Should Have Been Her Child

“Everybody but you knows Tucker Ketchum was a shady character—”

“You don’t—”

“That’s one of the reasons why this ranch is so big and profitable. And I’m afraid it’s a likely reason a body was discovered facedown in an arroyo on the T Bar K.”

She pushed at the heavy wave of nearly black hair dipping over her eye. “You’re despicable! You’re not fit to be this county’s undersheriff.”

“Why? Because I didn’t hang around and let the old man corrupt me, too?”

Raw fury brought her hand up and swinging at his face. He caught her wrist easily and jerked her up against him.

“This whole thing is making you happy, isn’t it?” She flung the question at him. “You’ve just been waiting for some reason to spite my family. And now you have it in the form of a dead body!”

His arm slipped around her back to still her squirms. “Nothing about this is making me happy, Victoria.” His eyes suddenly focused on her lips and then his head bent. “Especially not this.”

A kiss was the last thing she’d expected from the man and for a moment she was frozen with shock at the feel of his hard lips spreading over hers. Then her hands lifted to his broad shoulders and pushed. The feeble gesture of disapproval caused his lips to ease a fraction away from hers. But his hold on her back tightened, making her breasts flatten against him, her hips arch into his.

“Jess—”

If she had whispered his name in protest, he would have released her. But there had only been hunger in the sound of her voice and his desire fed on it like flames to the wind.

Time ceased to exist as his lips searched the sweetness of her mouth, his hands roamed the warmth of her back, then tangled in the thick waves of her hair.

Long before he lifted his head, she was clutching folds of his shirt, struggling to keep her knees from buckling. Her breathing was ragged, her heart racing like a wild horse on a lightning-struck mesa. No one but Jess could make her feel so helpless, so alive. So much a woman.

Dear Lord, nothing had changed, she thought desperately. Four long, lonely years had done nothing to erase this man from her heart.

“Is this how you question your female suspects nowadays?” she finally managed to ask.

Slowly, he moved his arm from around her back and she quickly put several inches between the two of them.

“That wasn’t a question, Tori. That was a statement.”

She swallowed as she pressed the back of her hand against her burning lips. “The statement being?”

He smiled, but once again there was no warmth or sincerity behind the expression.

“That I’m in charge of things now. And the fact that you’re a Ketchum means nothing where the law is concerned.”

Pain splintered in the middle of her chest, but she somehow met his gaze in spite of it.

“Is that how you kissed me? As a lawman? Or the Jess I used to know?”

For long moments his gray eyes simply roamed her flushed face. Then his lips parted, but before he could reply, a knock interrupted him.

Glancing over her shoulder, Victoria saw a young Native American man dressed similarly to Jess standing in the open doorway of the study. Victoria noticed that his dark, curious glance missed nothing as he took in the sight of her and Jess standing close together on the hearth.

“Sorry to interrupt, Jess. I thought you’d want to know the head wrangler has arrived back on the ranch. He’s waiting in the bunkhouse.”

The head wrangler for the T Bar K was Linc Ketchum, Victoria’s cousin. Like the rest of her family, she seriously doubted he would have any answers for the lawmen.

“I’ll be right there, Redwing,” Jess told him.

Nodding, the deputy slipped from view. Beside her, Jess made a move to leave the room. Before he could walk away, she reached out and caught his arm.

One brow arched with mocking inquisition as he paused and glanced down at her.

“Jess, what does this all mean?”

The quiet desperation in her voice was a spur in his ribs, both painful and irritating. “We’ll just have to see, now won’t we, Tori?”

Chilled by his sarcasm, she dropped her hand from his arm. “You’re not the same man I used to know, Jess.”

His lips thinned, his nostrils flared as the track of his gray eyes burned her face. “No. I’ll never be that man again.”

Chapter Two

The night air had grown chilly and mosquitoes were making a feast of her bared forearms, but Victoria was loath to move from her spot on the patio to return inside the house.

Jess and his deputy had left the ranch more than two hours ago, yet the place was still buzzing—she was still buzzing. And she didn’t like it.

