River's Bend

by JoAnn Ross

  Rachel stared at him, as if searching for the joke. “You’re crazy, Cooper Murphy.”

  “That’s what they say,” he agreed.

  He bent down and gave her a quick, hard kiss that had her pressing her fingers against her lips as the brief flare ended all too soon. “I’ll see you around, sweetheart. Give me a call when you change your mind.”

  It wasn’t easier to walk away. Especially when she called after him. “Cooper?”

  He stopped in the doorway and closed his eyes, garnering strength before he turned around. Cooper knew what he’d see: Rachel, sitting amidst those love rumpled sheets, looking delightful, delicious, delectable, and most dangerous of all, vulnerable.

  It was that soft trace of vulnerability, which she struggled so hard to conceal, that he found almost impossible to guard against. He glanced with feigned casualness over his shoulder. “Change your mind already?” he inquired pleasantly.

  Her eyes were wide, lustrous, and eloquent in their need. It took every bit of self-restraint Cooper possessed not to surrender to their silent plea.

  “What about the ring?”

  Stifling a curse, he told himself that he shouldn’t have expected Rachel to give in right away.

  “Keep it,” he suggested, with a careless wave of his hand. “Maybe after you get used to having it around, you won’t feel so threatened by it.”

  With that he was gone.

  Instead of running after him, Rachel stayed where she was, stunned, convinced his behavior had to be some sort of bizarre joke. He’d be back.

  “After all, everyone knows the Murphys are crazy,” she reminded herself as she heard the Jeep start up. Then drive away.

  Somewhere in the distant hills, a lonesome coyote called out to the full moon. The sad song stimulated a similar response from neighborhood dogs. Next door, inside his heated doghouse, the Walker’s German shepherd joined in mournfully to the chorus.

  And still Rachel waited.

  45

  The midnight-blue of the sky turned to pearly gray, then dusty rose as the sun crept over the horizon as a new day dawned. After tossing and turning and turning all night, Rachel was tangled in sheets that still carried the evocative scent of their earlier lovemaking.

  And still Cooper hadn’t returned.

  Her method of working out difficult decisions had always been to cook. Which was what she did now. While Scott continued to sleep, blissfully oblivious of how their lives may have dramatically changed in a few short hours, Rachel dragged out every bowl, pot, pan, and kitchen utensil she owned to create mountains of food she had no intention of eating: wafer-thin crepes wrapped around plump strawberries and drenched in powdered sugar; buttermilk-almond biscuits; cinnamon pecan coffee cake and plump Belgian waffles.

  “He’s a sheriff,” she said as she separated eggs into two bowls. “Some escaped criminal could shoot him.” She tackled the yolks first, whisking them into a pale yellow froth in the larger blue bowl. “Or he could be out in the middle of the river fly fishing.” He’d promised to teach her next summer. “And some drunken boater could run over him.”

  She was trying not to picture Cooper sliced into pieces by a boat propeller when there was a knock on the door. Her fingers tightened on the wire whisk.

  Cooper!

  She’d known he couldn’t stay away!

  She flung open the door open and felt her face falling as she viewed Mrs. MacGregor standing on the porch.

  “Oh. Good morning.”

  “Morning’,” the woman said, trying to look around Rachel. “Something sure smells good.”

  Belatedly remembering her manners, Rachel opened the door wider. “I was just making breakfast and I’m afraid I got carried away. Perhaps you’d like to share it with me.”

  “Well, that’d be right nice,” the older woman said as she followed Rachel into the kitchen. “But the real reason I came over here was to . . .”

  Her voice drifted off as she stared at the vast array of dishes covering the countertops. “Good gracious. I can’t remember when I’ve seen so much food in one place.”

  “As I said, I got a bit carried away,” Rachel admitted. “You’re welcome to help yourself. I was, uh, just trying out recipes for the New Chance.”

  Mrs. MacGregor’s eyes lit up like the town’s Christmas tree in the park across from the courthouse as they settled on the coffee cake. Rachel could practically see her mouth begin to water.

