Killing Casanova

by Traci McDonald

  Cassie shook her head again. “I’m sorry, Jana. I just couldn’t listen to him blame this girl for wanting to go out with him because he had hooked up with her and then changed his mind. He probably made out with her until he got tired of her, or got a better offer and then decided she was crazy or smitten because she misunderstood his intentions for her.”

  “He told you that?” Jana asked, clasping Cassie’s arm in her hand.

  “No,” she sighed. “I guess I kind of assumed that was what he meant when he said some girl was either trying to seduce him or punish him.”

  Jana laughed again and pulled Cassie to her feet. “It sounds like you have known a few Casanovas of your own.”

  Leading Cassie through the crowded bar to the swinging doors and into the parking lot, Jana wrapped one arm around Cassie’s shoulders and headed them toward the sound of departing vehicles.

  “Yeah, a few,” Cassie muttered as Jana pulled the keys from her pocket.

  “I don’t know Jake very well,” Jana said, unlocking Cassie’s door. “But from what I’ve heard, he’ll either make you have feelings you can’t fight, or he’s the one your mama always warned you about.”

  Cassie frowned again and waited for Jana to start the old truck. As Jana backed out of Mcgoo’s parking lot, Cassie sighed again. “Either way, Jana,” she said sadly, “if I were you, I’d run for my life.”

  Chapter Three

  “Yake!” The screech of Heidi’s voice topped the highest volume setting on his car stereo. Jake kept his eyes on his phone, fingers flashing in quick movements between the Facebook and Twitter apps as he filled his dance card. His mother had frowned when she had called it that, but she had also promised to keep Heidi off his back long enough for him to take care of it.

  “Yake, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

  Heidi was talking to him, even though her tongue struggled to say his name.

  “I’m fine, Heidi.”

  With a firm smile, he watched carefully to make sure the panic in her eyes faded from the other side of the car window. Heidi was mildly autistic; both her questions and the answers she expected to hear were literal. She did not ask Jake if he was all right because she was irritated that he was ignoring her; she asked because she was genuinely worried that he didn’t answer because something was wrong.

  Heidi scowled disapprovingly, and then put her hands on her thin hips. She was seventeen and had the dark eyes and long, lean figure that his mother still had even though she was in her late forties. Even with that frustrated look on her face, Heidi was beautiful, and the reality of it frightened him every time he looked into her deep blue eyes. His mother had always told him that God protected special spirits like Heidi’s from the destructive powers of the devil; that’s why Heidi’s mind was so sweet and clear. She was an angel with human wings.

  Jake frowned even as he thought of his mother’s starry-eyed description. Human angels should not have been given the type of body that attracted the scum he knew were waiting out there for sweet innocent girls like his sister. The dark swirling lights of the dance club he had just been making arrangements to visit flashed across his mind.

  Jake cast that thought aside as he turned off his stereo and rolled down the window separating him from Heidi, reassuring her with the removal of the barrier. The spark of light dancing in her eyes poked at him again as he silently justified his night games. He was just going to let a few lucky women feel … special … for a little while; he would never take advantage of someone like Heidi.

  He pulled the keys from the ignition and then motioned for Heidi to step back from the car door as he opened it and unfolded his long legs from the bucket seat. Stepping from the car and slamming the door, Jake stood his six-foot two-inch figure up against the silver Mitsubishi.

  “What’s wrong, sweetie?” Jake drawled in the husky cowboy voice Heidi always softened for.

  Last year Jake had starred in a magazine spread for Mustang men’s cologne, and the local TV stations picked up the web commercial the company made at the same time. Heidi had seen him on television and thought he’d left home to go run wild mustangs across Wyoming, instead of in Las Vegas shooting the commercial. Now whenever he pulled the cowboy from his repertoire, Heidi would always forgive him. Most of the women around their small rural area recognized him from that commercial, too, and it had the same effect on them. Well, not exactly the same. Heidi was terrified that he would go back to Wyoming because he liked horses more than her. That was her complaint every time Jake even hinted about running the mustangs. The others just couldn’t resist his brilliant blue eyes or his rugged features. The rough bad boy look and tall, muscular frame always did the trick. He could almost see knees buckle and hearts melt if he just gave them one of his signature smiles.

