by JoAnn Ross
She was on her feet again. "I know. Duty calls." She shoved her sunglasses back on. "Don't worry, Sheriff. As it is, I have a lot to do myself this afternoon."
He didn't want to leave this matter unresolved. "We need to talk," he insisted. "Why don't I come out to the ranch tonight? I can pick up some chicken and ribs at The Branding Iron."
"That sounds lovely," she said with a pronounced lack of enthusiasm. "But as it happens, I have plans for dinner."
"With your lawyer?"
The dark jealousy that moved across his face gave Mariah a faint glimmer of hope. A jealous man was not an indifferent one.
"No, not Brady." She wondered what Trace would say if he could have heard the young man waxing enthusiastic about his new bride and viewed the wedding pictures the attorney carried around in his attaché case.
"Not your father." He was being forced to drag it out of her. For not the first time since meeting Mariah, Trace was painfully aware that this was a woman who could make a man crawl.
"No." Taking pity on him, she said, "Actually, Jessica and I are driving into Payson for Mexican."
"Sounds as if you and Jess are becoming close."
"Don't worry." Mariah's tone was as dry as the red dust that rose up from the logging roads crisscrossing the Rim. "Ms. Ingersoll has assured me that she'd have no problem prosecuting me if it came to that. But," she added with a spark of her usual fire, "she also said that she knows it won't come to that. It seems she trusts me."
She ran a fingernail down the front of his shirt. Tantalizing. Taunting. "You might give it a try, yourself, Sheriff," she advised.
On that note, she turned and walked away, leaving Trace to wonder, yet again, exactly where he'd lost control of the situation.
Fearing the revelation would set off World War in between her parents, Mariah had vacillated telling Maggie the truth of what had happened on the night of Cole Garvey's death. But knowing her mother had the right to know the truth, and realizing she could not keep putting it off forever, she dropped by the lodge before driving to Payson.
To Mariah's surprise, Maggie took the news with remarkable equanimity, going so far as to say that there wasn't any point in confronting Matthew after all these years.
"What's done is done," she said, after wiping away her tears. Tears of relief or regret, Mariah could not tell. "Attacking Matthew for such a vicious lie will not bring back those years. And it won't give me back Laura." With a teary smile, she reached out and took Mariah's hand. "At least I still have my younger daughter."
Her mother certainly didn't seem drunk. But Mariah didn't quite trust her fatalistic attitude. "I have to admit, I'm surprised by how calmly you're taking this."
Maggie looked a little puzzled by that as well. "Perhaps I'm finally growing up," she mused.
She slanted a wobbly, misty-eyed smile toward her driver, who had, at Maggie's insistence, remained in the hotel suite during the intimate conversation between mother and daughter. "Thanks to Kevin. He's been a wonderful lifeline during these terrible days."
"Your mother's been on her own for a long time," he replied in response to Mariah's sharp look. For someone that she'd thus far only thought of as at best, a male bimbo and at worst, a gigolo, Mariah had to give him credit for holding his ground beneath what people had told her could be an intimidating glare. "It's time she had someone to care about her and help her over the rough patches."
Watching the two of them exchange warmly intimate glances, Mariah was tempted to ask what the hell they thought she'd been doing all these years.
Then she realized that it wasn't the same. During her past decade in Los Angeles, she'd come to see her mother as a burden. An exciting, dazzling, larger-than-life problem just waiting to happen. Even during the times when Maggie was not drinking, Mariah had felt about her mother in much the same way she would a lit fuse of dynamite. The question was not if Maggie was going to explode, but when. Regrettably realizing that her constant support of her mother had been due more to duty than daughterly love, Mariah decided she was in no position to judge anyone.
Trace returned to his office to find Alan Fletcher waiting for him. The senator was obviously on the road to recovery from the deaths of his wife and aide. He looked tanned, fit and ready to run for the presidency.
"Good afternoon, Sheriff." Fletcher stood up as Trace entered his office and held out his hand.
