by Cora Seton
“What about the horses?” she asked at the same time Ramsey twisted around to get a better look at Alice.
“What the hell do you mean, jail?”
“I’ve got to go,” Alice said, standing up. “I’ve got to go right now. So do you, Jo.”
Jo stood as well.
“Now, wait a minute. We just started talking—” Ramsey cut off as Alice hopped up on the bench seat without another word, stepped up onto the table and hopped down into the aisle that ran the length of the restaurant. Megan pushed out of her seat quickly so Jo could get by, and followed them toward the door without a backward glance at her client.
Jo took Megan’s arm. “Don’t go anywhere alone with him. You heard Alice. Not alone. Not anymore.”
Megan nodded, her face pinched with fear. She’d known the Reeds long enough to take Alice’s predictions seriously. Jo didn’t know how she’d manage to evade the man, though, considering her job. “I mean it, Megan.”
“I won’t.” Megan leaned in closer, despite the fact Ramsey still sat in the booth where they’d left him, staring after them like he couldn’t figure them out. “I know how to handle this. We’ve got a protocol if a guy gets forward when we’re showing him houses. We pass him on to Mike.”
Jo smiled despite the seriousness of the situation. She knew Mike. She doubted Ramsey would like him. “I’m sorry you’ll lose the commission.”
“I don’t think I was ever going to get one. I don’t know why Ramsey’s here, but it isn’t to buy a house.”
“We’ve got to find Cab,” Jo said on their way out of the diner, after settling the bill for the coffee they hadn’t even consumed. “We’ve got to tell him everything.”
The Alabama heat was the first thing that struck Hunter after his time in the much drier, much cooler Montana town. He rented a boxy sedan he normally wouldn’t be caught dead in, the better to be able to search for Marlon without drawing attention to himself.
Abel was probably right; maybe he should start looking for his friend in the usual places, but some instinct told him to drive straight to May’s boyfriend’s house. He had a feeling if anyone knew where Marlon was, it would be her.
She hadn’t returned his earlier call, not that he thought she would. He and May had a complicated history—one that extended as far back as her relationship with Marlon. He’d known Marlon too well to believe his marriage to May was going to work out, and she’d known he’d felt that way. And didn’t like him for it.
He pulled out the address Abel had given him, punched it into the sedan’s GPS and got on the road. Time to stop Marlon before he did something he’d really regret.
He waited nearly three hours parked outside May’s boyfriend’s house before a black GMC truck pulled into the driveway, and May got out, circling the car to pull out a bag of groceries. The home was nothing special, a 1950s-era bungalow with a yard devoid of landscaping except a few leggy begonias by the front stoop. Hunter wondered if May would want to spruce the place up. Was she serious about this guy?
He got out of the sedan and strode across the yard to intercept her before she reached the front door.
May yelped and put her hand to her chest when she recognized him. “Hunter? What are you doing here? Did Marlon send you? Is he here, too?”
“No, and he doesn’t know I am, but you should know he’s somewhere close. He found out about your boyfriend and he’s pissed. Where are the kids?”
“With my mom.”
Up close, May looked tired. Her hair, usually her pride and glory, was caught back in a sloppy bun, a large plastic clip holding it askew. Her makeup was minimal, her lipstick chewed off.
So she was suffering, too.
Then she shifted her groceries and put a hand to the small of her back in a way he recognized. His eyes dropped to her belly. She looked like she’d put on weight—
“Oh, God.” Hunter took another good, long look at her. “You’re pregnant.”
“That I am,” May said tiredly. “And no, it’s not Marlon’s.”
“You’re going to kill him.”
He thought she’d protest, but for once May seemed stripped of her usual snappy answers. “I know. I honestly didn’t mean for it to happen like this, Hunter.”
Hunter didn’t know what to do. “You realize he went off the deep end when you filed for divorce. You realize—” He cut off. He couldn’t spill Marlon’s secrets. “He loves you.”