She hadn’t thought that seeing Jess again would have left her this shaken. And she tried to tell herself it was the circumstances of his appearance that were the real reason she was so disturbed. After all, it wasn’t every day a body was discovered on her family’s land, without any sort of explanation as to why or how it had gotten there.

“Victoria? I wondered where you’d gotten to.”

From her chair, she glanced over her shoulder at her brother Ross, then back out to the dark, pine-covered mountain rising like a sentinel over the T Bar K ranch house.

“For the past hour I’ve been trying to muster up enough energy to leave this chair,” she told him.

His hand came down on her shoulder and gently squeezed. “You hardly ate any supper. Are you feeling all right?”

She tried to laugh, but the sound held little cheer. “Remember, I’m the doctor, Ross. I’m supposed to ask that question.”

He eased his long frame down in the woven lawn chair sitting at an angle to hers. “That’s the trouble with you, Victoria. You’re always taking care of others rather than yourself.”

At thirty-five, and five years older than Victoria, Ross was the younger Ketchum son. Since their brother Hugh had been killed in an accident with a bull six years ago, Ross had taken total reins of managing the T Bar K. Along with being business savvy, Ross was as handsome as sin and some said as tough as their late father, Tucker. But to Victoria he was always gentle, her rock when no one else was there for her.

Casting him a wan smile, she said, “I’m all right, Ross. It’s just been a…long day.”

He sighed. “A hell of a long day,” he agreed.

“Were you able to contact Seth?”

“No. He’s out. On a case, more than likely.”

Their older brother Seth had moved away from the ranch many years ago to become a Texas Ranger. If a problem did arise over the discovered body, Seth would know how to handle it. Victoria could only hope their older brother wouldn’t have to be bothered.

“It’s just as well. There’s really not a problem. And I don’t foresee one.”

“How do you figure?” Ross asked.

She rubbed the mosquito bites on the back of her arm. “Obviously this man wandered onto Ketchum land and died of natural causes or suffered a fall for one reason or another. There’s nothing sinister about that.”

Ross thoughtfully stroked his chin. “I’m surprised you used that word. Jess didn’t imply there was anything sinister going on.”

Her mind whirled as she regarded her brother’s rugged face. “That’s not the impression he gave me.”

Ross’s brows lifted. “Maybe you misread the man.”

“The only time I misread Jess Hastings was four years ago. When he left San Juan County.”

But tonight Victoria had read him loud and clear. Especially his kiss. He was out to hurt her, any way he could. And the idea left a terrible ache in her heart.

“Hell, Victoria,” her brother gently scolded, “I thought you’d gotten Jess Hastings out of your system a long time ago.”

She rose to her feet with plans to go back inside. “I have. I just haven’t forgotten the hard lesson he taught me.”

He studied her for long moments. “I hope you had the good sense not to anger the man, Victoria. He’s in a position to help us or hurt us. I wouldn’t want it to be the latter.”

It didn’t dawn on Ross that Jess had already hurt her more than anything or anyone ever could. But then Ross didn’t know the whole story behind her and Jess. No one did. And as far as she was concerned, no one ever would.

“If Jess decides to pursue this thing in a negative way, there’s nothing I can do to stop him,” she said, then hurried inside the house before her brother could say more.

The baby-fine curls surrounded the child’s head like a red-gold halo. Long curling lashes of the same color lay against cheeks flushed from the warmth of the nearby fireplace.

Jess’s daughter had been asleep in his arms for some time now, but still he lingered in the rocker, savoring the feel of her warm weight resting against his chest. She was the only thing he’d done right in his life. The only thing he really lived for. Her and his grandparents.

“Is Katrina asleep? I’ve got your supper heated in the microwave.”

Jess looked up from his daughter’s face to see Alice, his grandmother, standing a few steps away in the dimly lit living room. She was a tall, rawboned woman, her skin brown and wrinkled by hard work and nearly seventy years of harsh, New Mexico climate. Her hands were big and tough, her hair gray and wiry. But her heart was as gentle as a Chinook wind that melted the winter snows.

When Jess’s father had died at an early age from pneumonia complicated by alcoholism, he’d left behind a five-year-old son and a wife who’d never really wanted a husband and child in the first place. As soon as Jim Hastings had been planted in the ground, his wife had left for greener pastures.