  Drawing his fingers through his dark tangle of hair, he waited for Heidi to stop quivering her lower lip.

  “I’ll keep my promise, Heidi, but it’s not time to go yet.” Jake soothed, flicking his palm toward the sky. “It’s still light out, and they can’t do Cinco de Mayo fireworks while the sun is up.”

  Jake straightened from the car and put his arm around Heidi, pulling her back toward the house.

  “I know, Yake,” she said. “But Miriam said I could help with the barbecue if you would take me before eight, and it’s seven already.”

  Jake did not falter or let her escape as he moved swiftly toward the kitchen door to deposit her back in the ranch house.

  “Why are they having dinner so late?” Jake asked, trying to distract her.

  Heidi was not giving in, and she spun out from under his arm to stand glowering at him, arms crossed and feet planted in the gravel.

  “Miriam hired a new counselor at the ranch, and she needed all day today to settle her. We all need to help put the party together, that’s why I have to be there as soon as possible, Yake. You know how much work it is without Yason.”

  Jake grimaced guiltily with her final statement, casting an abashed glare into the graveled road. Jason Sorenson had owned The Rocking J ranch since Jake could remember. Last year, Jason had been killed when his horse had broken its leg and fallen into the rushing flood waters of the San Madera River. Miriam Sorensen was saddled with a mortgage and an autistic boy of nine. She could not run the training and breeding facility by herself, and she had needed an alternative, quickly. Using grant money, Miriam had turned the former horse ranch into an equestrian therapeutic service center.

  Heidi had become the beneficiary of not only the soothing constancy of the specially trained horses, but the friendship of the Sorensen family.

  Now Jake crossed his arms and met his sister’s pleading look.

  “Come on, Heidi, I’d have to take you all the way out there, and then come back to help with the heifers. I’ve got plans tonight, too.”

  Heidi made an unhappy sound at the back of her throat but said nothing, letting the tears of disappointment brim her dark blue eyes. Jake closed his and sighed, dropping his hands helplessly at his sides.

  “Okay, Heidi,” he mumbled as she wiped her lashes clear. “Go get in the car.”

  • • •

  Jake glanced at his phone again as he dropped Heidi by the bleached white rails that ran the length of The Rocking J’s long drive. Cody Sorensen was counting the spiny rails along the western fence line to calm himself in the chaos, and Heidi went to walk the length of the fence with him.

  The early May night was lit by a fraction of moonlight, along with the Chinese lanterns Miriam had pulled out of storage from the New Year’s party. Parties were now a monthly occurrence at The Rocking J from the time Cody was diagnosed, making it a part of his regular routine and exposing him to the situations that encouraged coping. The consistency helped Cody adjust to the constant influx of owners and trainers that Jason staffed and supported on the ranch.

  Miriam’s new calling with horses made staff adjustments and clientele a never-ending surge of confusion for Cody as well, and the parties act
ually brought him normalcy. A new staff member would have thrown Cody’s day way off, and Jake smiled ruefully watching his baby sister walk patiently beside the young boy. The clear evening and the twinkling lights marked an unfettered path for the two companions as they made their way toward the driveway.

  Jake turned the Mitsubishi around without going up the drive to the cluster of women and ranch hands crowding the wide front porch. Heidi and Cody were in their sights, and Jake had chores to finish before he could shower and go into town to Mcgoo’s one last time before the spring cattle drive tomorrow.

  In a ranch community at the northern tip of the Mojave desert, Jake was lucky to have the old steakhouse-turned-bar-and-nightclub to fill his evenings. Lindley was just enough of a town to keep the locals bored and the old timers kicking. When Jake had left after high school, it was the last bump in the road he ever wanted to see again, but four years later his father’s final words had come back to haunt him: “Sometimes the last place in the world is where you’ll find yourself. Especially if you didn’t know you were lost.”

