by JoAnn Ross
Her prickliness reminded Trace of other gossip he'd heard over the past two days. Old stories about Mariah Swarm's supposed teenage promiscuity. A story Jeb Young had disputed.
"Them boys all trailed after Mariah like lovesick pups," the elderly bronc buster had alleged. "But since the kids knew Matthew would shoot anyone who knocked up either one of his daughters, I always figgered there was a lot less goin' on in all those pickup trucks parked out along the river than the girl wanted people to believe."
"I only heard you and Garvey were friends," he said truthfully. "Nothing more." Everyone he'd spoken with had confirmed what Mariah had just told him. That Clint had only ever had eyes for the eldest Swann daughter.
The tense line around Mariah's mouth softened. Her turquoise eyes warmed in reminiscence. "Once, when I was twelve, I ran away from home. Clint found me outside of town, trying to hitch a ride on the interstate."
"Lucky for you he did."
"I know that now. At the time, I was furious at him." The smile that touched her eyes had her lips curving. "He actually dragged me into his truck, kicking and screaming and threatened to hog-tie me and drag me back to the ranch behind his horse if I didn't shut up and behave."
"So the guy has a temper?"
"Of course not." Mariah tossed her head. "It was just a threat. And to tell the truth, he only brought up the part about dragging me behind the horse after I kicked him in the balls."
Trace hadn't realized that it was possible to grimace and grin at the same time. "Dragging sounds too kind."
"That's what Clint said at the time."
"So he took you home?"
"Eventually. First we went to see Jaws at the theater in Payson and after that we stopped by the DQ for a chili burger, fries and chocolate shake. And then he took me home."
It didn't sound like the behavior of a killer. But Trace knew even the most seemingly mild-mannered people could, under the right circumstances, commit heinous crimes of passion.
"I imagine your father was relieved."
She shrugged and as he watched the light go out in her eyes, like a candle flame extinguished by a cold gasp of wind, Trace regretted mentioning Matthew Swann.
"He never even noticed I'd left." She abruptly stood up. "Well, as much as I've enjoyed our little chat, Sheriff, I've got to go referee another battle."
"It's been rough, huh?"
She could detect honest sympathy in his tone. "It hasn't exactly been a picnic. Which, in a way, is the topic of this afternoon's argument. My father wants to barbecue Swann beef for the funeral supper tomorrow. Maggie, unsurprisingly, insists she'd rather eat sawdust and is pushing to have her caterer fly in appropriate dishes from Beverly Hills."
She sighed and shook her head. "At this point, I'm ready to vote for potato chips, supermarket onion dip and a keg of Coors. A huge one. Perhaps I ought to just book a bunk in your drunk tank and buy the keg for myself."
"That's probably not the answer."
"I know." Another sigh. "But there are times…" Her voice drifted off. "Would you do me a favor?"
"If I can."
"Don't let those vultures out there put so much pressure on you that you zero in on the wrong man."
"I'm not in the habit of arresting innocent people."
"That's what they say in Dallas." She gave him a long, judicial look. "Clint didn't do it," she stressed one more time. "I'd bet my life on it."
"I don't intend to let it come to that."
She managed a faint, reluctant smile. "You're a fraud, Callahan."
He lifted a dark brow. "Oh?"
"You pretend to be some jaded, burned out, raggedy-edged cop who just wants to glide quietly through life until you can collect your pension. But you can't quite put away the suit of armor. Even if it is a little tarnished these days."
"Don't look now, Ms. Swann, but your writer's imagination is getting the better of you again."
"Is it?" Mariah smiled. "I don't think so." This time the smile was real. As it reached her eyes, warming them to a jeweled sheen, the power of that smile bit Trace directly in the gut. And lower. "See you around, Sheriff. As they say on the tube—I'll stay in touch, so you stay in touch."
With that she was gone, leaving the evocative scent of wildflowers behind.
Trace stood at the window, watching her deftly answer the questions shot at her as she made her way through the throng of noisy press to the red Jeep brazenly parked in the tow-away zone.