  “Well, if the food you plan to serve at the café is anything like this, you’re going to be a real hit.”

  “Thank you.” For the first time since she’d found Mitzi’s ad for the New Chance in that magazine, the success of her restaurant ranked way down on Rachel’s list of concerns. “What can I do for you?” she asked as she took a plate from the cupboard and placed it on the table.

  The elderly woman pinched off a corner of a golden-brown biscuit, rolling her eyes with ecstasy as she bit into it. “Do?”

  “You said you came over here for a reason,” Rachel reminded her as she placed a fork, knife, and napkin beside the plate. Although her heart was still aching from her argument with Cooper, she managed a slight smile. “Although, if you’re here to borrow any eggs or butter, I’m afraid I’m all out.”

  “Glory be,” Mrs. MacGregor exclaimed around a mouthful of corn fritter. “I nearly forgot. It’s Cooper.”

  Rachel’s blood turn as cold as the icicles hanging from the eaves outside the kitchen window. “Cooper? Is he all right?”

  “Well, sure. Leastwise for now. But the way that Jake Buchanan’s been actin’ up lately, you just never know how things are going to turn out.”

  “Jake? Isn’t he in jail?”

  “He escaped last night after Cal took him back after your party. Seems they were playing poker when he just reached over and pulled Cal’s gun from his holster with nary a please nor a thank you, demanded his phone, then locked him in the very same cell he’d been in. Then he took off.

  “Nobody knew a thing about it ’til Cooper showed up this morning with some glazed packaged donuts he’d picked up at the mercantile.” She eyed the abundance of dishes appraisingly. “I’ll bet if Jake had been promised some of your cooking, he would’ve hung around at least until after breakfast.”

  Rachel’s heart was beating a hundred miles a minute as thunder roared in her ears. “Did Cooper go after him?”

  “Well, sure. After all, he’s the sheriff. Chasing down escaped convicts is part of his job.”

  And wasn’t that exactly what she’d just been worrying about?

  Rachel pressed her fingertips against her temple. Her head was spinning. She had to think. “I have to go to him.”

  “I kinda figured you’d want to do just that.” Mrs. MacGregor said pleasantly. “He’s out at Jake’s place, on the old river road just outside of town. You probably won’t be able to miss it, since, from what they’re saying on the radio, there are a lot of police, including ones from the State, and even a couple of feds out there.

  “The F.B.I?”

  “Don’t know.” She shrugged well-padded shoulders and cut into the coffee cake. “Maybe Homeland Security. Seems Jake’s determined to have some sort of showdown with those government officials when they come to auction off his property.”

  “But the auction wasn’t supposed to be held until the twenty-third.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that.” She shook her head and snorted as she slid a wedge-shaped piece of cake onto a second plate. “Word is that Jake’s armed and dangerous. My guess is that he’s taken that outlaw role playing he does on the train ride entirely too seriously and plans to reenact the shootout at the O.K. Corral.”

  “Oh. My. God!” Rachel had to remind herself how to breathe.

  “I wouldn’t worry if I were you. It’ll probably turn out okay. The radio’s reporting that things have quieted considerably since Cooper went into the house.”

  “Cooper’s in the house? With Jake? Alone?”

  “Sure
is. After all, it’s—”

  “Part of his job,” Rachel said.

  Damn. Hadn’t she heard that enough times from the man himself? She glanced toward the stairway and thought about Scott. “Mrs. MacGregor would you mind—”

  “I came over to sit with your boy,” she confirmed. “While you go stand by your man.”

  Her man. Although it sounded a lot like a country song, Rachel still found the idea was wonderful. Cooper was her man. Just as she was his woman.

  “I’ll just check on him,” she said, hurrying down the hall to his room, where she found him hugging the stuffed horse Mitzi had given him. He was sound asleep, innocently oblivious to the world. Taking another second, she dashed into her bedroom and retrieved the jewelry box from the tangle of sheets.

  “Thank you,” she said as she yanked her parka from its hook. “And please, help yourself to anything you want.”

