Lone Rider

by Lindsay McKenna

  The bathroom had a claw-foot tub, and Tara almost groaned out loud over that discovery. She knew she’d soak in it often, especially after doing a lot of hard, physically demanding work all day long. It would be wonderful to relax in it. There were fuchsia-colored towels on a nearby rack, a hand towel near the pedestal sink and a washcloth. Someone had thoughtfully put out a new bar of soap, also pink, in the dish near the faucet. Picking it up and placing it near her nose, she found it smelled like roses.

  Turning, she absorbed the quiet of the place. Outside, she could hear a rooster crowing, but that was about all. The house was well-constructed and there was a nice warmth to the room as she walked through it and then to the rolltop desk. Opening it up, she saw there were electrical connections for her computer, printer and scanner. Shay and Reese had thought long and hard about the layout of everything in this room, and Tara appreciated that.

  The only shadow in her life now was Cree Elson. Tara wanted to shrug her shoulders, literally, to erase him from her mind. He lurked around the edges of everything she did or thought about. Shay had said he lived in Jackson Hole. Did he ever come home to visit his mother, Roberta? He had always been close to her. She was nutty as a fruitcake, mentally unstable as far as Tara was concerned. It sickened her to see her manipulate her young son, Cree, making him completely reliant on her, listening to her every word. Shaking internally from past memories, Tara didn’t know what to do. She felt fear, threat and unease.

  Cree Elson was too close for comfort. Would he begin to haunt her life again? Stalk her as he had before he’d jumped her and kidnapped her?

  Wrapping her arms around herself, Tara stood, closing her eyes, trying to beat back the terror that had never really gone away. It had stayed deep within her. Now, it was back. In spades.

  Chapter Three

  April 3

  Harper arrived at his home at six p.m. The April sky was starting to cloud over, but there was a nice pink strip of color to the west that he appreciated.

  Stomping off his boots in the mudroom, he tried to tamp down his curiosity about Tara Dalton. He wanted to know a lot more about her for all the wrong reasons. She was trying to get her feet under her after leaving the military. Harper was sure she wasn’t interested in developing any type of relationship on top of all of that. Still … His heart had other ideas and he grimaced, placing his Stetson on a wooden peg next to his winter coat. He hadn’t expected to be drawn to another woman after the debacle of his marriage. And right now? It was the wrong time because he, too, was trying to get back on his feet.

  Ears keyed to the nearby kitchen, he could hear Tara puttering around in it. Not wanting to appreciate those sounds as much as he did, and the familiar odor of food cooking, he tried to push it all away. Just having a woman in the house changed the energy, he acknowledged, unbuttoning his long sleeves at each of his wrists, rolling the cuffs to just below his elbows. The place was warm and inviting now. Did Tara have a boyfriend? He wanted to know and tried to ignore the reason why as he stepped into the kitchen.

  “Hey,” he called, letting Tara know he was present and accounted for, “how are you doing? Need any help?”

  She had just taken the corn bread from the oven, placing it on a trivet on the kitchen counter. “Hi. No, all’s going okay. But thanks. How’s everything out at the barn?”

  Ambling over, he gave her enough room but smelled the corn bread that she’d slathered with some butter across its golden top. “Candy and her foal are doing just fine. We’re going to have the farrier out tomorrow morning and he’s got a lot of horses to trim or shoe. Are you familiar with those kinds of things?” He liked the way Tara’s blond hair was pulled into a single braid down between her shoulders.

  “Yes.” She straightened up and put the butter back into the fridge. “My dad has a five-acre hobby ranch. He bought me my first horse when I was ten years old. Over time, he bought two more, one for him and one for my mom.” She wiped her hands down the sides of her jeans. “I don’t have total ranch experience, but I’ll learn as I go.”

  He smiled a little and watched her cut the steaming corn bread. “How about repairing barbed wire and replacing fence posts?”

  “Done all of that,” she assured him, handing him the platter to take to the table. Her fingers briefly touched his. “My dad and I, plus the two wranglers he hired, would go out on weekends with them and do the duty. We all worked at that kind of thing together. I always loved it.”

