Danger On The Ranch

“Thanks, girl,” he said. “You got us out of a real mess.”

As he limped to the cabin, he saw Jane watching him through the window, standing back a bit as if she was afraid. Of him? Or the creature she’d been married to?

And what exactly was he supposed to do with her? Everything in him wanted to toss her out into the woods and let her work out her own reconciliation with Wade. She’d made her choices; she should live with them.

But the other part of him, the small part that was still clinging to some sort of goodness and decency, would not allow that. During one of her infrequent moments of sobriety, their mother, Phoebe, would kiss her three children—his older sister, Claire, Mitch and Wade—and tell them, “You all got more than enough goodness in you.” He was not sure now, when everything inside him felt dead and desiccated. He forced his legs to carry him away from his horses. He would let her stay until he figured something out, knowing it would have made his mother smile. Besides, he thought, as he crossed the porch, if Wade really was coming for Jane, she would be the perfect bait.

And he would need every advantage he could get to catch his brother again, one final time.

* * *

Jane stood in the tiny front room of Mitch’s cabin, examining the cramped, moonlit space. The living area consisted of a hand-carved wooden rocking chair next to a standing lamp that did not work when she flipped on the wall switch. A shadowed alcove looked to be a minuscule kitchen across from an open door through which she glimpsed a neatly made bed and an attached bathroom. She was surprised he allowed himself the luxury of running water, this hermit of a man.

But she could understand his craving for solitude. When the threats started coming during the trial—the rocks through the window, animal blood spattered across her front porch—she too had desperately wanted to disappear among the trees, somewhere, anywhere to escape the hatred. It seemed to Jane that she’d lost everyone—her mother, who’d been forced to quit her job as an elementary school aide before her lethal stroke, her sister, who cut off contact for the sake of her own family, and her friends—until there was nothing left for Jane but the tiny God-breathed life growing inside her. She’d promised herself that Ben would live and thrive far away from Wade and his terrible legacy.

“He won’t ever be a part of your life,” she’d whispered over his downy head, soothing him in the one luxury she allowed herself in her run-down rented room, a secondhand glider rocker. Of all the possessions she’d abandoned, she missed that beat-up old rocker the most, patched arm, stained cushion and all.

The twin pangs of despair and panic bit at her, through the numbing chill that stiffened her limbs. It was too late for Jane, but her son would have his chance at a normal life. Lord, please help me save Ben. Please.

Arms wrapped tight around herself, she continued her perusal. There was nothing on the walls, no prints or paintings, no family photos, only blank wood panels. In the corner was a long shelf that ran the length of the wall, about five feet, crowded with something she could not make out in the gloom. She would have moved closer, but her legs were trembling so badly she stayed put until Mitch entered.

He pulled the heavy curtains closed and shut and locked the door and did the same with the rear exit in the kitchen. Then he turned on a lantern and activated a generator, which hummed to life.

“We’ll stick to lantern light, except in the bathroom. Water will be hot in a bit. Go shower. I’ll toss a clean towel in the door.”

The veritable avalanche of words from this taciturn man unsettled her. “But...but you need medical attention.”

“I don’t.”

She’d leave that issue for now. “We have to call the police.”

“No phone.”

She gaped. “You don’t have a landline, either?”

No cell service. No landline. No communication. It had been a long time before she’d realized the place Wade had purchased for their idyllic, romantic homestead had no cell coverage. And she had never so much as suspected he’d chosen it for that very reason until the end. Not idyllic—isolated. Not romantic—remote. She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat.

He jutted his chin at her. “Gonna get the heater started. It will warm quickly.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll, uh, find you something to wear while you shower.”

“Let me bandage your head at least.”

“Don’t want your help.” He said it without looking at her.

I don’t want yours, either, she longed to say. No, she did not want it, but she and Ben needed Mitch Whitehorse desperately.

Wade had gone on the run for a short while after his crimes were brought to light, and it had only been through the sheer grit and determination of his older brother that he’d been arrested and brought back for trial. Now Wade had returned to kill Mitch and make good on his promise that Jane would be his wife forever, his property—his or no one’s. The thought of being owned by Wade Whitehorse made her nauseous. The shivering now controlled her as her deepest fear began to grow roots down into her soul.

