by Diana Palmer
“We’re rare,” she had to admit. She smiled. “It comes with freckles.”
He chuckled. “I like freckles.”
She drew in a rasping breath. “I don’t, but it isn’t as if I get a choice about having them,” she laughed.
“You need to sleep,” he said gently, getting to his feet. “I’ll check on you in the morning. You can call me if you need anything.”
She looked at him with wonder. “I can?”
“Where’s your cell?”
“In my housecoat pocket, there,” she said, pointing to the robe she’d draped around the back of a chair.
He lifted it, admiring the intricate embroidery. It looked very expensive. Definitely not something off the rack.
She could see the wheels turning in his mind. He was suspicious.
“It was my mother’s,” she said, noting the intent look he gave the robe as he searched for the phone. “It’s one of the few things I have left of her. Dad gave her the robe three Christmases ago. She fussed because he splurged for it,” she added quickly.
“Oh. I see,” he said, smiling easily. His suspicions retreated. He opened her contact list and put his phone number into it. He put the phone on the table by the bed. “In case you need it,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said softly.
He grinned. “You’re welcome. If you can’t get your dad, and you need anything, you call me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, sprout.”
She grinned. “Okay. Thanks for getting me to the doctor,” she added. “I’ll pay you back. . . .”
“Over my dead body,” he said with a laugh. “This was my treat.”
She bit her lower lip and fought tears. “It was so kind . . . !”
“Don’t you start,” he said, waving a finger at her. “You start bawling and your dad’s going to go looking for a shotgun.”
“Not likely,” her dad said from the doorway, chuckling.
“Figure of speech,” JL replied. He smiled at both of them. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Thanks for all you did,” Roger told him. “For supper, and for taking care of Cassie.”
“My pleasure.” He went out without another word or a backward glance, closing the door behind him.
Outside, he lifted his face to the cold wind and sighed. He was getting in over his head here, and he didn’t know how to stop. Her vulnerability appealed to him as other feminine traits never had. His ex-fiancée had been a kind person, or seemed to be, until Cary told him the truth about her. He’d been badly taken in. He didn’t trust his own responses. What if Cassie was playing a game? What if she wasn’t what she seemed to be?
He dismissed the thought. She was as honest as the day was long, and why would she pretend to be poor, anyway? It was obvious that she and her father had very little money. She’d worried excessively about paying the doctor. She was proud, too, offering to pay him back when he knew she didn’t have the money.
No, she seemed like the genuine article. But he’d do well to put on the brakes. He had enough to take care of at the ranch, with the improvements he was finally making. He’d keep close to home for a bit. But he’d check on her in the morning, because he’d promised.
* * *
He knocked on her door midmorning. She opened it with a big smile. She was wearing the housecoat, but her color was better.
“Those antibiotics work very fast,” she said. “I can feel the difference already.” She paused to cough into a tissue. “Well, I’m still coughing, but it’s not as bad as it was. Come on in. Would you like coffee?”
“You shouldn’t be up,” he fussed.
“Yes, I should,” she replied. “My doctor back home told me that it’s never a good idea to stay in bed completely with a chest infection. You have to keep moving so that you’re more likely to cough up the bad stuff. I’ve been in the kitchen.”
He followed her in. On the counter was a baking sheet with several rolls just rising. They were covered with a sheet of plastic wrap.
“I made those for you,” she said gently. “Let them rise for another hour or so, then bake them at three hundred fifty degrees Fahrenheit for about sixteen minutes. If they’re not brown, let them put them back in the oven for another couple of minutes.”
“I’ll enjoy them,” he said. “Thanks.”
She grinned. “I love to cook. But I especially like to make breads. I love the feel of dough. It’s almost alive.”
“My mother could make bread,” he said. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve had any fresh from the oven. This was nice of you.”
“Payback,” she teased. “For your kindness yesterday.”
“It’s not hard to be kind to someone as sweet as you are,” he said, and he wasn’t teasing.
She searched his eyes and felt her stomach drop. It was new, the feelings she had with him.
He saw that and grimaced. Everything she felt was plain on her face. “Listen,” he began worriedly.
“I can’t get married this morning,” she broke in, embarrassed by what he’d likely noticed, and desperate to change the mood.
He stared at her. “Excuse me?”
“I can’t get married this morning,” she said firmly. “Or this afternoon. Not even this year. And that’s final. I’m sorry, but I have my heart set on climbing Mount Everest. I’ll need an oxygen tank, of course, and the right clothing, and I’ll have to save up. But I should have enough in about twenty years, so you can check back with me then.”
It took him a minute to realize that she was teasing. He chuckled, deep in his throat. “Just when I think I’ve got you figured out, you throw me another curve.”
“I’m quick, I am,” she joked. “Sit down and have some coffee, if you’ve got time.”
“I’ve got time.” He tossed his hat into a spare chair and sat down at the table.
She poured coffee and sat down beside him. “I love coffee first thing in the morning.”
