Fatal Burn

by Roxanne Rustand

  “I suppose you have some sort of proof of all this?”

  “In my glove box.” She pulled her keys from her pocket and tossed them over to him. “Be my guest.”

  The deputy nodded and went out the front door, leaving the cowboy behind.

  He still cradled the rifle across his chest, and though his John Wayne intensity had faded, he was still a formidable man. She was suddenly very, very glad that he seemed to be on the right side of the law.

  “Assuming Ken finds what he’s looking for, I’m curious,” he drawled. “What would possess a woman to come clear out here this late, alone?”

  “That old strip motel in town was the only lodging place open. It didn’t look at all promising from the outside, so I kept going.” She lifted her chin. “Who are you, anyway?”

  He took another step into the room and took off his hat. “Trace Randall. I own the ranch next door.”

  He’d seemed dangerous before, but now she felt her stomach do a shaky little tap dance for an entirely different reason.

  A rakish lock of rich black hair tumbled over his high forehead, and laugh lines crinkled at the corners of his warm brown eyes—probably more from a lifetime spent in the Montana sun than from good humor, given his scowl, but attractive nonetheless.

  From his rugged, square jaw and strong, high cheekbones to that straight blade of a nose, he looked more like someone who ought to be in the movies than a real-life cowboy standing in front of her wearing faded jeans and well-worn boots.

  But for all that, he was exactly the kind of man she always took great care to avoid, thanks to Allan’s enduring legacy of disillusionment and heartbreak.

  Firmly shoving the memories of her ex-husband into the past, she met the rancher’s steady gaze with one of her own. “Quite a welcoming committee,” she said coolly. “I can hardly wait to meet the rest of the neighbors.”

  “Not many out here. The Rocking R ranch is to the north, and Bureau of Land Management grazing land borders the other three sides of Thalia’s property. The ranch holding the BLM lease is a good forty miles away.”

  “The Rocking R is yours?”

  He nodded.

  The deputy stomped across the porch and came inside, dusting a sparkling shawl of snow from his shoulders. “Guess we owe you an apology, ma’am.” He stepped forward, his hand extended. “Welcome to Battle Creek.”

  She accepted the brief handshake, then glanced at Trace. “I suppose I should thank you for keeping watch over this place. It’s been empty for what—almost a year?”

  “Thereabouts.” Gardner tipped his head toward the rear entrance. “An empty, isolated place like this one spells trouble, once word gets out, but Trace has been keeping an eye on things. Six months ago, he discovered a drunken group of teens out here, and he recently interrupted a break-in.”

  Kris suppressed an inward shudder. “It must have been a good feeling to catch all of them.”

  “We nabbed some of the teens, but the thieves got away. I doubt they’d be stupid enough to come back, though.”

  Or they could figure that the law would think exactly that, and brazenly return. “I hope that’s true.”

  The deputy grinned at Trace. “You’ve got a real good man next door, ma’am, if you get yourself all scared, bein’ here alone.”

  The patronizing good-old-boy camaraderie between the two men sent her blood into a slow simmer. “Thanks, but I doubt that’ll happen. I can take care of myself.”

  Trace searched her face. “Like you did when I showed up?” he asked, his voice gentle. “Take care, ma’am. This isn’t exactly the suburbs out here. Even the locals respect the mountains…and what they can hide.”

  Long after the deputy and Trace left, the rancher’s words played through Kris’s thoughts, and the chill she felt the next morning had nothing to do with the balky furnace and a lying thermostat that claimed the temperature had risen to eighty-two.

  She’d grown up in this part of Montana, more or less, depending on her current foster family.

  She knew about the rapid and dangerous changes in weather up here. The lightning storms that could pop up out of nowhere at the higher elevations. The way a stream trickling down a mountain could become a roaring, terrifying flood come the spring melt.

  And she knew all too well about what the dense forests and wild, rocky terrain could hide. Bears and wolves, but also two-legged creatures who could be the most frightening of all.