What would happen if Wade discovered she’d had his son? She’d been careful, excruciatingly meticulous about keeping Ben away from the public eye, but if Wade found out... Panic made her dizzy, and she clutched the back of the rocking chair.

Mitch loomed closer, dark eyes like pools of ink in the lamplight. He was so tall, features sharp and chiseled, his hair tar black. The glow caught in the rippled skin of his cheek, the scar caused, she knew, when Wade struck his brother full on in the face with a length of metal chain. It was a blow that probably would have ended the life of a weaker man. “Should you...sit down?” he said. The tone was not especially tender as it was neutral. For a man who believed the worst about her, it was the best she could hope for.

“I’m all right. I’ll take that shower.” She could not resist tossing over her shoulder, “Don’t collapse while I’m in there, all right?”

She heard his annoyed grunt and hid a smile. It was going to be the greatest challenge of her life to convince Mitch that she was not the person he thought her to be. Judging from his granitelike stubbornness, it might just be an impossible task.

God had promised that nothing could separate her and Ben from His love, even those terrible crimes of her husband’s. It was the promise she’d clung to when there was nothing but hatred everywhere she looked. God loved them both unequivocally, she knew with every breath she took. He’d entrusted Ben to her to keep her son safe and as far away from Wade as possible.

Mommy’s going to come for you soon, Ben bear, and it’s going to be all right.

If only she could make herself believe it.

FIVE

Mitch held the clothes up to the lantern light. There was no way Jane would be able to wear anything of his. The best he could do was scrounge up his smallest sweatshirt, which would no doubt hang down past her knees. And socks. Those would go up over her shins, so he figured she’d be covered and dry. It was the best he could do.

He found a clean towel. Quick as he could, he cracked the bathroom door and shoved the pile inside, yanking it closed before he changed into dry jeans and a long-sleeved flannel shirt. Every movement cost him a ripple of pain through his back. The side of his head felt like someone was striking it with a steel mallet, but at least he was dry. The space heater purred, and his own shivering had slowed. Using his mother’s dented old kettle, he set the water on to boil. The shower was still running. Easing on a black slicker and a baseball cap, he grabbed his rifle and slipped out into the night.

The best practice would be to climb to the top of the rock ridge, which would give him a view of the hills below, but he was not sure he was steady enough to accomplish it, and the view would be clouded by the falling rain. He settled for doing a long, slow circle and checking for any signs that his brother had somehow persevered through the mud. There were no such indications, and the best tell of all was that Rosie and Bud were quiet and placid. Calmed somewhat, he hobbled back to the cabin.

Jane screamed when he entered.

He held up his palm, the rifle slung over his shoulder. “Just me. Property’s secure.”

She clutched the sweatshirt in a terrified fist, the fabric dwarfing her small frame. It took a few seconds for her voice to start working again. “Sorry. I thought...”

He knew what she’d thought, and he felt a stab of regret that he’d scared her. No regret necessary, he reminded himself sternly. Remember who you’re dealing with here. The kettle finally began to boil, and he plopped bulky tea bags into two squat mugs and added the water. While it steeped, he ran over various plans about what to do with the woman who was wandering his house, swaddled in his clothes, twisting her long hair into a wet coil. When the tea was ready, he still had only a sketchy plan of attack.

Grabbing a bottle from the cupboard, he downed a couple of aspirin, swallowing them dry. He tossed the tea bags and carried the mugs, handing one to her.

She sniffed the steam. “What kind of tea?”

“Yarrow. My dad makes it.”

She smiled. “He was kind, the one time I spoke to him on the phone. Does he live nearby?”

“Lives on a boat. He’s paid as a ranch carpenter, but he’s got a garden plot on the property.”

Jane’s smile vanished. “We have to tell him that Wade’s escaped.”

“I’ll call him as soon as I can.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Get you to the nearest US marshal.”

Her breath hitched. “They won’t be able to protect me.”