As the sharp claws of desire dug a little deeper, Trace decided that it was probably time he paid a visit to Jessica Ingersoll. To fill her in on his investigation so far.
And if you buy that half-baked excuse, pal, Trace told himself as he gathered up his files and left the office, I've got a bridge you might be interested in.
Chapter Ten
Desperately in need of comfort and not ashamed to admit it, later that afternoon, Mariah drove up the winding road to Clint Garvey's ranch. She found him in the barn, brushing down a lathered gray stallion.
"Hi, Clint."
He turned, saw her standing in the doorway and smiled. A weary smile that nevertheless reached his eyes. "Well, if it isn't the Vixen of Whiskey River." He dropped the currycomb and held out his arms. "Welcome home, sweetheart."
She ran toward the comfort he was offering, wrapped her arms around his waist and breathed in the rich male scents of horse and sweat and leather. "Oh, Clint." She sighed against his shirt. "I'm so sorry."
He didn't answer. There was, they both knew, nothing he could say. For a long, silent time they stood there, arms around each other.
"I loved her," he said against the top of her head.
She tilted her head back and saw the truth, laced with pain in his eyes. She found herself wondering if the baby would have had Laura's emerald eyes, or Clint's startlingly pale blue ones. "I know. Me, too." When she felt herself about to cry, Mariah bit her lip. "I need a favor."
"Anything."
It was, she thought with a rush of emotion, the truth. "I need to borrow a horse. Just for a little while."
"You got it."
She'd come dressed for riding, in jeans, plain brown nubuck boots with a slanted heel, a cotton shirt printed with arrowheads and a straw hat with a classic cattleman's crease and brim. Having spent the past hour galloping over the high country meadows, trying to expunge the pain that was twisting his gut and his heart in two, Clint knew all too well why Mariah was experiencing a sudden need to go riding. He also knew it wouldn't work. But he wasn't going to keep her from trying.
He chose a twelve-year-old cutting horse. He and the mare had won a lot of buckles together; she was as smart as a whip and the most responsive horse he'd ever owned. She'd be careful even if her rider wasn't. Which he didn't expect Mariah to be. Especially given the circumstances.
Laura had always been the cautious sister. For Mariah every morning had been a new challenge. He remembered her tearing through each day, all burners firing, with verve and energy and no looking back.
As he watched her gallop away over the pasture, Clint realized that Mariah was discovering the hard way that the past had a nasty way of catching up with you just when you least expected it.
The mare was truly a wonder. Fast as the wind and as surefooted as a mountain goat. Wildflowers were crushed beneath the flying hoofs as horse and rider raced through the spruce, aspen and fir trees, deftly dodging rocks and those insidiously spreading growths of prickly pear cactus that had worked their way up from the lower deserts. The sky was a vast blue bowl overhead; the noise of civilization had been replaced by the whisper of the wind in the trees, and the sound of hoofs hammering the hard red earth. It was cool here. Peaceful. And seemingly as untouched as it had been during the days when Apaches had sought sanctuary deep in the silent canyons.
Clint's ranch was wedge-shaped, sandwiched between Laura's and Matthew's. As she maneuvered the horse closer to the treacherous, rocky edge of the rim, Mariah wondered how he'd felt spending all those years so close to La
ura. Yet so far away.
And, of course it couldn't be easy living in such proximity to the individual who'd broken up his marriage. Not that either man acknowledged the other. From what Mariah had managed to worm out of the evening shift desk clerk at the lodge—whose mother had worked as the Swann housekeeper the past decade—the two ranchers hadn't spoken to one another in years.
Dammit, she didn't want to think about her father, or Clint and Laura. That's what this ride was all about. She needed to rid both her mind and her body of the excess nervous energy simmering inside her. To expunge the pain. And the guilt.
Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy. As she found herself riding toward the boundary line separating Clint's ranch from Laura's, her thoughts trapped in the past, Mariah failed to notice the tassel-eared squirrels playing tag amidst the fallen tree branches, the red-tailed hawk circling overhead, or the bees gathering pollen from the fields of blue and yellow wildflowers.