  Ruthless killers who could torture and kill a young, innocent girl like her friend Laura. Drug runners coming across the mountains from California and Mexico, who would stop at nothing to protect their illicit trade.

  Even a mother, who could walk away from her daughters without a backward glance, and never return.

  Kris and Emma had seen her leave that evening, and for years they’d had terrifying nightmares about her being eaten by the bears or wolves in the forest. With age came the jaded realization that she’d probably slipped away to run off with a boyfriend, without any regard for the two little girls she’d left behind…alone, in an empty apartment.

  Kris had dealt with it all before she turned twenty-one, and she no longer wasted time on any foolish misconceptions about the inherent goodness in people.

  Kneeling, she murmured to Bailey. The old dog lumbered to his feet and came over to rest his head on her shoulder. “We’re going to make a go of this, aren’t we? Then come spring, we’ll sell out and be on our way.”

  He wagged his tail against the floor, sweeping an arc in the thick dust.

  She grinned. “And I can see you’ll be a lot of help, too.”

  He wiggled against her, trying to crawl into her lap just as he had as a pup, and they both fell over in a heap. She laughed as she ruffled the thick fur on his neck.

  The dog suddenly stiffened and stared at the door. Gave one low bark. Then he bounded over to the entryway and clawed at the door, his tail wagging furiously.

  So it was probably somebody he’d met, like Trace—proving there was no accounting for taste—or maybe even the deputy.

  Still, Kris peered out a window first and, seeing a black pickup with Rocking R emblazoned on the side, she sighed.

  But it wasn’t Trace scowling at her when she opened the heavy oak door. It was a petite woman who might have been his clone, given her dark, wavy hair and flashing brown eyes, except for the fact that she had the megawatt grin of an enchanting pixie.

  “Hi there!” she chirped, lifting a bulky cardboard box high for inspection. “I have a feeling my brother wasn’t exactly friendly, so I’m here to repair the damage. I’m his sister, Carrie, by the way. I live in one of the cabins over at his place.” Her smile dimmed a few watts. “At least for now.”

  “Come on in.” Kris unhooked the screen door and pushed it wide open to usher her inside.

  Carrie headed straight for the kitchen and plopped the box on the counter. “Whew. Hope you don’t mind me making myself at home,” she said over her shoulder as she pulled out loaves of homemade bread, bags of cookies and finally a casserole dish that she slipped into the refrigerator. “This box was heavier than I thought.”

  No wonder Bailey had been excited at the woman’s approach. “It all smells wonderful.” Kris inhaled the wonderful aromas. “What is it?”

  “Lasagna. Homemade garlic-and-herb bread. My version of chocolate-chip cookies—loaded with white chocolate, dried cranberries and pecans.” She laughed. “Trace says I’m obsessed with drowning my sorrows in food. Really, I just like to cook, and there’s only him and me now, since the hands are both married.”

  Kris surreptitiously glanced at her bare left hand.

  Carrie turned and leaned against the counter, her dimples deepening. “Yeah, I’m single. Billy walked out six months ago, and I should be thankful it’s over. But life sure throws us some curves sometimes, doesn’t it?”

  If she only knew. “I—I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks, but don’t be. I’m a ‘till death do us part’ kind
of gal, and he was a ‘till I’m out of sight’ kinda guy.” She shook her head slowly and sighed. “When Trace found out, it was all I could do to keep him from taking Billy apart, piece by piece, though some folks thought Billy had it coming.”

  Bemused by the flood of personal revelations from a complete stranger, Kris could only try for a comforting smile in return.

  “Over, done with.” Carrie flapped her hands with a dismissive air. “So how about you? Are you excited over moving here?”

  “I’m just glad the trip here is over. Want some coffee to go with those cookies?” When Carrie nodded, Kris started making a pot. “The lawyer said this place needed work, but that he could simply contact a Realtor and save me the trouble if I wanted to sell.”

  Carrie’s mouth dropped open. “You’d really sell this place?”

