Red-Hot Ranchman

by Victoria Pade

  But once she was dressed, she lost even the energy of anger and disillusionment and found herself sitting on the edge of that same bed, just plain hurting.

  Her feelings for John were real, even if he might not be the man she believed him to be, and they wouldn’t simply disappear because she wished they would.

  And she did wish they would.

  But no amount of willpower could make it happen.

  It was after eleven when her phone rang. She was still sitting on the edge of the bed, staring into space, lost inside herself.

  But once again, the sound brought her son to mind and she picked up the bedside phone on the third ring.

  “Paige!” Julie said before Paige finished with her hello. “Is Robbie there with you?”

  For the second time that morning, Paige went cold. “What do you mean is Robbie here with me? No, he’s with you. Isn’t he?”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “He went out front to get the newspaper so he could look at the comics, but he never came in again, and when I went to see why, I couldn’t find him. I’ve been up and down the block, I’ve talked to my neighbors…he’s nowhere around.”

  If the ugly incidents of the past few days hadn’t occurred, Paige would have been less concerned. Most people in Pine Ridge knew Robbie and he knew most people in Pine Ridge. She would have thought he was safe no matter where he’d gone off to.

  But the water poisoning, the barn fire, the stalking in the woods, the dead piglet had happened. And they’d left an indelible mark, along with an inability to take this latest news in her stride.

  “Robbie’s not here. Where is he?” Paige demanded as if that would change what her friend had just said, panic edging into her voice.

  “I don’t know where he is!” Julie shouted, panic more than an edge to hers. “No one’s seen him. I called for him and he didn’t answer. He isn’t in the house. He isn’t out back. I can’t find him!”

  “Call Burt,” Paige ordered, trying to control her own rising fear to think what to do.

  “I did! I can’t reach him. He must have his pager turned off or be out of range.”

  “Call the state police, then. Right now! I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  Paige’s hand was shaking as she hung up. Now she was more than cold; she was shivering.

  Her first inclination was to call John. To turn to him for help, for support, for strength. The calm in the storm the way he’d been so much recently.

  But then she remembered all that she’d learned about him just today. She thought of the sheriff’s suspicions of him as the town’s burglar, the person behind what had been happening to her. And in her mind she could hear what Burt would say—that John had duped her, that he’d sweet-talked and charmed her until her guard was down, until she was most vulnerable, and then he’d made the worst strike of all—he’d taken her son.

  Yet even as that idea occurred to her, she couldn’t grasp it as a real possibility. She was just so afraid…

  But afraid or not, finding Robbie and getting him home safely were what she had to think about, work for.

  She ran for the closet, jammed her feet into the first shoes she came upon and then did a mad dash down the stairs. She grabbed her car keys and was headed out the front door when she heard a knock on the back one.

  Robbie! That was her initial thought. Somehow he’d gotten a ride home and he was at the back door, but it was locked and he couldn’t just come in.

  Paige ran down the hallway beside the stairs and straight to the back door to throw it open. But it wasn’t her son standing on the back porch. It was John’s brother, Dwight. His face was tight with tension.

  “Paige, I need you to come to the barn. Right now.”

  “I can’t. Robbie is…I just can’t,” she said rather than wasting time in explaining.

  “It’s about Robbie,” he said in a hurry. “He’s in John’s barn. He’s—”

  Paige didn’t have to hear anything else. She dropped her keys and pushed through the screen door, passing Dwight.

  Nothing outside seemed amiss as she ran across her yard into John’s. All was peaceful, quiet. Ordinary.

  Maybe for some reason, Robbie had made his way from Julie’s house to John’s, she thought. Maybe she was just imagining the dourness in Dwight’s request for her to come.

  The barn’s great door was open and she rushed inside, not actually believing the explanations her worried mind devised.

  But the scene she came upon in the middle aisle of the barn was no easier to accept.

  Burt and John were facing off against each other, Burt holding a gun on John. And a few feet from the two men, lying limp and unconscious, was Robbie.

