Dark Paradise

by Tami Hoag

  He cursed himself up one side and down the other for letting a woman take his thoughts away from his business. He didn't need the distraction of thinking about her or the distraction of seeing her standing outside the fence. If he wanted a distraction, he could wonder what the hell he would do a year from now, when Lyle Watkins and his boys would no longer be around to help work the chutes. Tucker and Chaske would be another year older, too old for a full day of this kind of work. God only knew where Will would be. His only other neighbor would be Bryce.

  Bryce wouldn't offer to trade work. J.D. doubted Bryce knew what real work was. He wouldn't know or care about the code that had always existed between neighbors here. Like the rest of his kind, Bryce had brought his own set of values and priorities with him to Montana, all of them foreign to J.D.

  The little mare pulled herself up and blew out a heavy breath, drawing J.D. back to the matter at hand. The group of cattle he had been working was sorted. They would brand and vaccinate this lot, break for dinner, then start all over again.

  He would hand the mare over to Tucker to cool her out and to give the old man a break. Tucker didn't like to admit his age, but J.D. saw it creeping up on him a little more every day, bending his back a little more, stiffening joints that had already taken too many years of abuse. In another job, Tucker Cahill would have been forced to retire by now, but there was no such thing as retirement for a cowboy. Cowboy was who a man was as much as what. Tucker Cahill wouldn't retire any more than he would quit having blue eyes and a crooked pecker.

  Besides, the Stars and Bars was Tucker's home as much as if he were a Rafferty, J.D. thought. He had spent the best years of his life and then some working this ranch for damn little pay, and he would stay here until the pallbearers carried him off feetfirst. It was up to J.D. to make that possible. It was his responsibility to take care of the old man, to see to it that he had a roof over his head and food in his belly and a purpose in his life, just as it had been Tucker's role to play surrogate father when Tom Rafferty had been too lost in his obsession to do the job.

  The weight of that and every other responsibility pressed down on his aching shoulders for a minute. Just a minute. He didn't allow any longer, couldn't afford the time. Brooding didn't get a job done.

  He turned the mare toward the out gate and was struck by the sight of Mary Lee sitting up on the far rail of the branding corral, laughing at something Will said to her. Will made a wild gesture with his arms, his wide, handsome grin lighting up his face as he entertained his audience of one.

  Jealousy stormed through J.D. like a charging bull. He would never have called it that out loud, but a spade was a spade. From the day Sondra and Tom had brought him home from the hospital, Will had been the center of attention, a magnet for any spotlight. He basked in even the smallest glow, and everyone laughed at him and was charmed by him. No one seemed to care that he aspired to nothing or that he gambled away two months' worth of bank payments at a crack or that he was about as trustworthy and reliable as a stray tomcat.

  Letting himself out the gate without dismounting from the mare, J.D. jogged the horse around the outside of the pens and pulled up when he reached the pair perched on the top rail. He shot Mary Lee a narrow look, withering her smile on the vine, then dismissed her without a word and turned to Will.

  “You sit here hanging your butt over the fence while a man pushing seventy does your job for you? What the hell are you thinking about?”

  Will's face set in hard, tight lines to mirror his brother's look. “I was thinking I hadn't had two minutes' rest since I landed on my feet this morning. I was thinking it might be polite to say hello to our guest—”

  “Yeah, right,” J.D. sneered. “Like a fox just wants to say hello to a quail—”

  “Well, hell, J.D., if you're jealous, maybe you ought to do some—”

  With a jab of a spur J.D. jumped his horse ahead and sideways, pinning his leg against the fence. Ignoring the pain, he cuffed Will across the kidneys with the back of his arm, knocking him from his perch into the corral.

  “I'm mad as hell, that's what I am,” he snapped. “Get off your lazy ass for once and do your job instead of letting an old man take up the slack for you.”

  Will glared at him over the bars of the fence. His cap had come off in the fall and his dark hair spilled across his forehead. His face was almost as red as the T-shirt he wore, embarrassment and rage pumping his blood pressure up.

  “Fuck you, J.D.!” he spat out. “I work like a goddamn dog around here—”

  “When you're not out playing rodeo or down in Little Purgatory.”

  “—not that I ever see anything for it—”

  “No shit, you lose it all playing poker—”

  “You're not my boss and you're not my keeper, and if I want to take five stinking minutes to talk to somebody, I'll do it!”

