Celia jumped back, alarmed. It was impossible to see much about him by the light of her single candle, but he was big. A stranger. He also smelled distinctly of whiskey.
He straightened and licked his lips. “I was trying to get to town, but that last creek nearly took me with it.”
Celia hesitated a moment more — measuring the weight of the storm against the big man who obviously wanted shelter. His voice, ragged and hoarse, was definitely local, with a certain, unmistakable cadence that marked him as a native. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him, but that didn’t mean much. She’d only been in town a few months, and small as it was, Gideon played county seat to a lot of farms.
She stepped back. “My grandmother would never forgive me for turning away a stranger in trouble. Come on in.”
The relief on his face, even in the dark, was unmistakable. “Much obliged. I won’t be any trouble.”
“Wet as you are, I’ll be lucky if you don’t die of pneumonia before morning.” She sized him up, thinking quickly. “Stay right there. I’ll get you something dry to put on.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he protested.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She headed for the back room, leaving the candle for him. He hovered near the door.
There wasn’t much to choose from, but Celia found an old pair of overalls of her grandfather’s and a shirt she was sure would be too small. Might not fit well, but it would be better than freezing to death.
The stranger still stood right by the door when she returned. A puddle had formed under his feet. His outer garment, a long vinyl poncho, had been shed, and the big pack rested against the wall.
The lights flashed on again, so suddenly they startled Celia. In the blazing, unexpected illumination, she stared at the man by the door. It was only by sheer force of will that she kept her mouth from dropping open. Men like this never walked into her quiet life. They crossed movie screens and album covers; they rode bucking horses in rodeos and raced cars in the Indy.
They didn’t appear on her porch in rural Texas in the middle of a rainstorm.
His hair was black as sin and already curling around his neck and ears. The face was broad and dark, with high cheekbones and heavy brows over thick-lashed eyes. Amid all the masculine angles and jutting corners, his mouth was uncommon and compelling, even with a bloody cut obscuring it. The lower lip was full, sensual; the upper cut into an exquisite firm line.
There was only an instant for her to absorb the lines of his body, for the lights flashed off as quickly as they’d come on.
She laughed a little breathlessly, not quite sure whether the sound stemmed from excitement or fear. “Well, that was fast. I wonder if we’re going to be treated to a light show.”
“Somebody at the plant better get smart quick and turn everything off,” he said, “or there’s likely to be fires all over the county.”
The man shivered and Celia hurriedly gave him the clothes. “I’ll wait in the kitchen.”
Standing there in the dark, nibbling popcorn from the bowl on the table, she wondered if she was completely insane. The world was not the same place her grandmother had lived in, although Celia supposed there had always been serial killers and rapists roaming the countryside. Computers had just made it simpler to track them down. The thought made her smile briefly.
The stranger’s voice, with its odd edge of roughness, sounded directly behind her. “Jezebel’s acting up tonight,” he said.
“Jezebel?” Celia echoed, turning.
He’d brought the candle with him, and the light cast eerie shadows over the hollows of his face. She saw a grizzling of dark beard on his chin and top lip. It added an even more rakish appearance to his rugged face. Celia frowned at the blood on his mouth. “You’re bleeding,” she said, and reached into a drawer for a dishcloth.
Distractedly, he pressed the cloth to the cut, then lifted it and licked the spot experimentally. “I didn’t even feel this,” he commented.
Celia lifted the candle closer to his face, and understanding her intention, he lowered the dishrag. “You probably need a stitch or two,” she said. “But it looks like you’ll have to live without them until morning.”
“I’ve lived through worse.”
There was no boast in the words, just a simple statement of fact. Celia realized she was still standing next to him, the candle held aloft, peering at his face for clues to his nature like the heroine in a Gothic novel. She put the candle on the table. “Who’s Jezebel?” she asked.
“The river. That’s what the old-timers call her.”
“Why?”
“Because,” the man said, cocking his head a bit ironically, “she’s as dangerous as a faithless and beautiful woman.” He spied the popcorn and pointed. “You mind?”
“Help yourself.” Celia ladled up a handful for herself. “Pretty sexist. Why isn’t she like a faithless man?”
A slow grin spread over his face. “Because no man alive can outsmart a wise and evil woman — and the old-timers knew it.”
His voice, low and husky, acted like moonshine on her spine, easing the muscles all the way down. She straightened. “What makes you think she’s acting up?”
“I’ve seen her do it.” He glanced toward the window, as though the river was a banshee about to scream through the night. “Unless it stops raining right now, she’s coming.”
Celia frowned and crossed to the window. It was dark — inky dark. The pond in the hollow had crept up another four or five inches, and she thought she could see a fine film of water all over the saturated ground. “It’s been flooding for weeks,” she said. “Everyone says that happens every year.”
“They like to forget about old Jezebel.” He shifted. “Legends aside, this is a flood plain, and the river runs in cycles. She’s gonna flood and you’d best be on high ground when she does.”
“There’s an attic here if I need it.”
He scooped up another big handful of popcorn. “Is it stocked?”
She shrugged. “Sort of.” She pursed her lips. “Do you think the river’s going to overflow tonight?”
