by Leona Karr
“Not much of a mystery. I was office manager at a small airport in southern California and became acquainted with Jack Slade when he passed through the airport a few times. When he offered me an office job at Slade’s Adventures, I grabbed at the chance to move to Colorado. I was looking for a better place than a big city to raise my son, and I needed a change of scenery for myself. There was nothing to keep me in California. My parents died when I was eighteen and that’s the year I married, probably too young, but I desperately needed to belong to someone. After my husband passed on, I still had Randy, thank God.”
“How long have you been a widow?”
“Almost eight years now. Doesn’t seem possible. Funny, how the past fades. Seems as if Randy and I have always been on our own. He was only six when my husband died of a heart attack.”
“And you never remarried?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Probably for the same reason that you’re single. I’m guessing that you never found anyone you liked enough to share your toothbrush.” She laughed at his expression. “Sorry, that’s an inside joke. Somehow Randy got the idea that marrying someone meant you had to share everything—including your toothbrush.”
He chuckled. “I’m thinking that there might be a lot of sharing that wouldn’t come easy—not to someone who’s always guarded his or her own independence. What do you think?”
She met his eyes squarely. “I don’t know. I guess it would depend on the person and what was important.” Then, like a coward, she turned away, deliberately cutting off any more speculative conversation. She wasn’t ready to face her own confused feelings, let alone deal with the sexual awareness that had exploded between them.
Gypsy had abandoned her kittens and was brushing against Jill’s legs trying to get attention, so she reached down, and picked her up. She cuddled the warm body and buried her cheek against the soft fur. The cat began to purr, and Jill closed her eyes for a brief, contented moment. When she opened them, she saw that Hal was watching her with a heated, sensuous and compelling expression.
He moved closer so that there was only the cat in her arms between them. As his caressing fingers plied Gypsy’s soft fur, her own skin began to tingle. A muscle flicked in the line of his cheekbone, and the intensity of his blue eyes pulled her into their depths. She wanted to throw down the cat and let his hands caress her in that way. She wanted to lift her lips to that arresting touch and feel the heat of his body invading hers. She wanted—
“Meow!” Gypsy protested. Jill set her down, and neither of them paid any attention to the cat as she scampered off.
Hal’s arms went around Jill and his mouth descended on hers, pulling, tugging and tasting her lips with an urgency that drove all thought from her mind. She clung to him, returning his kisses with an abandonment that made her a stranger to the sudden wild hunger invading her body. When he breathlessly lifted his mouth from hers, he buried his lips against the warm pulse in her neck, and she felt the delicious flicking of his tongue against her soft skin. If he had lifted her up in his arms and carried her up to the soft bed of hay in the loft, she would not have resisted. But as desire danced with tantalizing heat through her body, he slowly and deliberately drew back.
“Whoa,” he said hoarsely. “Time to pull on the reins.”
“Yes. Too fast.” She gave him a wavering smile.
He kept his hands on her until she caught her breath. “Feelings under stress are not always reliable,” he warned as he continued to make love to her with his eyes.
“One has to be careful.” She broke the heightened moment with a soft laugh. “Shall we agree to a cold shower or a snowball fight?”
He grinned. “You’re on. Let me finish up here and I’ll show you what a champion snowball looks like.” Reluctantly, he picked up the empty buckets and disappeared into the tack room.
The mother cat had not gone back to her box but had headed toward the back of the barn where Jill could make out a door that looked slightly ajar. “Gypsy, come here. No, don’t go outside.”
Jill ran after her, but before she reached the back of the barn, the cat slipped out through the open door. Powdery snow had blown in through the crack but not enough to cover the threshold. When she reached the door, Jill opened her mouth to call the cat again, but the words never left her mouth.
Her eyes froze on a splintered bullet hole in the door frame above her head. Then, slowly, she lowered her eyes to a patch of dark dried blood just inside the door.
She stood there, stunned, with a terrible image running through her head—the dead man in the car!
He saw her rush out of the barn as he shoveled snow near the corral. He caught his breath and almost called her name, but something held him back. There was a frantic movement about her scrambling down the shoveled path and the bang of the back door as she went inside. What had happened? A warning alarm went off in his head. Had he lost control of the situation? Had something put her guard up? Hell! He’d waited too long for an opportunity like this to let it slip away. Time was running out. He’d have to seize the right moment to act—and soon.
Chapter Six
Jill fled upstairs to the hall bathroom, closed the door, leaned back against it and shut her eyes. Breathing heavily, she struggled to get control of herself. She wanted to deny the reality of what she’d seen, but she couldn’t. Even as she searched for some other explanation, the vision of the ugly bloodstain and the splintered bullet hole in the door frame changed like a horrible kaleidoscope into the dead man in the car drenched in his own blood. There couldn’t be any connection between the two, could there? But even as she grasped at a thin thread of disbelief, her intellect scoffed at such a coincidence. There had been a shooting in the barn—the physical evidence was there. And she’d seen with her own eyes a man dead from a bullet wound, sitting in a car parked at the edge of Haverly Ranch property. Now she realized that there would have been more blood splattered all over the front seat and some sign of a weapon if the man had shot himself. Her stomach turned over, remembering Hal’s lack of urgency about notifying the sheriff.
