by Lisa Jackson
“You tell me. You seem to have all the answers,” Jenner said, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully on this barfly. If anyone would know what was happening in the Rimrock underground, it would be Jimmy. He knew who hunted without a license, who was sleeping with another man’s wife, who’d been in a fight and who was driving with a suspended license. Nickel-and-dime stuff, but the gleam in his eye promised something more.
“I don’t know nothin’.”
Jenner doubted it. Jimmy had always been a snitch, but the sheriff’s department had questioned him repeatedly and Jimmy had come up with an alibi for the night Jonah was killed as well as for the time of the fire. “Twenty-five grand isn’t anything to sneeze at,” Jenner drawled.
“Petty cash to you McKees.”
“Could set a man up, though.” Jenner rubbed his chin. “Someone could put a down payment on a ranch or buy a new truck or bet the ponies.... Hell, I dunno, a guy could even take a vacation.”
Rickert’s smile faded and his nose twitched a little—like a rat sniffing cheese. He was hooked. All Jenner had to do was reel him in and the drunk would spill his guts.
“G’night, Jake.” Jenner slid a glance at Jimmy. “You, too, Rickert.”
He walked outside and smelled the rain that still lingered in the air. The storm had passed, but water filled the potholes in the parking lot. How had Jimmy learned about Beth and Cody? That thought chilled him as much as the wind ripping down from the north, reminding him that winter was just around the corner. Snow had already been predicted for the weekend.
He’d started for his old Dodge when he saw Jimmy stagger out and head toward a battered four-wheel-drive rig that had already tangled with a ditch or two. Both front fenders were crumpled, and where there had once been a headlight, there was now only a black hole.
“Let me drive you, Rickert.”
“You?” Jimmy spit his cigarette into one of the puddles. “You’re a goddamned cripple. I’ll take care of myself.”
Jenner’s muscles tightened. “You’re drunk.”
“I hope so...the amount of money I spent in there.” He swayed a little as he tried to shove his key into the lock. Jenner didn’t believe in being holier-than-thou, but he didn’t like the idea of Jimmy’s truck weaving through the streets of Rimrock, streets where Beth might be driving or into which Cody might inadvertently dash.
“Hard up?”
“I do all right,” Jimmy said, still unable to locate the lock. “Son of a—”
“Your truck could use some work. Here, let me help you.” Before Jimmy knew what hit him, Jenner had reached forward and snagged Jimmy’s key ring.
“Hey, what d’ya think yer doin’?” Jimmy shouted.
“Probably saving your useless neck.”
“Don’t do me no favors.” With that, Jimmy took a swing at Jenner and it was all the incentive he needed. Balancing on his good leg, he slammed Jimmy up against the side of the truck and forced a crutch beneath the sorry little snake of a man’s chin.
“Don’t even think about it,” Jenner snarled as he saw Jimmy’s fingers curl into a fist.
“What the hell’s goin’ on?” Jimmy rasped, his eyes bulging a little.
“You tell me everything you know about the fire and my dad’s murder.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Were you in on it?”
“Hell, no. Are you crazy? I was with Maryellen Inman, I swear.”
“Do you swear?” Jenner pushed the crutch a little harder and Rickert began to cough.
“You bastard. Just you wait. You McKees will get yours!” Jimmy’s face was turning an ugly shade of red.
“That’s more like it, Jimmy. Lay your cards on the table. Maybe you’ll get lucky and get twenty-five grand, or maybe you’ll end up in jail.”
“Damn it, let me up!” the drunk sputtered. “Okay, okay. I know a little, but I wasn’t involved. Swear to God.”
Jenner pocketed Jimmy’s keys and eased up a little, just enough so the snake could breathe but still applying enough pressure to keep Rickert’s spine curved over the hood of his truck and his mind on the business at hand.
“Hey, what’s going on here?” Jake was peering from the doorway and some of the other patrons were staring through the windows.
“Call Hammond Polk,” Jenner growled. “Jimmy here has a story he wants to tell the sheriff.”
