“You want a beer?” Odell asked, headed for the kitchen.
The Boss slid a pointed glance to Odell’s hands. “No, thanks,” he said.
Odell made a brief stop at the sink, lathered his mitts with yellow soap, and rinsed. After using the front of his overalls for a towel, he opened the fridge, ferreted around amid things that were starting to grow fur, and brought out a single can of brew. The Boss had had his chance; let him stay thirsty.
“Sit down if you’re going to,” Odell grumbled, pulling back a chair and dropping into the seat. These days, even sleeping wore him out. Maybe he had one of them fatal diseases. That would make little Miss Cindy think twice about the way she treated her old man, if he just up and died.
Boss-Man sat. ’Least he wasn’t too fine for that, Odell thought bitterly.
“Where’s Randy?”
“Damn if I know,” Odell answered. “Could be anywhere.”
Mr. Big-Man leaned forward in his chair, glaring. His whole face looked as hard as a carving on a totem pole. “He and Travis DuPres torched the Wainwright place the other night,” he said. “I didn’t tell them to do that.” He was not a man who appreciated personal initiative, it seemed.
Odell shrugged and drained half his brew in one chug. He’d wanted to throttle those little bastards himself, when they bragged on what they’d done—after all, they might have hurt Cindy and the baby real bad—but he’d calmed down after a while, gotten the whole thing in perspective. They’d wanted to tweak J.T. a little, him being Purvis’s deputy and all, but he was sure the whole thing had been intended as an innocent prank and nothing more.
“You developed a soft place in your heart for old J.T. all of the sudden?” he asked, hoping the Boss would just let the whole thing drop.
Fat chance. In the next instant, the man reached across the table and grabbed the bib of Odell’s overalls, wrenching him halfway out of his chair. “You listen to me, old man,” he breathed, “and listen well. If those idiots bring the law down on me, if they go flapping their lips or pull any more stupid tricks like that one, I’ll see that they end up over at the county morgue, stretched out on a slab alongside Clive. The same goes for you. Is that clear?”
“It’s clear,” he answered grudgingly. Anybody else laid hands on him like that, Odell would have knocked out a good share of their teeth, but there were lines a man just didn’t cross, dealing with this feller. Poor old Clive had found that out the hard way. Odell comforted himself with the promise that he’d take the hide off that boy of his for leaving him open to this, and maybe peel a strip or two off the DuPres kid, too, just for good measure.
“Good.” It was a growl. The Boss’s grasp went slack, and Odell fell hard back into his chair. The impact of his landing rattled his vertebrae.
Boss-Man got to his feet, overturning his own chair in the process and not bothering to set it right. “One word,” he warned. “One word to Purvis or Wainwright, or anybody else, and it’ll get back to me. Remember that.”
Odell gulped, nodded. He wished he’d never gotten messed up in this outlaw business in the first place. He’d gone into it for the money and glamour, but he didn’t seem to have the knack.
The Boss left, driving away in his company car, but Odell didn’t move from his chair for a long while. When he did he went to the telephone, the same heavy black rotary-dial piece of junk he’d had since 1962, when the lines finally got as far as his place, and put in a call.
Randy answered on the second ring. “Yo,” he said. He always had that cell phone of his handy, no matter what he was doing. Liked to pretend he was some kind of hotshot.
“Get your ass out here to the house,” Odell barked. “Now.”
“I found some more papers in a trunk in the storeroom,” Cindy announced, joining Maggie and Daphne in the public area of the Station, where they were sorting through some old silverware Kathleen had brought over earlier, after coming across the utensils in her attic. The handle of each fork, spoon, and knife was engraved with the letters S.S., surely standing for “Springwater Station.” “Shall I put them with the museum stuff?”
“Let’s have a look at them,” Maggie said idly, smiling when Sadie leaped into Tiffany’s playpen, much to the little girl’s amusement, and gave her doll’s head a friendly lap with her tongue.
Tiffany laughed with glee and grabbed the dog’s ears, and Sadie endured the attention with consummate patience, gazing adoringly at the child all the while.