  Mari watched the exchange from the uncomfortable position of outsider. She had the distinct feeling their fury had its roots in something deeper than her ability to distract Will from his work. She knew all about sibling rivalries and resentments. Growing up the odd one out among the Jennings girls, she had felt her share of ill feelings toward Lisbeth and Annaliese. The Rafferty brothers undoubtedly had their own version of the same story. Will, the gregarious, charming rascal, and J.D., so stern, so rigid—it wasn't hard to imagine them clashing. She just didn't particularly want to be an eyewitness while it happened, or the spark that touched it off.

  “Hey, guys, look,” she said, straddling the fence, raising her hands in a peacemaking gesture, “I didn't come here to make trouble—”

  J.D. shot her a glare. “Well, you damn well managed to do it anyway, didn't you?”

  “Don't blame Mary Lee,” Will snapped. “It isn't her fault you're an ornery son of a bitch.”

  “No, and it isn't her fault you think with what's between your legs instead of what's between your ears.”

  “If my being here is a problem,” Mari said, “I'll just go.”

  “Your being in Montana is a problem,” J.D. snarled half under his breath.

  The remark cut. Mari held herself rigid against the urge to wince; she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. She raised her chin a notch, looking down her nose at him. “Yeah, well, when somebody dies and makes you king, you can have me and all my kind exiled.”

  J.D. set his jaw and turned away from her, not liking the fact that he felt even a little chastened by her words. A whole host of uncomfortable and unfamiliar feelings crawled like ants inside his skin. He shouldn't have jumped on Will in front of the whole crew. Work in the branding pen had come to a standstill while everyone watched them and waited for the outcome.

  This was what happened when a woman came prancing around; men lost their heads.

  “Now, boys,” Tucker said diplomatically, ambling away from the empty squeeze chute. He clamped a hand on Will's shoulder, turned his head, and spat a stream of tobacco juice. “Maybe what we all need is a good hot meal and a chance to sit on something that ain't movin.' I got a big ol' pan of my famous lasagna in the oven. Ought to be ready about now. Why don't we all go on up to the house?”

  J.D. had no appetite for food or for company. He started to tell the others to go on, when his mare raised her head and stared off toward the northwest, ears up. She whinnied loudly, a call that was immediately answered by several different equine voices.

  From the cover of pine and fir trees emerged a group of riders. There were six in all and a pack mule bringing up the rear. Even from a distance J.D. could make out Bryce at the front of the entourage. The sun gleamed off his long pale hair and wide white smile. He rode a handsome chestnut that danced beneath him, impatient with the leisurely pace of the rest of the group.

  It took them several minutes to close the distance, but no one at the ranch said a word while they waited. At least not until the riders were close enough for all their faces to be made out.

  Will's breath caught hard in his lungs as he recognized
Sam riding among the pack on a leggy Appaloosa. Her eyes locked on his for a second, then she glanced away, pulling her horse back to hide behind a dark-haired man on a bay.

  “Hello, neighbor!” Bryce called as he rode up, his grin brimming with bonhomie.

  “Bryce,” J.D. acknowledged, not even bothering to tip his hat to the ladies in the company, though he ran his gaze across each face.

  The strong-featured blonde who was often with Bryce rode beside him now, her gaze bold and amused as she met J.D.'s eyes. Behind her was a skinny, giggling redhead in a man's white dress shirt that she hadn't bothered to button at all, just tied in a knot at her midriff. She leaned over in her saddle and whispered something to a dark-haired man who had “city” written all over him in spite of his western-cut shirt. Bringing up the rear with the pack mule loaded down with picnic baskets was Orvis Slokum, who had worked on the Stars and Bars for a time before he had tried his hand at robbing convenience stores. Bryce had hired him right out of prison and got his name in the paper for being a great humanitarian.

  Beside Orvis, obviously trying to make herself invisible, was Samantha. She ducked her head, staring down as if the cap of her saddle horn had suddenly become the most fascinating thing in the world. But there was no mistaking the way she sat a horse or the long curtain of black hair that fell over her shoulder to obscure one side of her face.

  J.D. cut a glance out of the corner of his eyes at Will, who had turned chalk white beneath the morning's layer of dirt.

