Something was definitely wrong.
He'd noticed it all through dinner. She hardly touched her food and her face was so pale her little sprinkling of freckles stood out in stark relief.
Every few minutes she would pause from shifting her food back and forth on her plate and gaze out the window, her eyes wide and frantic as she searched the early-evening darkness, looking for what, he couldn't even begin to guess.
No one else seemed aware of her unease. Leah and C.J. both sat sullen and silent, ignoring him to the point of rudeness, and the rest of the men were too tired from the long day of cleaning the mess from the storm to pay attention to much of anything but their food.
He noticed, though, just as he noticed everything she did. Something had her more high-strung than a thoroughbred in a barn full of snakes and he couldn't even begin to guess what it might be.
Wood squeaked on linoleum as Leah suddenly pushed her chair back, jolting him from his thoughts. "May I be excused?"
Annie turned from the window. She blinked a few times, then focused on her daughter. "I…yes. What's the status of your homework?"
Leah's mouth tightened. "Almost done."
"As soon as it's finished, bring it down so we can go over it together."
"I said I was almost done. Don't you believe me?"
Despite whatever was bothering her, Annie's voice was calm in marked contrast to her daughter's. "It's not a matter of me believing you. I would just like to try to help you by checking your answers. We have the same goal here. As soon as you get your grades back up, you can regain your riding privileges. That's what you want, isn't it?"
Leah's look fell just shy of a glare. "Whatever," she said shortly, then hurried from the room.
As soon as she left, C.J. set his fork down on his plate with a loud clatter and looked past Joe toward his mother. "May I be excused, too?"
Annie nodded distractedly and didn't even chide C.J. when he went into the family room and turned on the television set without clearing away his plate.
The children's departure seemed to signal the end of the meal. Patch and the rest of the men scraped their plates clean just a few moments later and rose to leave.
Luke Mitchell paused by the table. "Real fine dinner again, Miz Redhawk. Just about the best beef pie I've ever had."
His words didn't seem to register for a moment, then she shook her head. "Beef pie is Patch's specialty. It was his night to cook."
"Oh. Well, it was real good. Good night."
She was busy looking out the window again and didn't answer him. Luke finally shoved his hat back on his head and stalked out the door.
The compliment to Annie was the most genial Joe had seen him all day. The kid had had been brooding and sour since breakfast.
If Annie hadn't told him about Luke applying for the foreman's the night before, Joe might have been tempted to rip into him for his rotten attitude, but he decided to give him a little leeway just this once.
He figured the kid had some right to his foul mood. When the woman of your heart turned you down for a job, it was bound to stick in your craw. Still, if things didn't improve in the morning, he might need to sit the kid down for a little serious one-on-one.
He was still reflecting on what a pain in the neck employee relations could be when he realized everybody else had taken off and he and Annie were alone in the kitchen.
She stood suddenly and began silently clearing the table. Her jerky movements reminded him of the way she used to scurry around trying to do her best to make herself invisible around Charlie, so much that an eerie chill skulked down his spine.
He stood it as long as he could then clamped his teeth together and rose to his feet. He cursed the abrupt motion almost as soon as he made it when she jumped like a startled mare.
He'd worked hard after Charlie left not to move too suddenly around her. Not to speak too loudly, not to gesture too much, not to do anything else her subconscious might interpret as a threat. Over the last eighteen months she had lost much of her edginess, but sometimes it reemerged.
Like tonight.
"Sorry," he muttered, feeling the hot ball of rage explode in his gut like it always did whenever he thought about what his brother had done to her. He drew several sharp breaths until he forced it down. "Didn't mean to spook you."
"It's not you," she said distractedly.
"What, then?"
"Nothing."
"Come on, Annie. What's wrong?"
She fiddled with the stack of plates in her hand. "What makes you think something's wrong?"
"Well, let's see. For starters, you've been more quiet than a barn mouse, then you jump if anybody so much as looks at you wrong, and to top it all off, you don't say a single word to Leah when she skips out on her night to do dishes."
She winced and glanced at the chart hanging on the refrigerator. "It was her night, wasn't it?"
"I'm guessing that's why she was in such a rush to get back to her homework."
She blew out a breath. "I should probably make her come down and take her turn, shouldn't I?"
With that reluctance in the green of her eyes, it was obvious the idea appealed to her about as much as an IRS audit. He shrugged. "I'm afraid this really isn't my area of expertise. You're the mother here."
She flashed him a quick, unreadable look then focused on the stack of plates in her hands. "Right. I'm really not up to another battle tonight. Sometimes it's just easier to just do things myself. Does that make me a terrible mother?"
"No. You're not a terrible mother. Give yourself a break, Annie. You're a tired mother. Why don't you let me do these?"
"No, I'm fine. Thanks, anyway."
She would argue into the night if he let her, so Joe just went to work clearing the rest of the dishes from the table then filling the sink with soapy water. He started washing the dishes and a few moments later she joined him with a towel to dry.
They worked in silence for a few moments. He was painfully aware of the way she smelled sweetly, innocently, of apples. No matter how hard he tried to block it out it reached him even over the lemony scent of the dish soap.