"Senator." Trace shook the proffered hand, then sat down behind his desk. "What can I do for you?"
"Actually, I've come by to thank you for all you've already done. Apprehending Laura's killer has eased my mind considerably."
With a politician's knack for only focusing on the message of the day, he did not mention Trace's earlier accusation that he'd killed his wife and aide.
"I'm glad to hear that." Since Garvey's guilt or innocence was now up to a jury to decide, Trace didn't bring up his doubt that the correct man was behind bars. Nor did he mention the investigation was not yet closed. "I only wish we could have gotten a more conclusive diagnosis on Ms. Martin's death."
"Heather." Trace, who was watching Fletcher carefully, saw a shadow of pain move across the senator's eyes. But he did not see guilt. "I don't know how I'm going to get through this campaign without her."
Having observed Fletcher at close hand these past days, the senator's egocentric view of the situation did not surprise Trace in the least. "I'm sure you'll manage somehow," he replied.
His dry tone flew over Alan's head. "This country is headed down the wrong path. Someone needs to turn it around."
Afraid that he was about to get a preview of the senator's stump speech, Trace braced his elbows on the scarred arms of his chair, folded his hands together and said, "Is there anything else I can do for you, Senator?"
"No." Getting the hint, Alan stood up. "I just wanted to convey my appreciation before leaving."
"You're returning to Washington?" The news did not come as a pleasant surprise. But Trace also knew he had no official reason to prevent the senator from leaving town.
"Eventually. I'll be in Whiskey River a couple more days. Friday I'm beginning my campaign swing though the Southwest."
"I recall Ms. Martin saying something about that," Trace agreed. "I hadn't realized it was still on."
The senator flashed him one of those attractive Redford smiles. "To tell you the truth, I was considering canceling, but I've received so many cards and letters of support, that I realized that the people really do want me to carry on."
"Mustn't disappoint the voters."
This time Fletcher caught the faint innuendo. He frowned, but did not comment on it. "I work for the people." His gaze narrowed in a way that made Trace feel as if he were being viewed in the cross hairs of a gun scope. "As do you."
It was a threat. Pure and simple. Trace chose, for now, to ignore it. He wasn't through with Senator Fletcher yet. But he preferred to choose his battles—and the time for confrontation—himself.
"Got a point there," he said agreeably. "By the way, Senator, did you realize your wife had put a mortgage on the ranch?"
Fletcher shrugged. "No. But it wouldn't have surprised me. That place was always draining money from her trust fund. If it had come out of our joint account, I probably would have paid more attention, but as it was, I merely considered the ranch Laura's little hobby."
About this, Fletcher sounded sincere. Trace stood up and came around the corner of the desk. "Have a good trip back to the Capitol, Senator," he said. "I'll keep you informed regarding Garvey's trial date."
"I'd appreciate that." Fletcher stopped in the doorway and asked, as if on an afterthought, "I don't suppose there's any way you can hurry the case along?"
So any innuendo regarding the senator's guilt, or his affair with his aide would be long forgotten by election time? Trace supposed. "That's up to the judge and the opposing counsels."
"Of course." Alan nodded. "Well, I just hope it's soon. So we can all get on with our lives."
; Personally Trace thought the senator was already doing a bang-up job of that, but managed to hold his tongue.
Trace stood in his window, watching Fletcher drive away. Then he left his office, headed for the jail to talk to Garvey about what he knew, if anything, about the mortgages Laura Fletcher had put on the ranch shortly before she died.
Chapter Twenty
Mariah was leaving the lodge just as Alan entered.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, not bothering to hide his antipathy.
Deciding that her conversation with her mother was none of his business, Mariah didn't answer. "You're going to have to display a bit more western hospitality than that, Alan," she said instead, "if you intend to be elected president."
She flashed him a smile they both knew was totally feigned. "People aren't very willing to contribute to the campaign of a candidate who all but tells them to go to hell."
He arched a mocking blond brow. "Somehow I doubt you've come here this afternoon to contribute to my campaign."