Thankfully, Alice and William had been there to take in their grandson and raise him as their own child. Ma and Pa, as Jess called them, were the only real parents he’d ever known. And now they were helping him raise his own daughter. But they were getting too old to see after a rambunctious two-and-a-half-year-old toddler, even if Jess did take her into a day care near Cedar Hill for most of the day.

“Yeah, she’s asleep. I’ve just been holding her. Thinking how much she’s grown since the two of us came home to the ranch.”

Alice smiled with affection as she took in the sight of her grandson and great-granddaughter. “She’s really starting to string her words together now. But Pa had to scold her for saying a curse word today.”

Jess chuckled. “Now I wonder where she might have heard such a thing?” he asked as he carefully rose from the rocker with the toddler still cradled in his arms.

“Pa said it was from me,” Alice said. “But we both know I’ve never said a bad word in my life.”

“Only if you were by yourself or with someone else,” Jess joked.

Alice’s laughter followed him as he carried his daughter down a narrow hallway and into a small bedroom situated next to his.

After placing her in a white, wooden crib, he made certain she was covered against the night chill, then headed back through the old house to the kitchen.

Even though the hour was late and Will had gone to bed two hours earlier, his grandmother was there waiting for him.

“You didn’t have to wait for me, Ma. I can fend for myself,” he assured her. But already she’d placed his plate of food on the table, along with silverware and a tall glass of iced tea.

Waving away his words, she sank down in the chair next to him and pushed a hand through her gray hair.

“I’ll go to bed in a minute. I wanted to ask you what happened today out at the T Bar K.”

Shaking black pepper over the food, Jess paused to look at her. “News sure does travel fast for us to be living fifteen miles from town. It’s not like you to be gossiping on the telephone.”

“Who has time for the damn telephone? I went into Aztec for a few things at the grocery. Ed mentioned it when I checked out.”

Jess shoveled a bite of black beans into his mouth. “What makes you think I know anything about it?”

She made a face at him. “You’re the undersheriff,” she said proudly. “If anything of importance happens around here, you’re gonna know it.”

With a wry shake of his head, Jess said, “A body was discovered on T Bar K range.”

“I’ve heard that much.”

He chewed a forkful of rice spiced with chili peppers. “There’s not much more to tell. We’ll have to wait and see what the coroner uncovers.”

Alice sighed. “I guess…what I was really wondering was…if you saw Victoria while you were at the ranch.”

He glanced up to see his grandmother regarding him with quiet concern. Since he’d returned from Texas, she’d not brought up the subject of Victoria. Not that there was anything to bring up. That part of his life had been over for years now. He’d already married and lost a wife since Victoria had turned her back on him.

“Why would you want to know that?” he hedged.

Impatient now, she asked, “Well, did you?”

His gaze slipped back to his plate. “Yeah. I questioned her.”

Surprise crossed her wrinkled face. “Questioned her? Why?”

“Ma,” he said tiredly, “it’s my job.”

Moments passed as Jess continued to eat.

Finally, Alice asked, “So was she…glad to see you?”

Jess gripped his fork as he thought about the impulsive kiss he’d exchanged with Victoria. For a few seconds her lips had said she was glad to have him close again. But her words had conveyed something altogether different. And Jess wasn’t ever going to repeat the mistake of allowing her body to rule his thinking.

“No person is ever glad to see a lawman, Ma. Unless they’re in trouble and need help.”

Rising from her chair, Alice crossed to a large gas range and turned the flame under a red granite coffeepot.

“Did you ever stop to think Victoria fits that bill?”

He snorted. “Victoria is a Ketchum. They have money and power. And now that she’s a practicing physician, she has even more money to buy herself out of anything.”

Alice shot him a disgusted look as she pulled a mug down from a pine cupboard. “I’m not talking about trouble with the law, Jess.”

His fork paused in midair as he glanced at his grandmother. “What are you talking about, Ma?”

She poured the coffee, then placed it next to his right hand. “I think you need to figure that out for yourself.”

