“In my opinion,” he said cautiously, “a little panic can be a healthy thing.”
“Healthy? It feels crazy to me.”
“What would happen to all of us if we felt no fear after gettin’ seriously hurt? It’s called survival instinct, darlin’. You’ve been through a really rough time. If you felt no panic, that’d be crazy. Bein’ afraid is completely normal.”
“I’m so afraid, though. And I no longer trust my judgment. I was so wrong about him. I thought he was wonderful, and he . . . wasn’t.”
It was the closest that she’d ever come to acknowledging the abuse she had endured. Part of Parker wanted to press her to share more, but another part of him knew it would be smarter to back off. “Everyone makes a bad judgment call now and then. Makin’ mistakes and learnin’ from them is how we become better people.”
“I’m not sure I learned from mine, though, and not everyone makes such a stupid mistake. He set me up, Parker. He knew I had an inheritance, and he pretended to be everything I needed him to be until he got his hands on it. I never even suspected. How stupid is that?”
Parker wiggled his boot to entertain the puppy while he collected his thoughts. Normally he never aired any of his family’s dirty laundry. It was personal and nobody else’s business. But he sensed there was one story that Rainie desperately needed to hear.
“Sweetheart, you need to stop beatin’ up on yourself. My little sister, Sam, is one of the smartest, most astute ladies you’ll ever meet.” His voice had gone husky with sincerity. “And the exact same thing happened to her.”
“It did?”
“Oh, yeah. A smooth-talkin’, manipulative, money-grabbin’ bastard lined her up in his sights, and despite all the warnin’s she got from us to the contrary, she went ahead and married him. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m bettin’ that you didn’t have four brothers and a carin’ father to warn you that you were makin’ a mistake.”
“No, I had no one.”
“There, you see? At least Sam got some advice, whether she wanted to hear it or not. She was all caught up in the romantic aspect of it. And she believed in all his lies. That didn’t make her dumb. It only meant she was young and naive. As it turned out, he was a drunk, a philanderer, and a woman beater who knew just where to aim his blows so the bruises were hidden by her clothing. Sam didn’t come to me or any of my brothers for help, because she was afraid we’d kill him, and she was right. If I had known what the bastard was doin’ to her, I might have ended up in prison for life. There’s a hard-and-fast rule in the Harrigan family, one that my father drilled into all of us boys at a very young age: No man worth his salt ever hits a woman, and he doesn’t stand aside while some other man transgresses, either. It’s a code that my brothers and I take seriously.”
Parker let that hang there for a moment. “My sister is not stupid, and neither are you. She made a stupid mistake, no argument there, and she’ll be the first person to admit it. But that doesn’t mean she’s stupid. For a good long while after the marriage ended, she questioned her judgment, too, but over time, she healed. What you have to realize, honey, is that there are evil people in this world who don’t reveal their true colors. You got suckered in. That isn’t a reflection on your intelligence or your ability to judge someone’s character. It’s a reflection on him. He’s a rotten bastard without a heart. That’s his failin’, not yours.”
“How did your sister get out of the marriage without any help?” she asked shakily.
A cold feeling moved through Parker’s chest. “The man had a bad habit of goin’ out, gettin’ liquored up, and then comin’ home to whale the tar out of her. One night, he got her by the throat, and she thought he was gonna kill her. She took him down with a kitchen chair. Luckily for her, our dad taught her how to fight, and that included fightin’ dirty. Sam doesn’t talk about it much. I don’t think she counts it as one of her finer moments. But I suspect that she kept hittin’ him after he went down. When he was unconscious, she dragged him outside to either die or come around. I don’t think she cared which. Shortly after that, she told our dad what had been goin’ on, and the jerk never dared show his face around here again in the light of day. After the divorce, he caused her some grief, and now he’s doin’ time, but that’s a whole other story.”
“He’s doing time, as in prison time?”