  “Not a fun thing to do in my world,” Harper said, walking over to the table and putting down the corn bread. Tara had set up the table so one of them would sit at the head, one on the left side. He liked the idea of being close to her. “Fence-post rot is our biggest problem here on the Bar C. Crawford, who ran this ranch before he had a stroke, had let the replacement of fence posts go for seven years in a row. He’s an alcoholic and he chased off all his wranglers, so the whole ranch suffered from years of neglect.” He walked over to the counter and drew out two bowls for the chili, handing one to her. “As a consequence, we have untold numbers to replace in all the various grass lease pastures. And before we can offer a lease to a rancher to put his cows out to fatten them up during the summer months, those posts have to be strong and solid. No one is going to lease a pasture with bad posts or unrepaired barbed wire. Cows are smart and will test the posts. If they give way, they’re very good at pushing them over so they can escape. Same with barbed wire that’s sagging or broken from rust and age. I’ve seen cows get down on their knees and duck under the weak strands and run off, too.”

  Taking off the lid on the chili, she stirred it with a long wooden spoon, sniffing it appreciatively. “Shay mentioned there was a backlog of work to do but wasn’t specific. This smells great.”

  Harper handed her the ladle. “Ladies first.”

  Her lips quirked. “Thanks,” and she took the ladle from him. She spooned the thick, fragrant chili into her bowl, then said, “Here, give me your bowl. Tell me how much you want.”

  “Up to the brim,” he told her. “Do you want shredded cheese and sour cream on top of your chili?”

  “Ohhh, that sounds delicious. Yes, please.” She filled his bowl and then replaced the lid on the chili. “My mouth is literally watering.”

  “Hungry, huh?” he asked, bringing over a pouch of shredded sharp cheddar cheese and handing it to her.

  “I think it’s because I got a job. I lose my appetite when I’m stressed and things aren’t going well for me. When I got home, my mom told me I was way underweight and I needed to regain it,” and she pointed to herself with a grimace.

  “That’s what a mom’s supposed to say,” he said. “And she’s right; you’re pretty skinny for your height,” he informed her, looking her over. Her clothes were loose-fitting, and that meant weight loss. Some pink came to her cheeks and he realized he had made her blush.

  Sprinkling the sharp cheddar cheese across the top of her chili, she said, “I’ve always been on the lean side.”

  “Probably the black-ops mission work you did entailed a lot of time pounding the ground for miles.” He took the cheese from her, liking that their fingertips met once more. There was turbulence in her willow-green eyes, and he realized he’d triggered a memory, probably from her black ops past.

  “Yes,” she said, opening the sour cream and rising to retrieve a spoon from the drawer. “As a photographer, I was always jumping in and out of a helo miles from our objective.”

  Harper gave her a studied look. Her full lips were thinning. “Does talking about that make you uncomfortable, Tara?”

  Shrugging, she dropped a dollop of sour cream on her chili. “Yes and no. I’m still more there than here right now, to tell you the truth.”

  “You’ve only been home a week. I know when I got home, it took me months to adjust.”

  “Yeah, it’s an adjustment all right,” she muttered, pushing the sour cream in his direction and handing him the spoon. “I hope the walls are thick in this house.”r />
  He snorted. “Don’t worry. If you wake up screaming or hitting the floor, thinking it’s an IED, I’ll understand. I do the same thing: flashbacks and nightmares. Usually at least once a week.”

  She gave him a warm look. “Good, because that’s why I wouldn’t stay with my parents at their ranch or their home in town. I know I’d scare the hell out of them when I wake up screaming. Or hitting the floor. They’ve never been in the military and I’ve tried to explain it to them, but it wasn’t going to work.”

  “I understand,” he said, sympathetic. He placed two heaping dollops of sour cream on top of his chili. “I lost my wife because of my PTSD,” he admitted, surprised by the words coming out of his mouth. Glancing over at Tara, he saw her worried look relax. Her eyes became filled with sadness as she met and held his gaze.

  “I’m so sorry, Harper. That had to be rough on both of you.”

