by Tami Hoag
“Evan Bryce.”
“Marilee Jennings. I was a friend of Lucy's, too, from when she lived in Sacramento. In fact, I came here to spend some time with her at her ranch.”
He offered just the right amount of sympathy, the corners of his mouth tugging down, concern tracing a little line up between his eyebrows. “Lucy was too young to die. And so vibrant, so full of life. I miss her as much as anyone. I hope you don't blame me for her death, as some do.”
Mari shrugged and shoved up the long sleeves of her jacket to expose her hands again. “I don't know who to blame,” she said carefully.
“It was an accident; there is no blame,” he said, settling the issue, at least in his own mind.
Mari knew it would be days, weeks, months before she could resign herself that way. It might have been easier if she hadn't come into the play in the middle, if she had been here and lived through the circumstances surrounding Lucy's death.
“Will you be staying long in New Eden?” Bryce asked.
“I don't know. I'm too shell-shocked to think about it yet. I just found out about Lucy's . . . accident . . . last night.”
He stroked his small chin and nodded in understanding. “I hope you'll be able to enjoy some of your stay. It's a beautiful place. You're more than welcome to come out to my ranch for a visit. It's not far from Lucy's—have you been there?”
“Last night.”
“Xanadu—my place—is just a few miles to the north. Any friend of Lucy's is welcome in my home.”
“Thank you. I'll remember that.”
He said his good-byes and left them. Mari watched as he returned to his table by the window. The others heralded him like a returning monarch. She recognized two actresses and a supermodel among the beautiful faces. They were the kind of people Lucy would have gravitated toward. Gorgeous, rich, important or self-important depending on point of view. In the chair directly to Bryce's right sat a stunning statuesque blonde with strong, almost masculine features and sharply winged brows. The woman met her gaze evenly, lifted her wineglass in a subtle salute, and tipped her head. Then she turned casually toward her companion and the contact was broken, leaving Mari wondering if she had imagined the whole thing.
“Well, darling,” Drew said, drawing her attention back to him. “I hate to rush off, but I've got to see that all's well in the kitchen before the dinner crowd arrives.” He lifted her hand from the tabletop and pressed it between both of his, his expression earnestly apologetic. “I'm sorry for all the unpleasantness.”
Mari shook it off. “I think I'd feel worse if everyone were pretending nothing had happened. It's all just too ‘twilight zone' as it is.”
“True.”
“Thanks for the drink and the meal.”
“Our compliments. And you'll stay, of course.”
“Well, I—”
His brows pulled together as the thought hit him. “Where did you stay last night?”
“The Paradise.”
“Good Christ! The Parasite! I hope to God you didn't sit on the toilet seat.”
“I didn't even lie on the sheets.”
“Smart girl. No arguments now. You're staying here as a guest of Kevin and myself. I'll tell Raoul at the desk on my way out.”
“Thanks.”
“The Parasite,” he muttered, shuddering. “What Philistine sent you there?”
There was a crash from the vicinity of the kitchen and a sudden burst of Spanish that sounded as angry as a blast of machine-gun fire. Drew muttered a heartfelt “Bloody hell,” and rushed off.
Popping one last fry in her mouth, Mari pushed her chair back from the table and headed for the front door. She had to go find her car. Then she would check in and crash. The idea of sleep uninterrupted by the X-rated antics of Bob-Ray and Luanne brought a smile to her lips. No more nights in the Parasite Motel. As she left the Moose, though, her thoughts drifted automatically and unbidden to the Philistine who had sent her there.
Rafferty.
She told herself the uneasiness was the result of having too many encounters with the name Rafferty in one twenty-four-hour period. Her initial run-in with J.D., the awkward scene with his brother in the Rainbow Cafe, the mention of a Rafferty finding Lucy's body. There was something about it all that struck her as bad karma.
She stuck her hands in the pockets of her jacket. Her fingers found the smooth black stone M. E. Fralick had given her and began rubbing it absently. The image of J.D. lingered in her mind—a big, solid block of blatant male sexuality with eyes the color of thunderheads. Her heart beat a little harder at the memory of his fingertips brushing against her breast.
