Sullivan's Promise

by Joan Johnston

  “Based on the angle of Mike’s body when you found it, and knowing the bullet struck him on the right side of his chest, where would the shooter likely have been?” Pete asked.

  Rye drew a line of sight with his arm. “Anywhere along that trajectory.” He’d found Mike in a small clearing within the dense forest, just off the logging road where he’d left his pickup. The shooter couldn’t have been too far off. Otherwise, the bullet would have been deflected by the surrounding trees and shrubs.

  “Let’s hope he didn’t hang around to collect his casings,” Pete said.

  The two men got down on their hands and knees to sift through the snow as cautiously as paleontologists uncovering a rare dinosaur skeleton. Rye thought their effort was an exercise in futility, but finding a casing or something else the shooter might have dropped in his haste to escape was their best chance of holding him accountable. The bullet that had hit the metal plate in Mike’s shoulder was too badly crumpled to be of any use for comparison purposes.

  “Holy shit!” Pete exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “I found something.” Pete reached inside his sheepskin coat, grabbed a pen out of his shirt pocket, and carefully slid it beneath a golden aspen leaf that was covered with snow. He grinned as he pulled the pen back out with a bullet casing balanced on the end of it. He slipped the casing into a plastic bag he’d brought along for that purpose. “It stayed dry enough under that leaf,” he said excitedly, “that we might even be able to get a print off it, if the shooter loaded his own ammo. When we catch the sonofabitch, we can compare this to other casings from his rifle.”

  “Do we keep looking?”

  “There’s at least one more casing here,” Pete said, “since it seems likely that grizzly had two separate wounds.”

  They kept at it for another half hour as the blowing snow blanketed the trees and the temperature fell another thirty degrees.

  “No chance of following that grizzly’s trail today,” Pete said as he stood and dusted off his trousers and then his gloved hands. “Likely this snow will send the bear back into its den for another couple of weeks. We’ll post grizzly warnings at the trailheads in the park and get back out here as soon as the snow melts to look for both the bear and the shooter.” He met Rye’s gaze and said, “With our luck, we’ll get all the snow that didn’t fall this past winter over the next two days.”

  “Let’s hope not.” Rye was tired and irritable. He hadn’t slept well last night, and it was hard not to be discouraged by the one measly bullet casing they’d found. The snow had also covered the tracks of the poacher. Rye wondered whether the guy had walked in or come on horseback. He hadn’t seen any sign of another person’s presence when he’d found Mike, but then, he hadn’t been looking. The poacher hadn’t driven, because there had been no other vehicle or muddy vehicle tracks on the logging road, other than his own and those from Mike’s truck.

  “So what’s the deal with you and Vick?” Pete asked.

  Rye’s heartbeat ratcheted up a notch, but he kept his eyes straight ahead and his voice even. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t play coy with me, Rye. You guys have a kid together, and now she’s living at your place. What gives?”

  Rye felt his neck flush. “She’s helping me out with Cody while my mom’s staying with Mike in Kalispell.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all. End of story.”

  “So it won’t be awkward if I take her out dancing Friday night?”

  “Would you care if it was?”

  Pete shot him a wry grin. “Nope.”

  “There you go. Be my guest.”

  Pete’s eyes looked troubled. “Look, Rye, if I’m butting in on something—”

  “You’re not.”

  “Can I ask another question without you biting my head off?”

  Rye grimaced. “You can ask.” That didn’t mean he was going to bare his soul or anything close to it.

  “I thought at first you’d adopted Cody, until your mom let it be known around church that he was your flesh and blood. No word about who the mother was. Then Vick buys that cabin.” He put up a hand to stop Rye from speaking and said, “I make it my business to know who’s living in these woods.”

  He continued, “Nobody realizes Vick is Cody’s mom until she shows up at Sunday school and she’s playing with him and he calls her ‘Mommy.’ Why all the secrecy? Why not just introduce her to the congregation and tell everybody the truth, instead of making us guess what’s going on?”

