Roz Denny Fox

by Precious Gifts

  “Why is that?” Jake asked, unexpectedly ejected from thoughts centering on the woman seated beside him. He enjoyed the feel of them driving off together—as if they were already a married couple.

  “Are you kidding? They’re talented and intelligent and beautiful.”

  “So are you.”

  Jake glanced up from the washboard tracks he was doing his best to take slowly. “You sound as though you think they’re something you’re not.”

  Her eyes met his ever so briefly, then she paid an inordinate amount of interest to the passing scenery, shadowed by the lowering sun. “I appreciate your trying to bolster my ego, Jake. But I’m nowhere near their league.”

  “Hogwash!”

  Hayley shook her head. “As nice as your mother was to come visit and knit me a gorgeous baby blanket, she’d just as soon I disappeared. Please assure her I have no intention of inveigling my way into the Cooper family circle.”

  “Did my mom hurt your feelings? It was about the harvest dance, wasn’t it? She wants me to take that quilter, Lisa. I said I was inviting you. It’s a big event, weekend before Thanksgiving. To celebrate cutting the winter wheat. Say you’ll go with me.”

  “I don’t dance. I never learned how.” Hayley was embarrassed to admit it. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Jake. I have no talent. I barely finished high school. Look at the way I dress, compared to your mom and Eden. I’d never fit in to their crowd. Or yours. Ask someone to the dance who does.”

  Her jaw was so tense Jake knew arguing served no purpose. They talked little after that. It was quite late by the time they reached Tombstone.

  Jake stopped at the first motel with a vacancy sign and without asking booked them each a single. She thanked him and refused his offer to take her out for a meal. “I’m exhausted,” was her excuse.

  “You need nourishment,” he growled.

  “I was tired before we left. Bracing myself against that unpaved road sapped any energy I had. Let’s meet for breakfast at seven. We’ll go to the café where Dr. Gerrard eats every morning. That way, we’ll know early if he can see me, and when.”

  Jake didn’t like her edict, but she did look weary and he hadn’t the heart to make a fuss. He skipped eating, too. And slept poorly, thanks to all the concerns that kept running through his head.

  Nor was he in the best of moods when they met in the lobby the next morning and he discovered Hayley had canceled his credit card for her room. “Why?” he demanded. “It’s no crime to be short of cash. If you feel you have to pay me back, by the time the bill comes, you’ll have money from your mine.”

  “Shh.” She put a finger to her lips as the motel clerk stopped what he was doing and cocked an ear.

  Jake gave the clerk a dirty look before he led Hayley out to the car. He thought she seemed more rested today—and really pretty in a violet maternity jumper he’d never seen her wear. It brought out the lavender flecks in her eyes. He was on the verge of complimenting her, but the moment passed as she scolded him for mentioning her mine.

  Clamming up, Jake drove the few blocks to the café. Their entry into the establishment stopped talk. Hayley paused beside Dr. Gerrard, who was seated at the counter. She got her appointment—and some unwelcome news.

  The doctor wadded his napkin as he spoke in hushed tones. “Joe blew back into town last week.” The old doctor trained suspicious eyes on Jake, who hovered near Hayley, a proprietary hand settled low on her back.

  He felt the ripple of alarm that shook Hayley. Jake thought for a minute that she was going to bolt. Instead, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She seemed calmer after Jake had moved his hand to her shoulder and squeezed.

  “Joe’s whereabouts don’t concern me,” she told Gerrard. “Our divorce will be final soon.” Catching Jake’s hand, she led him to the center of the room, to the only open table. But in a few minutes the buzz of normal conversation resumed around them and he relaxed.

  The waitress added to the news about Ryan when she took their orders. “You’d probably like to know what I heard on good authority—Cindy Trent fleeced Joe after she hooked up with some guy she knew from Vegas. Joe showed up here, figuring you’d take him back. Ha! As if you would, considering what he did.” The woman flashed Jake an admiring grin. “Looks like you’ve done all right, honey,” she said, nudging Hayley. “Serves Joe right. But you take care. That man’s trouble. He’s hanging out with Deputy Dawg again. You know who I mean, Shad Tilford.” The waitress ripped the order off her pad and started away. Suddenly her steps faltered. “Speak of the devil and his sidekick. Look who walked in and lowered the caliber of our clientele.”