“Does he? Really?” May challenged him. “Because I don’t think so. I think when this is all over he’ll be just as relieved as I am. We were never right for each other; everyone knew it. You said so from the start. We rushed into a marriage and it didn’t work. We’re not the first and we won’t be the last.”
“But you’ve got kids.”
“Yeah, we do. And it’s been rough on of all of us, but Marlon’s not making it better.”
“Couldn’t you have waited until he was out of the military to do all this? It’s just another month and a half. He wouldn’t be facing a court martial for deserting his team if you had.”
She looked down at her belly pointedly. “No. I can’t wait for another month and a half. My life has moved on. He needs to realize that. So do you. I brought up divorce months ago. He could have worked with me and made this a done deal. He’s the one dragging it out. I want to marry Arthur. Before I have this baby.” She shifted the bag of groceries again and frowned. “Did you say court martial?”
“As far as I can make out, he’s on his way here.”
May’s shoulders slumped. “So he’s AWOL again? He’s making it worse for everyone.”
“Then help me find him. Help me get him back to his team. Because I don’t know where he is.” Hunter held his breath. Would May know where to look? It would make all of this so much easier.
“The Douglas Point Motel,” she said immediately. “I’ll bet anything he’s there. We used to slip away…”
Hunter turned on his heel and walked back to the sedan.
“My problem is I can’t arrest anyone on the basis of a hunch,” Cab said.
“Alice’s visions are way more than hunches, Sheriff. You know that.” Jo leaned forward in her chair. She and Alice sat in front of Cab’s desk. They’d dropped Megan off at her real estate office with admonitions to keep far away from Ramsey.
Cab shrugged. “Doesn’t change anything. I still can’t arrest anyone. I’ll do my best to keep an eye on things, though. I’ll send a cruiser by your place several times a day, and we’ll keep an eye on Ramsey as best we can.
“You aren’t taking this seriously enough.” Jo sat back in defeat.
“I’m absolutely taking this seriously. Rest assured all my men will be on alert. I want all of you to be on alert, too. You tell Brian and Hunter everything you’ve told me. They’ll set up a watch on the ranch, too. When’s Conner getting home?”
“Not for another few days.”
“He shouldn’t have gone for so long.”
“India’s a long way off,” Alice pointed out. “It’s his honeymoon; he deserves a break, and so does Sadie. I just wish Hunter was here.”
Jo nudged her. Alice looked down. “I mean—”
Cab frowned. “Where’d he get to?”
“Alabama. Family business,” Jo rushed to say. No sense hiding his location now that Alice had spilled the beans.
Cab swore. “Does the General know that?”
“No. And you’re not going to tell him.”
“As far as I know, Hunter’s still in the Navy,” Cab said. “Which means he’s AWOL right now. He’s supposed to be guarding you.”
It was Jo’s turn to frown. “He’s not supposed to be guarding me; he’s supposed to build me a house.”
Cab turned to Alice. “What about those hunches of yours? Will you get one when the trouble starts?”
“It doesn’t work that way. I can’t predict my predictions.” Alice sighed and stood up. “But thank you for doing what you can, Sheriff.”
&nbs
p; “This isn’t a large department,” Cab said apologetically as he ushered them to the door. “We’re thin on the ground, and we have to patrol the highway as well as all of Chance Creek County. I’ll do whatever I can, you can count on that. But all of you down at Two Willows need to do your part. Stay vigilant. And tell Hunter to get his ass back where he belongs.”
Jo didn’t know whether to feel better or worse after they’d left the building. “You shouldn’t have said anything about Hunter.”
“It slipped out. It didn’t occur to me he was still in the Navy. That he’s gone AWOL.” Alice was quiet a minute. “Do you think… are we… a mission?” Her pretty face was twisted in concentration.
“What do you mean?” But Jo thought she knew exactly what Alice meant, and it didn’t make her feel a bit better.
“Brian, Connor, Hunter… is the General ordering men to marry us?”