“It’s their job.”

“They couldn’t find him. Only you could. And they couldn’t keep him in prison. He escaped from them.”

“It’s the only option.”

She shook her head. “Do you figure Wade will leave you alone then? After you hand me over?”

“No. He’s gonna come for me, and I’ll send him back to prison or one of us will die. That’s how it’s gonna end, but you and the kid are not going to be in the middle of it.”

Her chin went up. “Ben. His name is Ben.”

Ben. Wade’s son. How much of his father did he inherit? Mitch wondered. Don’t go there, Mitch. You share genes with your brother, too. “Where is he?”

She remained stubbornly silent.

He let the quiet spool out for a few minutes, waiting for her to speak. Cop trick. She didn’t. “Wade said you’d been storing things for him.”

“What things?”

“My granddad’s gun, for one.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t.”

“Then how did he get the gun?”

“I have no idea.”

He drank some tea. “Before daybreak, we’ll go to the ranch and call the marshals.”

Her throat worked convulsively, and then she took a deep breath. “Wade will find me, Mitch, no matter what kind of safe house they put me in. He’ll find me, and he’ll take Ben.”

Her last words broke, and it made his gut go tight. He hardened himself against the feeling. Remember what she is, whose she is.

“Should have thought of that before you married the guy, right?” It was cruel, but what she’d let Wade do, turned a blind eye to, made her complicit. Just because her plans had backfired for some reason didn’t mean he was going to let himself be manipulated.

The lamplight picked up the glittering sparks of moisture in her hair as she stared at him, small in her oversize clothes, but the ferocity in her eyes was bigger than life. “Go ahead and think that I’m stupid, gullible and blind. Believe me, I’ve thought all of those things and more. How did I not see Wade for what he was? I’ve wrestled with that every day of my life since the police showed up on my doorstep.”

He shifted, not wanting to hear anything more, but she went on.

“Maybe I had a desperate need to be loved, or maybe it was low self-esteem or just plain insanity, but in the beginning I believed Wade was a good man, and I thought he loved me.” She tipped her chin up to look at him. “Wasn’t there a time when you believed your brother? When he fooled you?”

Fooled you. More times than Mitch could remember in their younger years. Wade was a master manipulator, and he’d bamboozled his own kin, misled their parents for decades, skated away from consequences by deceiving, charming, lying to teachers, cops and, yes, to Mitch also. Finally, he allowed one curt nod.

She sighed, shoulders slumping. “I would give anything to do it over again, to ask questions about where Wade went all those times he told me he was away on business trips. If I’d walked those acres he’d insisted were infested with rattlesnakes, I might have heard those women call for help. Instead I was asleep in my cozy little house, in my make-believe world.” Her voice squeezed off, the barest glimmer of tears pooling, fingers clenched into white fists. “How do you think it feels to know I could have saved those women and didn’t?”

The tears began to trickle down her face, paralyzing him, confusing him. Jane was his enemy just like Wade.

But the anguish she spoke of was one he’d experienced, too.

When he’d left for the police academy, he had intentionally walled his brother out of his life, leaving him loose to destroy, as Mitch knew deep down he would. He’d left it to other jurisdictions, other cops, until the damage was done, until lives had been lost.

How do you think it feels to know I could have saved those women and didn’t? It was the same accusation he’d leveled at himself, too.

He could not order the mess of confusion in his thoughts, so he set down his mug and took the other from her trembling hand, putting them on the crate that served as a coffee table. “Lie down on the bed and get some sleep. I’ll keep watch. We’ll leave at oh four hundred. That’s...”

“Four a.m. I know.” She followed him to the bedroom. He took the old quilt down from the closet and laid it on the bed.

“It’s cold back here. I’ll move the heater in.”

“Thank you,” she said in a very small voice. She stood there for a moment, scanning the tiny room. “I’m sorry for the pain I know I’ve caused you by running here. Wade hurt you, too, probably more than me.” Her chin went up then. “But I’m not sorry I came. I would do anything to save my son. He’s all that matters, and, God willing, I’m going to protect Ben.”