  “I was right, Paige. It’s him!” Burt said after a split-second glance at her as she stopped short inside the door. “I was on my way to Julie’s when I saw Jarvis lure Robbie out of the front yard and nab him. I followed them.”

  “You’re out of your mind!” John said, never taking his eyes off Burt or the gun. “I was just coming from the side pasture when I saw you carrying Robbie in here.”

  John spoke to the sheriff, but Burt again aimed his words at Paige. “He’s lying. He’s a murderer, Paige. He’s been our burglar all along and now he’s hurt Robbie.”

  “That’s bull! You’re trying to frame me for something you did.”

  Paige was frozen at the end of the aisle, unsure what to do. But she couldn’t stay away from her son, so she took a few tentative steps toward him. Neither of the men seemed to notice and she went the rest of the way, then knelt on the dirt floor beside him.

  Robbie was a terrible shade of gray and there were awful bruises on his neck in the shape of fingers. She called his name, laid her palm to his forehead the way she’d done countless times to check for a fever, took his hand in her other one to squeeze it. But the little boy didn’t stir, and his skin was clammy cold to the touch.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, echoing her friend’s exclamation of only minutes before, the words bursting out on a near wail of fear as she searched for any rise or fall in his chest, any movement at all, any hint of life.

  Dwight had followed her as far as the barn door and now eased his way to Robbie, too. He hunkered down on the little boy’s other side and pressed two fingers to the inside of the child’s wrist. “He has a pulse but just barely,” he said quietly to Paige.

  “If Robbie could talk, he’d tell you!” Burt said. “He’d tell you this killer did everything. Look in that stall—there’s even some of the stolen things hidden there and the bow and more arrows like the one that was shot at you.”

  Dwight kept his fingers on the pulse point of Robbie’s wrist, monitoring it. “This boy is in trouble. He needs help,” he announced loudly enough for John and Burt to hear.

  “Burt,” Paige called out to her friend.

  “It’s too late. This bastard already killed him, too. Robbie was trying to get away and he hurt him trying to hang on to him, trying to make him be quiet. I saw it.”

  There was something in Burt’s tone, something that had been there all along that was only beginning to register in Paige’s mind. Something that didn’t sound like him. His voice was more high-pitched than usual, almost desperately excited. He was talking too fast. And when she looked over at him, she thought he seemed slightly wild-eyed.

  Was he so elated to have caught John red-handed?

  Dwight frowned at Paige. “Does this town have an ambulance?”

  She shook her head. “The hospital helicopter has to be called in from Tinsdale.”

  Dwight shook his head ominously. “John,” he called, “I think you better look at this boy.”

  Paige saw John glance at her son for only a moment and take an unwitting step in their direction as if the mention of Robbie had wiped away even his thoughts about his own jeopardy. But that single step was as far as he got before Burt jammed the gun’s barrel into John’s stomach to stop him.


  “We don’t want your murdering hands on that boy,” he growled.

  “Robbie needs a doctor,” Paige said to Burt then. “We have to get him to the hospital. Please, Burt, nothing else matters right now. I know the fastest way to get the helicopter sent here is for you to call in an emergency on your car radio. Please, just go do it.”

  “Won’t matter, Paige,” the sheriff answered almost gleefully. “And I’m not letting this guy go now that I have him.”

  “Robbie needs help!” Paige shouted, a note of hysteria in her voice.

  But Burt didn’t even seem to hear her. He was just smiling a feral sort of smile at John.

  “Burt!” Paige shrieked.

  This time he cast her a quick glance, and when he did, John shot his arm out, slapping Burt’s hand away and landing a punch in the sheriff’s middle.

  Burt was taken off guard and his response seemed lumbered, but he managed to strike back, hitting John in the side.

  John grabbed for the gun, closing his hand over it, but Burt wasn’t about to relinquish his weapon. He managed to keep hold of it while he threw his weight against John in a crushing body blow. John was able to withstand the attack, still staying on his feet, and he landed punch after punishing punch in return.

