by Cindy Dees
Hank Mathers, who turned out to be a fascinating man of deep thoughts and few words, acted as her driver and bodyguard. He was a full-blooded Lakota Sioux Indian, and his people had lived on the land that was now Runaway Ranch for as long as there was oral history of it in his family, apparently.
She finished her impromptu shopping trip in Sunny Creek with a visit to Pittypat’s for another piece of lemon meringue pie while Hank ducked into the hardware store across the street for something he needed. The pie tasted just as amazing as it had the first time.
Patricia came out of the office when Jessica was about halfway through her dessert and sat down in the booth with her. “So, you’re still in town, are you? Did you get your business with Wes Morgan taken care of?”
Jessica smiled politely. “For the most part. But then his mother hired me to redecorate a hunting cabin, and here I am. Still in Sunny Creek.”
“Well, we’re glad to have you. A pretty girl like you will have every young man in town sniffing after her before long.”
That sounded purely awful. Besides, there was only one man whom she cared about doing any...sniffing.
In a blatant attempt to change the subject, Jessica asked, “I need to order some custom kitchen cabinets. Do you know anywhere around here I can get something like that?”
“Most folks drive into Butte to shop for major purchases.”
“And how do I get to Butte from here?”
She listened carefully to the woman’s directions and supplemented them by pulling up a portable GPS system on her phone. Hank was up for a road trip, and they reached Butte around two in the afternoon. It wasn’t that big a city, and she found a kitchen design and supply store without too much trouble.
Hank took off, leaving her the truck’s keys and his cell phone number, promising to be ready to go whenever she was done with her decorating stuff.
She spent a couple of hours finalizing the design for Wes’s kitchen, ordering everything she would need and paying extra for rush delivery. Across the street from the kitchen design store, she spotted a gaming store and internet café and jogged over to it.
She had been avoiding her email account on the assumption that someone might be able to track her location if she opened her mail. But now that a shooter clearly knew where she was, she wasn’t so worried about electronic security. And it had been weeks since she’d checked her email. Which, in her life, was tantamount to having been in solitary confinement for a year.
A bunch of her girlfriends had sent her worried and increasingly frantic messages. She replied to all of them, apologizing for worrying everyone and explaining that she had decided at the last minute to go on a personal retreat to get her head together. She scrolled through a bunch of junk and then a recent post caught her eye. It had been sent last night.
She opened it and started to read.
You may have slipped away from me on that mountain road. But I’ll get you next time. I know where to find you.
Of course, it wasn’t signed. And it was clearly a reference to the shooting outside of Sunny Creek. With the exception of Wes, his family, the sheriff and his men, no one else knew about the attack. Which meant this was almost certainly from the shooter himself.
She eyed the exit of the little store warily. Even the hundred feet of asphalt between her and the truck now loomed threateningly.
Who kept coming after her like this? It made no sense. She pulled out her cell phone and called the police officer who had taken her statement after the incident in the club.
“Officer Demoyne,” a brisk voice said at the other end of the line.
“Hi, this is Jessica Blankenship from the roofie case you worked on a few months back in Washington, DC.”
“Miss Blankenship, of course I remember you. What can I do for you?”
“I’ve received a couple of threats recently. I just got a threatening email, in fact. I was wondering if there’s any way they’re connected to my case.”
“It’s possible. If you’ll forward me the email, I’ll have our cybersecurity guys track down the IP address. Maybe we can ID who’s harassing you.”
“That would be great.”
“In the meantime, do you need personal protection?”
She debated before answering. “I don’t think so. I’m not anywhere near Washington, DC, and the local sheriff seems competent. Also, I’m staying with people who seem well able to defend themselves. Can I call you if that changes?”
“Of course. I’ll be in touch.”
She sat back, staring at her phone. Would this nightmare never end? It was just one mistake. One drink from a stranger. One bad decision to go out alone without being with friends. A handful of words in a military court of law. How could so little be screwing up her life so much?
And it wasn’t all about her anymore, either. Wes was still paying for her mistakes.
Chapter 12
Jessica glanced at the time and realized with a start that she needed to get back to Runaway Ranch to tell the furniture delivery guys where to put the pieces she’d ordered for the hunting cabin. She texted Hank, who showed up in a matter of minutes, as promised. They hurried outside, climbed in the truck and headed back to Runaway Ranch.
Partway there, her cell phone rang. “Hey, Miss Blankenship. It’s Sheriff Westlake.”
“Call me Jessica, please.”
“Only if you’ll call me Joe.”
“That’s a deal, Joe. What can I do for you today?”
“It’s what I can do for you. We got a preliminary report back on the slugs we dug out of your car. They came from a rifle called an M21.”
“I’m familiar with it. The military used to use them for short-range sniping. They were replaced a while back by the M24 and more exotic weapons.”
Joe laughed. “Color me impressed. A girl who knows her guns!”