  Jake, who sat facing the door, saw two men threading their way through the tables. One had greasy black hair and beady eyes. He wore a badge and a holstered weapon. The other had blond hair. His unshaven upper lip needed more hair to pass as a mustache. In Jake’s estimation, Ryan could use a beard to hide a weak chin.

  His stomach took a drop when Hayley turned, spotted the duo, and looked as if she’d faint. “Steady,” he murmured, holding one of her hands tightly.

  It was Joe who hitched up his pants and swaggered over to confront Hayley. “Well, well. Rafferty over at the Holiday Inn said you’d found yourself a new stud. What’s this about another mine?” The pale blue eyes were nasty. “That kid they say you’re carrying can’t be mine. Although everyone knows I didn’t hardly snap my fingers and you fell into my arms. But by law, babe, we’re still married. If ol’ Ben left you another mine, half belongs to me.”

  Jake would have punched Joe Ryan before he finished flapping his gums if he hadn’t wanted to know more about the lowlife’s plans concerning Hayley. But he felt bad for waiting, because Hayley gave a low keening sound, like a wounded animal.

  Leaping from his chair, Jake’s knuckles crunched against the sparse hairs of Joe’s mustache, meeting resistance at feral white teeth.

  Hayley screamed and slumped forward as Joe went airborne and landed two feet away, crumpled at the feet of a fast-stepping waitress who dropped two orders of eggs and one of pancakes over the felled man.

  Shad Tilford lunged for Jake but crashed to the floor as he tripped over a size-twelve boot someone slid across his path. Spitting and fuming, he made dire threats about arresting Jake for assault. “I’ll throw your can in jail!” he bellowed.

  Dr. Gerrard moved fast for an old man. He sidestepped Joe’s prone form and in a low authoritative voice ordered Jake to bring Hayley to his office. Her friends in the room cleared a pathway to the door. Jake wasn’t sure if it was by accident or design that patrons formed a body blockade to keep the furious deputy inside the café.

  In the doctor’s waiting room, Jake paced. Gerrard’s receptionist, Esther, provided Jake with the whole story of the Ryan courtship and subsequent marriage, and Joe’s infidelity with the woman from the nail-painting place. What could Jake do but listen?

  Esther hinted that Joe was responsible for Ben O’Dell’s early demise. Even then, she wasn’t quite finished. “That no-good Joe Ryan wouldn’t have found out a thing about Hayley’s new mine if that snake, Shad Tilford, hadn’t strong-armed good folks in town to notify him if she ever showed up. Since Joe’s return, he and Shad have been thick as thieves. Too bad you brought Hayley to town, young man. Might be best if you skedaddled out the back way. Shad’s watching the front. I doubt he knows the clinic has a back exit. I’ll call a couple of miners who used to work for Ben. They’ll create a diversion long enough for me to pull your Cherokee into the alley.”

  Jake declined her offer. It tasted like cowardice. Slinking off with his tail tucked between his legs wasn’t how he operated. But one look at Hayley’s wan face and huge eyes bruised with pain, and he changed his mind. He gave Esther the okay. Within twenty minutes he and Hayley were burning up the highway out of town.

  Hayley sat so quiet and withdrawn Jake felt a shiver of apprehension. “The doctor didn’t find anything wrong with the baby, did he?”

&
nbsp; She idly smoothed a hand over her stomach. “The doctor said everything’s on track.”

  “That’s good. Why aren’t you happier?”

  Fear choked the life from Hayley’s eyes. “Someone provided Dr. Gerrard with a running commentary on what Joe said after he came to. He’s going to sue me for half the mine. If he files before our divorce is final, all my work will be in vain. I’ll just get shafted again.”

  “I won’t let that happen!” Jake exploded. “It’s my fault for mentioning it at the motel. Anyway, he’s got to find the Blue Cameo first. That ought to give us time to bleed the vein dry. I’ll skip the rest of roundup and help you dig.”

  “Like your dad’ll let you do that. He already wants me gone. I wouldn’t put it past him and your brother to lead Joe straight to me so they can make a deal with him for the land.”