"I'll say this about you, Senator, when you're right, you're right."
Eyeing him with forced dispassion, noting how casually handsome he looked in his linen slacks and Ralph Lauren polo shirt, Mariah wondered how many women in America would actually vote for a man just because he reminded them of Robert Redford. When Dan Quayle immediately came to mind, she felt more depressed than ever. She wished there was something she could do to ruffle the man's calm. Her sister was dead, and he was still on his way to the White House. It wasn't fair, dammit!
A thought suddenly occurred to her. A reckless, wonderful idea Mariah figured that, while it wouldn't prove his guilt, it might make the bastard squirm a little.
"I wouldn't be in a hurry to order my inauguration suit if I were you, Alan. Because it just so happens I've come across some papers in the house that will prove you killed Laura."
His gaze sharpened. Watching the color drain from his handsome, tanned face, Mariah experienced a surge of satisfaction that her totally unplanned, fictitious statement had hit so close to the mark.
Unwilling to give him time to try to pin her down, she turned on her heel and marched out of the lodge.
Clint Garvey sat on the edge of his narrow jail cell bunk. He seemed, Trace thought, strangely resigned to his situation.
"Sure, I knew the ranch was mortgaged," he said with a shrug. He took a long pull on his cigarette. "So what? Most of the places around here belong to the bank. Mine included."
"Yet you offered to buy the ranch from Mariah at a time when your own finances aren't exactly running in the black."
"I figured we could work something out. It's not as if she needs the money," he said with a casual disregard that hit a vaguely false note with Trace.
"About the mortgage on the Fletcher place—"
"The Prescott place," Clint corrected sharply. It was the first sign of emotion Trace had seen from the rancher since he'd been arrested. "If Laura had wanted Fletcher's name on her property, she wouldn't have used her own collateral to get the loan."
"So Fletcher didn't know the ranch was mortgaged?"
"Not that I know of." He exhaled a thick cloud of smoke on a disgusted sound. "The guy was only interested in the ranch because it gave him instant status as an Arizonan. Marrying into the Swann family made people forget that he was nothing but a carpetbagger who'd moved to Phoenix after his commercial development business had gone belly-up in Chicago."
He flicked the cigarette onto the floor, crushed it with a booted heel and lit another. "Hell, the guy wouldn't know a steer from a cow."
Trace decided Garvey had hit a bull's-eye with that analysis.
"From what I can tell from the Fletchers' tax returns, the ranch was profitable until this year."
Clint shrugged. "The ranching business has its ups and downs. But Laura got hit pretty damn hard this spring."
"How was that?"
"Her roundup came in way short. We thought, in the beginning, that I might have accidentally gotten some of her calves mixed up with mine. But that didn't turn out to be the case."
"Are you saying her calves were stolen?"
"Couldn't prove it. But the numbers were too low to be anything else. And it sure as hell wouldn't be the first time some cowboy started his own spread with borrowed calves."
As he returned to his office, Trace wondered what the guys back in the city would say if they knew he was chasing down cattle rustlers.
Mariah couldn't help herself. Although she hadn't really wanted to like Jessica Ingersoll—who was, after all, a rival of sorts—she found herself thoroughly enjoying the attorney's company. Over margaritas, nachos and chimichan-gas, Mariah could also see exactly what had attracted Trace.
Jessica was intelligent, and beneath her cool, icy image, Mariah sensed a very passionate woman. The kind of woman, she considered, who'd make a perfect match for an equally passionate man. Add in the fact that their work would require long hours spent in each other's company and it was no wonder she and Trace had become lovers.
"By the way, Mariah," Jessica said as the two women walked out to their individual cars in the restaurant parking lot, "after spending the evening tiptoeing around the subject, I think you should know that Trace and I are just friends."
"Close friends," she admitted, when Mariah arched a challenging brow, "but there was never anything permanent about our relationship. Nor could there ever be."
"Why not?" Mariah couldn't help asking.