There was a hopeful thread in her voice that Parker couldn’t miss. “Every dog has its day,” he said, wishing that Rainie could soon have hers. “What you need to stay focused on is that you’re perfectly normal. Your life isn’t a rerun, honey. It only feels that way right now because everything is still so fresh in your mind and you’re scared. Don’t get it in your head that you’re stupid. I can’t count the times I’ve waded into a situation and didn’t realize the danger until it was too late. Once that happens, all you can do is deal with the mess. You’ve done that. Right? Now it’s time for you to move on.”
“I wish it were that easy.”
Parker decided to pretend he hadn’t heard that. “I’m glad we’ve talked about this. It drives home to me that you’re not ready for anything more than a friendship. What do you say to that idea?”
“Friendship?” She said the word as if it were a foreign concept.
He could almost see the wary look in her wide eyes, and that made him smile again. “You got so many friends that you can’t use another one?” he asked.
She laughed, the sound thin and nervous. “No, of course not. I left all my friends behind when I—” She broke off. The ensuing silence seemed charged with electricity, and Parker knew she’d almost blurted out information that she was afraid to share. Someday, hopefully soon, she would come to trust him with all those secrets she guarded so carefully. “I, um, can’t keep in touch with them now.”
“Why not?” he asked, even though he figured he already knew the answer. “You afraid they might tell Mr. Not-So-Wonderful where you are?”
When she didn’t immediately reply, Parker feared he had pushed her too far. But once again, she surprised him. “No, they’re the best friends anyone ever had. They’d never do that. But letters and phone calls can be traced.”
“You think he’s that keen on findin’ you?”
“Oh, yes,” she whispered.
It was the first time they’d actually spoken of the man in any concrete way. Parker burned to pelt her with questions. Where was he? Who was he? If only he had a name.
“You’re afraid of him.”
It wasn’t a question, and Parker didn’t pose it as one. But she answered anyway, breathing out the word: “Yes.”
The pain he heard in her voice made his heart hurt for her. He wished he could offer her protection twenty-four/seven, but in order to do that, he’d have to bring her to the ranch. He didn’t think she’d ever agree to that. “Is there any room in your house where you can barricade yourself in if he shows up?”
“I hook a chair under the bedroom doorknob, and I always make sure the windows are locked.”
A window could be broken in two seconds flat, Parker thought, and a chair wedged under a doorknob wouldn’t slow the bastard down for very long, either. He tried to imagine what it must be like for her to go to bed every night feeling frightened. It was a difficult concept to wrap his mind around. He wasn’t afraid of that many things. Snakes made his skin crawl, but he wasn’t really fearful of them.
“It sounds to me like I need to come over and do some work at your place.”
“What kind of work?”
“Bars on all the windows that open into your bedroom, for starters, and maybe some bars to reinforce the bedroom door, too. You need a safe room, someplace where he can’t get to you until help arrives. I’ve got a portable welder. I can pick up some steel and get it done in an afternoon. What d’ya say?”
“You’d do that?”
“Hey, what are friends for?” As Parker said those words, he instinctively knew he was taking the right tack. She needed a friend right now a whole
lot more than a lover. “I could use a friend myself, you know.”
“You?” she said dubiously.
“Yeah, me. I’m lonesome.”
“With all your family living so close, you’re lonesome.”
“I can’t spend all my time with family. We have three newlywed couples in the clan. I don’t like to horn in on their together time too much. And Zach and Quincy have their own things going on.”
“What kind of things?”
Parker almost said, Redheads, blondes, and brunettes, but he didn’t want to give her the wrong impression. “Zach’s young, so he’s still doin’ the honky-tonk-and-buckle-bunny thing.”
“Honky-tonk, meaning bars?”
“Bars with live music and a dance floor, yeah.”
“And buckle bunnies?”
“Women, usually young, who dress like cowgirls and like to hang out with rodeo champs. When you win a rodeo competition, you usually get a special belt buckle to commemorate the victory, and those young ladies cluster up around any man wearin’ one.”
“Zach has a championship buckle, I take it.”