  “I guarantee that they wouldn’t. Not that it matters, since the claim is solely in your name. In the eyes of the state, there’s not a thing that rat you married can do about it. Free claims transfer to family by different rules than mines on land a person actually owns.”

  She sat for a minute and studied the rhythmic flexing of Jake’s stubborn jaw. “I’ll fight my own battles, Jake. I want you to stay out of it.”

  A numbness invaded his chest. Eden’s Cherokee weaved from side to side as he left the two-lane highway and merged onto the freeway.

  “Slow down, Jake! My life may not be the best, but I’m not ready to die.”

  “Can’t prove it by me,” Jake snapped, mostly because she’d hurt him with her curt reply. “The danger you’re in—staying out in the middle of nowhere all alone—hasn’t changed.”

  “I am alone,” she raged back.

  “You don’t have to be. I said I want to be there for you, Hayley.”

  Her resolve wavered for a second. Not long enough to give Jake hope. In a gritty passionate voice, she lashed out, “I trusted a man’s promises once. They turned out to be silver-plated lies.”

  “If you mean Joe Ryan, he’s no man.” Jake’s denouncement of her ex-husband rang out bitterly. The truth didn’t seem to matter, at least not when it came to healing the rift between him and Hayley. She only looked scornful, and her comparison of him to that bastard felt worse to Jake than a slap. All he wanted at the moment was to get shut of her. He wished now that he’d let Eden do the honors and make this trip with Hayley.

  CHAPTER TEN

  UPDATING HALEY’S CLAIM report went without a hitch. The clerk at the recorder’s office was more interested in popping her gum and talking on the phone than in paying attention to what Hayley put down as her most recent findings. Not wanting to take any chances, Hayley used the term Eden had suggested rather than mentioning opals by name. If Joe did hunt for her mine, she wanted to make it hard for him to figure out what she’d found at the Blue Cameo. Hayley couldn’t shake the fear that he’d do everything in his power to claim what he’d already declared was his rightful share.

  Even though talk between Jake and Hayley was still strained, he insisted they eat lunch in Nogales before returning to her camp. “We missed dinner last night and breakfast today, thanks to your ex. My stomach is near caved into my backbone. I’m not driving another mile without eating.”

  “That suits me. I’m famished, too. Have been since we left Tombstone. But you looked so grim I didn’t want to ask any favors.”

  “If I’m grim, it’s because I don’t appreciate being lumped in the same category as Joe Ryan.”

  “When did I do any such thing? You’re nothing like him. I screamed when you hit him, but he had the local law backing him up. I was afraid Tilford would shoot you.”

  “I’m talking about later. It sure sounded like that’s what you meant when you said that jerk fed you lies and now you won’t trust me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, lowering her lashes as Jake got into the drive-through line at a fast-food restaurant. “I guess it makes no sense to say my comments weren’t aimed at you, but more at the promises you keep tossing around.”

  “You’re right. It makes no sense.” Jake drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

  Hayley bristled. “Look, Joe made the right promises, too. He just didn’t keep them.”

  “So we’re back to that. I’ll have you know my word is good.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you, Jake. Are you going to order? We’ve reached the speakerphone.”

  “You always make me forget what I’m doing,” he said irritably. “What would you like?” She made her selections. Jake got huffy again when she pulled out her money and tried to pay her portion of the bill.

  “Would you buy Eden’s lunch?” she said, throwing the money down on the seat between them.

  “Not as a rule. If Dillon’s there, he pays for them. Times I’m in town by myself and I meet my mom and Eden for lunch, we go dutch. Generally those two carry more cash than I do.” A dimple appeared in one of his cheeks.

  “See.” Hayley opened her milk carton and drank from it. “You admit to allowing them equal power. You don’t assume they need to be cared for. Well, neither do I. I’m just as capable of providing for myself and my baby. I don’t need anyone.”

  “Hayley, if you don’t beat all at twisting words to suit your purpose. Oh, never mind.” Jake bit into his burger and muttered something dark and unrecognizable around the mouthful of beef and cheese.

  She barely nibbled at the chicken she’d ordered, even after proclaiming to be famished. “Come on, just eat,” Jake said with a sigh. “Consider the subject closed.”