“My father is a Marine and didn’t have a son. He taught me more than I ever cared to know about military-grade weapons. And for what it’s worth, I hate guns in all forms.”
“Too bad. At any rate, we sent the slug off to the FBI to run through their weapon identification database. It’s a long shot that the bullets came from a registered weapon, but we’ll check anyway.”
“Thanks. I appreciate the update.”
“You’re sure you don’t want my guys to keep an eye on you until we figure out who took those shots at you?”
“I’m fine. I’m sure it was just a random nutjob out messing around. After all, not a single shot hit me. And given the number of rounds fired, even pure luck would suggest that at least one bullet should have hit me.”
“You’re a lot calmer about this than I expected,” Joe commented.
She smiled. “I’m nothing if not my father’s daughter.”
“Still. Don’t hesitate to call me if you get scared or even get a funny feeling that something’s not right.”
“I will.”
“Promise?” he demanded.
She laughed. “Cross my heart and hope to die. Or in this case, I hope not to die.”
She rode back to the ranch in a reflective frame of mind. M21s had been common during Vietnam and then retired as military weapons. There had to be mass quantities of them available in military surplus stores pretty much everywhere. So, the fact that a military weapon had been used didn’t necessarily mean someone from the military had shot at her. The good news was her father had more or less kept her away from his career—he’d hated the idea of horny young Marines sniffing around her skirts. She doubted someone she’d met in conjunction with her father’s work was behind the shooting in McMinn Pass.
Which left them no closer to knowing who had it in for her.
She spent the next few hours putting the finishing touches on the hunting cabin. As the sun set outside in glorious streaks of orange and purple behind the black silhouett
es of the mountains, she stepped out onto the porch, well satisfied with her work. The porch swing was comfortably cushioned, and she sat down on it while she waited for Miranda to drive up and give the cabin her final approval.
Crickets were starting to sing, and some sort of frog was making a high-pitched chirping sound that she’d always associated with early spring. The air smelled of melting snow and wet dirt and the first hints of green, growing things. The colors of nature faded around her into the soft gray of twilight, and she found herself breathing more deeply and slowly, inhaling the night as it fell gently around her.
A ranch truck came up the road, its headlights cutting through the encroaching darkness. Miranda stepped out of the vehicle and immediately began to smile. “You didn’t tell me you were redoing the porch, too.”
“I just spruced it up a little. I refinished the floor, cleaned and stained the railing and posts, added some flowerpots and hung this swing.”
Miranda surprised her by not being in a rush to go inside. Instead, the older woman sat down on the swing beside her. “Sometimes I forget how pretty it is up here.”
Jessica nodded. “And loud.”
“Those are spring peepers drowning out the crickets. They signal that the snows are over for the year. Ranchers love to hear them, especially when calving season is getting going.”
“It’s really all about living with the land out here, isn’t it?” Jessica asked.
“Indeed it is,” Miranda replied. “It gets into your bones. People born and raised in these mountains, who make their livings off the land, can’t ever really shake it. It stays with you, no matter how far you try to run from it. I tried to tell my children that, but they’re all having to learn it for themselves.”
“Wes seems to be settling in at his ranch. I think maybe he’s figured out that he’s part of all of this,” Jessica commented.
Miranda smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. I just worry about him spending too much time alone on that wreck of a ranch. Getting started in the ranching business is damned hard work. My grandparents built this cabin and started Runaway Ranch in this very valley. They raised four children in this house.”
Jessica looked over her shoulder at the tiny cabin in surprise. “That had to be a tight fit.”
“Folks spent all their time outside. They only slept indoors or stayed in when the weather was terrible. But, even then, I suppose there’s a reason they only had four kids. It had to have cramped their style to sleep in a two-room cabin with the children listening in on everything.”
They traded knowing grins.
“I was born in this cabin,” Miranda commented. “But my mother insisted on a bigger house before she had any more children. Hank and Willa Mathers live in the house I grew up in.”
Jessica knew the structure. It wasn’t unlike Wes’s house—a long, single-story log cabin with a huge, inviting porch.
Miranda continued, “My boys were born in that house. We started building what’s the main house now right before I had the twins. You haven’t met them, but you’d like them. They’re strong young women. Like you.”
Jessica shrugged. “I don’t feel all that strong. I had a bad scare a few months back, and I still jump at my own shadow.”
“Joe told John and me about the attack on you up on the Westlake Road. Any idea who did it?”
Jessica’s eyebrows lifted. “He told you?”
“Sweetie, this is a small town. Everyone tells everyone else everything. You won’t have any secrets around Sunny Creek for long.”
Huh. Was that one of the reasons Wes had left in the first place? He never had been fond of other people interfering in his business.
“You’ll get used to it,” Miranda said as she stood up.
“I’m not planning on staying for the long term—” Jessica started.
Miranda cut her off. “I’ve seen how you look at these mountains and how you look at my son. You’ll be staying.”
Jessica stared. The last thing she would ever consider doing would be settling down in some tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Sure, she had feelings for Wes, but did they run that deep?