She hadn't known whether he was friend or foe.
A tremor of realization snaked down her back.
You still don't know, Marilee.
“Do you think she knows anything?”
“It's difficult to say.” Bryce twined the cord of the telephone around his index finger, bored with the conversation.
He lounged on a Victorian chaise upholstered in soft mauve velvet. He detested Victoriana, but the suite he maintained at the lodge had come furnished and he preferred not to bother himself with it. He spent time in it only when he didn't care to drive all the way to Xanadu after an evening's entertainment or when he wanted a break from his entourage.
His attention was on the woman across the room. Sharon Russell, his cousin. She wore sheer white stockings and a virgin-white lace bustier that contrasted dramatically with her tanned skin. She was a sight to stir a man's blood, her body long and angular with large, conical breasts and long nipples that grew out of the centers like little fingers, like small penises. The blatantly female body contrasted almost perversely with the strongly masculine features of her face. The contrast excited him further.
He took a sip of Campari and tuned back into the telephone conversation. “She gave no indication of knowing anything, but they were close friends. She has been to the ranch.”
“We'll have to watch her.”
“Hmm.”
“You're certain you haven't found anything?”
“Of course I'm certain. There's nothing to find. The house was thoroughly searched.”
The voice on the other end of the line took on a truculent tone that quivered with fear beneath the surface. “Goddammit, Bryce, I mean it. Don't jerk me around. No more games.”
Bryce rolled his eyes at the phone on the table, derision twisting his features as he pictured the man on the other end of the line. Weakling. He had no real power and he knew it. Bryce had only to snap his fingers and he would wet himself. Without much more effort, Bryce could crush him, ruin him. He let the weight of that knowledge hang in the air as silence crackled over the phone line.
“Don't be tedious,” Bryce said at last, the edge in his voice as fine as a tungsten blade. He didn't wait for a reply, but cradled the receiver and turned his full attention to his cousin.
Sharon was the only person in his retinue who wasn't at least vaguely frightened of his power, an attitude he rewarded by considering her to be his equal in many ways. They were both ambitious, ruthless, ravenous in their desires, not afraid to take or to experiment. Not afraid of anything at all.
She sauntered toward him, her stiletto heels sinking into the mauve carpet, her eyes glowing with lust. Bryce lay back on the chaise and smiled as she straddled his naked body.
“He's afraid of this Jennings woman?” she asked, lightly raking her fingernails through his chest hair.
“He's afraid of his own shadow.”
“Well, I admit, I don't like her showing up here either,” Sharon said mildly. “There's no way of knowing what Lucy might have told her or what she might suspect.”
Bryce sighed and arched into her touch. “No, there isn't. We'll find out soon enough.”
“What's your game with the waitress?” she said. Her voice was nearly as masculine as her features, low and dark and warm. It set his nerve endings humming.
“Just testing the water
s,” Bryce assured her, reaching up to fill his hands with her breasts. The plan was still too fresh in his head to share; he wanted to savor it a bit first. “Don't concern yourself.”
In a swift and practiced move Sharon twisted a length of black silk around his wrists, jerking it tighter than was strictly necessary. She pushed his hands above his head and fastened the tie around a decorative wood scroll on the end of the chaise.
“No,” she growled, smiling wickedly as she positioned herself above his straining erection. “Don't you concern yourself. Only with me. Only with this.”
“Yes,” he whispered on an urgent breath, thinking he might explode soon. Then she impaled herself on him, and he didn't think at all.
CHAPTER
5
J.D. WORKED the horse around the pen, stepping ahead of her to make her turn, snapping a catch rope at her hindquarters when she slowed down. The rhythm of it was as natural to him as walking. He could read the mare's slightest body language, knew when she would try to turn away from him, knew when she was most in need of a breather. He let her take one now, stepping back slightly. She stopped immediately, her huge brown eyes fixed on him.
