by Cindy Dees
“Sure do. I’ll save you back a piece for when you’re done with your supper.”
The stew was hot and thick, savory and bracing. She had a second bowl of it, and a second satiny-soft yeast roll the size of her fist to go with it.
When the waitress, whose name tag declared her to be Patricia, put the pie in front of Jessica and she bit into the tart lemon filling and airy, sweet meringue, she surprised herself by tearing up.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” Patricia asked quickly.
“It tastes just like my mother’s. She died when I was a little girl.”
The waitress slid into the booth across from her and reached out to hold her hand. “Well, I’m glad we could help you conjure up a memory. Tell me about her.”
Jessica blinked, startled at the woman’s kindness. “I don’t remember much. Only a few images of her laughing. She was tall and elegant and beautiful.”
“Do you take after her?”
“My father says I do.”
“Well, I’m not surprised. You look like an old-time movie star.”
Jessica smiled. “I get that a lot. I suppose it’s the way my hair waves.”
“It’s more than that. You’ve got good bones. Breeding. If you’ll forgive my saying it, you look like old money.”
Which wasn’t wrong. Her mother’s family had been East Coast money from way back, complete with summers in the Hamptons and a mansion on the Hudson River. Her father had been a handsome young Marine officer who’d swept her off her feet and hauled her off to be a military wife. But apparently, she’d always insisted on living off base in beautiful old homes she restored to their former glory. Jessica took after her in that, too.
Jessica said, “I remember her picking me up and spinning me around. Oh, and she used to go swimming with me in the lake. She wore a red one-piece bathing suit. She drowned when I was six.”
Patricia patted her hand sympathetically, which almost made Jessica cry again. She dug into the pie to distract herself.
“What brings you to Sunny Creek, dear?”
“I’m looking for an old friend. We have some unfinished business to attend to. His name is Wes Morgan. Perhaps you know him?”
“Everyone in this town knows the Morgans. They own Runaway Ranch, up in the high country north of town.”
“Do you know where I can find Wes? Is he at his family’s ranch?”
Patricia leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Wes came home from the Marines a few months ago. He and his papa had a huge falling-out and aren’t speaking to each other. Way I hear it, Wes has bought himself some land adjoining his daddy’s ranch and is setting himself up in the cattle business. Gonna go up against his daddy, supposedly. That boy always did have a lot to prove.”
“Why’s that?”
“His father’s a hard man. Demanding of his boys. Wes is the only one who followed his daddy into the Marine Corps. John Morgan was a war hero in Vietnam, and he expected Wes to live up to the family name.”
Jessica winced. She knew what came next in this tale because she’d caused it.
Patricia continued, “John was mighty miffed when Wes left the military under a cloud. Nobody around here knows what happened, but it was some kind of scandal.”
“Is that why Wes and his father argued?”
Patricia shrugged. “Who knows with those Morgan men? They’re a stubborn bunch, they are.”
God. Yet another sin to atone for. She’d destroyed Wes’s career, and now she’d ruined his relationship with his family, too.
“Where can I find Wes’s house?”
“It’s north of town on the Westlake Trace Road. But you don’t want to head up there, now. It’s getting dark, and there’s a storm coming.”
Jessica glanced out the window into the twilight and was startled to see that while she’d been eating, it had started to snow. Small crystalline flakes fell in deep silence, floating down gently to kiss the earth like diamond dust.
“I’ll be all right. And I’m in a hurry to see Wes. My business with him is urgent.”
Patricia looked dubious but gave her directions across town and up into the mountains. Jessica settled her bill, left a big tip for the kind woman and headed out of town.
On her way out of Sunny Creek, she drove down a street lined with a dozen grand old Victorian mansions—and every last one of them in sad disrepair. Her restoration designer’s soul perked up.
The Westlake Trace turned out to be a decent road, but it twisted and turned up into the mountains and forced her to go slow and pay close attention to her driving. Which was hard because vast vistas of towering mountains and deep valleys kept opening up beside her, drawing her eye to them.
The mountain peaks disappeared into a blanket of clouds as the last light faded and black, deep night fell around her. She had to slow down even more as the snow intensified and her headlights struggled to cut through the darkness. The road disappeared under a layer of snow, and she slowed to a crawl in order to stay on the road at all.
Man, it was snowing hard. Snow was accumulating fast. There had to be three inches on the road already, and more piling up.
She almost missed the turnoff to Wes’s ranch. A dilapidated arch crossed over the driveway, built of old gray wood rails. A name was burned into the wood in rough, black lettering that looked recently done. Outlaw Ranch.
Her heart contracted in pain. Wes was the soul of law and order. He’d been a fast-burner up through the Marine ranks, and her father had said from day one that Wes was destined to be a general. Everyone who met Captain Wes Morgan admired and respected him. They all thought he was bound for greatness.
And now he called himself an outlaw.
God. She’d wrecked him.
She’d had no choice. The voice on her phone had told her in no uncertain terms that Wes would die if she didn’t do what the voice said and testify against him.
