Back on Bittercreek Ranch

by RaeAnne Thayne

  In the intelligence-gathering business agents weren’t supposed to care about anything but doing the job. He had broken those rules with the Betrans. Somehow their decency, their kindness had drilled through all of his barricades.

  “What happened to them?”

  He didn’t answer for a long time, listening to the soft music of the stream and the wind’s lonely mourn in the treetops. Finally he reeled his line in and set it aside, his gaze on the mountains surrounding them.

  “They were targets of a terrorist attack,” he said, his voice low. “A car bombing.”

  She made a soft sound of distress and looked quickly toward the sleeping children, sorrow and something else that looked like guilty unease in her eyes.

  “I’m so sorry. The children weren’t in the car, I hope?”

  He picked a blade of snakegrass and rolled it between his fingers. “They were in a safe house. Samuel had begun to suspect their lives might in danger so he took measures to protect the children. He and Lianne were heading to a different safe house but the terrorists found them first. Just as he feared they would.”

  Even to his own ears, his voice sounded harsh, bitter. He couldn’t help it. He felt harsh and bitter whenever he thought about the Betrans and their sacrifice that had been as needless as it was tragic.

  He should have done something. Instead he’d stood by while two decent people—two people far better than he—had been killed for what they believed.

  So much for his theory that being here in the mountains might help those scars on his soul heal a little. This one would never go away.

  To his shock, Jane reached over and laid a hand on his forearm. “You blame yourself, don’t you?”

  He looked down at her slim, pale hand against his skin, a lump in his throat and familiar guilt in his stomach. “With good reason.”

  She was waiting for him to tell her the rest of it, he knew. How much could he reveal when most of his activities in the country had been clandestine—and very classified?

  “In addition to the legal end of things,” he finally said, “we worked together on some projects for the government. Samuel had begun to fear he might become a target of terrorists because of…some information he had. He came to me for help getting his family out of the country. I tried. But not hard enough. They were killed before I could put the wheels in motion.”

  “So you brought their children to the States.”

  It hadn’t been anywhere near as easy as that simple sentence might suggest.

  He had spent weeks filling out paperwork, trying to convince the Philippines government that it would be in the best interest of the children to allow a single American man to adopt them and take them out of the country. It had taken a complex combination of bribes and coercion and even then the odds of him succeeding would have been slim to none if he hadn’t had a will drawn up by Samuel just before his death naming Mason guardian of Miriam and Charlie.

  To this day, he wasn’t sure whether his friend’s last legal act had been a gesture of desperation or a twisted sort of revenge.

  “Did you quit your military service, then, to bring them here?”

  He was so busy listening to the way she said “mili-tree” that it took a while for her actual words to register.

  “How did you know I was in the military?” He scoured his memory to see if he’d mentioned anything about it to her. He didn’t think he had. His time as a Ranger wasn’t something he tended to bring up in conversation.

  She didn’t look at him, her gaze was fixed on the rippling water. “Pam told me, I think. Yes, I’m sure of it. She mentioned you were in some kind of special forces. Army Rangers, I believe.”

  He thought of his extensive cover the last few years, of a feckless American barkeep interested only in booze and women. The layers of untruths that had surrounded him. How different would his life have turned out if he’d stayed in the army? He doubted he would have to live with a tight knot of shame for some of the things he’d done.

  “Rangers. Right.”

  “Do you miss it?” she asked.

  He had no answer to that. His time as a Ranger seemed another lifetime ago. As to the other, did he miss it? Sometimes, he had to admit. Despite the dark edges, there had been a furtive kind of thrill to it, to outsmarting genuine enemies and coming out on top, believing what you were doing would make the world a little more safe.

  For all that, he was glad to be out of it. And who knows? Someday he might even feel clean again.

  He pushed the thought away, wondering how this conversation had turned a one-eighty on him. He was supposed to be subtly putting his interrogation skills to work on Jane. So why was he the only one spilling any information here?

  “That part of my life is over now. I’m doing my best to make a different sort of life here for me and the kids.”

  She rested her chin on her shoulder and gazed at him, her eyes looking impossibly blue in the sunshine and her dark hair lifting a little in the breeze. He abruptly realized what the poets meant by drowning in a smile. He could feel himself going under, sliding toward oblivion.

  How could he feel such tenderness toward a woman he didn’t know? He wanted badly to trust her, to believe she was the innocent creature she appeared. The strength of that desire left him weak and stunned.

  “You’re a remarkable man, Mason Keller.”

  “No. Just a man,” he murmured, right before he kissed her.

  CHAPTER 13

  Jane held her breath as his arms wrapped around her, as his mouth found hers with a slow gentleness that for some ridiculous reason brought tears to her eyes.

  He made no move to deepen the kiss, only held her close, his body warm and solid and comforting while the stream rippled beside them and the wind soughed and sighed.

  Emotions poured through her, welled up inside her. Oh, how she loved this man. The force of it left her weak and trembling and hurting already with the inevitability of their parting.

  “Whoever you are, Jane Doe, I’m beginning to think you’ve got some magic in your blood,” he murmured against her mouth.