He wandered to the window, and as he stood next to her, looking out at the rain, Celia realized he was much, much larger than she. What if all this talk of a flood was just a way to get her up into the attic to ravish her or something? She crossed her arms over her chest, smelling whiskey and something deeper, a scent of hot nights that she tried to ignore. There was no law that said serial killers were ugly and hard to get along with. In fact, how did any of them get close to their victims unless they possessed a certain — well, animal magnetism that promised erotic rewards in return for trust?
But his voice was so very grim when he spoke again that Celia had no doubt that he was telling the truth. “She’s coming,” he said, the dread in his voice unmistakable.
Suddenly, from the depths of childhood came a memory. Celia had awakened thirsty and padded into the bathroom for a drink of water. On her way back to her room, she heard her father in his office, shouting into the phone. Curious and alarmed, she had paused by the door.
Her father had been a big man, as big as a grizzly, he liked to tell her. That night he hunched in the swivel chair by his desk, with his hair wild and his face buried in his hands. “What’s wrong, Daddy?” Celia asked.
He turned in his chair and gestured for her to come sit in his lap. Then, because it had been his policy to tell Celia the truth, he said, “There’s a flood back in Texas and I can’t get through to make sure Grandma’s all right.”
Celia didn’t really understand anything else about the incident, but obviously, Grandma had been fine. She’d only died last year — in her sleep.
Thinking of it now, though, she realized the river had probably flooded then. “Okay,” she said, taking a breath. “Jezebel’s going to flood. Since you’re here, you can help me lug things up to the attic.” She crossed the room, taking the candle with her, and opened the oak cupboard by the sink.
�
��What happened to the old woman, Mrs. Moon, who used to live here?” the stranger asked as Celia took cans and boxes from the shelf.
“She died last year.” Celia flashed him a grin out of proportion to his statement. Relief made her sigh. If he had known her grandmother, he wasn’t likely to be a serial killer.
“Are you kin ?”
“I’m her granddaughter. She left me the house.”
He nodded, chewing popcorn. “What’s your name, granddaughter?”
“Celia.” She glanced at the nearly empty bowl. “You made short work of that popcorn. Are you hungry?”
“Celia Moon.” His drawl and the ragged edge of his voice made her name sound beautiful. “I’m Eric Putman and I’m starving.”
She tossed him a box of crackers and found the peanut butter. “That’ll have to do for a little while.” His name sounded vaguely familiar, but when she couldn’t place it, she let it go. There weren’t many names she hadn’t heard on her grandmother’s lips at one time or another. For a nice old woman, she’d been the world’s champion gossip — not mean, for there was always an undercurrent of understanding in the way she told her stories, even when the preacher of the Methodist church fell in love with the choir director, who was then only seventeen, and ran off to Louisiana with her. “You must be from around here,” Celia commented.
“Born and raised.”
A harsh undernote told her he’d been glad to escape. A common attitude. She was the only one who’d run to Gideon instead of away. And the funny thing was, they were running to the very places she had left behind, places whose very names promised glamour. “You’ve been gone awhile,” she said.
“Yep.” He dropped the peanut butter and crackers into the box with the other food. “You have any other candles? I can get some blankets and stuff if you’ll tell me where to look.”
She dug in a drawer, and just as she was about to light the candle, a massive flash of lightning shimmered over the sky, a pale electric blue that seemed to hang for minutes in the darkness. On its heels came a crack of thunder so loud, it rattled the dishes.
As if a hole had been cut in the sky by the violent thunder, the noise of the rain suddenly doubled, then tripled. Celia gasped. “I didn’t think it could rain any harder!” She went to the window and looked out, laughing lightly. “It looks like there’s a thousand garden hoses going at once.”
Eric grabbed the candle. “Where are those blankets?” His voice was gruff.
“Under the stairs.” She pointed vaguely. Her attention was focused on the deluge. It excited her. A part of her wanted to run outside into that beating, pounding rain, just to feel it and taste it. Nature run amok, she thought. Humans were helpless in the face of it. A savage kind of joy raced through her at the thought.
“Come on, woman,” Eric growled. “Won’t take Jezebel long to flash her eyes now.”
Of course, she probably wanted to live through whatever was coming. Time enough to observe the drama when everything was safely prepared.
Celia tried to ignore the ripple of excitement that passed through her at the thought of observing the drama with Eric Putman nearby.
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THE
LAST
CHANCE
RANCH
(Excerpt)
by
Barbara Samuel
PROLOGUE
On her twenty-second birthday, Tanya Bishop took her three-year-old son Antonio to see a Disney movie. They returned home late, and Antonio was asleep on her shoulder when she unlocked the door.
She knew Victor had found her again the minute she stepped into the house. Something just didn’t feel right.
Halting on the threshold with Antonio asleep in her arms, Tanya listened to the darkness. Her instincts prickled. From the kitchen came the predictable plop of water from the leaky faucet, and the warm hum of the refrigerator. Though she waited a full minute, holding her breath, she heard nothing else.
Cautiously, she eased in far enough to flip on the lights in the living room. The lamp on the coffee table burst alive and illuminated a room that looked exactly as it had when she left. A little cluttered but basically clean.