He scrubbed hard at a dish, annoyed with himself.
"So are you going to tell me what's got you so jumpy?" he asked to distract himself.
She focused on the plate in her hand. "Just the wind, I guess," she mumbled. "Sometimes it gets to me."
Since when? he wanted to ask, but held his tongue, knowing damn well she wouldn't answer.
The old Annie had always loved wild weather. When they were kids, she never wanted to be cooped up indoors during summer storms. With the same kind of giddy delight other girls her age reserved for the latest heartthrob, she would sit out on the wide porch at the big house while the sky flashed and growled around her.
One time when she was about twelve, she was tagging along after Colt and him while they went looking for strays up near Lone Eagle Peak. Halfway up the mountain, they had been surprised by an afternoon thunder bumper and like any sensible teenagers, he and Colt had rushed to find cover under an overhanging rock formation.
He could still remember turning around to find Annie, her wild red curls already plastered to her head, standing out in the rain. With her arms wide and her face lifted to the sky in supplication, she looked like some kind of mystical creature from a storybook.
He remembered gazing at her, entranced, until lightning scorched an old pine no more than a hundred yards away. Then Joe had finally braved the pelting rain to yank her to safety.
The old Annie had thrived on the power and majesty of mountain storms. Had his brother taken that from her, too?
That ball of fury hissed and seethed to life in his gut again as he thought of how that laughing, crazy, courageous girl had changed. He allowed the anger to writhe around for only a few seconds but before it could slither out, he inhaled a sharp breath and caged it again. Venting his anger only upset her more and left him feeling hollow and achy.
With effor
t, he turned his thoughts away from the grim ghosts of the past and focused on something more benign. "When I was up on the roof of the hay shed, I thought I saw Colt's pickup coming down the road."
She nodded. "He and Maggie dropped by on the way home from a doctor's appointment."
"Everything okay with the baby?"
"I think so. The doctor moved up her due date, to mid-April. She looked wonderful."
He had thought so too the last time he'd seen Colt and Maggie, and had been filled with a sense of loss so profound it had stunned him. He would never share that kind of magic, never watch a woman he loved grow huge with his child, and the realization had hit him in the chest like a hard fist.
He had decided a long time ago that he would never marry, had resigned himself to going it alone for the rest of his life. What choice did he have? He didn't have a whole hell of a lot to offer a woman, not considering the kind of family he came from.
What woman would want a convicted murderer, especially one who came from a legacy of violence and abuse?
He thought he had accepted the way things had to be. But seeing Colt and Maggie so excited about bringing a new life into the world had made his own life seem hollow in comparison.
Yet another of the many reasons driving him toward making a fresh start away from here.
"So why did they stop in?" he asked abruptly. "Just for coffee?"
She took the last pan out of the rinse water without looking at him. "Colt heard about your new job. He came over all worked up, ready to horsewhip you for deserting me."
He shouldn't feel this guilt seeping through him like spring runoff, dammit. He had to learn to let go. How was he going to carve out a new life for himself when he feared he would never be completely free of the old one? "So why didn't he?"
Before she could figure out how to answer, a dog's angry barking cut through the low, distant moan of the wind. The pan she was drying slipped from her hand, landing harmlessly in the sink. She paid it no attention as she strained to search the menacing shadows out the window.
"What is it?" Joe asked.
"I…I'm not sure. Dolly's barking at something."
"Probably just a couple of deer looking for food."
She barely heard him as her gaze swept the fence line, the spruce windbreak, the drifts of snow covering her garden. Whoever snapped that picture of her was out there somewhere. She could feel it deep in her bones. He was out there watching her, taunting her….
All evening she had struggled to contain her reaction to seeing that photograph of herself taken by some unknown person watching her through the window. Now, though, it finally broke through her fragile barriers and crashed over her in wave after wave of paralyzing panic.
Someone had been watching her. While she had worked at her paperwork completely unaware, someone had been just a thin sheet of glass away. Watching her.
How long had he stood outside the window?
And why?
As soon as she felt the fear begin to take over, felt the return of that helplessness she hated so much, she stiffened.
Not again. Dammit, not again.
"Come on, Annie. Tell me what's going on. You're white as a ghost."
She wrenched her gaze from the inky, ominous blackness to the man who stood beside her looking ruggedly masculine even with a dishrag in his hand.
She couldn't tell Joe about the photograph. She couldn't. He would only worry and fret and use this as an excuse not to take the job opportunity in Wyoming. She refused to do that to him.
Besides, it was only somebody's idea of a stupid, silly prank. It had to be. With a deep, calming breath, she forced the fear down so that the cool voice of reason could reassert itself. Just a joke, that's all. What else could it possibly be? Nobody had any reason to frighten her anymore.
That was Charlie's specialty and he was gone—living in New Mexico somewhere, according to his sleazebag of a lawyer. He wouldn't dare show himself around Madison Valley again, not unless he wanted to find himself behind bars.
His good-old-boy network wouldn't be able to protect him anymore. Now that Bill Porter had been voted out of the sheriff's office, Charlie had no more influence with local law enforcement.