  “It’s in the past,” he said, more gruffly than he’d intended. What was the connection swirling between them? Harper felt like he was blathering his most personal information out to Tara. He hadn’t intended to do that. The words just popped out of his mouth; he’d been unable to catch them in time. Unhappy, he said, “Let’s eat.”

  Tara sat at his elbow, and Harper was happy to have her near. Those loose blond tendrils around her temples made her look younger than he knew she was. Some of the grind of combat was there, though. The fine, feathery lines at the corners of her eyes were just beginning, but he knew how she’d gotten them. That meant a lot of missions on the ground, out in the hot, bright Afghan summer. It happened whether one wore sunglasses or not. He also saw some white scars on the backs of her hands here and there. Probably gotten during firefights. He decided to probe her past a little more between bites of corn bread and chili.

  “As a combat corpsman in Afghanistan,” he said, “I was assigned to black ops groups, mostly Navy SEALs but some Delta guys, too. A lot of them worked together on bigger missions. I’ve met FBI women who were out with the teams from time to time, too. They were along because of their expertise in translation and reading captured documents.”

  “Yes, there are a lot more women who work in black ops. We had FBI women, some CIA case agents with us, too.”

  “I never met a combat cameraperson, though. Were you pulled in on certain missions or were you assigned to a team and went out every time?”

  Tara buttered a bit of corn bread. “I was assigned to Bagram Army Base. Because there weren’t a lot of combat camera people around, I often got shoved into a Night Stalker MH-47 for night missions. Sometimes it was with SEALs, other times Delta Force operators or a Special Forces team.”

  “So? You were busy all the time?” he guessed, seeing the turbulence, the darkness in her eyes once more. Something was driving him to find out about Tara. He felt how closed up she was, but he knew it came with the territory of black ops work.

  “I was never not busy,” she said, spooning chili into her mouth.

  “Were there other women with you on these missions?”

  “Sometimes. There was also a group of combat women who were part of a larger top-secret trial to see how they did under combat conditions.”

  “Well, that’s settled now that the Secretary of Defense has opened up all careers, including combat, to women, across the board.”

  “Yes, we were guinea pigs in the trenches, and I guess we proved we had the right stuff,” Tara said, wrinkling her nose.

  “But you saw the worst of the worst,” Harper guessed. “You were the one who had to take video and photos. You were the intel woman out on the front lines.”

  “Front lines never existed,” she snorted, giving him a wry look. “And yes, I saw more than I ever wanted to see, Harper. But as a combat corpsman with black ops groups, you did, too.”

  “Which is why we both have PTSD,” he agreed.

  “You’ve been out how long?”

  “A couple of years now.”

  “Has your PTSD ramped down at all? I’m worried mine is going to stay high like it is now.”

  Looking around the warm, toasty kitchen, Harper said, “Since coming to work here at the Bar C, being with other vets who have similar issues, I’m sleeping better. I don’t get as many nightmares as I did before. We meet every Friday evening over at Reese and Shay’s house. A psychologist from Jackson Hole, Dr. Libby Hilbert, comes down and kinda guides us through what the week has been like for each of us.”

  “Ugh, shrinks.”

  “Nah. Libby, even though she’s a civilian, understands PTSD. She’s actually been helpful to all of us over time.”

  “Yes, but you all know one another. I’m new.”

  “That will change,” he soothed, seeing the concern in her expression. “And you don’t have to talk or share if you don’t want to. There’s no pressure on anyone to speak up. Libby’s a very gentle, kind person, and I think the more you see her deal with all of us, you’ll come to trust her like we do.”

  “Well,” she grumbled, “maybe it will work in the long run. I just hate baring my soul in front of strangers.” She poked and prodded her spoon at the last of her chili.

  Chuckling, Harper said, “You’re a vet. You’re among your own kind, Tara. We aren’t strangers to one another because we’ve shared similar experiences. That bonds us for life. Sit next to me this Friday evening and you won’t feel so threatened.”

  “I’ve yet to meet Noah, Garret, Reese, Kira, or Dair. I know Shay, which is really a blessing. We were fast friends growing up here in the valley together.”

