Almost Perfect

by Marilyn Tracy

  “Yeah, tell me.”

  “She just buy the place?”

  “No, it’s been in the family for years, but more or less abandoned. She just got here from Dallas.”

  “She’s a widow, you said?”

  “Right.”

  “Any chance the husband was in the know about how his property was being used?”

  “Could be,” Pete said coldly, sickened by the notion. This was what he’d withheld from Carolyn, the knowledge that her husband might have accepted money from these men, might be the cause of her current troubles.

  The men last night had basically said as much. The papers they’d waved in Carolyn’s face early on had been bogus, but their assumption of rights to the property may not have been. The implication that her husband had condoned the situation, had left it to her without explanation disgusted him.

  But this, he couldn’t tell her anything about. Her husband of some eleven years was dead. Surely she had the right to some illusions.

  He told Alec, “The guy left her practically destitute, but I went through some of her papers in her closet and saw that he was receiving a check from a Canadian firm every month like clockwork. Couple of grand a month. And that ties in with what the Canadian fellow said last night.”

  Alec whistled.

  “No kidding,” Pete muttered. “And the husband was a prosecuting attorney, wouldn’t have much in the way of private practice. Of course, the money could be legit. But my gut tells me I’m right.”

  “Want me to check out the firm?”

  Pete gave him the name he’d seen on the canceled checks from the box in the living room closet.

  Pete said, “It’s my guess the drop’ll take place in the next couple of days. That’s how long they gave her to clear out. And, there’s a full moon in a couple of days.”

  “This widow know about you?”

  “Some of it. Not all. Carolyn used to be a social psychologist. Of all damned things, she recognized the tattoo.”

  “Whew! Think of the odds against that. Does she know the rest?”

  “No.”

  “You going to tell her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Pete—”

  “Let me do this my way, okay?”

  “You’re the boss.”

  Pete chuckled. “Actually, I’m the hired hand.”

  Alec MacLaine snorted. “That, I’d like to see.”

  “Hey, pal, I’ll have you know I can saddle a horse with the best of them now.”

  “What do you want on this end?”

  “Just be ready to rally at my signal.”

  “You got it. I’ll get things set up with Lubbock.”

  “Good deal,” Pete said. The blow-dryer stopped. “And Alec? Kiss Cait for me, will you?”

  “Not for you, I won’t.”

  Pete chuckled and hung up without a farewell. Between longtime associates, such amenities weren’t a necessity.

  He had their coffee poured and was sitting at the table when Carolyn came down the stairs.

  “Did I hear you talking to someone?” she asked, sliding into her chair and carefully, purposefully not meeting his eyes.

  “Phone call,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said, and her nervousness at confronting him by light of day apparently overrode any curiosity.

  “Carolyn...”

  “Mmm?” She took a sip of coffee.

  “I want to talk about last night,” he said.

  Carolyn’s eyes flew to his then. In the harsh morning light his wounds appeared far worse than they had in the shadowy night. The Wannamachers had done this to him because of her, because she’d brought him to her place.

  “We should have put something on your eye,” she said. “Does it hurt much?”

  He shook his head and shrugged. Of course it did. He had to be aching from every pore in his body.

  “Looks like hell, though,” he said, and grinned crookedly, more crookedly than ever because of the cut on his lip. And she never thought she’d seen anyone more handsome, more uniquely beautiful. Those cuts and bruises were a badge of courage and dedication because he’d taken them for her.

  “Speaking of wrecked,” Pete said, “the bunkhouse leaked like a sieve last night. It looks worse than I do.”

  She smiled. “That’s hard to imagine.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Her smile broadened. “You’re welcome.”

  She didn’t know how he’d done it, but in his offhand manner, in his simple banter, he’d managed to strip the tension and embarrassment from the morning. And he’d managed to make her think about him not as a lover, not as a murderer, but as a man. Just Pete. Who had come to the ranch for her and her daughters, who had believed the kids were conning him about kneeing Bratwurst, who had fixed screen doors, mailboxes, fences and barns, and fed a hungry mother cat to boot.

  “Last night was remarkable,” he said.

  And because he was looking at her so directly and because he’d diffused the sharp fear in her already, she was able to respond honestly, “Yes,” she said simply. Starkly honestly.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Carolyn,” he said.

  She held up a hand. “That’s all right. You don’t have to tell me anything.”

  He smiled a little. Somewhat wistfully, she thought. “You have a right to know.”

  She stood up and went for more coffee. She poured them both a round before sitting back down. “Pete, I don’t want to lie to you. Not just because of what happened between us last night. Knowing that you killed someone in prison scares the living daylights out of me. Not that I imagine for one minute that you didn’t have good cause or that it was in self-defence or something...but because that tattoo announces that killing is something to be honored.”

  “And...?”

  “And I think it hurts you.”

  “And you?”

  She felt the wistful smile on her lips now. “And me. Yes.”

  “Carolyn—”

  She interrupted him. “Wait, Pete, let me finish. I was confused, yes. Maybe I still am. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just crazy...”

  “What are you saying, Carolyn?” he asked hoarsely, forcing her to meet his gaze.