  Rye did his best not to heave a long-suffering sigh. He’d known questions would be asked when Lexie moved in at the Rafter S. Whatever story he told Pete would get around—in a good way. He chose his words carefully as he explained, “Lexie’s pregnancy wasn’t planned.”

  Pete raised a curious brow when Rye called Vick by a different name, but he didn’t interrupt.

  Rye debated how much to tell the other man. Pete could have asked Lexie for answers. Which made Rye wonder, why hadn’t he? Maybe he had, and Lexie had told him to go fly a kite.

  Rye decided not to beat around the bush. “What is it, exactly, you want to know?”

  Pete kept his eyes on his feet, which might have been because the footing was uneven. Or might have been because he was leery of prying further into Rye’s personal life. He hesitated, then said, “What’s your relationship with Vick? Exactly?”

  “We don’t have one.”

  “But—”

  “We’re parents of a little boy. Lexie has visitation one weekend a month.”

  Pete whistled. “That sounds a little on the stingy side.”

  “She’s lucky to have that!” Rye snapped.

  Pete eyed him sideways, and Rye swore under his breath. “Look. It’s complicated. I don’t love her. Never did. We were strangers who hooked up. Get the picture?”

  “You’re not strangers anymore,” Pete said. “She’s been coming and going about as long as you’ve had Cody, and last year she moved here for good.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “You’re still just…acquaintances?”

  “For lack of a better word. Sure.”

  “You never wanted to tap that again?”

  Rye shot him a look through narrowed eyes. “Leave me out of this. Do what you want. I’m not her father, her brother, or her uncle. I’m just a guy who fucked her once.”

  Rye hated himself for explaining his unforgettable night with Lexie in such crude terms. But if he didn’t shut Pete up, he was liable to coldcock him, which would reveal a hell of a lot more about his real feelings for her than he wanted the deputy to know.

  Why not just tell him to keep his hands to himself? Why not stake your claim? Why give him a free hand to move in on a woman you want for yourself?

  Rye spied Mike’s truck and the deputy’s pickup through the evergreen trees and restrained an audible grunt of relief.

  “I’ll keep an eye out and let you know when the snow melts enough to do some tracking,” Rye said.

  “Don’t go hunting without me, Rye.”

  Rye stopped abruptly and met Pete’s gaze. “That sounds like a warning.”

  “I don’t want you going after that shooter on your own, and there’s a team of folks who’ll want to be in on tracking down that wounded grizzly.”

  Rye bit the inside of his cheek to keep from speaking. Mostly, the Wildlife Human Attack Response Team was composed of experienced trackers and woodsmen, but their focus was the bear. He wasn’t going to let some poacher get away with what he’d done to Mike. He wasn’t looking to kill the guy, just to make sure he didn’t get away with what could easily have been murder.

  Might be murder, if Mike doesn’t recover.

  Rye pushed those thoughts away. Mike was going to get better. He had to get better.

 
“See you later,” Rye said as he stepped into Mike’s truck.

  “See you Friday,” Pete replied with a grin. “When I pick up my date.”

  Rye sat and seethed as Pete started up his county vehicle and drove away. He made up his mind in that moment to hire a babysitter on Friday night. Maybe he’d do a little dancing in Whitefish himself.

  RYE CAME IN from the range long after dark, long after dinnertime, dead tired. He used the boot jack at the back door to rid himself of his muddy boots and let them drop on the kitchen floor. The house was dark and quiet, and he supposed Cody and Lexie had long since gone to bed. He found a note on the kitchen table and read it by the light from the back porch that streamed through the window in the door. It said his supper was on a plate in the oven.

  He was too tired to eat. His stomach growled a protest, but he ignored it.