Tears choked her throat. She’d resisted at first. But then her pocket puppy, a sweet little Chihuahua named Paco, had died abruptly.
He’d been sixteen years old, but he’d been in seemingly perfect health. One day he was fine, and the next, he was acting strange and died that night at the vet’s office. The veterinarian thought he might have ingested rat poison. But where? How? The little dog had never left the Blankenship house.
And then the voice had called back. Told Jessica that the same thing would happen to Wes if she said anything about that night, about the assault and about her being drugged.
A sob ravaged her chest, and she drew a shaky breath as she put the car back into gear.
She had to find a way to make it right. To help him put his life back together.
She rattled over a metal grate under the arch and then followed the gravel drive across what looked like a cattle pasture. It rose steadily toward a pair of mountains looming close like craggy giants. A light cut through the snow, and she pulled up in front of one of the saddest houses she’d ever seen. Once upon a time, it would have been a warm and inviting home. Now, it was falling into ruin.
It was a sprawling one-story ranch house with a steeply pitched roof and a long, deep porch across the entire front facade. Gray vertical wood siding was split and badly weathered, and the metal roof was rusty, the remaining shutters sagging badly. Two stone chimneys rose up above the structure, both of them putting out a thin thread of smoke.
Good Lord. Mr. Neat-and-Tidy lived here? How low had Wes sunk?
An equally sorry-looking barn sagged behind the decrepit house. She thought she spied some outbuildings, though it was hard to tell in the darkness and snow. The light she’d seen came from a window at the far right end of the porch.
She climbed out of her car, slipping and sliding through ankle-deep snow to the porch. A board for one of the steps was missing, and she stepped over the gap. The porch floor looked ready to collapse
at any minute and she picked her way across it carefully.
The front door stopped her in her tracks, and she paused to examine it in the faint glow from the window beside it. The panel looked made of solid oak, a rich golden color. The entire thing was magnificently carved with eagles and wolves and horses and buffalo. Mountains rose in relief behind the animals, and the vertical door handle was bronze, cast to look like an aspen tree whose branches spread up one side of the panel.
She had never been a great fan of Western decor, but this carving rose to the level of art. The animals were so detailed and realistic she almost expected them to jump off the panel and head out into the wilderness.
She felt the carving with her fingertips, marveling at how fine the texturing was. She couldn’t imagine how many hours the artist must have put into this. The carving was sharp. Fresh. Not weathered with time or age. Huh. A local artist must have made it. Maybe she could find him or her and commission some pieces for her design business back home—
Oh, wait. That life was over. Gone. Turned out she’d wrecked herself nearly as badly as she’d wrecked Wes.
It dawned on her that a frigid wind was cutting through her thin jacket, swirling snow around her feet and sending ice picks of cold into her body. She realized with a start that tears were freezing on her cheeks, or maybe that was just snow stinging them. Either way, she needed to get inside before she got frostbite.
She lifted the burled knot of wood mounted in a brass fitting and knocked it firmly against the metal plate behind it.
She waited a minute.
No answer.
She knocked again.
This time she heard movement inside the house and waited, shivering, praying to get out of this biting wind.
At long last, the door opened. A man wearing a bulky Aran knit sweater, jeans and heavy work boots stood there. His hair was thick and dark and shaggy, his face covered with a dark, thick beard.
She stepped back, startled. She’d been expecting Wes. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I must have the wrong house. I was told this was where I could find...”
She trailed off, staring at the man’s eyes. They were dark, almost black in the dim light spilling out from behind him. But she still spied their sapphire hue, as deep as the ocean and more blue.
“Wes?” she asked in disbelief.
The door slammed shut in her face. Hard.
She would take that as confirmation that she did, indeed, have the right house. And, furthermore, that Wes was no happier to see her than she’d expected. Guilt ripped through her, tinged with disbelief. That wild mountain man was the trim and sharp Marine she’d known for years?
Temptation to turn and walk away coursed through her. He would never forgive her. She had ruined his life. It was insanity to even try to make up for what she’d done to him.
Still, she’d vowed to try. At a minimum she owed him a face-to-face apology.
She shouted through the door. “Please let me in! Just for a minute.”
A muffled voice came back through the door at her. “Go away.”
“Wes, we need to talk. I—” she added lamely “—need to apologize to you.” Which was the understatement of the century.
The door cracked open again. “I don’t need your apology. I don’t want your apology. Go back to wherever you came from and don’t ever come near me again.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“I told you not to apologize!”
She explained reluctantly, “It’s snowing really hard, and my car isn’t cut out for winter driving. I barely got this far. I don’t think I can make it back to town tonight.”
“You drove the Corvette up here? Oh, for the love of Mike. You never did have a lick of sense.”
She smiled sadly. “No, I never did. And I’m afraid I’m stuck up here.”
The door remained almost closed for a moment more and then opened wide. “Get inside, then. But I’m not interested in hearing your tearful confession. You can spend the night, but you’re out of here first thing in the morning, even if I have to tow you down the damn mountain with my tractor.”