  Dazed, almost numb, she could think only of her prosaic, boring life in England. Magic? She hardly thought so. “Why would you say that?”

  He smiled a little, his silvery eyes reflecting the sunshine, and pulled her into his lap. “I certainly don’t have amnesia. But every time I kiss you, I can barely remember my own name.”

  She had no response to that so she did the only thing that came to mind. She kissed him. Filled with a heady sense of power from his words, she twisted her arms around his neck and poured all the emotions she couldn’t express with words into her kiss.

  Underneath it all was a deep, wrenching sorrow. As wonderful as this was to find herself in his arms, the moment was as fleeting as a leaf bobbing upon the stream.

  In an instant, it would be gone and she would be left with only the memory of how much she loved him—a memory she knew nothing could take from her, not all the head injuries in the world.

  She kissed him fiercely and his response was immediate and gratifying. He made a low sound of arousal deep in his throat and pulled her closer.

  “Jane—” he started to say but before he could complete the thought, they both heard a rustling in the tall meadow grass. The children! She’d completely forgotten about them.

  Jane scrambled off his lap just as Charlie reached them. He appeared to find nothing odd in the last seconds of the kiss he must have observed.

  “I catch more fish now,” he announced, then picked up his fishing pole and headed toward the water’s edge.

  Jane had to swallow a laugh at his matter-of-fact tone. Mason let out a heavy breath then lifted the coffee can full of worms, a wry expression replacing the one of desire he had worn just seconds before.

  “You gonna want a little bait on that hook, pal, or are you trying a dry run?”

  Charlie appeared to weigh his options. “You put worm on,” he finally declared.


  Jane had to hide her smile at his peremptory tone, which reminded her a great deal of the elderly matrons who had flats in her building and delighted in ordering the doorman about.

  Mason rubbed the boy’s sleep-mussed hair. “You can fish for a little while, then we’re going to head back to the ranch, okay?”

  Charlie nodded. Jane thought he would turn to the fishing with his usual rapid-fire enthusiasm for everything, but he paused then rested his head against Mason’s arm for a long moment in a gesture of trust and affection that brought those dratted tears back to her eyes.

  Mason was touched as well, she saw. He swallowed hard and remained still until Charlie reached for the baited pole and headed off.

  Oh, she was in trouble. Bad enough that she most likely had international terrorists after her. She was deeply in love not only with an ex-soldier who still exuded danger, but with his two wounded children, as well.

  She would have to leave all of them, she knew, and her heart broke all over again.

  * * *

  Their fishing trip into the mountains resulted in some elemental shift in matters between them.

  On the drive back, Mason tried to put a finger on what, exactly, had changed. He felt as if he had traveled over some invisible bridge. Behind them lay all the suspicion and mistrust and ahead of them stretched out…what?

  He wasn’t sure and wasn’t even certain he wanted to think about it. He couldn’t seriously be considering anything with this woman. She didn’t even know her own name! How could he even look at a future with her when her past was a big blank wall?

  Still, over the last few hours, he had come to the realization that he trusted her. He never would have told her about Samuel and Lianne if he hadn’t.

  How had it happened? Had it been while he had watched her kindness and patience with the children as they fished together? Or while she picked wildflowers with Miriam or snickered at Charlie’s joke?

  She had treated the children with kindness, patience and affection. How could he help but trust her?

  He had to believe everything had happened as she had told them. She had no memory beyond that moment he had found her on the road. She didn’t know why she had been here or who she might have been before.

  He had to work harder to figure out her identity. He still had connections. Surely he could find something. Daniel hadn’t run her fingerprints. They could start there and see if anything turned up, though he didn’t have the highest of hopes.

  He also hadn’t followed up with Cale about those diplomatic papers she had mentioned. It was a slip-up that bothered him, a detail he never should have overlooked.

  He had to wonder if some part of his subconscious didn’t want to know who she was, wary of what he might find if he poked under too many rocks.

  The time for games, subconscious or otherwise, was over. They had to figure out who she was and end this. He resolved to make two calls as soon as they returned to the ranch—he would talk to Daniel about coming out to the ranch with a fingerprint kit, and he would tell Cale about a possible diplomatic tie.

  Neither prospect appealed to him much but he knew he had no choice in the matter.

  He found he wasn’t eager to return to the ranch, for their time together to end. As they drove under the carved log proclaiming the Bittercreek, his hands tightened on the steering wheel and a vague sense of foreboding settled in his gut.

  “Thank you for a lovely day,” she murmured as they approached the ranch house. “I can’t say when I’ve had a more enjoyable one.”

  His laugh was short. “Considering you can only remember back a week or so, I’m not sure that’s saying all that much, is it?”

  She let out a long breath and when she turned to him, he thought he saw shadows in her blue eyes. “Something tells me this is the best day I’ve had in a long, long time, Mason.”

  He had to find out who she was, for her sake as much as his own.

  “Good.” His voice came out gruff enough that Charlie laughed.

  “You sound like the bullfrog.” The boy’s little face lit up with a grin and Mason had no choice but to smile back.