“Silly mutt,” Daphne said, with a grin, and gently hoisted the animal out of the playpen.
Cindy laid an old metal cash box on the table and lifted the lid. There were letters inside, still in their envelopes, and folded documents of various sorts and sizes.
Maggie took out one of the envelopes and smiled. On the first pass, she’d found a treasure—a letter Jacob McCaffrey had written to June-bug during a business trip to San Francisco, dated June 1883. She read it carefully, touched by the old-fashioned, formal affection Jacob had expressed to his obviously cherished wife, and longed to love and be loved in just that way.
While Daphne read that first letter, as pleased by the discovery as Maggie had been, Maggie unfolded a yellowed, crumbling document, musty with the passage of time. She was about to fold it again and set it aside in favor of another of Jacob’s love letters to June-bug, when the name “Wainwright” caught her eye.
She frowned and squinted a little. As near as she could tell, the paper had been issued by an assay office, back in the 1880s. As she scanned the document, her gaze caught on Trey Hargreaves’s signature. She gave a low whistle of exclamation.
“What?” Daphne asked, looking up from another letter.
“Look at this,” Maggie urged, holding out the sheaf of pages.
Daphne took the offered documents and read them through quickly. “Wow,” she breathed.
Cindy had made a trip to the kitchen, returning with diet colas for Maggie and Daphne and a small carton of orange juice for herself. “Did I find something important?” she asked, joining them.
“Maybe,” Daphne said, sounding intrigued. “According to this, my great-great-great grandfather and J.T.’s were negotiating a business deal. Something about mineral rights on the Wainwright ranch.”
Maggie invariably felt two things at any mention of J.T.: first, a distinct stir of interest, and then, a poignant, echoing resonance in the uncharted regions of her heart. This instance was no exception to the rule. “It’s an interesting piece of history,” she mused aloud, “but probably nothing more. After all, we’re talking about people who lived—and died—a very long time ago.”
“I don’t know,” Daphne murmured. “It looks pretty official to me. Says here that Scully Wainwright agreed to let Trey Hargreaves and Company mine for copper on the southeastern section of the ranch.” She looked up, frowning prettily while she flipped through mental files for some recollection of such an enterprise. Living most of her life in the house Trey Hargreaves had built for his bride, Rachel English, and their children, Daphne took a deep interest in Springwater history in general, and the chronicles of her own family in particular. “I don’t remember ever hearing that copper was found on the Wainwright property.”
“That might be precisely the point,” Maggie said, spreading her hands. “They did some digging and didn’t find anything.”
Daphne looked unconvinced. “If Trey went to the trouble of having a document like this drawn up, and Scully agreed to sign it, then there was copper. I’d like to show this to J.T. and see what he makes of it. He’s got a lot of old records out there—comes from a long line of pack rats, the same as I do. He might know what happened.”
Maggie bit her upper lip, well aware that she would be the one appointed to carry out the interview, and she sighed inwardly at the prospect. She’d gone to the pound over in Maple Creek with J.T. and Quinn, it was true, but she still felt a bit awkward around J.T. because of the incendiary conversation they’d had in his kitchen a few days before.
Because, she admitted to herself, she hadn’t really stopped thinking about him since. More specifically, she hadn’t stopped thinking about making love with him.
“I could take the papers out to the ranch with me,” Cindy said. She’d lifted Tiffany easily out of the playpen, forgetting Maggie and Daphne’s continuous lectures about heavy lifting, and was holding the little girl on her lap.
Daphne grinned meaningfully. “I’m sure Maggie wouldn’t mind doing it,” she said. “Would you, Maggie?”
Cindy might have dropped out of high school before graduation, but she was intelligent, and she caught on right away. “Right,” she said.
Maggie waxed indignant, but she was unable to work up any sort of dudgeon, high, medium, or low. “Do you think you could be a bit more transparent, Daph?” she asked. “That way, I’d know for sure that you were trying to throw J.T. and me together on the flimsiest possible excuse?”