The Douglas Point Motel was about as inspiring as he’d predicted, Hunter thought sourly as he pulled in and parked in an empty spot. In fairness, there wasn’t anything wrong with it. The paint looked new. The planters were planted with cheerful annuals. It was cared for.
It also housed a man whose life he was about to turn on end.
Hunter was tired, and more to the point, he was discouraged. Seeing May had made it clear there was no hope for his friend’s marriage. He thought he’d already understood that, but some part of him must have been holding out for a happy ending, after all. If Marlon had been desperate when May had served him divorce papers, he’d be distraught when he learned she was pregnant with another man’s child.
He didn’t know how long it would take to get Marlon back on his feet, and he needed to return to Montana before Jo lost faith in him. He knew she felt he’d abandoned her—just when she needed him. Time was passing; winter was on its way. They didn’t have any days to spare where building the house was concerned.
Telling Marlon about May wasn’t going to get any easier, though. Might as well get it over with. He stopped in the main office, where a teenage clerk gave out Marlon’s room number without needing to be asked twice. Marlon popped his head out of room nine before Hunter even reached it.
“Get over here, Hunter.”
Hunter bit back a chuckle. Of course the SEAL had been keeping an eye out for trouble.
“Nice to see you, too, Marlon.”
“Did Mom send you?” He tugged Hunter into the room and shut the door. They faced each other over a worn green carpet. Hunter swept his gaze around the place. Tidy but tired, just as he’d expected.
“Abel did. And so did May.”
The bravado went out of Marlon just like that. He sat down on the orange-and-brown coverlet of the bed. “May sent you?”
“I paid her a visit. Had a little talk with her.”
“So people helped you but not me. I had to pay an investigator to find her, and he turned out to be a crook. He still hasn’t given me the address of that guy she’s with.”
“People were afraid to help you,” Hunter said bluntly. “You’re supposed to be one of the good guys, remember?”
Marlon opened his mouth to retort, then waved their talk away. “I can see you’ve got news. Spill it.”
Hunter took in the case of beer on the table and the empty cans piled around the trash can. He wished he could think of a way to sugar-coat what he had to say, but there was nothing for it but to tell him the unvarnished truth. “May’s pregnant. It’s not yours.” Pull the Band-Aid off quickly. Wasn’t that the usual advice?
Marlon surged to his feet. Covered his face with his hands, then threw them down. His fingers balled into fists. “Hunter—”
“Easy there. I know you want to hit something. Don’t hit me.”
Marlon paced, first one way, then the other. He kept pulling back to throw a punch—at the wall—at something—
But he held himself back. Hunter was gratified to see his friend could exercise self-control. Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as he thought.
“What did she say to you?” Marlon finally asked, anguish tightening his voice.
“She didn’t mean for it to happen this way. She loves the baby’s father. She wants to marry him.”
Marlon rocked on his feet, taking each sentence like a blow. He sat down abruptly on the bed again. “Then she’s really gone. May’s gone.”
“I know, buddy.” Hunter kept his place. Waited.
When his friend dropped his head into his hands and began to sob, Hunter crossed the room, sat beside him and braced himself for a long night.
“He’s coming back,” Jo said several days later to Cass, replying to Hunter’s text with alacrity. Relief made her giddy and she realized she’d half expected him to disappear from her life. She shouldn’t have been so worried—he’d been texting her daily. Giving her updates. Now that she knew he had plane tickets, she could relax.
“Of course he’s coming back,” Cass said. “Did you think he wouldn’t?” She stopped halfway to the cupboard, in the middle of preparing a chicken dinner. “Jo, did you think he’d left for good?”
Jo shrugged, not wanting her to know it had kept her awake every night since he’d gone. Paired with her anxiety about Alice’s vision, she’d struggled to rest for more than an hour at a time. Brian had tried to mount a one-man guard duty after calling Hunter and chewing him out. Lena had insisted on helping, and Jo had taken her turn, too. That meant broken nights of sleep had piled up until she was hardly sure if she was coming or going.