  Proving he was a man of his word, he steered their conversation to impersonal things. On the drive he pointed out a series of sun-blistered fields belonging to ranches bordering the Triple C. Jake lamented the ever-increasing need for measurable rainfall.

  “I’ve noticed the spring isn’t refilling as fast now as it did when you showed me how to open the valves. Has it ever gone completely dry?” Hayley asked worriedly.

  “Five years ago it came close. The monsoons weren’t just late, they blew past Arizona altogether. That year the J & B doubled their herd—a move that prompted Dad to speak to Ben about eventually acquiring his site. Ben agreed, but said he felt in his bones that the Blue Cameo would produce. He was the one who suggested the valve system. At the time it seemed the best and cheapest compromise.”

  “Isn’t it still?” At Jake’s arched brow, Hayley elaborated. “The men from the Cattlemen’s Association who paid me a visit were antsy even before it became apparent there’d be a shortage of rain. Weren’t they crying wolf? I mean, you said the system’s been in place and working for five years.”

  “Yes, but all the valley ranchers have added to their herds. They had to or go under, the way beef prices have fallen these last few years.”

  Hayley sighed. “Everything always boils down to dollars and cents.”

  “My theory is there’s enough to go around if no one ranch gets greedy.” Jake’s thoughts centered on John Westin and the rumor that he’d expanded his operation yet again. This time through leasing land in his daughter’s name.

  Hayley murmured agreement, her mind pulsing with Joe’s threat to sue for half of her mine. Joe Ryan was lazy and greedy. A dangerous combination. “I suppose I should be happier with the news that Cindy Trent fleeced Joe. Turnabout is fair play, and he deserved it. Except that doesn’t help me gain restitution. If Shad Tilford tracks Cindy down, he and Joe will split any money that’s left.” She paused. “You know what hurts worse than losing the proceeds from Gramps’s mine? Joe telling people in Tombstone this isn’t his baby.”

  She looked so downcast that Jake rallied, “Boy, we sure know how to pick depressing subjects. All this started because I mentioned a lack of rain. And I’ve seen some wet Novembers in the past.”

  “If that’s the case, I’d better speed up the digging. The vein of opal is situated in a ravine I suspect feeds the waterfall during heavy rains. The more rough opal I stockpile, the more secure I’
ll feel.”

  Looking at her sitting there so small yet so determined to go it alone and beat the odds struck a chord in Jake. Only this time he wasn’t going to announce his feelings or restate his promise to help her dig. It could take a few days to clear things with his dad and Dillon, and he didn’t want Hayley thinking he’d made a promise he wouldn’t keep. No, what he’d do was show up and pitch in after he had his arrangements in place.

  He knew exactly how he felt about her now. And he knew he’d have another chat with his dad about clearing the property where he planned to build a house—for Hayley and for him. Of course he’d have to chip away at her barriers a little at a time. Perhaps, though, she’d believe he was serious if she actually saw progress on the building, and knew he really wanted to provide a home for her and the baby.

  “Goodness, the clearing looks naked!” Hayley exclaimed as Jake topped the rise above her campsite.

  He jammed on the brake, ripped headlong out of his plans for the future. “Were you robbed, you mean?”

  Hayley gripped the dash with both hands. “No, silly. Eden and your mom must have transported all my samples. Oh, look. They left Charcoal to guard the place. How sweet. Would you consider letting him stay with me, Jake? I feel safer when he’s here.” With a guilty expression, she stammered, “I’ll understand if you refuse. After all, I said I didn’t need anything from anybody. I know you’re still angry with me.”

  Jake let the vehicle roll down the slope. Killing the engine, he unsnapped his belt and moved toward Hayley. While she was confined by her belt, he leaned close and feathered kisses over both of her eyes and the tip of her nose. “Something you need to know about the Coopers. We have a low flashpoint, but we’re not ones to hold grudges.”

  She sighed, opening her eyes and lifting a hand to touch his cheek. “I’d feel horrid if I ruined our friendship, Jake. I’ll need friends if I’m to consider staying in the area and apprenticing to Eden as she suggested.”

  Jake’s breath caught. His heart clenched. He wanted more than mere friendship. But as he gazed into her still-wary eyes, he realized that this was a significant step. Asking to keep his dog was a start, however miserly. And he’d have to go slow if he ever hoped to win her love.