“Show me what you’ve done to the cabin,” Miranda declared.
Still in minor shock, Jessica opened the front door and let Miranda enter first. The older woman stopped just inside the door and took a long look around, long enough to register every detail. Jessica was confident in her own ability, but tonight she was nervous about how this opinionated and demanding client would respond.
Finally Miranda breathed, “Oh, my. It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
Jessica let out a big sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you like it.”
Miranda nodded slowly. “Wes is a lucky man. I can see the passion you bring to your work.”
Too bad Wes didn’t see it that way.
“Is there any chance you could redo my office to look like this? I love how it retains the rustic feel, but it’s light and modern, too.”
“Of course, I can do it.”
“I think you have a great future in the field of interior design, my dear.”
People back in Washington, DC, used to say that to her, too, but there she’d done mostly chic, elaborate, pretentious designs. It was fun stretching her wings here and trying something different. It had been a risk, but if she’d crashed and burned at rustic-lodge-chic design, she still had more money than she could ever use—even if she chose to live like a spoiled jet-set baby.
Privately, it chafed her a little that Wes never touched his trust fund and chose to earn a living completely on his own. She had considered giving that a try over the years but had never had the courage to go through with it. Or maybe she’d never believed in herself enough to give it a try.
She could probably open up a bank account in Sunny Creek. Start depositing the checks she earned from these design jobs. Maybe see if they eventually produced enough cash to live on. It could be an interesting experiment. And, if nothing else, it would give her a goal.
An hour later, as she walked through the main house with Miranda, the talk of redecorating Miranda’s office was quickly expanding into a complete redo of the interior of the main house. Jessica thought the overall design was fantastic, but it could be updated and refreshed here and there—new fabrics for upholstered furniture, new window treatments that were less dark and heavy. A change of accent colors. Nothing too dramatic. Unlike Wes’s house.
As the evening aged, she finally begged off, saying, “I have to be at Wes’s house bright and early in the morning. My construction crew is starting to refinish his ceilings and beams, and I’ve got an electrician and a plumber stopping by to make a few repairs.”
“You got him to agree to work on that shack he’s been living in?” Miranda exclaimed. “How did you manage that?”
Jessica cracked a smile. “Long story.”
“That’s amazing. He seemed determined to punish himself for something. I was worried he would let that place fall down around his head before he would do any work on it. He seemed to relish how awful it was.”
That sounded like Wes. Self-flagellation always had been a strong suit of his.
Miranda continued, “I’m so glad he’s let you into his life.”
“Well, I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Jessica disagreed.
“I know my children. He’s got feelings for you whether he wants to admit it or not.”
“He’s a wee bit miffed that I gutted his house. But a restoration to its original architecture required it. That wasn’t what he expected when he told me I could redecorate his place, though.”
Miranda smiled broadly. “Good for you. Wes is the most like his father of all my boys. Stubborn and willful to a fault. John and Wes both need someone to take then down a peg from time to time. And you’re woman enough to do it for Wes.”
Warmth spread thr
ough Jessica’s belly. Was this what it felt like to have a mother to talk with and who would back her up when life got messy? Everyone else seemed afraid of Miranda, but she rather loved the woman, as formidable as she was.
“Stay in the hunting cabin as long as you’d like to, Jessica. No one else is using it, and it’s all gussied up, now. You can work on the main house, and you’re a short drive over to Wes’s place to manage that job.” She added archly, “And you know what they say about absence making the heart grow fonder. It’ll be good for Wes to have to work to get you.”
Jessica blinked, staring at Miranda. Apparently, the woman had decided that she and Wes were supposed to end up together. She wished she shared the woman’s confidence.
“You know, dear, I think you’ll be comfortable up at the hunting cabin. There’s more privacy up there in case my hard-headed son wants to come around and make a proper apology to you.” The twinkle in Miranda’s eyes made it clear exactly what form she thought that apology should take.
Wes apologize? Not very likely. But still. The idea of a little time to herself, to think about her future and figure out a way forward in spite of having a stalker tailing her, was very appealing.
Plus, she would be ensconced deep inside Runaway Ranch, far from prying eyes and flying bullets. No way would anyone find her way out here. “If it wouldn’t inconvenience you, I might just take you up on that offer,” Jessica declared.
“Perfect.” Miranda added, “I’m having the family over for dinner on Sunday. You have to join us.”
“I don’t want to intrude on family—”
“You’re coming. I won’t hear any arguments over it.”
Ah. There was the iron-willed matriarch everyone talked about. Jessica smiled, rather fond of being bullied by this woman. “In that case, I guess I’ll be there on Sunday.”
Wes was notably absent the next two days as Jessica supervised and pitched in to help the construction crew work on his house. The job was going fast because it turned out the place had fairly new plumbing and wiring, and the crew wasn’t moving any walls. The new roof looked out of place above the disastrous siding, but the new wood siding wouldn’t arrive until next week.