John Douglas, the new sheriff, had been the deputy who investigated Charlie's last drunken attack on her—the beating that nearly killed her and finally convinced her that she had to break free, for the children's sake if nothing else.
Douglas had been caring and committed, and she knew he was more than willing to pursue charges if her ex-husband ever showed his face around town again.
She wouldn't be Charlie's victim anymore.
Or anyone else's, for that matter.
"Annie?"
Joe gripped her shoulder to turn her toward him. The heat of his touch forced its way past her nerves—past the fear—and zinged right to her stomach. He stood only a few inches away from her, a tall, lean man, hardened and toughened by life.
With any other man she might have been uneasy at his closeness, at the leashed power in those thick muscles. But this was Joe.
Joe's arms would give only comfort, a safe haven, and she suddenly wanted them around her with a fierce intensity that alarmed her far more than any noises she heard outside.
Her body instinctively swayed toward him, drawn to his warmth and strength like metal shavings toward a magnet. Instead of pulling her close, though, instead of folding her into the solace of his arms, he dropped his hand from her shoulder as if he'd touched the electric fence around the south pasture.
Cheeks flaming, she backed away from him and returned to the sink to gaze out the window. She could sense him watching her, feel the heat of that black-eyed gaze.
She had always thought Joe would have made a good cop—he could stare the truth out of anybody. But she wouldn't bend this time.
He must have reached the same conclusion. He sighed, a soft, frustrated sound in the quiet kitchen. "You're not going to tell me what's bothering you, are you?"
"There's nothing to tell," she lied. "I'm just edgy from the storm, that's all."
"You could teach stubborn to a blasted mule."
Before she could answer, C.J. came bursting into the kitchen. "Hey Mom! There's gonna be a show on next about panda bears in China. Want to come watch?" His voice trailed off when he saw Joe standing by the mudroom door. Her son's finely drawn features twisted into a frown.
"Why is he still here?"
"He helped clean up the kitchen."
"It looks clean to me, so he can leave now." He glared at Joe. "You're good at that, right?"
Great. Now she had two moody, angry children to deal with. She gave C.J. a stern look. "That is quite enough, young man."
"Why are you mad at me? He's the one who's leaving."
"That doesn't give you the right to be rude. Apologize right now and then I think we need to skip the show about pandas tonight. Turn the TV off. You can play in your room for a while before bed."
With another glare toward her this time, C.J. mumbled an apology that was miles away from being sincere, then stormed out of the room before she could call him on it.
Joe shoved his hat on but not before she saw pain and regret flash in his eyes. She wanted to soothe it, to comfort him, but she didn't know where to begin.
"I'm sorry," she finally said. Her apology was at least heartfelt. "I thought he would have begun to accept your new job by now but apparently he still has a ways to go."
Joe shrugged into his coat. "He has a right to be upset."
"But not to vent his feelings by hurting others. I won't tolerate it and he knows it."
Charlie used to say she was going to turn C.J. into a weak little mama's boy with all her talk about politeness and correct behavior. Maybe she was a little demanding, but what choice did she have? Every time her son raised his voice or even thought about bullying someone else, she worried he would turn out like his father.
These last months with Joe had been so good for C.J. He had
finally had the example of a decent, hardworking man to follow. She hoped Joe had shown him that a man didn't have to be rough and menacing to be masculine, that most of the time quiet strength could get a lot further in life than brawn and bluster.
Who would teach him these things after Joe left? She sighed. Just another thing to worry about.
"He'll get over it eventually, I promise," she said. "Just give him time."
But both of them knew time was something they didn't have the luxury of enjoying anymore. Joe shoved his hat on his head and shrugged into his coat, then turned the conversation back to her edginess. "If you change your mind and need to talk about whatever's bothering you, you know where to find me. Good night, Annie. Sleep tight."
She watched him go out into the cold knowing perfectly well that she wouldn't sleep tight, that she would toss and turn all night, thinking of a wounded little boy and a spooky, voyeuristic Polaroid picture and the man who would be walking out of her life in just a few short weeks.
Chapter 5
"Almost there. Just a few more minutes…got it." Annie carefully pulled the needle out of the little calf's side. "Okay, Luke. You can let him out now."
The ranch hand worked the latch on the network of chutes and the bawling little Hereford darted through the gate then headed off across the snow-covered winter range to find his mother.
Annie stood and tried to stretch the kinks out of her back while Luke grabbed one of the canteens hanging over the metal chute and took a grateful swig of water.
She knew just how he felt. Immunizing calves could be sweaty, exhausting work even when the temperatures were only in the midtwenties. She wasn't about to complain, though. Midtwenties beat below zero anytime in her book.
The vicious cold front of the week before had finally headed south, returning temperatures to their seasonal norms. Even though it was still cold, at least she could stand to stay outside now for more than a few minutes without feeling as if the air were being squeezed from her lungs by vicious, icy hands.
Here in the pale winter daylight, surrounded by lowing cattle and the sharp, familiar scents of alfalfa hay and manure, the frightening incident with the photograph the week before seemed as far away as the sun.
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