Paige had spent the morning cleaning the fouled trough, rechecking all the others along with her ponds, the main lake on the property and the water source that ran into it. She hadn’t let Robbie out of her sight the whole time.
He wasn’t happy about that. As a rule, Paige was not an overprotective mother, and Robbie had free run of the place, playing and exploring as he liked. But not today. And since they’d seen John take off on horseback earlier that morning, Robbie hadn’t even been able to visit their neighbor.
But Paige didn’t care how much her son chafed at the restrictions. Someone had come onto their land the day before and purposely poisoned one of their animals. And while Paige couldn’t think of any reason for it except as the mean-spirited prank John had suggested it was—and even though she hadn’t found anything else poisoned—she still wasn’t taking any chances. Especially not when she added that speeding car into the equation.
Paige and Robbie had just finished with the railing about two o’clock when the sheriff arrived. That perked up Robbie, who kept complaining of getting bored. Paige had put in a call to Burt earlier, leaving him a message that there’d been some trouble out at her place that she needed to report, but making it clear it was not an emergency.
“You’re just in time for our lemonade break,” she told the sheriff once they’d exchanged greetings.
“I’ll take you up on that,” he said, using a handkerchief from his back pocket to wipe sweat off his face. Then he gave a delighted Robbie permission to sit in the car and pretend to be the sheriff in hot pursuit of robbers, so long as he didn’t touch anything but the steering wheel.
Over lemonade and the remaining brownies, Paige filled Burt in on the lye incident.
Burt listened carefully, asked a few questions and made some notes on a small pad he took from his shirt pocket.
When they’d finished the lemonade and brownies and gone through all the details, Burt wanted to be shown the trough.
“I suppose I shouldn’t have emptied it out and cleaned it,” Paige said along the way. “I didn’t think about it until just now, but I guess I destroyed the evidence.”
“Would’ve been better to leave it,” Burt assented. “Anything happens again, do that for me, will you?”
They went through the barn where Frieda was the only occupant today, chewing her cud without any lingering aftereffects of the poisoning. Nijjy’s fetlock had been almost good as new when Paige checked the mare this morning, so she’d let her out in the side paddock with the other horses.
In the back field behind the bar, Burt did a slow scan of the trough and the area all around it, circling it in ever-widening arcs, his eyes on the ground the whole time.
About five feet from the trough, he stopped and hunkered down. “The ground closer in is too trampled to make out any footprints, but we’ve got some tracks out here, leading in from those woods,” he announced.
Paige had been standing back, watching him do his job without getting in the way. But now she joined him, bending over to look for herself.
Burt was right about the tracks.
“One man’d be my guess. A big one from the size of the feet and depth of the print. Wearing cowboy boots.”
“That hardly narrows it down. Nearly every man around here wears cowboy boots and any number of them are good-sized.”
“True enough,” Burt agreed. He stood then, and when Paige did, too, she found him staring across at John’s house. “He see anything?”
“John? He must not have or he would have said something about it.” Then Paige realized for the first time that, while her house was situated exactly in front of the barn—blocking any sight of the field behind it—from the angle of John’s house some of the field was visible. Including the trough.
“Julie tells me he wants more of your water. Even offered to buy you out completely to get it,” Burt said.
“It’s not a big deal. That wouldn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Concerns me that somebody came this close to the house—to you and Robbie—to poison your water. If a person didn’t know you weren’t the panicky kind, they might think that sort of thing would set you to considering selling out.”
Paige knew it was Burt’s job to be suspicious, but this train of thought seemed overly so. “I doubt if John is desperate enough for the water to do anything like that. Besides, I just don’t believe he’s that kind of person.”
“Got to know him pretty well in the past few days, have you?”
She couldn’t lie and say she had. “It’s just my instinct about him. He seems like a good, decent, honorable, upstanding man. He’s not the type to put lye in a water trough and hurt an animal.” That last part seemed especially true when she thought of how kindly he’d treated both Nijjy and Frieda. And how they’d responded to him. Even the vet didn’t have the same level of rapport with them or the ability to calm them with the touch of his hands.
And although she wouldn’t admit it to Burt, she put some store in the animals’ instincts about him, too.
“If you want to cast a suspicious eye somewhere,” she said, “cast it at that woman who drives the black Trans Am. You remember, the one you helped on the back road Saturday night. That car has driven by here twice today, going about ninety miles an hour both times.”
Burt shook his head. “The lady’s a reporter from the Tinsdale newspaper.”
Tinsdale was the city nearest to the little town of Pine Ridge.
“Why does she keep showing up here?”
“She’s following the burglaries. She calls me every day—sometimes twice a day—asking what’s going on with them. She wanted information on the one that happened yesterday.”
“I didn’t know there had been another one.”
“Late in the morning. Out at the Cobb farm while they were in town for the day.”
“Julie and I saw them at the new pizza place at lunchtime.”
“Yeah, well, while they were eating pizza and buying new shoes, they lost everything of value in the house.”
“In broad daylight.”