Nor did she notice the glint of the sun on the lenses of the binoculars focused her way from an outcropping of rocks.
"Well, well. That was certainly a pleasant surprise." Trace and Jessica were lying on their backs beside one another in the antique bed she'd had shipped from her parents' home in Philadelphia. The mahogany gleamed with generations of lemon oil rubbed painstakingly into the wood surface; in the flickering glow of the beeswax candle on the bedside table, their cooling flesh gleamed with a sheen of perspiration.
She rolled over, draped one long leg languorously across his hips and smiled into his eyes. "I didn't think you cared any longer, Callahan."
"I'll always care about you." It was the truth.
He stroked her hair, then ran his palm down her back as she snuggled against him with an easy familiarity very much different from the fiery passion that had resulted in the hastily discarded trail of clothes leading from her front door to the bed.
"And I for you." She brushed his damp hair back from his forehead. She bent her head and touched her lips to his, a slow, soft kiss they hadn't taken time for earlier. "Do you know what I was doing this afternoon?"
"Working the Fletcher case?"
"Well, that too." Her fingernails trailed lightly down his cheek and around his lips. "But along with reading autopsy reports, I was fantasizing about you. It's been too long since I screwed the only man who ever made me scream."
Her caressing hand moved down his chest, following the harsh red line that bisected his torso, over his flat stomach. "She's getting to you, isn't she?"
"Who?"
"The Swann woman." Her long slender fingers curved around him, stroking him with a smooth, practiced touch.
"All murder victims get to me," Trace said as his penis stirred against her hand. "Hazards of the profession."
"I wasn't speaking of Laura Fletcher. I was referring to her Hollywood sister."
He thought about lying then decided after all they'd shared that he owed her the truth. "There's no future there."
"Ah, always the romantic." The warmth of her smile took the sting out of the accusation.
"You think I'm a romantic?" That came as a surprise. Trace had never considered himself a hearts-and-flowers kind of guy. Neither had any of the women he'd known. Including his ex-wife.
"What else would you call a man who lives in a world of heroes and villains?"
She lowered her head, her lips following the seductive trail her fingers had blazed. "You were definitely born in the wrong time, Callahan. I can see you sitting at the Round Table with all the other knights—although your armor is admittedly a bit rustier than most," she allowed. "Jousting for the honor of fair lady, going off to battle the bad guys for God and country."
Her hair was splayed across his bare stomach. Her lips and tongue were making him hard again. It was becoming difficult to concentrate.
"Oh, yes, Trace. You are most definitely a romantic."
Mariah had told him much the same thing earlier. Deciding that both women were wrong, Trace dove his hands into her hair.
"You keep that up and my dick is going to explode." He arched his hips up. "You want to talk? Or fuck?"
Jessica's answering laugh was throaty and just as sexy as the rest of her as she shifted positions and sat astride him, knees on either side of his hips.
Trace's last coherent thought, as Jess lowered herself onto him, was to wonder how Mariah was surviving amidst the battling Swanns.
They'd come to the edge of the sheer cliff. Mariah sat astride the horse, staring out over the vast hundreds of miles of seemingly endless green landscape, drinking in the sight of blue hills covered in pine and juniper and manzanita, realizing for the first time how much she'd missed it.
When the mare first snorted and sidestepped skittishly, Mariah's first thought was that the horse had sensed something. A rattlesnake, perhaps. She leaned forward, patting the sleek chestnut neck and murmuring soothing words as she scanned the ground around them.
But before Mariah could identify the source of the mare's nervousness, the horse suddenly reared, sending Mariah flying.
Utilizing his political pull, Matthew had the road to the Swann ranch blocked off for the funeral. When Trace refused to take J.D. off the murder investigation to stand guard at the gate, the rancher hired private security guards from Flagstaff, instructing them to shoot at the first reporter who attempted to cross the barricade onto the property.
When Trace got wind of those instructions, he immediately let the guards know that if they so much as raised their rifles to one of the admittedly obnoxious reporters, he'd run them in for assault with a deadly weapon.