There has to be a different explanation.
Maybe someone else had shot the man. Zack? Kirby? They could have been in the barn. But Hal must have noticed the bullet hole and the blood, which could very well mean that he condoned the killing. Maybe one of them had carried the man to his car. Stop it! All this speculation wasn’t going to solve anything.
She splashed cold water on her face as if the chilled washing would take away the nausea churning her stomach. She had no idea what she should do. How could she pretend ignorance of what she’d seen? Was she snowbound with a killer? She buried her face in a towel to muffle a sob.
When she heard a knock at the bathroom door, she stiffened. Hal must have come after her. What should she do? Pretend ignorance? Or demand an explanation? How would he react if she came right out and accused him of shooting someone? As long as they were snowbound, she was trapped inside the house and there was nothing she could do about it.
“Jill! Are you in there?”
It was Gary’s voice and not Hal’s. Thank heavens! She needed more time to marshal her thoughts. She brushed at her eyes and smoothed her hair. Then she crossed the room and opened the door. When she saw the young father’s worried face, she asked quickly, “What is it, Gary?”
“It’s Sue. I think she’s running a temperature.”
Jill silently groaned. What would they do if she had a fever and needed medication?
“I feel hot and weak,” Sue admitted as Jill took out the small first-aid kit she’d brought and prepared to take her temperature. The young woman’s face was flushed and her eyes were heavy.
Gary watched anxiously as they waited for three minutes and Jill withdrew the thermometer, then he tried to read it over her shoulder. “What is it? Is she running a fever?”
Jill nodded. The mercury band indicated a temperature of a hundred and three. “A slight one,” she lie
d. She knew it was well above normal.
“I’m sorry to be such a bother,” Sue murmured.
“What’s the matter with her?” Gary asked anxiously.
“Could be just a reaction from the delivery, and a couple of aspirins will put her right,” Jill said, not believing the optimistic words for a minute. The most logical diagnosis—and the one that sent a chill through Jill—was that the new mother was fighting an infection. The fever could be a warning that Sue needed to be on antibiotics—and soon.
“But what if it isn’t?” Gary’s voice rose and his eyes reflected new fear. “We’ve got to do something!”
Jill fervently agreed. “It’s stopped snowing. Maybe there’s a chance we can move Sue and the baby once the roads are cleared.”
“How soon will that be?”
“Maybe this afternoon,” she said with more hope than conviction. She handed Sue two aspirin from a bottle she always carried in her bag. “How’s the little one doing?” Jill peeked at the bundled baby and saw with relief that he was sleeping peacefully. The newborn’s tiny nose wiggled in contentment and his little lips curved in a cupid’s bow. She’d never seen anything more precious. New determination gave her strength. She straightened and said briskly, “Let me go downstairs and talk with the men. We’ll decide the best thing to do. Both of you try to get some rest while you have the chance.”
She was halfway down the stairs when she stopped abruptly. Hal stood at the bottom waiting for her. She could tell from his glower that he was bewildered by her sudden departure from the barn without so much as a mumbled goodbye. Bracing herself, she went down the remaining stairs.
He searched her face, his eyes anxious. “What happened? Why did you run out of the barn like that?”
Her mind whirled with indecision. What did she know about this man? Nothing except that being in his arms had triggered a tornado of emotions and desires. She felt totally confused and off balance. Should she come right out and tell him what she’d seen? Was there danger in being honest?
“I came out of the tack room just in time to see you running out the door,” he said. He reached out a hand to her but she ignored it. “What is it, Jill?”
Her emotions were too much in a whirl to make any rational decision about what she should or should not say. She took a deep breath and sidestepped his question. This wasn’t the time to voice her fears about being under the roof with a killer, or to challenge his knowledge of the bloodstains and bullet hole. “I don’t want to talk about it now. We’ve got trouble. It’s Sue. She’s running a temperature of a hundred and three. I’m afraid she may be fighting an infection. We have to get her medical attention.”
“Oh, no.” He ran an agitated hand through his hair. “There’s no way the road crews are going to make it as far as the ranch today, or even tomorrow.” His mind raced, trying to find an answer. “Someone would have to plow the highway from Rampart all the way to the house for us to get out. The way the drifts have blown in, we couldn’t even dig our way to the main road.”
“There has to be a way.” She fought to stem a rising panic. “Maybe they’ll have the telephone lines repaired soon. We have to get the word out that we have a potential emergency.”
The lines around his eyes deepened. “Maybe we can get to Scotty’s cellular phone now.”
“I forgot all about Scotty’s phone! How soon can you have it here?”
“I’m afraid it’s one of those cellular phones that’s powered by a car battery, which is why even if we could have gotten to it yesterday, we couldn’t have been in constant contact throughout the birth.” His expression lightened. “But it’s stopped snowing and even if the wind is still kicking up, we might be able to dig our way to the stalled truck. And if the damn phone’s still working, we can call 911.”