“Day or night, their place sits so far away from anything else no one saw a thing.” Again Burt looked toward John’s house. “You were with Julie so you couldn’t vouch for your neighbor’s being around then, could you?”
“No,” she had to admit. Albeit reluctantly.
“He could’ve come up the back road from there, gone through the woods, dumped the lye in the trough and hightailed it through the woods again and on home like he hadn’t been up to no good. Then gone on about his business the rest of the day and nobody’d be the wiser.”
“I’m telling you, Burt, you’re wrong about him,” Paige insisted, believing it. She just could not, by any stretch of the imagination, picture John doing any of that.
“I hope you’re right. But I’ve called in his name and description to the state police, asked for some information about him. Guess we’ll see what turns up.”
“Just because a man keeps to himself doesn’t mean he’s guilty of anything.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s innocent, either.”
“I still think the burglaries and even the lye in my trough are more likely linked to Tinsdale. Maybe somebody over there has a grudge against us and is just wreaking havoc here because of it. Or maybe someone connected to the paper and the reporter in the Trans Am is making news at our expense to increase circulation and that’s why the reporter who drives too fast is keeping such close tabs on it.”
Burt chuckled good-naturedly. “Reaching a little there, aren’t you, Paige?”
“Well, okay, maybe. I just don’t think you should be trying so hard to pin everything on John.” Although she also didn’t know why she should be trying so hard to defend him.
“Honey, I’m not trying to pin anything on anybody. I just need to look at all the possibilities here. And a little five-foot girl reporter from Tinsdale isn’t much of one no matter how fast she drives.”
“She defi
nitely drives too fast,” Paige reiterated for lack of anything else to say in John’s favor.
“I’ll talk to her about it, ticket her if I catch her,” Burt assured her. “But in the meantime, until I get a handle on whoever’s doing these burglaries and putting lye in your water, I just wish you wouldn’t get too friendly with your neighbor over there. Even if Julie does think it’d be good for you to get involved with a man again. Pick another man, huh?”
Too late, Paige thought, knowing the fact that she was itching to have her neighbor kiss her counted as getting friendly. Real friendly.
“I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about when it comes to John.” Except for that itch of hers. She knew she shouldn’t be having it, let alone wishing to get the itching scratched.
“Just keep it cool, will you? For me? For a little while, until I get that report from the state police?”
Keep it cool.
The phrase repeated itself in her head. But it didn’t seem to apply to anything between herself and John, considering he hadn’t so much as kissed her.
“Don’t worry about me,” she told the sheriff as she walked him to his car out front.
“That’s part of the job,” Burt answered. “And part of being your friend.”
“I appreciate it. It just isn’t necessary. I’m fine. Really. And so is John.”
But Burt didn’t look convinced as he lifted Robbie out of the driver’s seat and got in his sedan.
And maybe, Paige told herself as Burt drove off, she shouldn’t be so sure of her own instincts when it came to men, either. She’d already made one very costly mistake when she got involved with Robbie’s father.
THE POISONED WATER incident was still on Paige’s mind as she began to get ready to go to bed that night. Feeling the need to take extra precautions with the horses in her care, she decided they’d be safer locked in the barn than left in the paddock.
Robbie was already asleep, so she took the intercom monitor, slipped her bare feet into a pair of penny loafers that were near at hand and went outside.
She and Robbie had been in the house all evening and she hadn’t realized how stuffy the place had been until she stepped into the clear country air.
She’d had her bath earlier and, in deference to the heat, put on only a pair of cutoffs shorter than she would ever wear in public and a pale pink cotton top with a crew neck and sleeveless armholes cut on the bias to drop in a sharp angle that exposed her shoulders. It, too, was not something she would have worn into town because she couldn’t wear a bra with it. But it was perfect for helping to beat the heat.
She’d washed her hair earlier, too, and left it to hang loosely around her shoulders in the natural waves it fell into if she let it air-dry.
As she walked to the barn, the fresher air felt wonderful against her bare legs and shoulders, and the slight breeze ruffled her slightly damp hair. Much too wonderful to make quick work of the chore she’d come to do, so rather than immediately herding the horses into the barn, she climbed onto the top rail of the paddock fence to sit and relax and enjoy the last vestiges of evening as it rolled into night.
She chose a side portion of the fence so she could watch the house, even though she’d made sure Robbie was locked in tight. That side also happened to give her a clear view of John’s place next door and it didn’t take but a few minutes before her gaze wandered over there.
His lights were still on downstairs, while the windows of the upper level were dark. It was a little after ten o’clock and she wondered how late he stayed up. And whether he was a night owl or a morning person the way she’d become since having Robbie and coming back here to live.
John was doing something in his kitchen. She couldn’t see what, but every so often she glimpsed him through the window above the sink. Probably making himself a snack, she decided. Although, for all she knew, he might be a gourmet cook who prepared himself a feast he didn’t eat until eight or nine o’clock and now he was just cleaning up.