Three days after her murder, Laura was buried on Swann property not far from the ranch house where she had lived. And died.
It was raining. A steady, slanting rain that was unusually cold for the first week in July, even here in the mountains. Since the cooling relief was welcome after days of stultifying heat, no one in Whiskey River complained.
As she sat beside her mother beneath the big black awning provided by Peterson's Funeral Home, Mariah ignored the protest of her aching body—the result of that stupid and embarrassing fall off Clint's mare yesterday—and remembered Maggie, before she'd returned to Hollywood, telling her a bedtime story about how rain was really angels weeping.
Mariah watched the white flower-draped casket being slowly lowered into the wet ground and decided that in Laura's case, the story was all wrong. Any angels lucky enough to have Laura joining their heavenly ranks would undoubtedly be singing hosannas.
Alan, who'd been released from the hospital that morning, rose from the folding chair, braced on one side by Heather, the other by a tall, silver-haired man Mariah didn't recognize. From his Saville Row suit, she suspected he was not from Whiskey River.
Although he'd left the hospital in a wheelchair, Alan was managing, with obvious effort, to walk with a cane.
"Now we know who the real actor in the family is," Maggie murmured in Mariah's ear. Her voice was faintly slurred. With grief? Mariah wondered. Or—dear Lord, please not now—something else?
Putting aside that looming problem for now, Mariah steeled herself for the sound of dirt hitting atop her sister's coffin and was relieved when instead the minister handed Alan a small silver scoop.
Alan handed the scoop to Heather, who bent down to fill it with earth, then returned the scoop to Alan. Mariah's temper flared. His mistress had no right taking part in Laura's burial!
As if reading her mind, Maggie reached out and placed a black-gloved hand on her daughter's knee, giving it an encouraging squeeze.
Drawing in a deep, calming breath, Mariah covered her mother's hand with her own. When she felt the moisture on the back of her hand, at first she thought the awning had sprung a leak. Then she realized that behind the black veil Maggie was wearing—for dramatic effect, Mariah had thought when she'd first seen it this morning—her mother was silently weeping.
Alan tipped the silver scoop, sending a spray of earth downward.
"
Good night, sweet wife," he said, paraphrasing Hamlet's farewell soliloquy to Horatio. As she watched the tears stream down his tanned face and heard the choked sob in his deep voice, Mariah decided that Maggie was right. The man was one hell of an actor. "May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."
And then it was over.
Well, almost over, Mariah thought as they made their way back to the black limousine waiting on the other side of the wrought iron fence. There was still the supper to get through.
On a nearby hilltop, Clint Garvey sat astride his gray stallion, the rain dripping off the brim of his hat as he watched the funeral. As the casket disappeared into the ground, he tried to think about the good times he and Laura had shared, as few as they were.
But instead all he could think about was that last fatal argument. After Matthew Swann, back unexpectedly from Santa Fe, had shown up at his ranch, loaded for bear.
He heard the steady clip clop of another rider approaching. Turning in the saddle, Clint felt yet another sting of guilt when he viewed Patti Greene riding the Morgan he continued to board at his place for free because he figured he owed her.
"I figured I'd find you up here," she said. Her expression revealed honest concern, but he knew her well enough to detect a faint victorious glint in her green eyes.
He didn't answer. As if she hadn't really expected one, Patti reined the Morgan gelding in beside his stallion. Both silently watched the mourners walking away from the gravesite.
Leaving Laura alone, Clint thought, as he experienced another stab of pain, sharper than all the others so far. Alone in that cold dark ground. Cursing beneath his breath at the fucking futility of life, he slumped lower in the saddle, guilt riding heavily on his shoulders.
The funeral party returned to the Swann ranch house, where Maggie had once lived with Matthew, where Mariah had grown up, and where ten-year-old Laura had done her best to provide a stabilizing influence after Maggie's defection.
Mariah was standing in a corner of the enormous living room, nursing a glass of wine, worriedly watching Maggie like a hawk, when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Heather slip through the French doors at the far end of the room and go out onto the wide porch that surrounded the house. She was unsurprised when Alan followed moments later.