“So you’re leaving? Just like that?” Harriet snapped her fingers, then threw her hands in the air as her daughter stripped clothes from the closet and threw them into suitcases. Her wet bags were drying over a heat vent and Cody, in his playpen, was crying to be let out.
“You knew this wasn’t permanent!”
“I know, but I’d hoped.” Harriet walked over to the wailing child and picked him up. “What’s wrong, darlin’?” she whispered against Cody’s curls.
The little boy sniffed. “Want a horse.”
“He’s been this way ever since Jenner left.”
“Well, if you want one, surely you can have one.”
“Mom!”
“I’m talking about a stick horse or a stuffed animal or a figurine or—”
“Want a horse! A big horse!”
Give me strength, Beth silently prayed. She should never have come back here; she’d been a fool to think that returning to Rimrock would solve anything and she’d let an old woman’s letter get in the way of her common sense. Why? Because, deep down in the darkest recesses of her heart, the place where she’d hidden all her feelings, she’d wanted to face Jenner again, she’d wanted to show him his son, she’d wanted to try to win his heart. Oh, she’d told herself differently, bravely facing him and pretending that she didn’t care, but the entire situation had blown up in her face. Now Cody was involved, caring for a man who would never claim him. She zipped up the bag and remembered doing the very same thing—packing her things—at the lodge with Jenner after three blissful days of falling in love with him.
God, she was a fool!
“Stay one more night,” her mother said softly.
“Why?”
“Because I need you and I don’t want you driving over the mountains at night in this storm. It’s raining here and snowing in the mountains. Beth, please.” She laid a hand on her daughter’s arm. “What will one more night hurt?”
Beth looked at her son, his cheeks red from crying as he clung to his grandmother’s neck. She was still too angry to drive safely, and in the morning the mountain passes would be blocked with snow. “All right,” she agreed, “but bright and early, first thing, we’re out of here.”
“Fair enough. We’ll eat dinner, then we’ll go out to the McKee ranch.”
“What? That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“I know, Beth, but I have unfinished business out there and I want you to go along.”
“No way. It’s over.”
Her mother’s fingers dug deep into Beth’s arm. “Do this for me, Beth. It’s important. To me. To you. And to him.” She looked at her grandson and Beth felt a quiver of apprehension at the thought of facing Jenner one last time.
Jenner, along with Max and Rex Stone, listened to Rickert’s nonconfession to Hammond Polk.
The punk admitted seeing Jonah on the night he died—everyone who’d been at the Black Anvil knew that Jonah had been drinking. But Jimmy, rather than going straight to Maryellen Inman’s as he’d first said, had staggered out the back door, slipped near the garbage cans and nearly knocked himself out. He’d seen Jonah arguing with someone, but it was dark, the other man’s voice was muffled, and Jonah, after telling the man to go to hell, had gotten into his Jeep and roared away. The other guy had climbed into his rig—a dark blue or black pickup—and hightailed it after Jonah.
But Jimmy was short on details. The suspect had been a man nearly as large as Jonah and he wore a light-colored Stetson and cowboy boots. The description could have fit half the ranchers in the county. Jimmy claimed that he hadn’t come forward before because the man had rec
ognized him and had shouted out the window as he’d driven off, “Careful, Rickert. I know where you live. If you squeal, I’ll kill you and that woman you’re livin’ with.”
Jimmy had been too drunk to recognize the man, but the words had screamed through his head. Even after the McKees had posted the reward, he’d been too scared to say what he knew. But now he figured that he was owed the money.
As for the arson at the ranch, Jimmy could provide no insight. If the two events were related, he suspected that the same man was behind the fire. Hammond Polk found no reason to hold him and Jimmy was released.
And Jenner was scared to death. Now, it seemed, his mother’s crazy theory was dead on and everyone who was involved with the Rocking M was a potential target to some psycho. Including Beth and Cody. And he’d let them get away. Despite the fact that he loved them and couldn’t live without that mule-headed woman and her sprite of a son, he’d let them slip through his fingers.