She read his body language as well. J.D. knew that ninety percent of a horse's communication was visual. That was one of the few great mysteries to mastering a horse. He had never been able to understand how anyone who had ever dealt with a horse couldn't see that in five minutes. It was stupid simple.
He made a kissing sound as the mare's attention began to drift away from him. Immediately she pricked her ears and faced him. He moved toward her slowly, held a hand out for her to blow on.
“That's a girl,” he murmured, rubbing the side of her face. “Good for you. You're all right.”
When he turned to walk away from her, she dropped her head and began to follow. J.D. wheeled and chased her off, putting her back on the rail of the round pen at a trot. This was one of the other great mysteries—establishing his place at the top of her pecking order. Dominance had nothing to do with force and everything to do with behaving in a way the horse could understand. He was the boss hoss. She had to move when he wanted, turn when he wanted and how he wanted. She rested when he allowed it. She learned to turn and face him, to keep her attention on him, because if she didn't, he would make her run some more and she was already hot, tired, and breathing hard.
He turned her in an easy figure eight with barely more than a shift of his weight and the motion of a hand. She was a pretty mare. Small, stocky—a quarter horse of the old style, built for cutting cattle. Her coat was a dark gold, made muddy now by sweat and dust. Her mane and tail were platinum—skunky, he called it—a mix of silver, white, and black. Her forelock hung in her eyes and she tossed her dainty head to fling it back. She belonged to the pharmacist in New Eden, who wanted her broke and safe for his twelve-year-old daughter to ride. She was one of four outside horses J.D. had in training at the moment. He enjoyed the work, and it brought in extra cash, something they never had enough of, ranching being what it was.
“Nice mare, good mare,” he murmured, letting the palomino rest again.
Mare . . . Mary . . . Marilee. His mind drifted as he rubbed the horse's neck and slicked a gloved hand down her heaving side. Marilee. What the hell kind of a snooty name was that? Some kind of California name. Well, by God, he wouldn't use it.
No reason to think he'd ever get the chance. She had come to see someone who was dead. She'd stay a day or two, until the shock wore off, and then she'd leave.
He tightened his jaw against the feeling that thought inspired. Will was right, much as he hated to admit that. He needed a woman. He'd gone too long without. He was feeling edgy and distracted.
In his mind's eye he could see Lucy standing in the open door of her fancy little log house wearing nothing but a pair of high-cut black panties and a see-through blouse. She leaned against the jamb, completely relaxed, her eyes glittering with amusement, her brassy yellow hair tumbling over one shoulder in a wave of silk.
How about it, cowboy? Want to ride tonight?
He didn't like her, didn't respect her, thought she was a selfish, mean-spirited bitch. She had a similar string of names and sentiments for him as well, but they hadn't let any of that get in the way of what either one of them had wanted. It had all been a game to Lucy. She knew J.D. wanted her land and she had dangled it in front of him, a shiny, empty promise she had no intention of making good on. The bitch. Now she was gone for good. The land still teased him.
A glance at the sun sliding toward the back side of the Gallatin Range told him it was quitting time for the day. He needed to shower and shave and drive back down the mountain.
Damned waste of time, citizens groups. They got together and squawked and bickered worse than a gaggle of geese, and nothing ever came of it. They could make all the noise they wanted, but in the end the money would talk and that would be the end of it. What the common man had to say wouldn't matter. They would all be ground beneath the wheels of some outsider's idea of progress.
Not the Raffertys.
That conviction was what pushed all other cynical thoughts aside. Not the Raffertys, by God. The Stars and Bars wouldn't fall. He wouldn't let it. That was the legacy left him by three prior generations of Rafferty men—protect the land, keep it in the family. He took that duty to heart. It wasn't so much a chore as a calling. It wasn't so much a sense of ownership as a sense of stewardship for the land, for tradition. He had been entrusted with a history, with the life of the ranch and everything and everyone on it. There was nothing in him stronger than his sense of personal accountability to that trust.