There it was again in her voice, the twined strands of pain and strength, hints of anguish, an echo of a strange kind of certainty she had no right to. If she was telling the truth...

He brushed the thought away. He had no energy left to consider anything but the most pressing matters—keeping them both alive and getting her delivered safely to the US marshals. Then he would be free to go to war with his brother until they’d decided the winner once and for all.

* * *

She approached Mitch cautiously, shortly after midnight. He was sitting in the dark living room, the rocking chair pulled near the window, the rifle lying over his knees, so still she was not sure whether he was awake or asleep. The temperature had dropped, and she clutched the blanket around herself.

“Jane?” he said, making her jump.

“I came to take my turn at watch.”

“No need. Go back to sleep.”

“There is a need. You can’t stay up all night. I’ll watch for a couple of hours. I’ll wake you if I see anything.”

“No, you...”

“What? You think I can’t use my two eyes as well as you use yours? Believe me, I’ve been looking over my shoulder for two years now. I’m pretty good at it.”

He didn’t answer.

She heaved out a breath. “Oh, right. You still think I’m somehow in league with Wade.”

The room was dead quiet, save for the moan of the wind that skimmed the roof.

“Mitch, I risked my life to drag you into that boat. I could much more easily have let him kill you or never shown up here at all. No offense, but this isn’t exactly the Ritz-Carlton.” Her attempt at humor fell flat. He sat there, cradling the rifle like some monolithic statue. A sigh escaped her, and she turned to go.

“One hour,” he said.

“What?”

“I’ll sleep for one hour. Then wake me, if I’m not out here.”

“Okay,” she said. She ran a finger over the rocking chair. “I had an old banged-up glider rocker. Sitting there with Ben, even when he was crying...” She shrugged. “Those were the best moments of my life. I miss that rocker.”

He hesitated a moment, as if he were about to speak, then took the rifle and checked out the window for one last look. She wandered the small space, over to the corner she had not examined earlier. Peering closer, she hardly managed to hold back an exclamation. The long rectangular board housed a train track, which wound through little snowcapped mountains. A miniature train stood ready, as if to start off on a journey, past the cluster of horses and the painstakingly painted trees.

Mitch stopped on his way to the bedroom.

“You like model trains?” she said.

He nodded. “Since I was a kid.”

“Does it run?”

“Of course.” There was a slightly offended tone in his reply. He reached past her and switched on the train. It slowly chugged to life and began its journey around the tracks. He watched it for a few minutes. From the corner of her eye, she caught an expression on his face that she could not decipher... Satisfaction, regret?

The longing for her son sprang to life so suddenly it almost choked her. Mommy, twain? she could hear him say, pointing with his chubby finger when she’d risked taking him to the train station. He had not yet mastered the r sound, but his passion for trains was already well developed, and when she had extra money to spare there was no better way to please him than with the purchase of a new toy train to add to his meager collection. If there was no money, as there usually wasn’t, they would watch the tracks, free entertainment. “Ben loves trains, too,” she managed to say without crying.

They both watched the locomotive chug around until Mitch switched it off. “Wake me if there’s anything and...”

“I know. One hour. Got it.” She waited until he was almost through the door before she added, “And I promise I won’t touch your train.”

Again there was no answer from Mitch as he closed the door. She heard the bed springs groan as he eased his huge frame onto the mattress. As she was about to turn toward the rocking chair, she noticed the name painted in delicate gold letters on the engine... Paige Lynn.

She had only ever seen Mitch Whitehorse in the courtroom, austere and silent in his marshal’s uniform, his glittering stare hard as diamond. Unmarried and childless as far as she knew. So who was Paige Lynn? And who, really, was Mitch Whitehorse, the immovable mountain with a soft spot for toy trains?

Doesn’t matter who he is deep down, she told herself. She had to persuade him to help her, to make an ally out of an enemy.

Gathering the blanket around her, she eased into the rocking chair, listening to the wind, straining to hear any whisper of danger.

