by Jeannie Watt
Déjà vu. She hated it.
On both days she arrive back home well after dark, trying not to look at Zach’s house as she turned into her own driveway. Getting semi-involved with the neighbor had been a major, major mistake.
Tess had just begun unloading groceries from the trunk of her car when she heard the sound of the four-wheeler as she came back. Sure enough a headlight cut through the darkness as it approached her place.
Zach.
Tess ducked back inside the house even though the trunk of her car was still open. A few minutes later Zach mounted the porch steps and she realized she already recognized the cadence of his walk. Another bad sign. She took a deep breath and pulled open the door, keeping the expression on her face carefully neutral. Just a landowner speaking to her very pissed off lessee.
Zach didn’t bother with a greeting. “Tess, your life is none of my business—”
“But...?”
“Who are you hiding from?”
“If you’re here to check the cows—” in the dark “—great. If not, then you need to go.”
“Don’t,” he said softly.
“What?”
“Play games.”
Tess gripped the edge of the door. “I’m not. I just realized that I wasn’t being fair to you or me or anyone.”
“Bullshit.”
“Believe what you wish.”
“So you back off, hole up in your house. Hide yourself away.”
“It’s a habit of mine.”
Zach leaned his shoulder against the newel post, his eyes narrowed as he studied her. “Why is that a habit of yours?” he asked in an annoyingly reasonable voice.
Another question she wasn’t touching. Better to go with a distraction. “I like you, Zach, and we obviously have some chemistry, but I don’t want to—” she gripped the door tighter as she sought the right words and finally came up with the epitome of lameness “—explore it further.”
“You were doing pretty good exploring a few days ago.”
“I agree,” she said softly. And she’d very much enjoyed that exploration. Had looked forward to more until reality had reared its ugly head.
“Why are you trying to push me away?”
“I told you why,” she snapped, taking a step backward, ready to close the door in his face again. This time, however, he stuck his boot out so she couldn’t get the door all the way shut.
“Move your foot.”
“Open the door.” For a moment they faced off, then Zach pulled his foot back and because he did, Tess refrained from slamming the door shut. But she wanted to. Zach was a decent guy and she’d come very close to using him to help deal with her own loneliness. It wasn’t right.
“I’m not going to force my way in,” he said coldly, “but I have the right to know if whatever it is you’re running from poses a danger to my daughters.”
“The girls shouldn’t come by anymore.”
It killed her to say those words. She would miss their visits more than she would have ever dreamed possible a few weeks ago.
Zach’s expression shuttered. He stepped back, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. Then he turned and walked to the four-wheeler. A few seconds later the headlights once again cut the darkness.
Tess was shaking by the time she’d shut the door. She’d lived alone, responsible only for herself for many years, so why did she have the feeling that she’d just cut her lifeline?
Deal with it.
Zach was not coming back and the girls wouldn’t either, and that meant she was well and truly alone. But this time it felt different.
Tess finished with the groceries, then picked up a pattern envelope and pulled the tissue out. She still needed to focus on learning to set in a sleeve and there was no time like the lonely present. But she couldn’t focus, so she dropped the tissue in a heap on the rickety sewing table and set the pattern directions beside it.
She was making headway in her sewing, even without Darcy’s help, but wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what the pattern wanted her to do. Once she figured that out, she could usually find a video or online tutorial to help her out. Unfortunately, a ten-minute video took about an hour to download on the ridiculously slow internet connection. Darcy had been right—it was better to have an actual person helping her. Keeping her company. Charming her and making her laugh.
Well, you don’t get to have that.
She shouldn’t have allowed herself to get involved with the family because she’d gotten a taste of something she did not want to give up. She’d been so gung ho on convincing herself she was safe and life was normal, that she hadn’t considered what would happen to those around her if she was wrong—that she may have been putting the girls in danger if Eddie ever did find her.
The thought of the girls being collateral damage ate at her, as did the thought of Zach despising her for being a flaky coward. True, that solved matters, but she couldn’t shake the thought that she owed him the truth. Not so that he wouldn’t despise her, but so that he would see how very important it was to keep his family as far away from her as he could.
* * *
DARCY WAS WORKING at Zach’s desk with the afghan Karen had made her draped over her shoulders.
“Is something wrong, Dad?”
There was no easy way to do this. “You won’t be going to Tess’s place anymore.”
Darcy’s mouth dropped open then her expression became one of outrage. “Why? Because Lizzie wanted to phone Tess about the kitten? I know Tia talked to you about it.”
The kid honestly did hear everything. Zach shook his head. “No.”
“Then what?” Darcy demanded.