  As Rachel raced out to her car, Mrs. MacGregor’s gaze swept happily, hungrily, over the kitchen.

  46

  Jake Brennan’s ranch house, situated in a grove of trees and surrounded by serene white fields of snow, looked like something from Little House on the Prairie. The familiar Jeep Cherokee, the white Shelter Bay Sheriff’s Department cruiser Cal usually drove, three Oregon State Police cars, a pair of unmarked black vehicles with federal plates, and a KOTI television news van from Klamath Falls revealed that the setting was not as peaceful as it appeared.

  Then there were all the people standing behind the police barricade.

  Spotting her, a grave-faced Dan Murphy, with an obviously distressed Mitzi by his side, made his way through the crowd to Rachel.

  “He’ll be all right, Rachel,” he assured her. “Jake would never hurt Cooper.”

  “You can’t know that,” she insisted. “Not for sure. What was Cooper thinking of, going in there unarmed?” She’d learned that frightening detail on the car radio driving out to the ranch.

  “He’s trying to keep an old friend and former father-in-law from getting in even worse trouble,” Dan said. “At times like this, if things escalate too fast and too far, innocent people could get hurt.”

  “What about him?” she asked, frustrated by the way first Mrs. MacGregor and now Dan were both taking Cooper’s risky behavior so matter-of-factly. “Isn’t he an innocent person?”

  “He’s the sheriff,” Dan said, as if that explained everything. “It goes with the job.”

  “I swear, if I hear that one more time, I’ll scream!”

  Mitzi put her arm around Rachel’s shoulder. “Cooper’s one of the smoothest talkers I’ve ever met. Didn’t he have me giving up my commission before we’d finished our coffee after dinner that first night? Believe me, that’s the first time that’s ever happened. He’ll have Jake coming out of the house before all those cops’ morning coffee gets cold back at the station.”

  “Why did the government move the date of the auction up?” she asked.

  “They didn’t. Since Jake took Cal’s pistol, Cooper had no choice but to call in the State Police for backup, just in case. Things sort of snowballed from there once Mel Skinner picked up Jake’s escape on his police scanner and called in the feds. Never would’ve pegged Mel as a scanner guy.”

  Rachel was furious Cooper would dare risk his life before she had a chance to accept his proposal. Before he could see her wearing Rose Murphy’s pretty antique ring. “If Cooper gets out of there alive, I’m going to kill him.”

  “Spoken like a woman in love,” Dan drawled with the same easy humor Rachel had come to love in Cooper. “Since Mitzi started planning our wedding, she doesn’t always make sense, either.”

  “You’re both damn lucky Rachel and I put up with the two of you,” Mitzi shot back. “The entire town knows that the Murphy men have always been crazy, beginning with old Malachy.”

  “Guess that’s what makes us so irresistible.” Dan smiled encouragingly down at Rachel. “He’ll be all right, honey.” This time it was Cooper’s unfailing optimism and confidence she heard in his father’s voice.

  As Rachel watched a SWAT team arrive in their armored vehicle, she could only hope he was right.

  Three hours. Jake had sat there with that damn shotgun across his knees longer than Cooper ever would’ve thought possible. Even knowing that it wasn’t capable of shooting a live round, didn’t make Cooper less tired of looking at it. The only good news so far was that Cal’s pistol remained on a side table. If Jake made a move for it, Cooper knew he’d have no choice but to stop him.

  “Almost nine o’clock,” he said conversationally, looking up at the mantle clock. “The federal offices will be open soon.”

  He’d told Jake about Karen Fairfield, the records the woman had pored over, the entries she’d found which had mistakenly credited Jake’s payment to another account, and the lawyer who’d agreed to work all night, if necessary, preparing an injunction to stop the auction.

  Unfortunately, having suffered too long in the tangled bureaucratic web, Jake refused to buy any of the story until he spoke with both Karen Fairfield and the judge himself.

  The older man glanced out the window.

  “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” Cooper said quietly.

  “Do what?”