SIX

Mitch slept. He dreamed, as he often did, of a black snake rising from the water, fangs dripping. As the fleshy maw gaped toward him, he stood paralyzed, unable even to scream. He jerked to consciousness with a shout, grabbing out at the viper, only to find himself clutching Jane’s wrist.

He let go and bolted from the bed so fast sparks danced in his vision. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“It’s okay. You were muttering to yourself.”

Great. And she heard.

“I have nightmares, too. I saw a counselor when I could, and she said it’s the mind’s way of processing what the heart can’t.”

He didn’t answer, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

“Ben has them, sometimes. Night terrors, they’re called.”

Well, whaddya do about them? he wanted to ask but did not. As if she read his thoughts, she answered anyway.

“My mom used to sing me the ‘Jesus Loves Me’ song. Know it?”

He nodded.

“That’s what I sing to myself and Ben when we have nightmares.

He shook his head with a grunt. “Figures.”

“What?”

“That ‘Jesus loves you’ stuff. How can you believe that after what you’ve experienced?”

“I didn’t for a long time. After Wade, I can’t trust my own heart or head to separate what’s truth from what isn’t. God is the one thing, the only thing, I know is true.” Her voice dropped to the barest whisper. “It’s the only thing that keeps me alive.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. He’d heard it, of course, particularly from Aunt Ginny, Uncle Gus’s wife, and from Pops, too, but did he believe it? No way. Some mythical, fanciful love from an invisible god was far away from the reality of his world—a mother who drank herself into the grave, and a brother who killed a series of women who had probably prayed with their very last breaths to a god who hadn’t saved them.

He pulled on his boots and jacket before he noticed the time on his mother’s old mantel clock. “It’s three thirty,” he snapped.

“Yes. I tried to wake you before, but you were sleeping soundly.”

He grimaced. “You should have tried harder.”

“I’ve heard it’s a bad idea to disturb a hibernating bear.”

Her face was serious, but there was a glint of humor in her eye.

Humor, incredible. It banked his ire. He sighed. “Yeah, well, I guess that’s fair. Best get going soon. We’ll take the horses.”

“How long a ride is it to the ranch?”

“An hour, give or take. The trail winds along the coast. There are...exposed parts.”

The fear flashed anew in her eyes, so he tried to disarm it. “We’ll be okay. Hungry?”

“Yes. I didn’t eat yesterday. You?”

“Yeah, but I’m not much of a cook. Got some cereal. Maybe some bread and canned things.”

“May I try to fix us something?”

That threw him off. No one had cooked a meal just for him since Paige Lynn. The thought lashed through him. Her departure had cut a scar worse than the one on his face. “Uh, you don’t need to do that.”

But she had already taken his silence as assent and gone off to clatter around the kitchen. He used the time to feed and saddle the horses. Jane hadn’t seemed like much of a rider, but Bud was placid and easy, as long as Rosie was there to take the lead. The air was rain washed and cold, which only aggravated his stiff muscles.

When he returned to the cabin, he was greeted by a tantalizing smell, which made his mouth water. He sat at the table, and Jane slid a plate of pancakes toward him and another for herself.

“There was no syrup, so strawberry jelly will have to do. You have a lot. Who made it?”

“I did.”

She laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“I’d never peg you for the jelly-making type.”

He shrugged. “My mom showed me how.” In one of the precious weeks when she wasn’t intoxicated. The moment with her in the kitchen, up to his wrists in berries, was one of his dearest memories, but there was no point in sharing that. “Lots of wild berries up here in the summer. Strawberries and blackberries.”

“Then I guess you do know a little something about food preparation.”

“Only jelly, that’s it. Dunno how to cook anything else.”

She held out her hand to him.

He gaped, unsure.

“Okay if I pray?”

Was it? He didn’t know.

He tried for a joke. “You should pray for a fancier meal, better digs.”

She cocked her head. “I take things moment by moment. Right now I’m safe, my son is safe and I have a delicious pancake to eat with strawberry jelly. That’s a whole lot to give thanks for.”

Hesitantly, he took her small hand. It was cool, and the bones felt delicate, like a bird’s. She said grace, ending with a soft amen.