He loved them? The thought stopped him cold. For years he’d told himself he didn’t love anyone. No member of his family. Not even himself. Yet here he was thinking about a woman and her child and he didn’t give a damn whose blood flowed in the kid’s veins; he just wanted to be a part of that life. And come hell or high water, he intended to do just that.
“Just tell me what’s going on,” Beth demanded as she drove past the outskirts of town and headed north toward the McKee ranch. Her mother was in the passenger seat and Cody was buckled in his car seat in the back. A pickup was following them at a distance, headlights bright in the rearview mirror.
“I guess you could say that I have a score to settle.”
“With?”
“Virginia.”
“Jenner’s mother? Why? What kind of score?”
Harriet frowned. “You’ll hear soon enough.”
“Look, Mom, I’m not into high drama. Why don’t you just tell me—” She noticed the pickup gaining speed, though there was no place to pass as they wound past Elkhorn Lake and into the foothills. “Damn it all.”
“What?”
“A truck’s been following us. Ever since we left town.”
“Whose?”
Beth shrugged and told herself she was imagining things. “You tell me.”
Craning her neck, Harriet took a look through the back window, then at her sideview mirror. “Can’t see anything but his headlights. It’s too dark.”
Beth bit her lower lip and told herself to keep cool, that nothing was wrong, that she’d seen too many movies and television shows with car chases and that Jenner’s worries about security at the ranch had gotten to her.
“Slow down,” Harriet advised. “Maybe he’ll pass. I hate it when someone tailgates you on these winding roads.”
Beth’s heart began to knock. She glanced in the mirror and saw only the glare of headlights. Her fingers were wet with sweat. She eased off the throttle.
“When did you notice him?” Harriet asked.
“In town, at the last light. I didn’t think much about it.” She slowed a little more, but the truck didn’t alter position even though they were on a fairly straight part of the road. “Probably some rancher who lives out this way,” Beth said, but she didn’t believe it. Her stomach knotted.
“The least he could do is dim his lights.”
Clamping her hands firmly over the wheel, Beth stepped on the accelerator. Her little Nova took off, but the truck didn’t falter. Within a split second, he was nearly on her bumper.
Keep going. Just keep going! She had no choice and the ranch was only a few miles ahead. Certainly Max with all his security or Jenner would be there to help them. Oh, God, Jenner. Beth’s throat closed up and she tried not to let her imagination run wild, but she thought for just a moment that she might never see him again, that he might never hold Cody’s little body close to his.
She took a corner too fast and the Nova’s front wheel slid off the road and onto the shoulder. Gravel sprayed. The car shimmied and Beth tried not to think about the fact that they were in the mountains, that the road was cut against the cliffs. She braked. The Nova skidded.
“Oh, God!” Harriet screamed.
Cody began to cry. “I scared. Mommy, I scared!”
I’m scared, too! Gritting her teeth, Beth yanked on the wheel and the car careered away from the shoulder and into the oncoming lane.
“For God’s sake, watch out!”
The truck bore down on them.
She managed to straighten the Nova into the right lane, and stepped on the gas again.
Bang! The truck rammed her car, sending it onto the shoulder again. Harriet screamed. The guardrail caught the fender.
“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!”
Metal screamed against metal. Sparks flared. The Nova shuddered. Windows rattled, but the car hung together. Beth wrestled with the wheel.
A second set of headlights appeared in the mirror.
Horns honked and sirens wailed in the distance as the Nova slowed. “Hold on!” Beth cried, bracing herself for the impact of the larger vehicle, but the truck raced past them and Beth stood on the brakes. “Come on, come on,” she said, her fingers clenched around the wheel.
The car skidded to a stop as the second truck pulled over.
Beth was shaking as she watched the driver. Jenner! Tears flooded her eyes as she watched him running, limping, throwing himself toward her. He yanked open the car door and dragged her into his arms. “Are you all right?” he whispered hoarsely, his hands tangling in her hair. “Cody...Cody!”