  “I’m trying to tell you I don’t want it to matter between us. That I think I can live with this. Maybe even forget about it.”

  Her heart beat wildly and painfully in her chest and it seemed to her that his might have stopped altogether. He closed his eyes with an expression of intense agony.

  Oh, dear God, he thought, more moved and more humbled than he could have thought possible. For a split second he wrestled with tears of such exquisite anguish that he was afraid they would spill free. They burned inside, a raging, scalding liquid that poured through him in wave after wave of purifying fire.

  He swallowed heavily. She hadn’t said she loved him. But those were only words. She’d shown him. She’d granted him the gift of her trust, her faith in him and her unbelievable certainty that a future could exist for them.

  He trembled on the threshold of a promise so sweet and so enticing he could taste the possibility of happiness.

  “Don’t leave me out here all alone,” she said softly.

  He opened his eyes then. “Never,” he said, and had to clear his throat. “What an amazing woman you are.”

  She smiled softly and stretched her hand across the table to lightly touch the back of his. “So now what?” she asked.

  Pete didn’t know if she meant them or the situation surrounding them. If he talked about the former, he would flail about in unfamiliar waters, showing her just how little prepared he was to accept the concept of a happy tomorrow.

  He chose to answer the latter. “Now we call your sister-in-law and talk to her about getting you and the girls out of town. I’d feel better if she went, too. There’s no reason to let these guys have any access to any member of your family.”

  “I’ll call her now, but I’m not going with
them.”

  “The hell you aren’t,” he said firmly, turning his hand over to grasp her fingers. “You’ve got to.”

  “No. I told you last night...I’m not leaving here, either. The girls will be safe with Taylor. But if you’re staying here to fight them, I’m staying with you. You can teach me how to shoot or whatever it takes, but I’m staying.” She drew her fingers from his tight clasp. “And there’s not a bit of use in arguing with me. This is the way it is.”

  She exited the kitchen like an actress leaving the stage, her head high, her shoulders squared.

  Pete was reminded of the morning he’d tried to give her a twenty for a new hammer and a sack full of nails. A smile snagged his lips. On top of her other attributes, this lady was sassy as all get-out.

  She came back in a few moments. “Taylor will be out for the girls’ things within the hour. She’ll take them to Lubbock for a couple of days and wait for us to contact her. She even offered to take them to Disneyland.”

  Pete was struck anew by the contrasts eddying around them. Drug dealers usurping Carolyn’s ranch, and to keep the kids out of it, let’s pack them off to a fun park for a few days.

  She poured them both another cup of coffee, pulled his cream from the refrigerator and handed the container to him wordlessly, then waited for him to lighten his coffee before putting it back inside. She didn’t sit down.

  He looked up at her and was surprised by the sharp look of question on her face. “What?”

  She held out her hand with the checks he’d found in the closet box. “What are these?” she asked. Her voice appeared no more than mildly curious but carried a note he couldn’t identify.

  Damn. He didn’t want to tell his theory about the checks, about the land...about her husband’s involvement. He’d forgotten to put them away after his phone call to Alec. He must be slipping. Want and need of Carolyn was making him careless.

  “I found them in the box in the closet.”

  “You were going through my things?” she asked softly. Dangerously.

  Treading on exceedingly thin ice, Pete forced himself to meet her gaze directly. “I did, yes. I’m sorry. I was looking for extra weapons one day.”

  “In my boxes of unpacked things.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what else did you find?”

  “Carolyn—”

  “What did you want with these canceled checks? What was that phone call about? Who were you calling?”

  “What is this, Carolyn?” he asked. “Five minutes ago you trusted me. You don’t now?”

  A wave of pain swept across her face. “I don’t know what to think,” she said steadily enough. “I feel as if everything is topsy-turvy, that just as I get something clear, it wisps away. Like fog.” Tears filmed her eyes. “I want to trust you, Pete. I do.”

  “Then trust me on this, Carolyn. Please. Don’t explore this particular path. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  She looked from him to the checks, turned them over to read the countersignature on the back, then slowly set them down beside him. When she looked back up at him, her eyes were veiled, her emotions held behind a barrier that she’d raised in the past few minutes.

  “Okay,” she said. “For now, I’ll buy it.”

  He knew both what she was saying and what she wasn’t. She’d trust him not to hurt her, would trust that knowing about this would. But she was also telling him that her trust was on a short lead. It was too new, too fragile to accept any and all things he might do.

  And that was the moment, the precise and exact moment in time that Pete knew he loved Carolyn Leary. And would love her forever. And he knew this because he had the terrible feeling that he would blow that trust, sunder those boundaries and lose her.

  Chapter 11

  Carolyn had the girls’ bags packed before Taylor’s Jeep Cherokee purred into the driveway. Pete carried them outside and stuffed them into the back storage area.

  “What happened to your face, Pete?” Jenny called

  “Somebody beat him up,” one of the triplets said.

  “Did they, Pete?” Shawna asked, obviously horrified.

  “Ran into the barn,” he said.

  “Bet it was the Wannamachers,” a triplet offered.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Jenny said hotly. “Pete would have laid them out flat. Like use kung fu fighting or something.” She demonstrated and poked one of her cousins in the side.