Jess realized there wasn’t any point asking her what she meant by that comment. She was already on her way out of the kitchen. And even if she hadn’t been headed to bed, she wouldn’t have explained. She’d always liked to let him stew in his own juices.

Well, it won’t work this time, Ma, Jess said to himself. Victoria Ketchum was a bad memory from his past. And if she was in any sort of trouble, she’d have to look elsewhere for help. He wasn’t about to become involved with the woman again. And from her reaction to him earlier this evening, she wasn’t about to let him.

He finished his meal and the last of his coffee. After rinsing the dishes, he walked down to the barn. On the south side of the building two horses milled about in separate lots. Normally at this time of year the horses were loose and running the range, feasting on new spring grasses. Pa had kept the horses penned for more than a week now, waiting for Jess to find time to help him with roundup.

At seventy-one, Will was still spry and healthy and a better cowhand than most men thirty years younger. Jess didn’t want to think about the time his grandfather would no longer be able to pitch hay, build fences or brand cattle. As for riding a horse, the old man would be happy to die in the saddle.

Jess checked the watering troughs and feed buckets hanging on the rail fence even though he knew Will had already seen to the horses’ needs. He was simply making the rounds, satisfying the lawman inside of him that all was well.

In the morning, he would tell Pa to give him two or three more days and then he’d help him hit the brush. Since there was only the two of them, it would take at least three days of hard riding to scour the mountains and arroyos around the ranch for stray Hastings cattle.

They didn’t have a bunkhouse full of cowboys to do the work for them. But even if he had those resources, Will wouldn’t want it that way. Like Jess, the old man was a proud loner. He didn’t want anyone doing his job for him. Yet he welcomed Jess’s companionship and helping hand, because Jess was family. And someday all of this would be his grandson’s.

For the past four years Jess’s help in keeping the Hastings ranch going had been in the form of money. A part of the salary he’d earned with the border patrol. And if Katrina’s mother hadn’t been killed in a car accident, he supposed he would have still been in El Paso.

Sighing wearily, he lifted the felt hat from his head and scraped his fingers through thick waves flattened against his skull.

It must be true that all things happened for a reason, he thought, as he walked slowly back toward the small, stucco house. Regina hadn’t been the love of his life. He’d married her believing she would fill the empty hole in him after Victoria had rejected him. But she hadn’t. And he supposed he couldn’t blame her for divorcing him. He hadn’t been able to give her his heart or the richer lifestyle she’d so dreamed about.

Her untimely death had left his little girl without a mother. Yet it had brought him back to New Mexico, to his grandparents and a job that was better suited to him.

Yes, he thought, all things happened for a reason. Some good. Some bad. Now he could only wonder what this trouble at the T Bar K was going to mean. For him. And the Ketchums.

Victoria had reached the end of her rope. Rather than discussing their health problems, three-quarters of her patients preferred to hear the scoop about the body found on the T Bar K. Who was it? What had happened? What was the law doing about it? Was the sheriff’s department calling it a murder?

She couldn’t get any work done, much less find a moment of peace to clear her mind. By six o’clock on the fourth evening after Jess’s visit to the ranch, she was ready to scream.

Her jagged nerves must have shown on her face when Nevada rapped lightly on the open door of her office.

“Knock, knock. Is it safe to come in?”

Victoria frowned at the young nurse. “Since when have you ever worried about entering my office?”

“About two minutes ago. You looked as though you could wring someone’s neck.”

Victoria signed her name to the bottom of the document she’d been reading, then slapped the paper atop a pile she’d been meaning to clear from her desk for two days. “It’s been a difficult day,” she tried to explain.

Nevada eased her hip onto the corner of the desk. “You look exhausted.”

Victoria chuckled. “I’m not twenty-two like you, Nevada. I’m thirty. By six in the evening I look wilted.”

Nevada shook a finger at her. “That’s not your age. That’s from working too hard.”

“I’m not the only one who works hard around here.” She gave the nurse a grateful smile. “Has Lois already gone home?”

Nevada nodded. “The receptionist is gone, the front door is locked and the lights are out. You should be leaving, too.”