  The two men struggled, careening round and round, crashing into stall posts, stall doors, sending the horses within them rearing back in protest, neither man losing his viselike grip of the gun.

  Then John gained the upper hand, landing a punch that doubled Burt over and loosened his hold. Seizing the opportunity, John wrenched the weapon away from the sheriff and let him fall, gasping for air, to the barn floor.

  That was when John turned to Robbie and Paige again, holding the gun loosely at his side. But rather than rush to them, he hesitated.

  “You better help this boy,” Dwight said, sounding more urgent.

  But John didn’t budge. Instead, he looked from Robbie to Paige, his eyes meeting hers, staying there.

  “Let John help your son,” Dwight entreated her. “I don’t think Robbie can wait for a helicopter.”

  Paige shot a confused glance at Burt. The sheriff lay on the dirt floor, holding his belly, groaning, glassyeyed and sweaty, oblivious to everything but himself. Then she looked back at John, the man who had been in her bed only hours before.

  Could he have gone from there to kidnap her son? To doing him harm?

  Could Burt have? Burt, the man she’d known since girlhood? The man she’d considered one of her best friends? Who had no apparent reason to do such a thing?

  Dwight was still taking Robbie’s pulse and suddenly said, “I’m afraid this boy is slipping—his heartbeat isn’t regular. We’re going to lose him.”

  Paige was shaking all over, searching John’s face for an answer to all the questions in her mind. But one question seemed to repeat itself over and over again—did she really believe John would hurt Robbie?

  John, who had been so patient, so gentle, so nurturing with the little boy. John, who had taken special pains to teach him the right way to do things, who had listened to him, played with him, never shown anything less than a genuine interest in him. Who had only been kind and generous. John, whom Robbie looked up to, adored and trusted…

  “John!” Dwight shouted.

  But still John didn’t move, didn’t stop staring at Paige.

  “Please,” she heard herself whisper as if instinct alone had made her decision for her.

  “I might make him worse,” he said, clearly so troubled by that possibility that he couldn’t even make himself step closer.

  “I don’t believe you would do him intentional harm,” she said, praying she was right, that the instinct she was following this time wouldn’t fail her. “Please,” she repeated.

  John joined them then, taking Dwight’s spot at Robbie’s side and handing his brother the gun to hold on Burt as John knelt across from Paige.

  She held her son’s hand while John smoothed the child’s brow, put his ear to the small chest. Then, tenderly, he placed one hand on Robbie’s throat, over the bruises, and the other on the child’s chest.

  Paige’s own pulse raced. Beads of perspiration dotted her face. She looked from John—lost in concentration, his eyes closed—to her son, so still, so wan, so lifeless.

  “He’ll kill him to keep him quiet!” Burt shouted from his spot on the floor. He was sitting up now, still fighting to catch his breath.

  Paige could only pray that Burt was wrong and focused all her attention on her son.

  Minutes stretched out as long as hours, every one that passed an agonizing eternity that made Paige doubt herself. Had she given her child over to the hands of a murderer? A kidnapper? Was she actually entrusting his care to some kind of hocus-pocus healing power that supposedly came from just the touch of John’s hands?

  But as she watched her son’s face for signs of life, fearing the worst, Robbie’s eyes suddenly fluttered. Once, twice, three times. Then they opened, blinked, searched as if for something to focus on.

  “Mom?”

  Paige didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or both. “Yes, baby. Are you okay?” she asked, her eyes blurry with tears.

  “I guess so,” Robbie said uncertainly, his voice gravelly, as if coming through a sore throat. He tried to sit up, but Paige pressed him to stay lying down. Then he glanced at his other side, to John, and frowned. “Burt was mean to me. He hurt me.”

  Suddenly, Burt sprang to his feet, drawing everyone’s attention. Surprising Dwight, he pushed him backward and took off at full speed out the back of the barn.