A spurt of relief went through her. Making contact with the outside world would solve a lot of things. Her mind raced ahead. The first priority was getting medical attention for Sue. But there were other calls that should be made, like to the sheriff. And she intended to make use of the phone herself. “How long will it take to get to the phone?”
“Depends on how much digging we have to do. Scotty abandoned the truck somewhere on the drive up to the house. The pickup is probably buried up to the roof. We’ll have to dig it out before we can get to the phone.”
“I’m going with you.”
“No, you’re not,” he said flatly. “I told you, I don’t know what the situation is with the truck. There’s no way to tell how long it will take to get to it”
“I don’t care. I want to make the call for medical assistance.”
“Why? Don’t you trust me to make it?”
She bit back a sharp retort. This was no time to challenge his honesty about making calls. “I know how these things work,” she said evenly. “I can speak to the guy who makes the decisions. They have to know that it’s crucial that Sue gets proper medication—and soon. And if there’s a phone that’s working, I’m going to call Randy.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she snapped, “We don’t have time to argue.”
“All right I’ll round up the men. If we get a path open to the truck, you can come along.” He paused for a moment and, ignoring her stiff posture, laid a brief kiss on her cheek. “It’s going to be all right, you’ll see.”
She went with him as he headed for the kitchen to explain the situation to the men.
“The wind’s come up again, boss,” Zack said when Hal told them what he wanted to do. “Half the shoveling we did this morning is already filled in.”
“What good will it do to call out?” Scotty frowned. “Everything’s socked in. There’s no way any ambo is going to make it here.”
Hal ignored their protests. “We’ll do the shoveling job two by two. Zack, you and Larry take the first shift. From what Scotty says, the truck stalled at the edge of the clearing in front of the house. When you get halfway there, come back, and Scotty and I will handle the rest.”
“Better you guys than me,” Kirby said as he dumped chopped vegetables into a pot of beef stock. “I gave up this morning before I got halfway to the bunkhouse, and I’m not hankering to do any more shoveling till I see some blue sky.”
Hal turned to Jill. “No need for you to venture out until we have passage all the way to the truck. Then I’ll come and get you and you can make the calls.”
“Are you sure? I’m willing to help.”
“You can take my shift, Jill,” Larry said as he slipped into his coat. “Or come along to keep us company.”
“Those narrow snow tunnels would be a lot cozier with you along,” Zack added, winking at her.
“Down, boys.” Scotty laughed. “You heard the boss. She’s staying with us. We’ll keep the lady warm.”
“Let’s get on it, guys,” Hal said, putting an end to the banter, not liking them flirting with Jill. He realized then how possessive he’d become about her.
Jill ran upstairs, told Sue and Gary what was happening, settled both her and the baby for a nap, and then came back downstairs, just as Zack and Larry were ready to leave.
The most direct route to the stalled truck was from the front door of the house. A narrow road that ran to the property from a county road widened into a broad clearing as it reached the front of the house. They would have to dig across the open space and far down the driveway to reach the stalled truck. Zack and Larry plunged outside into the whirling wind and snow, and Hal quickly shut the front door behind them.
“Looks like the storm is settling in again,” he said, frowning as he looked out of the narrow windows flanking the front door. He could barely see the two dark figures tossing shovelfuls of snow in the air. “Can’t tell whether new snow is coming down or the wind’s just blowing what’s on the ground around.”
“I’m not sure the old truck will start after sitting out this long.” Scotty frowned. “And the phone won’t work without power from the car battery.”
“That’s just what we need to hea
r,” Hal said with a sigh of resignation.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get the truck closer,” Scotty said regretfully. “I just didn’t think about something like this happening.”
“None of us did,” Jill assured him and he sent her a grateful look. No use putting a guilt trip on Scotty. If his phone worked, they’d all be in debt to him.
“We might as well wait in the den,” Hal said, turning away from the front window. “Maybe there’s an updated forecast on the radio.”
There was, but the news wasn’t what they’d hoped to hear. The forecaster warned that a new cold front had descended upon the region. No new snow was expected, but blizzard conditions would continue as high winds whipped existing snow into a blinding frenzy.
“Old man winter’s really laying it on,” Scotty said with a shake of his sandy-colored head. “Kinda makes me wonder if we all shouldn’t sell out and head south.”
Hal moved restlessly around the room, and when Kirby brought in coffee, Jill gratefully accepted a cup. It seemed like an eternity had passed since breakfast. She cupped the warm mug in her hands, trying to appear calm and confident, while her body tensed with waiting.
NEARLY AN HOUR PASSED before Zack and Larry returned to the house, looking like walking snowmen. Larry’s ski mask was totally white except for the dark circles of his eyes, and Zack’s hat brim and hair were crusted with snow.
“It’s a losing battle,” Zack told them. “The path was filling in behind us almost as fast as we shoveled the snow. And if the blasted truck isn’t parked exactly where Scotty says, you’ll have a hell of a time even finding it”
Larry nodded. “You could dig right past it, thinking it’s just another rounded snowdrift. You can’t make out anything out there.” He sighed. “I bet there’s a great powder base on the slopes. Lucky skiers! This is a dream storm for the resorts.”