Still she held the slack body of her son against her and waited, listening for another moment. Nothing.
Tanya walked to the kitchen, inky dark at the end of the hail. Her footsteps made the old floor creak. In her arms, Antonio stirred and lifted his head, then settled it again on her shoulder. She could feel his hot, moist breath on her neck.
In the kitchen, she lost her nerve to be still and quiet, and flipped on the light in a rush. The fluorescent tubing spluttered as it always did, the gases heating slowly, dimly, then flaring to abrupt life.
On the floor, in shattered, tiny pieces, was Tanya’s china. The exquisite saucers and one-of-a-kind dinner plates that she had collected for years were shattered all over the kitchen. He’d ground some below his boots, for the china was powdered in places, and the linoleum below it gouged with the ferocity of Victor’s rage.
Tanya stared at the leavings of his violence and fought back tears. She had a restraining order against him, but he ignored it. Seven times she’d called the police and signed complaints. In desperation, she had gone into hiding, moving every three months so he would never know for sure where she was. He tracked her each time, once all the way to Santa Fe.
A deep and painful ache of fear beat in her chest. This time, he would kill her. Two days ago, he’d accosted her at a supermarket, in front of witnesses, and the police had arrested him. Now he was out of jail, and he knew where to find her.
Very slowly, she backed out of the kitchen.
* * *
It all counted against her later.
Tanya settled Tonio on the couch and filled his day care bag with extra clothes, his teddy bear and the blanket he could not sleep without, plenty of underwear and his favorite toys. Then she sat down in her kitchen, brushing shards of china from the table and chair, and wrote her son a letter which she tucked in among his things.
She took him to a day care home she trusted, then drove back to her house. It was just past eleven.
In the ruins of her kitchen, she sat down to wait.
And as she waited, she remembered… Victor, winking at her across the crowded school auditorium the first time she’d seen him. The gentle trembling of his hands as he kissed her the first time. The passionate avowals of love he’d pressed upon her. The flowers he brought in apology when his temper had got the better of him. The jealous rages that had become more and more frequent….
At 2:37, she heard Victor at the back door, drunk and cursing as he jimmied the lock. She lifted the phone and dialed 911.
Victor kicked the door. “I’m gonna kill you, Annie!” He kicked it again and the windows rattled under the impact.
To the girl at the end of the emergency line, Tanya said, “I need the police at 132 Mariposa. A man is breaking into my house.” She knew if she said it was her ex-husband the police wouldn’t come as quickly.
Victor roared an obscenity and kicked the door. Tanya winced. “Please hurry,” she begged and dropped the phone. She ran for her bedroom, hearing the threshold splinter as Victor barreled into the back room. He roared his name for her. Tanya scrambled in her drawer for the loaded revolver she’d put there, and rushed into the bathroom.
In the bathroom, she locked the door and crouched in a corner, praying in the nonsensical words of the terrified, “Please, please, please.” The words meant please make him go away and please don’t let him find me and please don’t let him hurt me anymore. Last time, oh, last time—
“Annie!” In the living room, she heard things breaking, and chairs being overturned, and a low growling roar that struck a panting, mindless terror through her. He didn’t even know he did it. But that animal sound meant his temper was beyond all mortal limits, that drink and rage had turne
d him into a beast.
A beast that had mauled her in the past.
Not again. She clasped the gun between her violently trembling, sweaty hands. In the distance, she heard sirens.
Please, please, please.
“Annie!” Something else was turned over. He kicked or hit the bathroom door and Tanya couldn’t halt the sob of terror that escaped her lips. She closed her eyes as he began to batter the door, lifted the gun as he yelled her name again. Tears came. Tears for everything—so many good things and so many bad—ran in great washes down her cheeks. She had to use a wrist to wipe them away.
The sirens came closer. The door gave with a splintering sound. Victor, savage as a rabid bear, tumbled into the room.
Not again! her heart cried. Not again.
Sobbing, Tanya aimed the gun at his chest and pulled the trigger.
It was the last thing she remembered.
Chapter One
Dear Antonio,
They called him a hanging judge. Everybody says it might have gone better if I’d had the money for a real good lawyer, but I didn’t, so I’m going to spend a long time behind bars.
Maybe it would be okay, if I could see you sometimes, but your dad’s sisters want you protected. From me, I guess. And someone has to take care of you while I’m in here. If I do what they want, then I can pick who takes care of you. It won’t be one of them.
So I signed the papers they brought to me, giving custody to your dad’s cousin, Ramón Quezada. He’s a fine man, and very smart. He’ll take good care of you.
Be good.
Love, Mom
Eleven years later
As the bus pulled into the dun-colored adobe bus station at Manzanares, New Mexico, Tanya Bishop scanned the concrete apron for the man who was supposed to be meeting her. She remembered Ramon Quezada from a wedding reception fifteen years ago. She had danced with him. He’d been skinny then, an intense and bespectacled college student. His probing intelligence had intrigued and thrilled her even as it made her uncomfortably aware of all she wanted to understand and didn’t.
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