  Jake flicked a glance in the rearview mirror as he checked one last time on Cody and Heidi before turning westward toward Caswell Farms. I’m not lost, he mentally argued, just waylaid between lives. The life he had planned when Melinda, his high school sweetheart, was still here. And the life he called his own.

  Prickling fingers of starlight broke the black of night as he found the constellation Cassiopeia in the early summer sky. It was no more a constant than she had been, but somehow he still searched for both of them. Tonight, he wouldn’t worry about any of that. It would be a week before he’d see anyone except the hostlers and cowhands. He would make tonight worthwhile.

  • • •

  “Jake?” a gravelly, mildly frantic woman’s voice crackled over his cell phone. Jake pulled his hat from his head and mopped his sweating brow with the back of one arm. The sounds of lowing cattle and clamoring hooves drowned out the woman’s voice, and Jake moved away from the trucks to hear better.

  “Jake, it’s Miriam Sorensen. Your mom said I might be able to get hold of you at the pasture. Can you hear me?”

  Jake glanced around the rocky peaks surrounding the spring grazing land and wondered at his cell phone reception. He and the other hands had been unloading the last of the cattle for grazing. The dry, hot summers would starve and parch the herds on the desert floor. The few heifers that had calved on the ranch were being brought to the lush, green valley at the base of the mountain range. His father wanted a herd of forty or so brought down for the summer slaughter as well, and they had to transport those back to the ranch.

  “I can barely hear you, Miriam,” Jake said with one finger in his other ear. “Is everything okay? Is Heidi okay?”

  Jake glanced around quickly as Carter, Troy, and Derek finished securing the gates on the trucks behind him. His father had hired the hands to bring in the spring stragglers, but he had insisted Jake go along to supervise. Jake turned his back on the young men as they began pulling beers from the back of the ice chest they had lost no time retrieving from the creek. He suspected the drinking was why Robert had sent him along. Troy was one of The Rocking J’s men and Carter took orders from no one, not even Robert, but Jake knew the land and the work well enough to keep the guys working even if loyalty was not among their priorities.

  The high meadows were plush and green, the aspens and firs filtering sunlight and the bright rays warming their days without freezing their nights. This was the only place Jake felt steady. The world was always tilting beneath his ever-changing life, and here, firmly standing on the bedrock of the mountain, the sky settled into a vast expanse of endless peace. The drinking and shouting of the hands and Miriam’s voice on the phone sent the earth tumbling again, and Jake braced his back against the trunk of a broken tree to listen to her.

  “Heidi’s fine, Jake,” she explained quickly, “everything is fine, except that …” Miriam’s voice broke suddenly and he heard the edge of panic creep from her broken heart. Every time the ranch overwhelmed her, cruel pain darkened her brown eyes, and he heard her longing for Jason without her saying his name.

  “It’s fine, Miriam,” Jake soothed in a quiet husky voice. “Whatever it is, it’ll be fine.”

  Miriam took a breath, firm tones returning to the call. “Actually, I’m hoping you can help me with that. There is a group of blind kids coming in for a trail ride and campout this weekend. I was only expecting a half dozen or so, but I found out today that there are nearly twenty teen-agers coming.” The edge was crawling back into her voice now, and Jake blew a heavy breath into the phone. “The staff and I can handle the kids, but you’ve got my best hand with you, and I need Troy to meet me in the canyons tomorrow evening to help with the horses.”

  Miriam’s voice cut off abruptly as she waited, not realizing she hadn’t actually asked Jake for anything. Jake looked back over his shoulder at the quickly forming heap of empty bottles and grimaced slightly.

  “I’ll tell you what.” Jake said with a dark scowl at the boisterous cowboys. “We’re finished with the cattle, so tomorrow I’ll send Derek and Carter down with the trucks, and both Troy and I will come help with the horses. You don’t need to worry. We will be there by afternoon or early evening. Okay?”

  Miriam’s relieved laughter drifted through static into Jake’s ears as she sighed and thanked him before giving him details and then hanging up. Jake closed the cover of his phone and slid it back into his pocket. Picking up the scattered remnants of the fractured tree around him, Jake joined the others with the firewood, hoping the beer would take the sting off the fresh distribution of work.