The statement drove home to Parker how little she knew about his family. “Darlin’, Zach has enough championship buckles to wear a different one every day of the month. He’s won rodeo competitions all across the nation. The Harrigans raise some of the finest ropin’ horses in the world.”
“So you’ve won a rodeo championship, too?”
“Nah, but my horses have won more than a few. All I do is sit in the saddle and look handsome while they do all the work.”
He heard a smile in her voice when she said, “No conceit in your family, because you have it all?”
Parker grinned. “Here I am, bein’ humble and givin’ all the credit to my horses, and you accuse me of bein’ conceited? This friendship of ours is gettin’ off to a rough start.”
“So what does your other brother do in the evening? Does he go with Zach to the honky-tonks to impress girls with his fancy belt buckles?”
“Nah, Quincy is more into spinach shakes and women with striated abs.”
She giggled. “Spinach shakes?”
“With raw eggs and seaweed and all manner of other nauseous ingredients tossed in. The man is over the edge. He invited me for dinner last night. I was afraid he might feed me somethin’ that’d make me turn green, so I stayed home and stared at the wall.” In an attempt to steer her back to the original topic of conversation, he added, “So, you see, I really am lonely. I’m not pullin’ your leg when I say I need a friend.”
She grew quiet.
“I actually would like to do that work at your house,” he quickly tacked on. “Just as a safety precaution. How’s about if I do it tomorrow after we visit the pet store? I’ll toss the welder in the back of my truck before we leave for town.”
She laughed again. “You’re forgetting that I originally called to cancel on that.”
He grinned. “And you’re forgettin’ that good friends never let each other make the same mistakes twice. You’re safe with me, Rainie. Give me a chance to prove it.”
He concentrated on his breathing while he waited for her to answer. Finally, she said, “Only friendship, and nothing more? No strings, no expectations, no sneak kisses when I’ve let my guard down?”
Parker raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t sneaked a kiss in over twenty years. “You have my word. That way, you can relax. Right? And I’ll have a best buddy to hang out with who doesn’t drink green stuff.”
She giggled again. Oh, how he loved that sound. “Okay, we can give it a try, I guess. Just know, right up front, that anything more than friendship is totally out of the question for me.”
Parker was fine with that. The only lasting romantic relationships that he’d ever seen had been built on a solid foundation of friendship. The other stuff came later—and he was a patient man.
Chapter Eight
Rainie had never fretted and fussed so much over what to wear out to lunch with a friend. She’d put most of her first paycheck in the bank, saving to buy a new set of snow tires before winter, so her wardrobe was still pathetic. She discarded three outfits before settling on a gauzy floral-print skirt and a pale pink V-necked sweater with three-quarter-length sleeves and small, pearlescent buttons down the front. For her feet, she chose the white canvas slip-ons. The ensemble set a casual mood yet looked dressy enough for eating out.
After pushing up the sweater sleeves, she gave herself a critical study. It never ceased to amaze her how different she looked since moving here. The sun-tipped, curly hair. The airy clothing. It was almost as if she’d subconsciously mimicked a certain style, only when she tried to think where she’d seen it, she came up blank. No matter. She’d succeeded in drastically changing her appearance. That was all that counted. The old Rainie no longer existed.
Before leaving the house, she crouched down to give Thomas a good-bye scratch behind his ears. “You’re going to meet a new friend this afternoon,” she told the cat. “His name is Mojo, and he’s only a tiny baby. I’m counting on you not to scratch him. Okay?”
Thomas purred happily and rubbed himself against her knees. Rainie brushed the fur from her skirt before grabbing her purse and cell phone. Then she raced to the car.
The morning was gorgeous, sunlight pooling like melted butter in the emerald green fields that lined the winding road to the ranch. Soft, cottony clouds streaked the azure sky. She rolled down her window to enjoy the breeze, rife with the scents of pine, freshly cut alfalfa, and stagnant water in irrigation ponds. Or was that cow manure? Hmm. She preferred to think it was water. Her hair whipped in first one direction and then another. Fortunately she carried a clip in her purse and could pull her hair back when she got to work.