  “What's going on here?” Bryce asked, looking amused by the quaintness of it all. “A big roundup or something?”

  “Work,” J.D. growled, curling his fingers over the pommel of his saddle. “You may have heard of it once or twice.”

  Bryce laughed, unoffended. “Mr. Rafferty, I concede you know more about ranching than I do. But then, I know more about getting rich than you, don't I? My friends and I are out enjoying the fruits of my past labors as it were, taking a little tour of my land.”

  A muscle ticked in J.D.'s jaw. “You got a mite lost.”

  The smile that curled the corners of the man's mouth was almost feral. “Not at all.” He let the remark hang for a second, but went on before J.D. could call him on it. “We're only passing through on our way to the Flying K.”

  J.D. could hear Lyle Watkins clear his throat in embarrassment. He wanted to look to his old neighbor with accusation. See what you're letting in here? But he wouldn't look away from Bryce.

  “We just thought we would do the neighborly thing and stop by to let you know,” Bryce said.

  J.D.'s fingers curled a little tighter on the swell of his saddle. He wanted to yell at the man to get the hell off his land. He could feel the shout building in the back of his throat, but he swallowed it down. Control. He'd lost his cool once already today. He wouldn't lose it now, not with this man.

  “You don't own the Flying K,” he pointed out calmly.

  “Yet.”

  “Well,” J.D. drawled on a long sigh, affecting a boredom he didn't feel. “We could sit around here all day and talk about nothing, but I'd rather eat pig shit than spend time with your kind, so if you'll excuse us, we've got work to do.”

  He waited just long enough to see the color rise behind Bryce's tan before he started to rein his horse away.

  “Am I to take it, then, that you wouldn't be interested in coming to my little party tonight, Mr. Rafferty?”

  “Yep.”

  “Too bad,” Bryce said tightly, his smile looking like plastic. He jerked his gaze to Mari as Rafferty rode past him toward the back of his band. “I hope Mr. Rafferty's opinion doesn't extend to you, Mari. We'd love to have you join us. Bring your guitar if you like. There'll be some music people there. Could be an opportunity for you.”

  Mari felt she was straddling the fence metaphorically as well as physically, caught between two very different factions of acquaintances. She could feel a dozen pair of eyes on her like spotlights. The one pair she didn't feel was J.D.'s, and the absence was somehow weightier than all the other stares combined.

  “Thank you for the invitation,” she mumbled, her voice little more than a whisper. “I'd love to.”

  She ignored the feeling that she was betraying Rafferty. She didn't owe him any allegiance. She owed Lucy. And the dark-haired man sitting on a bay horse had once known Lucy MacAdam very well indeed. Ben Lucas, king turd on the Sacramento shit pile of trial attorneys. Mari knew him by sight, and she knew him by reputation. What she didn't know was what the hell he was doing with Evan Bryce.

  “We'll look forward to seeing you tonight, then.” Bryce started to rein his horse around, pulling up as his gaze fell on Will. “Mmm, my, this is a little awkward,” he said, feigning embarrassment. “You would be welcome too, of course, Mr. Rafferty, but as your ex-wife will be there, I think this could be uncomfortable for Samantha. You understand.”

  Will said nothing, his gaze fixed on Sam, willing her to look at him. She turned the other way. Ex-wife. Ex-wife. The word flashed in his head like a red neon light. They weren't divorced . . . yet. Was that how Sam thought of him? As her ex-husband?

  J.D. sat like a sentinel at the back of Bryce's cadre, showing them the figurative door. He watched impassively as Bryce led the way, saying nothing until Samantha started past him. He tipped his head and spoke her name. She ducked behind the cover of her curtain of hair, avoiding his eyes. He tightened his jaw and turned to Orvis Slokum, who was fumbling with the lead of the pack mule, getting himself hopelessly tangled.

  Orvis had been born a loser and gone downhill from there. He was scrawny and grubby with a ferret's face, thin hair, and bad teeth, and no matter if he meant well, he always managed to do the wrong thing. He had been a screwup as a ranch hand and piss-poor robber. Still, J.D. wished he had had more dignity than to take up with the likes of Bryce.

  “Sad to see you come to this, Orvis,” he sighed, as if even prison were preferable.