“So do I,” he said, sipping his. “Nice. I like strong coffee.”
“Dad and I do, too,” she said.
“I noticed. He makes good coffee as well.”
“I forgot to offer you cream and sugar,” she said suddenly.
“I don’t take either. When you serve in the military, you get used to life without the frills,” he chuckled.
“Reporters learn that early,” she told him. “I was always on the run. It’s a hectic sort of life.”
“Your dad said the excitement made your asthma worse.”
She nodded. “It did. I missed it, though.”
“So, what did you do for a living before you moved out here?” he asked.
She just stared at him. That was the one question she hadn’t anticipated, and there was no way she could tell him the truth.
Chapter Six
JL scowled. She looked guilty, and he wondered why.
She thought for a minute. “I had a job as an assistant to a producer at a television station north of Atlanta,” she said finally. It wasn’t quite the truth. But it sounded better than confessing she’d been a top writer for one of the most successful network weekly shows in the country. She didn’t dare admit that, because he might have heard about the scandal that involved her family.
“Assistant producer?” he asked.
“It’s like being a research assistant,” she continued. “I had all sorts of assignments and I didn’t have to sit at a desk all day. Once I got to do a feature story all by myself with just a cameraman and a sound man with me in the van.”
One of her friends had such a job, and she was able to recall what the other woman had told her about the assignments she got. It was like being a reporter, but with television cameras instead of a pad and pen—or, more recently, a notebook computer.
“It sounds complicated.”
She laughed. “It’s not. I covered news stories occasionally, too, but it was mostly feature stuff.”
“We have a weekly
paper here in Benton,” he said. “In fact, the editor used to work in New York City.”
Her heart stopped beating. She just sat and stared at JL, vaguely horrified. “Oh?” she asked. “Recently?”
“No,” he said, wondering at the sudden paleness of her face. “About ten years ago. Are you okay? You look wan.”
“I’m still weak,” she said. She smiled. Ten years ago was a relief. The weekly editor wouldn’t know about her father.
“I guess you are. I still feel bad that I let you get chilled like that.”
“You made up for it,” she told him. “It’s okay.”
He sipped more coffee. “What I was getting at, is that maybe you’d be happier working on the newspaper than waiting tables,” he said hesitantly.
“I couldn’t go back to it,” she replied. “The stress would be too much.”
“It’s just a weekly paper. Not a daily,” he teased.
“You don’t understand. The stress on a weekly is much worse than on a daily paper. On a weekly, you’re expected to do all sorts of things besides just report. On a daily, you just write your copy and turn it in to the city editor or the state news editor.”
“Oh.”
“Besides, I like being a waitress,” she said, grinning.
“Almost anybody can be a waitress, with the right training. But it takes more than just training to be a reporter.”
“Thanks,” she said softly, searching his dark eyes.
“You’re wasted, is what I meant.”
She sighed. “It’s not stressful, what I do now, and I love the people I work with,” she said. “Besides, I don’t have to sleep with a pistol under my pillow at night.”
“What?” he exclaimed.
“Back when I worked for the newspaper, we had this reporter, Barney. He did a story about corruption in the county commission and ticked off members of one commissioner’s family. He got death threats. He slept with a pistol under his pillow. He was run off the road one night and hit a telephone pole. The perp was never caught, and Barney decided he’d like to work in a happier place, so he got a job as a telephone lineman.” She chuckled. “He said that it was a lot less stressful.”
He laughed, too. “I guess so. I never thought of reporting as dangerous.”
“It can be, depending on who you tick off,” she replied.
“Did you ever get a death threat?” he asked easily.
She felt that question to the soles of her feet. She looked hunted suddenly, haunted. “Yes,” she confessed. “Once or twice.” It had been a lot more than once or twice. She and her parents all had death threats from people who supported the conniving woman who’d wanted her father’s job. Social media had hounded them to the point of madness, cost her mother her life. It was unreal, how much damage people could do with just words.
He frowned as he saw how upset she’d become. His big hand slid over her cold one and curled around it. “Sorry,” he said gently. “You were thinking about your mother, weren’t you?”
He was amazingly perceptive. She took a deep breath and had to fight a cough. “Yes, I was,” she confessed. “Sorry.”
“I didn’t think,” he said apologetically. “I know it must be a hard thing to get over. Losing a parent is painful.”
“Something we both know,” she agreed. Her fingers curled around his. “It’s still fresh.”
“Life goes on,” he replied softly. “It has to.”
She nodded. She felt choked inside.
He squeezed her fingers and then let go. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “We’ve got storm warnings for tonight. The boys and I have to bring the few remaining expectant mothers up to the shelters near the house. Calves are hard on heifers that are bred for the first time.”
“I can imagine. I never did get to see the calves,” she added suddenly.
“Next time,” he said softly, and he smiled.
She smiled back, her heart in her throat. “Next time,” she agreed.
“Just friends,” he added firmly, even though he was feeling something that was definitely stronger than friendship.