  Kris nodded. “I figure this is my one chance to…” She hesitated. “Well, to make some dreams come true. I hope to fix it up a little, so it can bring a better price.”

  Carrie gave her an odd look. “You got here last night, right? Have you walked the property in the daylight yet? Taken a really good look?”

  “Nope. I started making my project list for inside the house, though. Sweat equity has taken on a whole lot more meaning now that I see how much has to be done.”

  Carrie reached for the bag of cookies, pulled a paper plate from a package Kris had left on the counter and shook a few cookies onto the plate. Bailey immediately took up his silent I’m-a-starving-orphan position at her feet and looked up at her with adoring eyes. On the counter, the coffeemaker gurgled and spat.

  “I guess you didn’t know Thalia,” Carrie murmured after she polished off a cookie.

  “Never met her. I wish I had—it would’ve been nice just knowing that I had a relative somewhere.”

  Even after all these years, a hint of wistfulness must have crept into her voice, because Carrie looked up sharply. “You had no one?”

  Apparently Trace wasn’t a gossipy sort of guy. “I told your brother about it. I was raised in the area, but my dad died when I was young, and my mom split a few years later. I grew up in foster homes, mostly. I have a sister somewhere, but haven’t seen her in years.”

  Carrie’s expressive face crumpled with sympathy. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  Kris shrugged and turned to pour a couple of cups of coffee, then slid the carafe back into the coffeemaker so it could finish the rest of its brewing cycle.

  She handed Carrie a cup, and cradled the other between her palms, savoring the warmth. “So what was Thalia like?”

  “She loved this place so much. She raised golden retrievers and had a whole army of cats in the barn, along with a couple horses and a pet cow.”

  “A pet cow?”

  “It started out as an injured calf that she rescued after it wandered onto her property. She insisted on paying Trace for it, then she could never bear to let it go back to a herd. She eventually established a private no-kill shelter of sorts here.” Carrie’s eyes lit with obvious fondness. “She loved hiking up into the mountains to paint nature scenes, which she sold at some of the tourist shops in town. She played classical music on her piano. She was my piano teacher when I was a teen.”

  “Sounds like a pretty interesting lady.”

  “She was.” Carrie laughed lightly. “You could sure see her coming. She wore brilliantly colored caftans with lots of silver jewelry, and she had the reddest hair I ever saw. I…I still can’t believe she’s gone. She was only sixty when she fell to her death. She would’ve loved meeting you,” Carrie added softly. “She once told me how she enjoyed teaching her piano students because she’d never married or had kids of her own. Even with all her pets, I imagine she was lonely sometimes.”

  Until now, Thalia Porter had been only a name on some documents. A shadowy figure who had never bothered to track down a hurting child, lost in the foster care system for too many years. But now a sense of longing and loss filled Kris’s heart for the first time at the thought of the fascinating woman she would never get to meet.

  “She fell in some sort of ravine up in the mountains, right? That’s what the lawyer said.”

  Carrie nodded. “She was on a trail she’d hiked countless times, heading for one of her favorite vistas to paint. She died doing what she enjoyed most.”

  “It’s a shame she died so young, though.”

  Carrie took a sip of coffee and looked pensively out the front window of the cabin to the faint silhouette of the mountains cloaked in a thick morning haze. “Everyone around here loved her, and I miss her terribly, but I guess none of us know when our time will be up. We just need to do our best to live a good and loving life, keep our faith in God and not do anything we’ll regret.”

  Regret. Something Kris had lived with for a long, long time. She murmured vague words of agreement as she turned away to fiddle with the coffeepot.

  Things hadn’t been easy for Carrie, either, yet the young woman still seemed to glow with happiness and contentment. What would it be like to feel that confident, that positive about her faith and about what life promised?

  If only I’d made the right decisions years ago…

  But even now, she knew that her past would be catching up to her. There’d be a phone call…or a letter. It would start all over again.