Daphne laughed. “All right,” she teased, “I’ll come right out and say what I mean: You’re hot for the man. He’s hot for you. Sooner or later—”
Maggie folded her arms. “That,” she said, indicating Tiffany with a nod, “is no way to talk in front of a child.”
Undaunted, Daphne pushed the papers across the desk. “You’re opening a museum. You claim to be interested in Springwater’s colorful history. Ask J.T. what he knows about this mineral rights thing.”
Maggie sighed. “All right,” she said, and then she felt a foolish smile steal across her mouth, and blushed with embarrassment at what she’d revealed.
Daphne and Cindy giggled like a pair of kids.
“J.T.’s over at the elementary school right now,” Cindy volunteered, when she’d stopped laughing. “He was going to sign Quinn up for the summer softball league.” She glanced at the clock on the mantel. “If you hurry, you could probably catch him before he heads for home again.”
“Dare you,” Daphne taunted, her eyes gleaming with mischief. She’d taken on a new dimension in the short time since Tiffany had entered her life; she seemed stronger, more present, more whole.
“Stop,” Maggie protested, but she took the documents and headed for the door. The walk to the school was a short one; it was just down the street, directly across from the Brimstone Saloon. The one-room log structure where Rachel English had taught was still there, long since declared an historical monument by the state of Montana, but a newer education building had been erected in the 1940s. The athletic field lay behind that.
J.T. was standing near the bleachers, arms folded, watching as a few dozen boys and girls congregated on the field were assigned to teams by their volunteer coaches. Purvis was beside him, but when he saw Maggie approaching, the marshal tipped his hat in cordial greeting, said something to J.T., and walked away.
J.T. turned toward Maggie, and one corner of his mouth tilted upward in a grin that could only be read as cocky. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist me for long, McCaffrey,” he jibed, in an undertone.
She would not stoop to petty exchanges, she decided. She was bigger than that. “Here,” she said, shoving the mining papers at J.T. “Cindy found these at the Station, and Daphne insisted that I be the one to ask you about them.”
He unfolded the agreement and read it rapidly, then read it again, more slowly. “This is pretty old news, isn’t it?” he asked. He smiled again, and his dark eyes smoldered with mischief. “If you want a date, McCaffrey, just ask.”
Maggie pursed her lips, moved as if to shove her hands into the pockets of a jacket before realizing that she wasn’t wearing one. “I agree.” She felt her face heat up. “That it’s old news, I mean. Daphne was the one who found it interesting. Maybe you should talk to her.” With that, she turned on one heel and started to walk away.
J.T. took hold of her elbow and turned her around. “Hey,” he said, “take a breath, will you? I was just ribbing you.”
She thrust out a sigh, but before she could think of anything to say, Quinn was running off the field toward them, his dog Winston bounding along at his side. A happy grin stretched across the boy’s face, effectively softening Maggie’s heart.
One of the Kildare boys was with Quinn, though Maggie wasn’t sure which. At last count there had been six children in the family, according to Daphne, all of them male.
“This is Landry,” Quinn said breathlessly, indicating his grinning companion. “He’s six, like me.”
“Seven next month,” Landry clarified.
Maggie smiled and gave J.T. a sidelong glance.
“Hello, Landry,” J.T. said, putting out a hand as if he were greeting the mayor.
Solemnly, the Kildare boy shook J.T.’s hand. He squinted when he looked up at him, and Maggie noticed that his front teeth were coming in crooked. Landry was seriously cute, like Quinn, and when these guys got older they would probably play fast-and-loose with more than a few feminine hearts. “My mom wants to know if Quinn can spend the night at our place,” he said. “We’ll bring him home tomorrow afternoon.”
A slender, dark-haired woman with dancing brown eyes was coming across the grounds toward them. She waved as she approached, and Maggie remembered her name: Shannon. She was a member of Kathleen’s art group.
“There she is,” Landry said, resigned.