  Paige watched as Dwight chased the sheriff, then tackled him just outside before sitting on his chest to hold the gun only a few inches from his face this time.

  Then she turned back to her son only to find that she and Robbie were alone in the barn.

  That John had left before she had so much as told him thank-you.

  Chapter Ten

  “Yippee! Wait’ll you hear!”

  It was eight o’clock that evening before Paige had worked up the nerve to walk from her house to John’s. She’d made it as far as the bottom of his back porch steps when, from inside, she heard Dwight’s holler at the same time she saw through the screen door that he’d just hung up the telephone.

  At almost the same moment, John came into the kitchen in answer to his brother’s exclamation and one look at him stalled her.

  As much as she wanted to talk to him, to sort through everything, she was also terrified that he’d turn cold eyes on her and tell her he didn’t want to hear anything she had to say. And that made it difficult for her to go those last few feet to his door, leaving her eavesdropping by default as she fought for another bit of courage.

  “Wait’ll I hear what?” John asked his brother.

  “That was the head honcho lawyer calling from Texas. They finally got the autopsy report released, had it read, and you—brother mine—did not do anything to cause Norman French’s death. His arteries were as clogged as old drainpipes. It was a massive heart attack that got him. Would have killed him whether he was underneath your hands or sitting on his couch at home. But the old judge was so embarrassed that his son was coming to you that he wanted you to look like the bad guy.” Dwight walked over to John and slapped him heartily on the back. “Looks like you’ve still got it, boy. And you’re cleared of all the past garbage on top of it. Free and clear.”

  Paige drank in the sight of John’s smile, pleased to see the relief that filled his expression. She didn’t want to intrude on it. Or maybe that was just an excuse because the courage she’d been striving for had yet to materialize. But either way, she decided to put off seeing him until the next day and turned to go home again.

  But the movement must have caught John’s eye because she heard his deep baritone voice call, “Paige? Is that you out there?”

  He had the screen door open and was halfway out onto the porch by the time she turned back.

  “Yeah, it’s m
e,” she said softly, her heart beating a mile a minute.

  “Where are you going? Come in.”

  He didn’t sound angry or sorry to see her. But he didn’t sound happy about it, either. Just curious. And why shouldn’t he be? She came bearing a lot of news to tie up loose ends. But there was no clue in his voice, in his attitude, as to whether he wanted anything to do with her beyond that.

  “How’s Robbie?” he asked right away.

  “He’s fine. Great. It’s as if nothing happened to him at all. Julie is with him now. I just thought…I just wanted to thank you. I didn’t get a chance to with the state police coming and my needing to go into Tinsdale in the hospital helicopter with Robbie…and everything.”

  “Come on in,” he repeated, holding the door open for her.

  Dwight was inside, beaming like a proud papa. He, too, asked about Robbie. Then after exchanging a glance with John, he said he thought he’d go next door to say hello to that boy of hers and meet this Julie he’d been hearing so much about.

  Before Paige had time to figure out what that meant, he was gone and she was left alone to face John.

  He looked wonderful. Just like always, dressed in his tight jeans and a Western chambray shirt, but he was a sight for sore eyes to Paige just the same. A sight that awakened a longing in her that she knew might never be satisfied again.

  “Sit down,” John urged, nodding his head in the direction of the table.

  She sat, grateful that he was at least feeling inclined toward friendly gestures, if nothing else.

  “Did the hospital run all their tests? Make sure Robbie was okay from top to bottom?”

  “That’s where we were until five tonight. No one could figure out how he came through so much without a sign of anything wrong. Except the bruises on his neck, and they disappeared before our eyes. But that’s the truth of it. He’s perfectly all right.”

  “Did you tell them why?” John asked with the pull of a frown creasing his brow.

  Paige shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I just said he was unconscious when I found him, that he came to after a while and had been fine ever since. I didn’t think you’d want me to tell what really happened. To have it get in the newspapers and for everything to start over for you again. I thought that should be up to you.”