The bitter tone in his voice was unlike him. But she surely didn’t begrudge him some bitterness. “Fair enough,” she said as evenly as she could manage past the lump in her throat.
She stepped inside and was surprised by the vaulted ceiling and log rafters over a spacious great room. This place had tons of potential. Of course, the inside of the ranch house was nearly as battered and worn as the outside. But the bones were there.
To her left, a fireplace was made of gray rocks that started basketball-sized and gradually got smaller as they rose up from a broad hearth to the ceiling. A fire burned brightly in it, and heat radiated from it and from the stones to warm the entire room.
At the right end of the large room, an island covered in peeling linoleum separated a big kitchen toward the back of the house from the living space. In front of the kitchen was a dining space. Nice open floor plan. Good flow. That hideous wagon-wheel chandelier over the table had to go, though. To her left, in front of the fireplace, a hallway stretched out, no doubt leading to bedrooms.
“Give me your keys. I’ll pull your car into one of the barns.”
She handed over her keys and Wes disappeared outside. She wandered around the living room and kitchen, redecorating it in her mind. A Rocky Mountain theme. Gray slate and blue granite. Oversize furniture in muted colors, maybe a pop of red here and there. Hardwood floors—wide hand-scraped planks would look best.
The log rafters were magnificent, actually. They just needed sanding and staining to regain their original glory—
Wes blew in on a howling gust of wind. “Got the place redecorated yet?” he asked sourly.
He knew her too well. “It’ll clean up nicely.”
“Not happening on your watch. I’m not kidding. You’re out of here in the morning.”
She nodded her understanding. Wes never had been the most flexible soul. Her artistic, free-spirited ways had often bumped into this rigid side of him. She suspected she actually needed the stability of someone like him in her life, but she’d spent so long rebelling against the choke hold her father kept on her that she’d never tested the theory.
“Have you eaten?” He asked the question reluctantly, as if he didn’t want to be polite to her but his manners were too ingrained to stop himself.
“Yes. I stopped at Pittypat’s.”
“Guest bedroom is the first door on the right. Bathroom’s the door beyond that.”
And with that pronouncement, he headed down the hallway, leaving her standing in the middle of the living room. It was barely nine o’clock. Surely he wasn’t going to sleep this early. No, he was just retreating to his own room to avoid having to make nice with her. She sighed and followed him down the hallway.
“Wes, I really need to talk with you—”
He whirled so fast she barely saw him move. He had her backed up against the wall, hands on her shoulders pinning her in place, before she could draw a single shocked breath. Her body responded violently, recognizing and remembering him, heck, lusting after him. Her insides went liquid and molten in an instant, and her mind exploded with a single thought. She wanted him. She’d never stopped wanting him.
The crazy magnetism that had always flared between them when they were in proximity to each other exploded again tonight. Awareness tore through her with his strong fingers digging into her shoulders, with the rapid rise and fall of his muscular chest, with the way her own breathing accelerated to match his.
She lifted her shocked gaze to his...and froze.
The rage burning in his eyes was so white-hot he almost looked as if he’d lost his sanity.
They’d always had sparks between them. Always felt the pull of attraction. Sure, they’d fought it for a while, given in to it for a while,
seen that it was a huge mistake and backed off. That didn’t mean the sizzling attraction had ever gone away. Why was he looking at her like this? Was he that angry that she was still attracted to him? Or, worse, was he still attracted to her and reacting this angrily to the idea?
He snarled, “Get this through your pretty, spoiled little head. I do not want to talk with you. Ever. I don’t give a damn what you have to say to me, and I don’t care if your guilty conscience is driving you crazy with the need to apologize to me. I don’t want to hear it. In the morning, you’ll leave. And don’t ever come back here. You get out of my life and stay out of it. Understood?”
“Well, I understand, but I really need to—”
“Don’t push me. I’m perilously close to hurting you right now.” And with that growled warning, he shoved away from her and strode to his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him.
She would be indignant at being shut down like that if she didn’t understand the source of his rage. She’d destroyed his career. Actually, she’d nuked it in spectacular fashion. He had every right to be angry with her. But she really did need to speak with him. Beyond the apology she so desperately owed him, she had a problem. And it impacted him, too.
Still, it hurt to have him look at her like that. Like he genuinely despised her. If only he would listen to her. Give her time to explain that she’d never meant him any harm. Quite the opposite, in fact. She’d never stopped caring about him. A lot.
What was it going to take to get through to him? She considered going down the hall and knocking on his door. But that slightly mad expression in his eyes was enough to give her pause. In the morning would be soon enough to talk with him. After he’d had some sleep and gotten over the initial shock of her showing up at his front door.
She wandered back to the living room. The furniture arrangement was all wrong. The couch needed to be parallel to the hearth, and the recliner should face the back wall where the television was mounted—
She stopped herself. It was his house. She really shouldn’t rearrange the furniture, but he would thank her for it when he realized how much more functional the layout was...and it wasn’t that big a change...