  Derek and Carter would not be happy about returning to the ranch to unload without the other two, but Jake didn’t trust Carter with Miriam’s group. Teen-agers meant teen-age girls, and, drunk or sober, the rough twenty-two year old had a special affinity for teen-age girls. No. thought Jake with a slight shake of his head, I can risk Carter’s wrath over being loaded down with the cattle. I can’t send him with Troy.

  Jake didn’t like Carter. He was the kind of guy who got more confident and stupid when he was drinking. He was also the kind of guy who got more mean and angry when he wasn’t. Jake kindled the fire as the men lounged on their saddles laid around the fire, all of them glassy-eyed and cheerful from the beer. Jake lay back against the soft leather of his saddle and pulled his hat down over his eyes. He would tell them tomorrow; they wouldn’t even remember if he explained it tonight.

  Chapter Four

  “Jake?” Cassie wondered as she sat perched on a wide, flat boulder above the rushing water of the silver creek wash. When she had asked Miriam for the names of the hostlers who were caring for the horses, Miriam told her they were Jake and Troy.

  She’d only worked for The Rocking J for a few weeks, and the names of most of her new coworkers were still hazy in her memory. Troy, she could picture. He was the only one she trusted to care for Jackpot, her sorrel mare. Troy Barnes was gently, straightforward, and firm with the animals as well as their clients. She didn’t think she had met Jake yet, and it made her a little nervous.

  After rubbing the mare down and picketing her to graze, Cassie told one of the other counselors to let Troy or Jake know that she was going to the river with the blind group. The quiet pool further up the bank was the group’s destination, but here, where the water tumbled like socks in a dryer, Cassie relaxed as she listened to the voice of the rapids laughing along with the evening wind. The smell of horses, camp fire, and damp greenery hung around her face like a misty veil in the crisp air.

  She did not expect Lindley to smell or sound that different from Albuquerque. The creosote and cactus, pinion and sage were mingled with the echoes of windy canyons and rolling dunes; in her last home, the ranch wasn’t near any mountains. The program she had worked for in New Mexico was on a Natchez Indian reservation. The heat, the horses, and the desert sand held no smell of rich earth, rushing water, or towering tr
ees. Her brief stint with The Rocking J had brought a new world to her mind, and a soothing balm to her soul. Her heart belonged in Albuquerque, but her soul needed this new location to heal.

  Leaving there had felt like tearing a part of her away, like an old scab that was ready to allow for new skin. Her other jobs had been good ones, but her last one had been her opportunity to live independently, find her limits, fall in love, and fall apart, too.

  Lindley was fresh, new, and needing to be explored. There wasn’t much she could picture in her mind yet; she needed to feel out the canyons, farmlands, and most importantly the people. Her lack of confidence in that area frightened her, and put other people ill at ease sometimes, but Albuquerque had taught her the world was a nastier place than she’d expected. She had been too trusting, too naive; she would not make that mistake again.

  Cassie shook her head to keep herself from picturing the reasons she’d lost her naiveté. Here in the roar of the waterfall she did not want to be haunted by them again. She focused on the smells and sounds floating all around her.

  The distant laughter of the teen-agers splashing in the water up the creek stiffened her back slightly until she remembered Jana had taken the group to the railed portion of the bank to teach them to use their ears and senses to locate direction and sound.

  The exercises on horseback this afternoon had left her exhausted, and the calming brush of the breeze mixed with the soothing sound of water would heal more than just her nervousness. A scuffle of footsteps and a deep male voice collided loudly at the top of the river bank behind her. Cassie spun toward the bank in surprise. She had been so lost in her reflections of the day, the two voices on the dirt road beyond her soaking spot had intruded without warning.

  “It’s all right, honey,” a deep voice drawled. “Just hold tight to me and I’ll get you to the riverside.”

  A nervous twitter of fear-filled laughter was drowned in the scuffling of gravel, and a young woman’s voice sharpening in Cassie’s ears. “I think I should wait for Cassie or Jana. I never should have tried to come on my own.”