“Anyone could see that man’s head over heels for you,” Cass assured her. “When will he get in?”
“Tonight. Late. He said he’ll take a cab home.”
“Better take a nap so you’re ready for him.”
Jo didn’t think she’d sleep a wink tonight either. She was far too excited, which was almost as unnerving as anything else that had happened recently. Since when did she care so much?
She nearly rolled her eyes. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t care for Hunter anymore. She did. Even if the General had sent him to marry her. Even if she should refuse to even speak with him on principle, let alone make love to him. Life was weird. There was no getting around that.
She decided to go with it.
The rest of the day she did her chores with only half her mind on them, until that evening Lena thumped her on the arm and told her to go back to the house since she was useless in the barn.
Jo went willingly, wanting to shower and spruce up before Hunter got home, and Cass was right; maybe she should shut her eyes for a minute so she could be awake for their reunion. When she was ready, she grabbed the book of Hunter’s mother’s poetry she’d ordered off the internet and curled up on the living room couch under a throw blanket. She’d found the poems slow going so far, packed with dense imagery of nature juxtaposed against human angst. The word ‘choices’ popped up a lot.
“I’m heading up to bed,” Cass told her. “Brian’s keeping watch outside.”
“Hunter and I will take the second shift,” Jo said. It wouldn’t be any hardship to stay awake through the early morning hours with as much to catch up on as they’d have.
After reading a poem or two, she’d only closed her eyes—or so it seemed to her—when she woke up, hearing a thump on the back porch and Brian shouting.
“Someone’s stealing the house!”
Jo thrashed around until she got free of the blanket, staggered to her feet and lost precious time getting her bearings as Max, who’d appeared from nowhere, ran in circles and barked. The clock on the old VCR under their ridiculously outdated television set told her it was 1:30 in the morning.
Where was Hunter? He was supposed to be home.
Jo spotted her phone on the couch beside her, grabbed it up and raced toward the back porch, Max following. Somewhere outside a truck’s engine roared past. A door slammed. Another truck started up and roared after it.
There were two texts from Hunter.
Plane delayed. Leaving at 11 instead of 9.
Plane delayed again. Not sure when I’ll get there. Go to bed—see you in the morning.
She shoved the phone in her pocket and yanked open the back door, careful to shut Max in the house as she went outside. Brian was nowhere to be seen, but the porch told a story. The wicker seat he must have been sitting in—and possibly sleeping in—lay overturned. His truck was gone from the parking area. Jo clattered down the steps in her bare feet and paced a few yards out to try to see what might have happened.
Someone’s stealing the house. Brian’s nonsensical shout replayed through her mind. She’d been in the house. How could anyone steal—?
The tiny house.
Jo raced toward it but she already knew what she’d find. Brian was right; it was gone. Who would steal her house when it wasn’t even done?
Instantly, an image of Ramsey filled her mind.
It had to be him. And he had to be connected to the group in Tennessee who seemed determined to punish them for blowing up their drugs.
Jo paced, not knowing what to do, before grabbing her phone again to call Cab.
But as she turned, something caught her eye. A flash of orange in the distance.
Flames.
“Fire!” Jo screamed. “Lena, Cass, Alice! Fire!”
She sprinted down the dirt track that led to the outbuildings, the hard earth cold under her bare feet, but even before she reached them she heard the sound she’d dreaded all the way.
Horses whinnying. Screaming with fear and the need to escape.
She remembered Alice at the restaurant. Horses. Fire.
Jo reached the stables in record time, but already flames shot skyward, the building half-engulfed.
Jo heard the frantic whinnying of the horses, heard their hoof beats pounding on the wooden walls of their stalls. She didn’t think twice before she dashed into the building as a horse raced out and nearly ran her over.
That was Button, she realized as she leaped out of the way. He must have knocked down his stall door. That left four more, including Bright Star. She made another attempt and got into the stables this time, smoke instantly swirling around her in a thick soup that was impossible to see through and even harder to breathe in.