Parker. Rainie still wasn’t sure how he’d talked her out of canceling their lunch date. Looking back on the conversation, she could scarcely believe it had even taken place. She’d told him way too much. Only, somehow, it had seemed right. Her heart felt lighter today, her mood buoyant. Granted, she’d been cautious about what she said, but, oh, how nice it had been to let her guard down for a few minutes.
Sometimes she felt like a tightly sealed vial with the contents under pressure. She talked to Thomas a lot, but it wasn’t the same as talking to a person who actually answered back. Last night as she lay in bed, listening to the house creak, she’d thought about all the things Parker had told her. He truly understood how a person could get sucked in, how she could think she was in control of a situation until it was way too late. It had been like that for her with Peter—like stepping off into shallow quicksand that didn’t suck at her feet until she’d waded in too deep.
The memories made Rainie feel as if a vise were tightening around her chest. She flipped on the radio, found a station, and sang along with Mariah until her heart-attack moment had passed. She was okay. Peter was only an eight-hour drive away, but he’d never think to look for her in a midsize central Oregon community where high-end, resort-style living meshed almost seamlessly with ranch-focused enterprises and small-scale farms. She was a city girl—a high-minded city girl who’d once dreamed of breaking the glass ceiling of the corporate world.
“I’m okay,” she assured herself.
She would soon have bars installed over her bedroom windows and a reinforced bedroom door. Her landlord might have a fit, but she would placate him with promises that she’d remove all the ironwork, putty the holes, and repaint when she moved. Now that she was making sixty grand a year, she could actually afford to paint, after all. If the old man complained too loudly, she could even upgrade to a better neighborhood. No matter what, she would have the bars. It had been so long since she’d slept soundly that she sometimes wondered if the dark shadows under her eyes were permanent. Sleep. Even during her marriage, she hadn’t been able to rest well. She’d never known when Peter’s biting fingers might curl over her shoulder.
Rainie’s eyes filled with tears when she remembered those times. She brushed angril
y at her cheeks. Parker would understand. He’d talk about survival instinct and how everyone made mistakes. She had an overabundance of survival instinct. She’d learned that the hard way, with Peter as her teacher.
Parker was putting the welding equipment into the back of his truck when Rainie pulled her Mazda into the ranch parking area. Looking too handsome to be legal in a fresh pair of Wrangler jeans and a blue chambray work shirt, he turned to wave at her. She waved back, then knotted her hand into a fist on her lap. Was she out of her mind to be going to lunch with him? No matter what he said, she wasn’t safe with him. No woman was.
“Mornin’!” he called as he strode toward her car in that loose-hipped, lazy way of his. He gave the impression that nothing short of a bomb going off could make him move quickly, and yet she’d seen his lightning-fast reaction time while working with his horses. His unhurried, relaxed manner was deceiving. “Gorgeous day, isn’t it?”
It truly was a gorgeous day, and his smile—a devastating tilt of firm lips that displayed incredibly white teeth—made the sun seem to shine even brighter. He drew off his brown Stetson to blot beads of perspiration from his brow with a rolled-back sleeve. His wavy hair glistened like polished jet in the morning light.
“Gettin’ warm already.”
Determined not to panic at the burn of feelings he kindled within her, Rainie got out of the car and reached back in for her purse. “How’d it go with Mojo last night?”
“We got off to a rough start. I made him a bed in the laundry room, and he didn’t care for the accommodations.”
“Uh-oh. Did he cry?”
“Did he cry? The caterwaulin’ carried to every room of my house, so loud I couldn’t even think about sleepin’.” His smile widened. “I got out the book I bought on puppies. It said he’d calm down if I wrapped a tickin’ clock up in a towel and put it in bed with him. It took me almost an hour to find one.”
“Practically everything’s digital nowadays.”
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