Forgetting about the mare, he wandered to the far side of the round pen and laid his arms against the second rail from the top. From there he could see for miles down the slope of the mountain to the broad valley that was carpeted in green, studded with green. Pines stood shoulder to shoulder, ranks of them marching down the hillsides. In the breeze, the pale green leaves of the aspen quivered like sequins. He didn't know if the shades of green here compared with those in the birthplace of his Irish ancestors; J.D. had never been farther than Dallas. But he knew each shade by heart, knew each tree, each blade of grass. The idea that some outsider believed he had a better right to all of it was like a punch in the gut.
The mare had come to stand beside him. She nudged him now, rubbed her head against his shoulder, tried to reach around and twitch her heavy upper lip against his shirt pocket. J.D. scowled at her. “Quit,” he growled in warning. She backed off a step, then tossed her head, eyes bright, not intimidated by his show of annoyance. He chuckled, pulled off a glove, and dug into his pocket for a butter mint.
“Can't fool you, can I, little mare?” he mumbled, giving her the treat.
“Reckon you can get that citizens' commission to eat out of your hand that way?”
J.D. looked across the pen to where Tucker Cahill stood with his foot on a rail and a chaw in his lip. Tucker had a face that was creased like old leather, small eyes full of wisdom and kindness, and a hat that had seen better days. He claimed women told him he was a dead ringer for Ben Johnson, the cowboy actor. Ben Johnson had seen better days too.
He was one of two hands kept on at the Stars and Bars, as much out of loyalty as necessity. The other, Chaske Sage, claimed to be the descendant of Sioux mystics. It might have been true or not. Chaske was a wily old character. He had to be at least as old as Tucker, but had warded off the rheumatism that plagued his cohort. He attributed his stamina to sex and to a mysterious mix of ash, sage, and powdered rattlesnake skin he took daily.
“Nope,” J.D. said. “All together they don't have the sense God gave a horse.” He patted the little mare and headed for the gate. She followed him like a dog. “Couple of them sure do resemble the back end of one, though.”
Tucker spat a stream of brown juice into the dirt and grinned his tight, shy grin, showing only a glimpse of discolored teeth. “That's a fact, son. A bigger bunch of horse's patoots I never
did see.” He swung the gate open and stepped past J.D. to snap a lead to the mare's halter. “I'll cool her out. You better get a move on if you're gonna make that meeting. Will already went up to the house.”
“Yeah, well, he spends an hour in front of the mirror. If he spent as much time with his wife as he does picking out his clothes—”
“Got that line of fence done up east of the blue rock.”
Tucker changed the subject as smoothly as an old cowhorse changing leads. J.D. didn't miss the switch. Tucker had been on the Stars and Bars a lot of years. He'd been a pal of old Tom, had stood by faithfully and worked like a dog during all the years Sondra had made their life a misery. He'd been a surrogate father to J.D. when Tom had been caught up in the agony of heartbreak, and a mentor after Tom had died, leaving the ranch to J.D. and Will when J.D. was only twenty. His role these days as often as not was that of diplomat. He didn't like dissention among the ranks, and did his best to smooth things between the brothers.
“You find Old Dinah?” J.D. asked as they walked across the hard-packed earth of the ranch yard, their battered boots kicking up puffs of dust.
Tucker chuckled. “Yep. In the back of beyond with a big good-looking bull calf at her side. She's got a mind of her own, that old mama cow. Just like every female I ever knew.”
The little mare snorted as if in affront, blowing crud down the back of the old man's shirt. He scowled at her, but kept on walking, grumbling, “Jeezo Pete.”
“That's why you're single,” J.D. joked, turning toward the house.
“Yeah, well, what's your excuse, hotshot?”
“I'm too smart.”
“For your own good.”
J.D. thought about that as he climbed the broad steps to the old clapboard ranch house with its wide, welcoming front porch. He planned to dodge matrimony for as long as he could. He didn't have time for courtship rituals and all the related nonsense. When he couldn't put it off any longer, he supposed he would go find a sensible woman with a ranching background, a woman who understood that the land and the animals would always come first with him. They would marry out of a mutual desire to raise a family, and the next generation of Raffertys would grow up on the Stars and Bars, learning the duty and the joy of life here.