“Just friends,” she agreed pertly. “I’ve already told you that I have to climb Mount Everest before I can even think about marrying anybody.”
He chuckled. “I’ll remember that.” He stood up and put on his hat. “You stay warm. I’m still on call if you need me. Don’t go to work if there’s ice on the road. Call Mary and tell her you can’t get out. She has two other workers who live in town who can fill in if they have to.”
His protective attitude made her feel warm inside. “Okay,” she said softly.
“And don’t go out unless the house catches on fire,” he said firmly.
She laughed. “I won’t.”
He tilted his hat over one eye. “I’ll be back by tomorrow. Just to check in.”
“Okay. I’ll have coffee ready. Oh, wait . . . !” she called as he started out the door.
She handed him the pan of rolls. “Three fifty, sixteen minutes,” she repeated.
He smiled slowly. “I won’t forget. I’ll see you later.”
“See you.”
She watched him walk out the door with new emotions boiling over inside of her. He said they’d just be friends, but there had been a look in his dark eyes that made her giddy even in memory. They were building to something wonderful.
Her face fell. Something false. Because he didn’t know the truth about her and her father. What would he feel, if he found out? Would he believe the lies people had told about her dad? Would he even listen if she tried to explain?
She bit her lower lip, hard. She didn’t know what to do. In fact, there was nothing she could do, unless she wanted to tell him the truth right now. That was unwise. If he wasn’t sympathetic and he told anybody, the media might be able to find them out here and start the persecution all over again. There would be no place left to go except maybe overseas, and they didn’t have enough money for that anymore.
She poured herself another cup of coffee and turned off the pot, her face drawn with worry. Life had seemed so simple when she and her dad moved here. It was a small community, they’d blend in, nobody would know them. It would be fine.
Except that life was never static. You met new people and got involved with them, even superficially. Then you were hostages to fate. Anybody might suddenly see a news item on television and connect it with the new man at the equipment store, or the waitress at the restaurant. It wasn’t likely, but it was possible that her father could be recognized, even out here.
Then what would they do? She drew in a long, painful breath. Life was becoming more complicated all the time. She wanted to get closer to JL, but he didn’t want a serious relationship. And even if he did, how would she tell him the truth?
She sipped coffee and put the worry to the back of her mind. She had to live one day at a time. It was no good anticipating trouble. That only made things worse. One day at a time, she told herself firmly.
* * *
JL went home, with snow falling softly on the back roads, on the tall sharp peaks of the surrounding mountains. He grimaced as he thought what a time they were going to have if the snow amounted to more than an inch or two. He was short-handed. Two of his cowboys had quit for no apparent reason. He was still trying to replace them, and not having much luck. It put more strain on the other workers, trying to absorb the overflow of routine tasks.
Pregnant cows, especially purebred ones, required a lot of work. No rancher could afford to lose many calves in this economy. It meant checking on the herd several times a day to make sure they were sheltered and fed and watered, and safe from predators.
He thought about Two Toes and grimaced. That old wolf would be lounging in the tree line, waiting for his chance at another little lost calf. Just the thought of it made him irritated.
He parked the truck at his front door, went inside, and pulled out his cell phone. He had Butch Matthews, the wildlife rehabilitator, on the phone seconds later.
There was a long pause while he outlined his problems with the resident bad boy of the wolf variety.
“Only two toes?” Butch mused.
“Only two. Well, on one foot, that is. We can tell that much by tracking him through the snow. He limps. He’s also old and he must be missing some teeth, because all he wants to bring down are little calves.”
“I may be able to do something about that,” Butch began.
“I don’t want him killed,” JL said at once.
There was deep laughter. “Neither do I. I have a special regard for them. A wolf saved my life once.”
JL frowned. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not,” Butch replied. “I fell off my horse and rolled down into a ravine. Broke my leg. Somewhere along the line, my cell phone was torn out of its carrier and I had no way to get help. I heard howling close by. A big white wolf wandered up. It was old and grizzled and looked hungry. I thought my number was up. It wasn’t. The animal came close, sniffed my leg, looked at me, and lumbered off. A couple of hours later, the wolf came back, sniffed my leg again, huffed, and trotted off. Not long after that, two men on horseback rode down the ravine to where I was. They made a makeshift travois of lodgepole pine trunks lashed together with rope and topped with a spare rain slicker. They got me back to their ranch, called an ambulance on the way there. I was barely conscious and in a lot of pain, but I remember calling it a miracle that they found me before I was buried in the snow. One of them laughed and said the damned wolf led them to me. They were riding along fence lines to check on pregnant heifers when the wolf came up to them and just sat down and stared at them. They moved toward him and he moved off a little distance. He sat right back down and stared at them some more. They finally got the idea that he wanted them to follow him. They did, and found me.” He laughed. “That happened eight years ago, and people still tell that story. In retrospect, it really was something of a miracle.”
“I guess so. I don’t guess you ever saw the wolf again?” JL asked curiously.