  “Ribbit. Ribbit,” he said in the same gravelly voice, sending both children into peals of laughter. Charlie stopped long enough to make a high-pitched ribbit of his own and even Miriam joined in, though her frog was small and ladylike.

  After a moment, Jane gamely tried one, too, and when Mason braked in front of the ranch house, it sounded like an entire amphibian colony had taken up residence in his truck.

  “Looks like Pam’s gone home for the day,” he observed. “Her car’s gone, anyway.”

  Jane laughed. “I suppose that’s a good thing. With all this ribbiting, she’ll think we’ve all gone barmy in the mountains.”

  He had a feeling he, at least, had done just that.

  “Okay, kids. We need to carry in all this stuff and then you both can help me cook up our catch.”

  With all of them working together, it wouldn’t take long to unload the truck. He handed Miriam and Charlie the blankets and jackets to carry in between them, and loaded Jane up with the fishing equipment.

  He was dumping the ice from the cooler into the flowerbeds when his cell phone bleated at him. The sound startled him and he realized how long it had been since he’d heard that distinctive ring.

  He pulled it from his pocket. “Yeah.”

  “Keller. It’s Cale Davis. Where the hell have you been all afternoon?”

  That premonition he’d had on the way home returned full force as he picked up the urgency in his friend’s voice.

  “I’ve been up in the Uintas. I guess I must not have cell service up there. What’s going on?”

  “Oh, not much. Only that I think I know the identity of your mystery guest.”

  He inhaled swiftly, then could have kicked himself for not concealing his emotion. He didn’t need the sharp-eared Cale Davis jumping to any inappropriate conclusions.

  He leaned a hip against the tailgate and tried to make his tone noncommittal, indifferent, even. “Oh?”

  “Are you sitting down?”

  Jane came out just then for another load and he handed her the picnic basket and waited until she returned to the house before speaking again.

  “Close enough,” he growled. “Just give it to me.”

  He had the oddest feeling, it was as if he were standing on the edge of a precipice, staring down at an endless drop.

  “First I’ve got to ask if you’ve been listening to the news today?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Your old stomping grounds is in the local news today. Didn’t you spend a year or two in Vandelusia?”

  He thought of warm white beaches and exotic, unspoiled beauty. When he had lived there, most people had welcomed the Americans. Over the last few years, Vandelusia, like other Southeast Asia countries, had become a hotbed of terrorist activity. Though the government was working hard to crack down on it, they had a long road ahead.

  “Yeah,” he answered, trying to figure out where all this was going. “They’re supposed to sign a trade agreement with the U.S. and Britain in a couple days, right?”

  “When they do, they can thank the U.S. government and its nifty little web of informants that the event is a celebration instead of a holy nightmare. Ever heard of the VLF? The Vandelusia Liberation Front?”

  “Sure. A particularly nasty faction with an increasing presence in other South Asia countries.”

  He tried to remember the most recent FactSheet before he left the business. The VLF wanted the small, emerging country to shun all western influences and become an isolated regime. Their leader was a mysterious, shadowy figure believed to hold a position of power in the government.

  “It hasn’t been pinned down but it’s believed they have ties to both Jemaah Islamiyah and al-Qaeda.”

  “We have three Vandish men linked to the VLF in custody today after they managed to break into the Deseret Chemical Depot and sneak out with a canister of
nerve gas. They planned to detonate it right in the middle of the treaty signing.”

  Mason growled a furious oath. How many lives would have been lost if they had succeeded? He hated thinking about it, especially since the trade summit was to be held just over the mountains from here in the resort town of Park City.

  So much for thinking he would bring the children home where they would be safe from that world. Nowhere was safe, he thought grimly. Not when the terrorists had schematics of American schools on their computers and when crop dusters that could be used to deliver biological or chemical weapons turned up missing from the heartland.

  He fought down a grim sense of hopelessness at ever defeating such hatred and tried to put the pieces together.

  “What does all this have to do with my Jane Doe?”

  “Jane is her name, all right. Convenient alibi, isn’t it? Not so much to remember that way. But I wouldn’t be so quick to claim her as yours.”

  His hand tightened on the phone and his guts twisted with a sense of impending disaster. “What do you mean?”

  “Jane Withington, a British translator connected to the trade summit, has disappeared. She didn’t show up for work two days in a row before someone thought to report her missing and it was another day before the local yokels thought to bring in the Feds. During the investigation into her disappearance, we found evidence in her Park City hotel room that connects her incontrovertibly to the VLF. She was the one set to detonate the nerve gas device.”

  The world seemed to gray around him and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. It was impossible. It had to be impossible.

  Fast on the heels of that was an all-consuming fury. It roared through him like a brush fire on a hillside of dry sage. She had lied to him. She had looked at him with innocent eyes, had slept in his house, had played with his children.

  Jane Withington.

  He rolled the name around in his head. He knew that name somehow but he couldn’t seem to think past the rage. Maybe she was on a watch list he’d seen.

  He had to clear his dry throat twice to get any words out. “What would she be doing here?”