Victoria rose from the leather chair and began to gather several medical reports she planned to read tonight.

Nevada kept her seat, seemingly not in any hurry to leave Victoria. It wasn’t like the young woman, Victoria decided. Normally, she was always in a rush to get home or run some sort of errand, not to mention call one of her countless boyfriends.

“Uh—did you find something bad on Mrs. Barton’s test results?”

Victoria gave her friend and co-worker a reassuring smile. “No. Mrs. Barton is going to be fine. The tests show her heart is strong and healthy. She strained a muscle in her chest while playing baseball with her ten-year-old son. The pain was mimicking angina, that’s all.”

“Oh, that’s good news. I thought—well, you’ve looked a little down these past few days. I was afraid it might have something to do with one of the patients. You treat them all as if they were your family.”

With Victoria’s mother passing, her brother being killed and then her father dying, the past years had seen her once-large family dwindle down to only two brothers. To make up for the void, she supposed she had turned more and more to her patients.

“You worry too much about me, Nevada.”

The younger woman shot Victoria an affectionate grin. “You’re my boss. And friend. I’d rather see you smiling.”

Victoria made a motion that the two of them should leave the small office. After turning off the light, the women walked slowly down a narrow hallway which would lead them to a back exit of the brick building that served as Victoria’s private clinic.

As they walked, Victoria replied, “It’s hard for me to smile when all I hear is questions and speculations about a body being found on the ranch. I’m really getting weary of people asking me about it.”

Shrugging, Nevada reasoned, “It’s big news, Victoria. The whole thing has aroused curiosity in the community. That’s only natural.”

“I understand that much. But it’s impossible to discuss medications, treatments or health problems when my patients want to gossip.”

Nevada had to laugh. “I know what you mean. I can hardly take a blood pressure without people bombarding me with questions. Maybe the authorities will come up with some new information that will quieten down all this talk.”

Victoria nodded hopefully. “What’s needed is a concrete explanation. One that will satisfy all this curiosity and all the townsfolk will turn their attention elsewhere.”

Reaching the back door, the two women paused.

“You’re right about needing an explanation,” Nevada agreed. “But how long do you think it’s going to take the law to figure things out? Sometimes these unknown identity cases take months, even years, before they’re solved.”

Victoria groaned at the thought. Several months of this and she’d pull out her hair. “I can’t stand another week of this uproar, much less months. I’ve got to do something about it.”

Interest peaked Nevada’s dark brows. “Like what?” she asked eagerly.

“Once I leave here, I’m going over to the sheriff’s department,” Victoria stated firmly. “I want answers. Or if not answers, at least some reassurance that the law is moving on this case.”

A wicked grin suddenly appeared on Nevada’s pretty face. “Hmmm. You might meet up with some resistance there,” she said.

Victoria knew the younger woman was talking about Jess. Although she hadn’t known the nurse before the undersheriff had left the area and Victoria behind, Nevada had heard about their relationship. At least, what the general public knew about it and the bits that Victoria had volunteered to her. But she’d not told the other woman everything. No one, not even her family members, knew how much she had loved Jess Hastings or the devastation his leaving had caused her. She’d kept most of it hidden. After all, she was a doctor. She couldn’t be needy herself. She had to take care of the needy.

“I didn’t say I was going over there to see Jess,” Victoria pointed out. “There are other officers in the department, including the sheriff.”

Nevada shook her head. “I heard Sheriff Perez is in Santa Fe on some sort of conference. You won’t be talking to him.”

Victoria refused to be deterred. Tomorrow when her patients started in about John Doe’s body, she was going to have some sort of information to put their curiosity to rest. “Then I’ll see Deputy Redwing,” she told Nevada. “He was at the ranch with Jess, so he’s obviously working the case.”

Nevada’s black eyes suddenly glinted with interest at the mention of the young Native American lawman. “I wouldn’t mind talking to him myself,” she purred.

Groaning, Victoria reached for the door. “I know you’re having fun playing the field now. But eventually your heart is going to be broken and when it is, you’ll be wishing you never heard the word ‘man.’”

Nevada chuckled. “Sometimes a girl has to take a chance, Victoria.”