  And she’d long ago given up on praying for a reprieve.

  THREE

  Carrie’s words played through Kris’s thoughts as she followed her out to the Rocking R truck parked outside.

  “So what do you think?” Carrie stopped at the driver’s-side door and gave Kris an expectant look. “Dinner tomorrow night around seven? Just go four miles north and look for the Rocking R sign on the left. Can’t miss it.”

  Jerked back to the present, Kris gave her an embarrassed smile and wondered what else she’d missed in Carrie’s mile-a-minute conversation. “I…well…”

  “Nothing fancy, believe me.” Carrie opened the door and grinned. “After working on this place all day, a hot meal ought to feel good. It’ll probably be just the two of us, though.”

  No surprise, there. “I get the feeling that Trace isn’t exactly happy to have me move in next door.”

  Carrie snorted. “He isn’t exactly Mr. Sociable, is he? But…he has his reasons. He’s actually a great guy—once you get to know him.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  “No, I understand. But he didn’t dream up an excuse to be gone, or anything. He’s got some people coming to look at horses tomorrow afternoon and after that he has a fire investigation the other end of the county.”

  “He’s in insurance, too?”

  “No.” She lifted a shoulder. “He’s been with the volunteer fire department most of his adult life, so when the county’s on-call arson investigator retired a couple years ago, Trace was asked if he’d take the necessary classes and certification to replace him.” She chuckled. “He took something like fifteen seminars, and even had to travel out of state for some of them. But one thing about Trace—he’s the go-to guy for anything that comes his way, and he’s definitely not a quitter.”

  “I…guess not,” Kris murmured. His sister clearly loved him, but the news of his planned absence made the invitation all the more appealing.

  Carrie’s forehead puckered. “Oh—I forgot to tell you. He was over early this morning and moved that downed tree blocking your road. He’s sending one of the men over with a chain saw later on, so you’ll have a good stack of firewood out of it.”

  Surprised at his thoughtfulness, Kris murmured her thanks, then watched Carrie’s pickup rumble across the snowy meadow and out of sight around a curve leading into the trees.

  Bailey bounded through the drifts to her side, his tongue lolling and his wagging tail sending up a cloud of snow.

  “Let’s go check everything out, okay?”

  He loped around her in circles as she started for the buildings behind the house. Set against the backdrop of a solid wall of pine
s rimming the clearing, both structures were weathered to pale silver. One was long and low, maybe thirty by sixty, with what appeared to be an office and entry jutting out from the center.

  The other building was a small, traditional hip-roofed barn, where Thalia had probably kept her little herd of livestock safe and warm.

  Bailey scratched at the door of the kennel building, so Kris started there first, trying different keys on her ring until the door finally opened.

  Inside, a massive desk and multiple file cabinets filled the right wall, though most of the space was devoted to what appeared to be a pet-grooming and veterinary-exam area, with a stainless-steel exam table, washtubs and glass-fronted supply cupboards.

  Nice facilities, except the area was filled to the ceiling with junk of all kinds—old mowers, sagging, damp cardboard boxes, wooden crates of moldering books.

  The next door led to the kennel area, where an aisle stretched to the left and right, flanked with dog pens on both sides. A series of skylights filtered dim light into the interior, revealing piles of old furniture. Bedsprings. Rusted barrels. Stacks of yellowed newspapers and more magazines.

  Something skittered through the shadows and Bailey lunged after it, barking madly until he reached the end of the building and skidded to a confused halt. Whining, he scrabbled at a moldering tower of cardboard boxes, though why he thought any rodent would stick around amidst the din was anybody’s guess.

  Kris wrapped her arms around her middle and rubbed her upper arms to stimulate the circulation as she walked the length of the building to the left and then the right, her breath visible in steamy puffs.

  Clearly there hadn’t been an estate auction after Thalia’s death, and these jumbled piles of possessions were all that was left of her life.

  The sadness of it all nearly robbed Kris of breath as she turned slowly and took it in.