  “Stick that bogus shotgun out the window again, like you’re re-enacting the battle of the Alamo. In case you haven’t noticed, they’ve brought in a SWAT team who might not realize the only thing it’s good for is playing a train robber. You could end up getting us both killed.”

  Jake reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. Shaking one loose, he said, “So what?”

  Cooper leaned back in the hard chair and forced himself to relax. Ten more minutes. His tailbone felt as if it were perched on a sharp rock.

  “Well, maybe you don’t have anything to live for,” he said. “But once I get things buttoned up here, I intend to get married.”

  “To Rachel.”

  Cooper belatedly wondered if he’d made a tactical error, bringing up his plans to remarry. “She’s a nice woman, Jake,” he said with careful casualness.

  His former father-in-law drew in on the cigarette, causing its red tip to flare. A cloud of blue smoke filled the air between them when he exhaled. “Can’t argue with you there,” he agreed gruffly. “Little skinny, though. She don’t have much meat on her.”

  “Ah, but what the lady has is prime,” Cooper pointed out with a grin.

  Jake chuckled. “I always liked you, Cooper. You treated my Ellie real nice. Even if you weren’t good enough for her.”

  “As far as you were concerned, there wasn’t a man in the state good enough for Ellen Buchanan.”

  “True enough,” Jake confirmed. “She was a sweet girl, wasn’t she? And pretty as a picture.”

  “She was sweet,” Cooper said. “And beautiful. And I loved her with my entire heart and soul.”

  Jake studied the ash at the end of his cigarette. “Never said you didn’t . . . So, now you love Rachel.”

  “I do. Does that bother you?”

  “Maybe a little,” Jake admitted. “But only because I wish things could’ve turned out different. With you and Ellie.”

  “We can’t always choose the way our life’s going to turn out, Jake,” Cooper said quietly. And weren’t he and Rachel both living proof of that? “Although in this instance, I’d say you’re holding both our futures in your hands.” He reached over, picked up the cordless phone from the table and held it out to Jake. “Make your call.”

  47

  Time crawled by at a snail’s pace as the crowd of spectators behind the police barricades increased. When there was still no action from the house, the television crew was forced to settle for a reporter doing standup reports from in front of the wooden gate leading to the ranch house.

  Dan had, unsurprisingly, refused any interviews.

  Meanwhile, the frighteningly well-armed SWAT team was poised for action, planning strategies, check
ing weapons.

  After yesterday’s winter blizzard, the day had dawned bright and clear and sunny. It was a day for laughing.

  For loving.

  Not for dying.

  River’s Bend’s newest deputy, who didn’t look old enough to drive, offered Rachel a cup of coffee in a cardboard cup. Rachel politely refused and kept her gaze riveted on the ranch house. Mitzi suggested she go wait in Dan’s truck, where she could get out of the cold. Rachel wasn’t about to move.

  Cal Potter, looking twenty years older than he had while singing off-key at the party last night, muttered an abject apology for allowing Jake to escape. Putting a hand on his arm, Rachel offered reassuring words she wished she could fully believe.

  Not once did she take her eyes from that front door.

  Finally, after what seemed an eternity, it opened. Rachel had been unaware of holding her breath until she released it on a ragged, painful sob.

  Then, ignoring the warnings of the various lawmen, shaking loose the deputy who tried to stop her, she leaped over the barricade, knocking it down, then burst through the gate, running across the soft white expanse of snow between them.

  “You’re all right!” she cried, flinging herself into Cooper’s arms. “You’re safe.”

  Cooper caught Rachel as she came hurtling toward him. “Of course,” he said as she smothered his smiling face with kisses. “Don’t tell me you had any doubts?”

  “Doubts?” she shot back as he lowered her to the ground. “Damn you, Cooper Murphy, you had me frightened to death!”

  She turned on Jake. “And you.” She jabbed a finger into his chest. “How could you do something like this? To Cooper? To me? Don’t you know how much he cares for you? How much we all care for you?”

  A crimson flush rose from the collar of Jake’s plaid snap-front shirt. “I guess I kinda found that out,” he said sheepishly. “Turns out I was right about the government making a mistake, though.”