"Trace isn't really my type."
Mariah couldn't help laughing at that; Jessica joined in.
"Really," she insisted. She leaned against her car and folded her arms. "I'm not saying I don't find him enormously sexy. What woman wouldn't?"
What woman indeed, Mariah thought, thinking back to Iris's comment the other morning. Trace Callahan was the type of man that sexual fantasies were built on. "But?"
"But you have to understand, I was brought up in a very strict family. My father ruled the roost with an iron hand."
"I get the picture," Mariah murmured.
"I thought you might," Jessica agreed, having had several long conversations with Matthew Swann lately. "All my life I struggled to be the proper daughter my parents expected me to be."
"Then, as soon as I got my law degree, I packed my books and clothes into the back of my BMW and headed west, where no one knew me. Where there were no expectations."
"Where you could be whoever and whatever you wanted to be."
"Exactly. And I actually believed I'd escaped my father's influence until I realized that with the exception of Trace, the men I become involved with, while intelligent, also allow me full control of the relationship."
"I can't see Trace giving up total control."
"Nor can I. Which is why, although we get along wonderfully, for short periods of time, we'd never last. Because, if—and this is a very big if," she qualified, "I ever do decide to get married, it will be to a man who's content to let me wear the pants in the family."
"I see."
"I thought you might," Jessica repeated. Her gaze, reflected in the spreading yellow glow of the parking lot light, turned thoughtful. "But I've watched the way Trace is with you. And although I never would have believed it possible, you actually seem to be teaching him the fine art of compromise." She grinned again. "The only thing I can figure out is the guy must be in love."
Love. The word ricocheted through Mariah, leaving her stunned and momentarily speechless. Need. Want. Desire. Even lust. Those were easy words. Love wasn't. Love required patience, demanded commitment. Love was terrifying.
"I think you misunderstand our relationship."
Jessica gave her a long look. "Perhaps," she murmured. "Then again, perhaps not." She bestowed a generous, sympathetic smile on Mariah. "I'm afraid I'm about to do something I never do. Something I've always had a rule against, actually."
"What's that?"
"Offer advice. Give it time. And trust your instincts. You and Tra
ce haven't met under the best of circumstances. But with patience, I have a feeling things will work out fine."
"Patience has never been my long suit."
Jessica laughed at that. "Join the club."
Mariah was still standing in the parking lot, considering Jessica's surprising words as the taillights disappeared from sight.
"Patience," she muttered to herself as she climbed into the Jeep. "I'm told it's a virtue."
Actually, the cardinal virtues were justice, prudence, temperance and fortitude, Mariah remembered learning in a college ancient-philosophy class.
"Well, hell," she decided as she headed toward Whiskey River, "two out of four ain't bad."
She'd driven through the town and had turned onto the steep, winding road leading up to the ranch when it began to rain. Not a typical torrential July monsoon, but enough that she was forced to turn on the wipers. There was a new moon; the overhead sky was low and as black as pitch, the towering pine trees lining the road appeared as dark and ominous shadows.
Decreasing tax revenues from downturns in timber and cattle sales—the economic lifeblood of the county—had cut back on county services so that the narrow road was still filled with potholes from the previous winter, making the ride jarring.
Although Mariah had never been the nervous sort, she found the sea of black beyond the headlights oddly spooky. When her flesh prickled with goose bumps, she cursed and wished she'd given in to temptation and bought a pack of cigarettes from the machine back at the restaurant.
"Sissy," she scolded herself, even as she reached out and tuned the Jeep's radio to a Flagstaff talk station so she wouldn't feel so alone. "Keep this up and you'll have to write horror films. Gruesome slashers about women in jeopardy."
She was gripping the steering wheel so hard her forearms ached. To add to her discomfort, the topic tonight seemed to be romance. Caller after caller phoned in, eager to share increasingly depressing stories of love gone wrong.
"See," she told herself, switching over to a country station, "it's just too risky. And it never lasts."