  All five cousins entered the fray and soon a rollicking, giggling group set the Cherokee rocking, apparently forgetting all about the bruises and cuts on Pete’s face.

  But he caught Taylor eyeing him in a combination of sympathy and hard-set anger. He slammed the rear door closed and joined Taylor and Carolyn at the side of the vehicle. “I wish you’d let me call the state troopers,” Taylor said. “They’d be here in seconds. If what you suspect is real, they need to be in on it.”

  Carolyn had said almost identical words the night before. But neither she nor Taylor had heard the cold note in the unnamed man’s voice as he spelled out what would happen to Jenny, Shawna or Carolyn if they did so. He had heard it and it echoed still. That he’d called someone else technically couldn’t be considered disobeying that arrogant command. He hadn’t called in the state troopers and he wasn’t going to.

  He tried one last time to get Carolyn to go with Taylor. She wasn’t having any of it. To his surprise, Taylor didn’t make any such attempt. When he appealed to her to try, she gave him a cool look of appraisal.

  “I don’t think you’ve been around very many western women,” she said almost patronizingly. “We’re tough as proverbial nails. And we fight to keep what’s ours.”

  “At the possible expense of her life?” he asked.

  “Are you staying?” she asked back.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “Then, of course, you’ll protect her.” She turned to Carolyn then and smiled gently. “But you better take care of yourself. We’ll be at the Holiday Inn in Lubbock. We’ll check in with you morning and night. And if we don’t reach you or you don’t call us back, I’m sending in the troops. You got it? Doug’s friends will be out here like the cavalry. Clear?”

  Carolyn hugged her sister-in-law awkwardly and received a full-fledged family bear hug in response. Tears sprang to her eyes. “I love you, Taylor,” she said for the first time. And meant it.

  “I love you, too. You’re my sister, sweetie.”

  Carolyn, who had never had a sister of her own, clung to the sincerity of Taylor’s words...and to the genuine pressure of the arms around her. Finally she pulled back and smiled shakily, blinking away her tears. “You’re the one with all the trouble. You have five kids in the car with you.”

  Taylor grinned, flicking away the tears in her own eyes, and gripped Carolyn’s arms fiercely before letting her go. Then she turned to Pete. “Take care of her,” she said solemnly.

  “With my life,” he said, equally seriously.

  She seemed to study him for a moment, then nodded as if accepting him at his word.

  With a wave and farewell from Taylor and a cacophonous tsunami from the five cousins, Carolyn’s family departed. She watched the Cherokee disappear down the road until a final curve took it out of sight.

  “They’ll be all right,” Pete said.

  “I know,” she answered, but lifted a hand to swipe at her face.

  Pete didn’t know how to comfort her. Or if she even wanted him to try. Some things were better left unsaid. Things like husbands selling out to drug dealers. Things like children in potential danger. Things like falling in love with the one woman he’d never even dared dream about?

  He wanted to ask her why loving her had to hurt so much. But he knew the answer lay within himself. He was the reason it hurt. His past. His choices. His life. It hurt so much because he’d done things that he couldn’t reconcile with the way he felt about Carolyn.

  “We have to assume they’ll be watching the place,” he said. “Possibly
from the air, or from some rise where a telescope will let them know we’re taking them seriously. I think it would be best if we seem to be playing along.”

  She gave her face a last surreptitious swipe and turned to face him. “So we make like we’re packing out?”

  He nodded, disconcerted by her use of the pronoun “we.”

  “If they are watching, they’ll have seen the girls leaving with Taylor, so one problem’s out of the way.” She faltered on her last couple of words. “Unless they follow them?”

  “They won’t, Carolyn. Trust me, they’re not after the kids.” At her look of skepticism, he added, “They’ve got bigger trouble. They’ve got a cache of drugs coming in—tomorrow night or the next, I’d guess—and apparently they figured they could drive you out before this. It’s my theory that’s why the outsider is here. He came in to clean up the mess. And, frankly, he’s the one that scares me.”

  “Me, too,” she said dryly. She looked so damned beautiful, standing three inches deep in rapidly drying mud, her blond hair softly blowing in the breeze, her imperfectly masked vulnerability radiating out from her like a beacon.

  He had to clear his throat. “At any rate, they need to deal with the drugs, not a bunch of kids and the widow of a state trooper. Though, in all honesty, I’d put that bunch up against an army. Maybe even a team of guerrillas.”

  He found he’d said that just to hear her watery chuckle. “But—” she began as her laughter faded.

  “I know. They want you gone as well.”

  “Pete...?”

  He stilled himself, waiting for the question about the canceled checks, about her former husband’s possible involvement. “Thank you,” she said slowly. And oh so needlessly.

  He exhaled. Tell her now, he urged himself. Let her off. She deserved to know the truth. She needed to know who...what she was giving her undeserving thanks to. Let her decide for herself.

  She lightly touched his arm and drew her hand back sharply as if afraid of being burned. Before he could so much as force his lips to form the truth, she rounded and squelched through the mud to the main house back door. She slipped her boots free at the door and looked back at him.

  How did she know he’d be standing there, as if rooted to the ground, watching her every move?