  In the five days since Mike had been attacked, his brother’s condition hadn’t improved. Rye had been doing double duty on the ranch, and he wasn’t sleeping well. It felt like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. He was juggling too many balls, and he wasn’t sure how long he could keep from dropping one of them. Or all of them. He was so exhausted he could hardly keep his eyes open.

  Rye considered tumbling into bed, but he’d pulled a cow out of a bog, and he was filthy. He dropped his Stetson on the antler rack by the back door, left his sheepskin coat on a chair in the kitchen, and padded down the dark hall toward the bathroom in his stocking feet. He ripped at the snaps on his Western shirt, then stripped it off and dropped it behind him, along with his long johns shirt.

  He unbuttoned his Levi’s and paused long enough to shove them down and hopped from one leg to the other yanking them off. He shoved his underwear down and pulled off his socks, leaving them in a heap by the bathroom door. He’d be awake first thing in the morning and pick up everything then. Right now, he just wanted to feel gallons and gallons of hot water streaming over his sore muscles.

  He had no trouble finding his way to the bathroom in the dark. He’d done it all his life. A yellow glow from the night-light he kept on for Cody seeped into the hall. He shoved the bathroom door the rest of the way open and stood gaping at what he found.

  Flickering candles scattered around the bathroom provided enough light to see that Lexie was lying naked in the claw-foot tub. She’d apparently fallen asleep. He saw a container of bubble bath on the floor beside the tub, but whatever bubbles had kept her body concealed from sight had long since popped.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She looked angelic lying there with her blond hair floating on the water, her slender body, with its ripe breasts, the perfect image of a woman. As his body reacted eagerly and ardently to the naked woman in his tub, Rye’s mouth twisted wryly.

  Must not be as dog-tired as I thought.

  The last thing he wanted to do was embarrass Lexie. He would have turned around and left, except he really needed that shower. And from the way her head was canted along the edge of the tub, if she slid down the wrong way, she could drown. What the hell was she thinking, falling asleep like that?

  He had to wake her up, which meant she was going to find out he’d seen everything there was to see. Between his fatigue and his arousal, it was hard to think what to do. He stood there for another moment admiring her, then slid a towel off the rack, wrapped it around his waist, and tucked it in tight to cover his nakedness. He grabbed a second towel to hold outstretched to her, so she could protect what little modesty she had left.

  Now all he had to do was figure out how to wake her up. Should he touch her shoulder? Or call out to her? Better to keep his distance, which meant calling her name.

  He had to clear his throat before he could get any sound to come out. “Lexie.”

  She didn’t move.

  Louder, he said, “Lexie, wake up.”

  She moaned and started turning onto her side. In a moment her nose would be in the water. Rye grabbed her wrist and yanked her up and out of the water, wrapping the towel around her as best he could. Unfortunately, it slid down to her waist, and her naked breasts were plastered against his naked chest.

  When she started to shriek, he covered her mouth with his hand. He wrapped a hand around her waist and did his best not to drop her. “You’re okay. It’s just me. You fell asleep in the tub. I grabbed you because I thought you were going face-first into the water.”

  She froze in his arms and her eyes, wide with dismay, met his.

  He took his hand off her mouth and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. Will you be all right if I let go?”

  “The towel,” she gasped, reaching down to grab the towel to pull it up to cover herself.

  He leaned back so she could reach it, but she caught both the towel he’d intended for her and the towel that was wrapped around his waist, pulling both free. Leaving him standing there, mud-streaked and stinking, in his birthday suit.

  Rye realized the ridiculousness of the situation and chuckled.

  “Don’t you dare laugh at me!”

  “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at us.” He arched a brow. “It’s not as though we haven’t seen all of this before.” He held out a hand toward the towels she had clutched against her body and said, “Can I have one of those?”

  She fumbled with the towels, hanging on to one, which she hugged to her chest, and holding out the other to him. Rye took it and wrapped it around his waist, but it did nothing to hide his aroused body, which tented the terry cloth. He shook his head and said, “Nothing I can do about that. Your body’s beautiful, and my body’s definitely interested in doing something about it.”