  “Yes, and you can count on her. She’s solid. I think you’ll appreciate the ones you haven’t met yet.” His tone grew amused. “They don’t bite.”

  Smiling weakly, Tara nodded and set her empty bowl aside, taking one more piece of warm corn bread from the platter. “That’s good to know, Sutton.”

  He grinned. “A day at a time, Tara. You’re one of us. And you’ll find out these are really good people here at the Bar C. Wait and see.”

  *

  It was almost nine a.m. The April sunlight was strong through the low-hanging gray clouds. Tara wasn’t sure if it was going to snow or not. Probably it would.

  She was at the kitchen sink when there was a knock at the back door. Frowning, she dried her hands on a towel and hurried to answer it. Who could it be? Thinking it was Shay or someone else from the Bar C, she was surprised to see a woman wearing a law enforcement uniform standing there. Her heart took off in dread as she opened the door. Sheriff Sarah Carter. Her father, David, had been the sheriff for twenty years in the county before he retired. And Tara remembered Sarah because they went to the same schools here in the valley.

  “Sarah, it’s so good to see you again. Is something wrong?” She always worried about her father, because some of the men he’d put in prison had sworn revenge once they got out.

  The woman sheriff shook her head and smiled a little. “Hi, Tara. Nice to see you. I heard you just got back in town, and I had a talk with your dad two days ago. I’m here on official business. But first, I want to welcome you home.”

  Tara smiled thinly and gave her old friend a warm hug. Sarah was at least five-foot-eight-inches tall and medium-boned, her ginger-colored hair short, just below her ears. “It’s good to see you again. Come in.”

  “Thanks,” and she shrugged out of her heavy brown nylon jacket and hung it on a peg. Taking off her brown baseball cap, which showed an embroidered gold badge on the front of it, reading “Lincoln County Sheriff,” she picked up her briefcase. “I need about half an hour of your time. I heard you got a job out here, so congratulations. How about we have coffee, if you have any, in the kitchen? We can talk there.”

  Stymied by Sarah’s unexpected appearance, Tara said, “Sure. I just made a fresh pot.” What was this all about? Sarah was very pretty, despite her unadorned khaki, long-sleeved shirt and olive-colored trousers. She wore polished black boots of a combat style, but then, the winters here in Wyoming necessitated heavy fo
otwear.

  Sarah took a seat at the table, waiting for her. She drew out some papers from her briefcase and set them next to her hand.

  “I know you left here when you were eighteen,” Sarah told Tara as she brought over a tray with the coffee, milk, sugar and cups on it.

  “Yes, after being kidnapped by Cree Elson, I had to get away.” Sitting down opposite Sarah, she poured coffee into the two mugs. Handing one to Sarah, she said, “I’ve been meeting a lot of old friends since coming home. I was hoping to run into you sooner or later.”

  Grinning, Sarah poured cream and sugar into her coffee. “Even though this is official business, I was looking forward to seeing you again. How are you doing?”

  “Adjusting to civilian life. It’s really tough right now. I know from my mom that you enlisted in the Marine Corps after we graduated, but you went into the law enforcement end of it. I ended up as a combat cameraperson, spending seventy-five percent of my years on deployment to Afghanistan.”

  “Yes. I came back about a year and a half ago. My father wanted me to run for county sheriff and I wanted away from the combat in Afghanistan. I know you understand.”

  “Oh, yes, I do. But you look good, Sarah. Life must be agreeing with you.”

  The woman pulled out a file. “I like what I do and I’m happy. My dad was loved by just about everyone in the county and I want to run it like he did. I don’t want people afraid of us. I want them to continue to see us as friends who can help them when they need us.”

  “So, why are you here? Not that I don’t love seeing you.” Tara tried to tamp down her fear. Was it Cree Elson? Again? God, she hoped not.

  Sarah sipped her coffee, holding Tara’s eyes. “I wanted to meet with you personally because I went over my father’s notes on your case regarding Cree Elson. I read all the transcripts of the trial and his sentencing.”