  Orvis fumbled some more with the lead rope, his horse getting nervous as the rest of its stablemates headed back for the trail. Not liking the horse bumping against him, the pack mule pinned its long ears and tried to bite the brown gelding, narrowly missing Orvis's skinny leg. Orvis split his attention between the contrary mule and his former employer, not quite sure which one scared him more. “Sorry you feel that way, Mr. Rafferty,” he mumbled. “Mr. Bryce, he pays real good.”

  The mule pinned its ears and raised up a little on its hind legs. The horse hopped up and down. Orvis turned gray, eyes bugging out of his head. The lead rope seemed like a live tentacle wrapping itself around him. “Whoa, mule! Whoa!”

  Rolling his eyes, J.D. leaned over and jerked the rope away, untangling it with a flick of his wrist. “There's more important things in this world than money, Orvis.”

  As he tossed the rope back to Orvis, the mule bolted and ran after its pals. Orvis wheeled his horse around, nearly falling off, and galloped away in hot pursuit, one hand clamped on top of his head to keep his bedraggled hat from flying off.

  J.D. shook his head and turned back to his own people. Lyle and his two boys and Chaske were halfway to the house. Tucker hung back, looking uncertain. J.D.'s concern was with the two who remained rooted to their spots.

  Will roused himself and climbed through the bars of the fence. He turned toward the house, but his gaze was fixed on his shiny red and white pickup. He wanted to get out, away, go anywhere his wife wasn't and his brother wasn't and people didn't look at him with pity or contempt. The Hell and Gone came to mind.

  He would go to the Hell and Gone and in a little while he wouldn't be wondering why the sight of his wife riding around with Evan Bryce and company made him feel as if he'd been dropped on his head from ten stories up. He wanted out of the marriage. He should have been glad to see her out living it up. What he needed was a drink or two to numb the shock and then he would be able to think straight again. Maybe he'd go downstairs to Little Purgatory and play a hand of stud while his mind stewed on w
hat to do about this latest turn of events.

  J.D. cut off his escape route to the truck. “We got a big problem here, little brother,” he said in a soft, dangerous voice.

  “Drop it, J.D.” In his own head he sounded twelve all over again, a shaky layer of false bravado over a mess of anger and fear. He didn't look up. He didn't blink. His eyes were burning. He clenched his fists at his sides and caught himself wishing, as he had wished back then, that he were able to beat the tar out of J.D., just for the sake of doing it. But J.D. had always been bigger, stronger, better, smarter.

  “Will—”

  “Just drop it. Please.” It nearly crushed him to add that last weight to his humiliation, but he did it. He ground his teeth and waited, not breathing again until J.D. backed his horse away and let him pass.

  J.D. watched him climb into the pickup and tear out of the yard, then turned his attention to Mari. She still sat atop the fence, looking like a waif in her faded jeans and too-big denim shirt, the wind inciting her wild hair to riot. Her eyes were locked on his face, and he steeled himself against their effect.

  “Bryce a friend of yours?” he asked carefully.

  “I wouldn't call him that, no. We've met.”

  “And you'll go drink his champagne and rub elbows with his famous friends?”

  “For my own reasons.”

  His gray eyes narrowed. She thought he was probably trying to look tough, blank, uncaring, but she thought she could feel his disappointment, and it meant more to her than it should have.

  He shook his head. “You need to hang out with a better class of losers, Mary Lee.”

  He picked his reins up and rode off toward the barn, leaving Mari sitting on the proverbial fence. She watched him go, cussing herself for caring what he thought. Behind her, the cattle bawled incessantly, the noise making it impossible for her to think straight. At least that was the excuse she chose as she climbed down off the rail and headed to the barn.

  J.D. left the mare in the cross ties and walked out the end of the barn. From there he could see nothing but wilderness. Mountains, trees, sky, grass laced with wild-flowers. It was a view that usually soothed him. He looked at it now and felt as if he were seeing it for the last time. Something like fear snaked through him, a feeling so unfamiliar, so unwelcome, he refused to recognize it for what it was. But he couldn't do anything to stop its catalysts from hurling through his mind. Bryce's smiling face was branded into the backs of his eyes as surely as the Rafter T was burned into the hides of his cattle. Bryce, grinning like the goddamn Cheshire cat, as if he had a fifth ace. And, by Christ, he did, didn't he? He had Samantha.