  He saw her pupils were dilated, but he wasn’t sure whether it was from desire or fear. “I’m not going to make a move on you,” he said. “I desperately need a shower and some sleep.” He couldn’t resist adding, “I’m just too tired to do that body justice.”

  She wrapped the towel around her so it covered both her front and back, then sidled toward the door. She stopped halfway there and said, “I’m sorry I fell asleep in the tub. I was tired, too. Cody was fussy all day. We went for a horseback ride, but he was too scared to follow any of the trails that led into the forest. He was terrified of getting eaten by a bear.”

  “Good lord. I hope you told him that won’t happen.”

  “Of course I told him! It didn’t do any good. He missed you. He missed Gram. He missed Mike. He didn’t care that I was there.”

  Rye slid a wet curl behind her shoulder as a way of touching her, not sure how to deal with the despair he saw in her eyes. “I’m sorry you had such a hard day.” He shrugged and said, “Sometimes kids fuss. It goes with the territory.”

  “I’m a terrible mother.”

  He pulled her into his embrace, tucking her head beneath his chin in an effort to comfort her. “You’re a wonderful mother.”

  She sniffled and said, “You’re just saying that because you feel sorry for me. Here I am trying to be a full-time mother, and I’m failing at it.”

  He kissed her temple, fighting the urge to find her mouth and put his tongue inside and taste her and maybe see where it would lead.

  It seemed he had a conscience, because it was speaking loudly in his ear: She doesn’t need sex. She needs reassurance.

  He brushed the bangs from her brow and said, “What you’re experiencing is plain old everyday, frustrating, exasperating, maddening parenting.”

  “Is that all?” she said with a choked laugh.

  He kissed the tears from each of her cheeks and said, “That’s all. It’ll get easier. I promise.”

  She sniffed again, wrinkled her nose, and said, “You smell. Like cow, I think.”

  He put his hands to her shoulders to separate their bodies. “Which is why I came in here in the first place. Beat it, so I can shower and get to bed.”

  She
quickly crossed back to the tub and pulled the plug, unaware that when she bent over, he got a good look at two rosy cheeks attached to a pair of luscious legs. She went around snuffing each of the candles and hurried back toward him again.

  “Thanks for waking me up. I would have been a prune by morning.”

  “Or drowned.”

  She smiled and said, “Or drowned. Good night, Sullivan.”

  “Good night. Don’t get discouraged. You’ll get another chance to do it better tomorrow.”

  “Thanks. I needed to hear that.”

  She whisked past him, careful not to touch. He leaned back a half inch himself to make sure their bodies stayed separated.

  But it didn’t do much good. His body ached with wanting her.

  He made the shower icy cold and stood under it until he’d washed away all thought of Lexie Grayhawk.

  EXCEPT FOR WORRY about Mike, whose condition hadn’t improved, and concern about the wounded grizzly, which had disappeared, Vick had just spent one of the happiest weeks of her life. The naked encounter with Rye in the bathroom had been awkward, but his encouragement had helped her get back on the horse, so to speak. She’d picked up the role of mother with even more determination the next morning.

  The vast emptiness inside that had kept her from feeling truly happy whenever she wasn’t with Cody had been filled to overflowing with her son’s laughter and tears, his grouchiness and sulks, his curiosity and creativity. She savored every moment of her time with him and tried not to think about how she would feel when Darcie returned, and she was forced back out of Cody’s life.

  Much of what she was experiencing was new, and tonight Vick found herself in yet another strange situation. In the past, she’d simply gone about her business during the endless weeks she didn’t have custody of her son. So why did she feel so guilty for leaving him with his father for one evening to go on a date with Pete Harrison?

  Vick would have canceled at the last minute, but as she was about to call Pete, a fresh-faced young woman showed up at the kitchen door.

  As Sullivan let her in, she said, “I know I’m a little early.”