“I don’t have all the facts, but Tess wants us to leave her alone.”
“Since when?” Darcy demanded.
“Since today. There are...things...going on in her life that she wants to handle alone.”
“What kind of things?”
“Things that are none of our business.”
“It’s whatever made her so afraid when she first got here, isn’t it?” His thoughts exactly.
“I don’t know, Darcy.”
“We can’t just abandon her, Dad.”
“We don’t have a lot of choice. She asked me to leave her alone. I’m going to abide by her wishes. You’re going to do the same. No more creek path. No sewing lessons.”
“But, Dad...” His daughter’s voice quavered a little before it trailed off. Darcy rarely if ever cried. And if she did, it was almost always in private.
“We’ll give her some time, Darcy. I’m not saying it’s forever, but for right now, we’re going to respect her wishes. And I need you to back me on this with Emma and Lizzie.”
Darcy swallowed, gave a quick sniff then wrapped the afghan a little tighter around her. “What do you think is happening, Dad?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
But sure as hell wished that he did. He was angry at Tess’s attitude, but still hated the thought of her facing whatever it was alone. Was it an angry ex-husband or ex-boyfriend? The person who’d assaulted her?
Whatever it was, he didn’t have it in him to walk away.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“DADDY, HAVE YOU seen Scamper?” Lizzie asked as she came into the kitchen where Zach was getting ready to spend the day on yet another stretch of fence now that the meadow hay had been knocked down.
Scamper was a kitten no doubt. They w
ere still too young to scamper, but they were crawling out of their bed and wandering around, much to Misty’s consternation. “Which one is that?”
“The yellow one,” Lizzie said with an air of indignation.
“I saw the black-and-white one under the sofa a few minutes ago.”
“That’s Timmy. I’d better go find him.” Lizzie ran off into the living room. At least she was talking to him. For two days after he’d told his girls they couldn’t go back to Tess’s, Lizzie had pouted.
“I told you they’d get over it,” Beth Ann said from the kitchen table. The girls had told her they couldn’t go back to Tess’s house for sewing lessons and cookies, and while she’d commiserated, Zach could see that she’d been relieved. Beth Ann didn’t want Tess in their lives.
Zach picked up his gloves from the table and shoved them into his back pocket. “Roscoe and I will be on the mountain.” Beth Ann raised her eyebrows. “Just in case he comes home without me—you know where to start looking.”
Which, the way things had gone that week, was a very real possibility.
“Sell that horse,” she said just as Emma came into the kitchen.
“For what? Two dollars?” Zach asked.
“Two dollars more than you have now and you won’t get stranded on the mountain.”
“And I’ll be in great shape hiking after the cattle.” The four-wheeler simply couldn’t handle some of the places he needed to go, the things he needed to do.
“Don’t sell Roscoe,” Emma said, stopping dead, her expression alarmed. “He’s part of the family.”
Beth Ann met Zach’s eyes, her message clear. These girls clung to family, even the equine members, and it was better to ease Tess out of it now than later. He started for the door.
“See you guys tonight,” he said.
Zach rode into Tess’s driveway for a quick cow count, since he’d had to mend a section of fence along the road where one had jumped yesterday, but he did not go to the house. He stopped Roscoe by the gate and counted the cows and calves. Everyone was where they should be. Before he turned the horse and started back to the county road he glanced up to the window where he’d seen Tess watching him more than once before she’d gotten to know him.
She wasn’t there.
He told himself that was a good sign...but he didn’t believe it. There was unfinished business between them and it would probably remain unfinished, which he didn’t like one damned bit.
* * *
ROSCOE WAS SLATHERED in sweat by the time he and Zach came off the mountain. Zach could almost hear the horse sigh as he set foot on the level trail leading through Murray’s field to the county road. They were halfway through the field when his cell phone rang.
Zach answered it automatically, assuming it had to be his family.
“State your emergency,” he said, expecting one of the girls to launch into a description of some pressing matter.
“I need to talk to you.”
Tess. Zach’s grip on the phone automatically tightened.
“When?”
“Now? It won’t take long. I can meet you at the gate.”
Now didn’t work for him, because if he was going to talk to Tess, it wasn’t going to be standing on the county road—although that was perfect neutral territory directly between their two ranches.
“I’m coming off the mountain. Let me take Roscoe home and feed him. Then I’ll stop by your house.” His suggestion was met with silence. “Does that work?”
“Yes,” Tess finally replied. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
Once home, Zach unsaddled Roscoe and sluiced off the gelding’s back using the hose. A quick curry, then he released him to happily roll in the dirt and join his buddies out in the field.
