More traffic was hurrying down that road tonight than Rance had seen in the four days he’d been here. The Popwell family must be going home.
His thoughts turned to the two family members he’d met earlier that day. Two sisters: one slim and blond and the other one shorter and plump and vibrant, with billowing waves of curly, red hair. He thought of their children, and the husbands he hadn’t met. He’d once longed to have a wife and a houseful of kids, but his quest to claim Hightower’s Haven had been all-consuming, and had gotten in the way.
How could he have asked for the hand of a woman when he had nothing to give in return?
Now, when he’d nearly achieved his goal, the first woman to catch his eye had kids and a husband. Rance tried to forget that glowing nimbus of coppery hair. He plucked the match from his mouth and snapped it in two. Then he tossed the pieces to the weedy yard below.
Rance Montoya had been struck by a completely unfamiliar emotion today, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. He shook his head vehemently, as if to dislodge her face from his mind’s eye. He still wasn’t ready to build his life with any woman. Certainly not this one.
He had to locate and confront the man who had cheated Luther Hightower out of his future—and Rance out of a family. All he had to go on was the hazy memory of a whispered name, but it was enough. And Rance Montoya would find that man if it was the last thing he did.
The man he knew only as Drake was from somewhere near Mattison. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was enough.
Chapter 2
Maggie glanced out the window and sighed. The rain on the Fourth of July had been a crop-saver, but the continuing wet pattern with its soaking rain had caused farm work to take a temporary back seat. And for Maggie, it had brought an increase in business to the county library in Pittsville, where she worked. With little to do but wait for the life-giving rain to end, every farmer and his wife and children had come to town to pick up supplies and visit. Most of them had stopped in to the library to chat.
Maggie looked up from the cart of books she had been shelving to see her new neighbor in the doorway. Her breath caught as he looked around, got his bearings and strode purposefully over to the circulation desk. He was the last person Maggie had expected to see in the library.
Rance was more dressed up than the usual library patron. Unlike the locals, who would slip into their best jeans and whatever plaid shirt had the fewest tears and the most buttons, Rance wore a pair of crisply pressed charcoal gray slacks and a formfitting royal blue polo shirt. The deep, clear color of the shirt gave his tanned skin a coppery glow.
The shirt did nothing to conceal the rippling of his muscles beneath the clinging fabric. Her stomach fluttered, and Maggie was embarrassed to realize that she had been staring. She looked away as he asked Mrs. Larson for an application for a library card. Searing heat in the area of her face told her that she was blushing, and she would be damned if she would let anyone know what she had been thinking. Trying to ignore the memory of his pantherlike stance, Maggie forced herself to get back to work.
Her mind not completely on what she was doing, thanks to her distracting neighbor, Maggie took more time than usual to shelve the morning’s returns. By the time she’d finished and headed back to the circulation desk, he had disappeared.
Maggie took a seat behind the desk and began to log in a new batch of books. Maybe without Mr. Rance’s distracting presence, she would be able to get her work done. But one thing was for sure. By the end of her shift, she was going to find that application form and see what her new neighbor was all about.
Surely even a small-town library like Pittsville’s would have the information he needed to fill in the gaps about Hightower’s Haven and how it had come to be haunted. Rance wasn’t even sure it was haunted. He certainly hadn’t noticed anything unusual, aside from his recurring childhood dreams. But something had given rise to the rumor. He knew bizarre occurrences had begun in the sixties
, after his father died and the family lost the farm. He knew, too, that his mother had disappeared without a trace. But everything he did know had been gleaned from whispers overheard when he was a child. He needed more than just a last name to find the man who held the answers. And after he did, he wasn’t sure what he would do.
Maybe the answers would be enough.
He’d asked for and been directed to the periodicals section. In a jumble of indexes, he searched for the location of back issues of the local weekly paper. There was a daily paper in Montgomery, forty miles away, but Rance doubted they would have cared much about what happened in rural Pitt County. Even thirty years ago.
Except for the current issue, and copies of each issue from the month before, there was no evidence that old copies were on file anywhere. At least, Rance had found no index that alluded to that. Surely back issues of the county’s only paper would be available. Rance uttered a frustrated exclamation and slammed the periodicals guide closed. He shoved himself away from the work area beneath the indexes.
Rance turned to leave, but halfway to the door he noticed a sign that stated If You Can’t Find It, Just Ask Us. It Has To Be Here Somewhere.
At least they had a sense of humor about it, Rance thought as he changed his course and headed back to the desk.
The matronly woman at the circulation desk looked up. “Can I help you, Mr. Montoya?”
That the woman had remembered his name surprised Rance. But only for a moment. This was a small town, and newcomers were noticed. Especially if they were as different as he was.
“Yes, ah...” Rance looked at the name tag the lady was wearing. “Yes, Mrs. Larson. I was trying to find some back issues of the Pittsville Partner.”
“Well, Mr. Montoya, we don’t get many calls for back issues of the Partner. I’ll see what I can do.” Mrs. Larson shoved her bulky figure out of her chair and ambled toward him.
Montoya's Heart Page 2