“Out!” Cody cried between broken sobs. “Me scared! Mommy! Want out!”
Jenner reached into the back seat.
“Me, too! I think I twisted my ankle!” Harriet said, her voice shaking badly, and Beth sent up a prayer of thanks that everyone was alive and well enough to complain.
A siren shrieked closer and the lights of a cruiser from the sheriff’s department flashed red and blue in the night. Beth hardly knew what was happening. She felt Jenner’s arms surround her, felt Cody’s little body pressed against her own and knew that her mother was being freed from the car by deputies.
“I followed you out of town, saw what was happening, and used my cellular phone to call the police,” Jenner explained. “Oh, God, Beth, I thought—” His throat seized up, and standing in the glare of his headlights, he kissed her and held her as if he never intended to let her go again. “I love you,” she thought she heard him say. “I love you and Cody and thank God—”
“I love you, too,” she whispered, tears raining from her eyes. He kissed her again until Cody, caught between them, protested.
“It’s all right,” Jenner assured him as his strong arms folded over his son. “I’m gonna marry your mother.”
“You what?”
“I’m gonna marry her. A wedding, you know. That is, if she agrees.”
Beth blinked against her tears. Jenner was proposing? Here, on the edge of Stardust Canyon, by her wrecked little car? “Marry a broken-down, useless cowboy like you?” she said, then laughed and sniffed and wiped away her tears. “Get the preacher. I can’t wait.” She threw her arms around him and kissed him soundly before the quiet cough of a deputy caught her attention.
“I really hate to break this up, but I think someone should tell us what’s going on.”
“Didn’t you hear?” Harriet quipped as she was pulled from what had once been the Nova. “There’s gonna be a wedding!”
It was hours later before they finally reached the ranch after enduring questioning by Hammond Polk and several of his deputies. The department was now on the lookout for a dark-colored, late-model, American-made truck with Oregon plates and a dented bumper.
The ranch house was ablaze with lights since Jenner had telephoned Max with the news, and his entire family, including Skye, was waiting. In the den, Jenner was retelling the story. “... and so, now that we’re all safe, I’ve asked Beth to marry me and she’s agreed.”
“Oh, no,” Virginia g
asped, but Mavis climbed to her feet and grinned widely.
“Let me be the first to congratulate you!” the old lady said.
“Maybe we should make it a double ceremony,” Skye offered, as her wedding to Max was scarcely a month away.
“No.” Jenner shook his head. “I want ours just for us.”
“But...” Virginia said weakly, then turned her eyes on Harriet, who was seated in the room.
“The kids are getting married,” Harriet said, “and it’s high time they should. Whatever bad blood there is between us has got to stop.”
“I don’t think this is the place—”
“It’s time to clear the air,” Harriet said, her lips pursed. “I know this is hard for you, Virginia, but you may as well hear the truth. There was a time, years ago, when I worked for Jonah. He and I—”
“I can’t hear this!”
“—were never lovers. I don’t know why you believe otherwise, but it’s not true! Whatever you may think of me, the simple truth is this. I was never in my life involved with a married man. Not your husband and no one else’s, for that matter.”
Tears began to form in Virginia’s eyes.
“Now, listen, I don’t believe in sugarcoatin’ the truth. He approached me, offered to set me up in my own place, but I turned him down and quit working for him right then and there. I’m not saying he wasn’t an attractive man, and if he’d been single, I would have thought long and hard about it, but he wasn’t, so I didn’t. That’s the God’s honest truth, and I would hope you’re a big enough person not to let some old lie stand between you and your grandson, because if you aren’t, you’re a bigger fool than I take you for.”
Mavis’s smile had faded. “She makes sense, Virginia.”
“Well, I’ve said my piece.” Harriet stood proudly. “Now, if someone would kindly drive me home—”
“No!” Virginia’s lips trembled and she drew in a long, steadying breath. “Stay, Harriet. I, um, I think you’re right and if I’ve misjudged you, I apologize. Whether I like it or not, we have a wedding to plan.”