Maggie nodded in response. She wondered if the group was still getting together once a month at the high school’s meeting room to paint and draw and chat about their various creative projects. Her mother hadn’t mentioned the activity, but then, she’d been distracted lately.
“Hi, Shannon,” Maggie said.
“Hello, Maggie,” Shannon replied. “How’s your mom?”
“Fine.” The lie came automatically to Maggie’s lips. The whole town probably knew that Reece and Kathleen McCaffrey were having marital problems, but that didn’t mean she felt like talking about it.
“I’ve missed seeing her since the group disbanded,” Shannon said, answering the question that had been lingering in Maggie’s mind. “Attendance dropped off when school started last fall, and so far we haven’t managed to get things going again.”
Quinn and Landry, meanwhile, were turning fidgety, and Winston went with the flow by jumping around and yipping a little chorus.
“Well, Dad?” Quinn finally demanded. “Can I? Can I stay over with Landry?”
J.T. looked both pleased and reluctant to give up precious time with his son, even for such a short interval, and finally reached out to ruffle the boy’s hair. “If it’s really all right with Mrs. Kildare,” he said, and his voice sounded a little husky to Maggie.
“Shannon,” the other woman corrected him good-naturedly. “And yes, we’d be delighted to have Quinn visit. Winston, too.”
J.T. chuckled. “Now that,” he said, “is hospitality.” He turned his gaze back to Quinn, who was all but jumping up and down by that time. “What about your PJs, bud, and a toothbrush?”
“Covered,” Shannon put in. “We get a lot of company at our house.”
“Thanks,” J.T. said, with a slow smile. Quinn gave him a light punch on the side of one hip in masculine farewell, and then he and Landry turned and bolted back across the field, the dog barking at their heels.
Shannon and J.T. exchanged phone numbers, then she said good-bye to him and Maggie and turned to follow the crowd. Maggie and J.T. watched as she loaded Quinn, Landry, Winston, and what seemed like half a softball team into a beige minivan, got behind the wheel, and drove merrily away.
“Well,” J.T. said, turning to look down at Maggie and waggling his eyebrows comically. “I guess it’s just you, me, and the mineral rights agreement.”
She laughed and shook her head.
He grinned. “How about dinner and a movie?”
She tilted her head to one side. “What is it with you?” she asked, and though she wasn’t laughing anymore, she knew her amusement was visible in her eyes. “One minute, you’re doing your best to annoy me, and the next you’re talking about doing the town.”
He sighed, but the grin hovered at the corners of his mouth. “Is that a ‘yes’?” he countered, rocking back on his heels a little.
“No,” she said.
“But it’s not a ‘no,’ either, is it?” he persisted.
“I guess not,” she said, a little sheepishly.
He leaned in close, his nose a fraction of an inch from hers. She concentrated on not crossing her eyes.
“Relax, McCaffrey,” he drawled. “I’m talking about pizza and a video, not hot—wet— slooooow sex.”
Heat surged through her system. “You are impossible,” she hissed, but she was fighting a smile.
“No,” he said, “I’m easy. At least where you’re concerned.” Again, that saucy grin. “Go ahead, McCaffrey. Have your way with me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Truly amazing,” she said wryly.
“Is that a step up from ‘impossible’?” The tone he used was not suitable to their surroundings—it set the very marrow of her bones pulsing with heat—although he’d spoken in such a low voice that no one else could possibly have heard.
She gave him a subtle shove, but she wasn’t going to be able to just walk away, and they both knew it. Neither was she ready to open her soul to a man who had the power to turn her inside out, both physically and emotionally. “Pizza and a video,” she said. “Seven o’clock, my place.” Then she turned and walked away.
“I’ll bring the video,” J.T. called after her.
Maggie didn’t dare look back. Instead, she picked up her pace.
J.T. went home, fed the dogs, and helped Billy tend to the cattle and horses. Then, whistling, he showered, put on clean clothes, and drove right back to town. He stopped at the Stagecoach CafÈ and placed an order for a pizza to go, then headed for the supermarket, the only place in town where he could rent a video.
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