For all she knew…
She didn’t know anything about him except that he came from Texas and had a brother. But even without any real knowledge to base her opinion on, she didn’t believe he was a cosmopolitan gourmet chef who dined late. More likely his specialty was chili he could throw together as easily over an open fire as in a well-appointed kitchen.
As for Burt’s concerns that he might be the local burglar and the person responsible for fouling her water?
She just couldn’t accept those suspicions were true of him, either. Of course, she could be wrong. She’d been wrong about a man before.
Yet she still couldn’t see John breaking into houses and stealing people’s valuables. Or resorting to poisoning her cow in an attempt to drive her off her land so he could have control over all the water and expand his place.
Would he really have bought property and moved into a small community only to rob it blind?
Paige didn’t think so. She thought that someone doing something like that would not do it in his own backyard.
And as for the poisoned water?
That was hardly going to spur her into any kind of dramatic action like selling the place and moving, or even handing over half her water rights. No, it really was only a nuisance. And the episode hadn’t so much as reopened the discussion about his wanting more of her water. It seemed to Paige it would have if he’d done the dirty deed with that in mind.
Instead, it had been John who had given what seemed like the most reasonable explanation for the poisoning—a mean-spirited prank.
And that seemed more in line with what Burt had been attributing the burglaries to before this latest suspicion of John—someone, maybe teenagers, coming over from Tinsdale to make malicious mischief and then hightailing it back again before they could be caught.
No, she honestly thought Burt was barking up the wrong tree by casting his eye on her neighbor.
But even so, that didn’t mean she should be letting down her guard with John as a man. In fact, if anything, that penchant he had for privacy was one way she knew without a doubt that he was dangerous to her.
Sure, she was attracted to him. She couldn’t deny that. But it was the last thing she needed to be. She had her son to raise, her business to build, the consequences of her past mistakes to contend with. She didn’t need a man or a relationship or a romance to complicate any of that. And she didn’t want one.
But even if she did, she couldn’t—and wouldn’t—allow herself to have any of that with a person who wasn’t straightforward and completely open about himself.
Which meant that she wasn’t going to give in to the attraction to John Jarvis. Or let herself feel like a woman again the way he made her feel. Or succumb to those sensations her being with him had awakened inside her. She just would not give in and that was all there was to it.
Yet the moment John’s back door opened and she saw him step out, all her convictions faded in the rush of pure, elemental pleasure. And no matter how hard she fought to tamp it down, there it was, buoyant and bubbling up with a life all its own. Especially when she realized he’d seen her and was crossing over in her direction.
Damn him for being so staggeringly good-looking! she thought as she drank in the sight.
He had on low-slung jeans, boots and a pale white T-shirt that appeared to absorb the glow of moonlight and reflect it back. A T-shirt that cupped the expanse of his broad chest, that stretched over his wide shoulders and seemed ready to split at the seams where the sleeves wrapped his work-honed biceps.
It was no wonder Robbie wanted to emulate his walk. It was the sexiest swagger she’d ever seen. Not that she thought her son was aiming to be sexy, but along with that, it was confident and firm and conveyed a message of power, of strength. It fairly shouted, Don’t mess with me because I can hold my own and could probably ward off bullies without ever requiring him to lift a finger.
And no matter how much Paige tried to tame her appreciation, she couldn’t get her heart to stop
racing at the prospect of being with him again.
“You shouldn’t be out here like this,” he said by way of greeting when he drew close to her.
Paige hopped down to face him from around the corner post rather than sitting above him. “I came out to put the horses in the barn for the night. Just in case,” she answered.
“Should have done that before dark. Just in case. This time of night a lot of things could be lurking in the shadows.”
What the sheriff thought she should be afraid of was him. But she didn’t say that. And she wasn’t feeling fear at that moment. Not at all.
“You don’t even have your baseball bat,” he said, with a hint of a smile and a glance downward as if he were looking for it. A glance that seemed to linger on her bare legs before he raised his eyes to her face once more. “Not that a baseball bat would do much good against a gun or a group of troublemakers, or somebody sneaking up on you from behind.”
Paige gazed at the horses calmly grazing in a green patch not far away, then at her handsome neighbor’s moon-caressed features. “The animals aren’t spooked. Looks like there’s nobody out here but us.” And that thought gave her a tingle of pleasure she tried to ignore.
John lifted one booted foot to the bottom rail and leaned an arm along the top one, settling in to rest his penetrating eyes on her. “Still, with all the things going on, it isn’t a good idea for you to be by yourself like this. Until the sheriff puts a stop to it, why don’t you call me if you have to go out after dark? I’ll give you my number. Or you can even just run over and pound on my back door.”
The words sounded like a suggestion, but his tone made it more forceful than that. She probably should have taken offense to what was actually a command, but that dash of protectiveness added to the pure power of his masculinity was potent, and a secret part of her liked it. That neglected feminine part of her that kept cropping up whenever he was around.
“There was something I wanted to run by you,” he said then. “I’ve been wondering if it would be okay to give Robbie one of Hannah’s puppies now that they’re weaned. I could help him train it to be a watchdog for the two of you.”
Red-Hot Ranchman Page 7