Zach stowed the tack, then went in the house and took a quick shower. Tess may not want to talk for too long, but she probably wanted to be able to breathe while she did it. Six hours on the mountain in the hot late-spring sun did things to both guys and horses that made them unfit for polite company.
He slapped a ball cap on his damp hair and went outside to fire up the four-wheeler. For all he knew, Tess was going to give him the thirty days’ notice required for her to break their contract...but somehow he didn’t think so.
Tess opened the door after he parked the four-wheeler, and stepped back so he could come inside. No glasses today. Her dark hair was pulled back in some kind of a headband, for once fully exposing both sides of her face. And he noted with a fleeting touch of amusement that they were dressed almost identically—jeans and white shirts. The difference was that she looked hot in her jeans and white shirt.
She closed the door behind him and walked a few steps into the almost empty living room. The dogs, who’d been flanking her, followed for a few steps and then went to the far side of the room to stretch out on the hardwood floor. But they kept their amber eyes firmly fixed on Tess—perhaps because she was practically radiating tension.
“I owe you an apology,” she said. “For not telling you the facts you needed to know. For not thinking about the safety of your daughters before I allowed them to stop by so frequently. So...I’m going to tell you everything. So you can be prepared...in case something happens.”
“What might happen, Tess? Who are you hiding from?”
“My stepfather.” Her words were little more than a whisper, but she cleared her throat and said it again, more loudly. “My stepfather. Eddie Napier. The drug-dealing ex-con.”
Sounded like a person one would want to be afraid of.
“Did he do...that...to you?” Zach indicated her injuries with a nod.
“I think he had it done.” Tess pressed her lips together briefly. “I’m sure of it. When I first moved here, I was a nervous wreck, thinking he was going to find me. Somehow. Drug people talk. Word travels. But—” the breath she pulled in quavered slightly “—after talking to the detective on my case, several times, I managed to convince myself he couldn’t.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“She died after I left home. Eddie went to prison for dealing about six months before, but she kept using, because she died of drug-related causes.”
Zach took a couple steps toward her but her barricades were up so he didn’t make a move to touch her.
“I’m afraid that if Eddie does find me and discovers I’m...close...to you and your family, he’ll do something bad. He’s a sadistic man.” Obviously, if he destroyed her face.
“Why’d he slash you?”
“He thinks I have money he left with my mother,” Tess said. “I don’t and I told him so. I thought he’d believed me, even though he told me he wasn’t done with me.”
“How would slashing you get him the money?”
“The guy who did it told me Eddie would keep taking pieces off from me until he got what he wanted.”
Zach’s gut twisted. Shit. He leaned back so he could look down into her face. A face that was still beautiful. Marred, but striking. He wanted to haul her up against him, but instinctively knew that Tess would never stand for that. Not right now.
“Does anyone know?”
“You,” she said simply. “And the attorney who handles my business stuff. A guy I fired once.”
“You fired him?”
“He didn’t hold a grudge,” Tess replied, dragging a hand over the tense muscles at the back of her neck. “I found an attorney who was more familiar with my particular business situation, and William actua
lly told me I’d made the right decision. We kept in touch over the years and he was the only person I could think of who could possibly help me hide.”
“Is there any way that your stepfather could possibly track you here?” Zach asked, still trying to imagine what she’d gone through, being assaulted and having her face ripped like that. He was not a violent man by nature, but he wanted very much to clean house with the guy who’d done this to her.
“I can’t think of any...unless someone recognized me and word got back to him...or to the media.”
“I’m missing something here,” he said with a slight frown. “The media?”
“I was a model, Zach. I worked quite steadily right up until...” She touched her cheek and Zach felt another surge of hot anger. “I have magazine ad campaigns that are still running. May run for a long time yet.” She turned the uninjured side of her face so that the light from the living room hit her cheekbones just so. “Imagine red hair and lots of it.”
He couldn’t say that he recognized her, but he recognized the classic buy-this-makeup/perfume/whatever-and-you-can-look-like-me pose.
“Which is why your stepfather slashed your face.”
She dropped the pose. “Which is why I’m afraid of him. He isn’t known for his mercy. He likes to mess with people. Torment them before he hurts them.” She touched his hand. “I thought he’d burned my barn down. That had I been home it might have been my house. He did that once—burned down a guy’s house that owed him.”
It all made sense in a sad, sad way.
Zach brushed the hair away from her face, his fingers brushing lightly over the scars.
“And this is why you broke things off with me?”
She pressed her lips together briefly. “I got a call from the detective in charge of my case telling me Eddie had applied to have his parole transferred to Nevada. Apparently he has a job offer here, but...I don’t believe it. I think he wants to look for me.”