He just needed enough to tide him over this afternoon. It didn’t need to be much. Sure didn’t need to be good.

  He dug into an inside pocket of the bag he rarely messed with. Pulled out matches, army knife, a space blanket in a tiny square. Also some fishing line and … what was this? A blob of something dark, mashed, and slightly shiny.

  He poked at the mystery blob. That provided no answers. He picked it up for a closer look and realized the slightly shiny was plastic wrap. Slowly, he peeled back a corner.

  And then he knew.

  He held what had once been a chocolate brownie. His birthday brownie.

  He peeled back more plastic wrap. The scent of chocolate wafted up, standing out from the scents of sun-heated dust, cattle, and his own sweat.

  He held it close to his nose, his eyes drifting closed as he took in the aroma. And, damned if his olfactory senses didn’t think they’d picked up the cool smoke of a certain dark-haired woman, and even the residual talcum powder and sunblock of a little girl, all mixed in with the chocolate.

  His mouth watered and his stomach growled. That gave him the excuse to ignore the ache in his heart.

  He studied the mashed brownie for signs of mold. None. No scent or sign of anything wrong with it.

  What the hell. He bit into it.

  He focused on the sweetness in his mouth, the calories flowing into his system. His hand tightened around the plastic wrap.

  Val, smiling at him. Holding him.

  Addie, with full faith he could rope a lobster. “Don’t be scared, Jack.”

  Laughter.

  Love.

  “Jack?”

  Dave’s face was there looking at him. It took a moment to realize Dave was driving another Slash-C truck, and had stopped beside him, open driver window to open driver window.

  What bothered Jack was he didn’t remember turning off the truck. Yet here he sat, middle of the ranch road, engine off.

  “You okay, Jack?”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  “Okay,” Dave said, drawing out the two syllables to about ten. “Look, Jack, I don’t want to pry into your life, but … maybe I recognize the symptoms because Matty and I had a rocky time, before we got married and after. And I know what that does to you. So, if you want to take some time off…”

  “No. Thanks, no. But … Dave, there’s something I’ve got to tell you. You and the others. Can we talk tonight?”

  *

  “We’re here,” Val called, as she opened the door into the Inn’s private living quarters.

  “We’re here,” echoed Addie with far more enthusiasm.

  Addie was always happy to go to the Inn. It meant seeing her cousin Sam, as well as El, Cahill, and Cahill’s brother, Kiernan.

  Valerie was less happy about it tonight. She would have preferred staying home. El had insisted she and Cahill were taking her out for dinner, while Kiernan watched the kids.

  “Good timing,” El called. “We’re back in the kitchen.”

  Addie headed toward voices coming from the playroom off the living area. Val went to the slice of private kitchen that connected to the Inn’s commercial kitchen.

  “Cahill’s upstairs changing his shirt,” El said as she came in.

  Cahill’s younger brother, a hottie if ever there was one, gave her a cheeky grin and said in his wonderful Irish accent, “And El’s been instructing me on the proper actions for any contingency from a national emergency to not having enough ice cream to go around, which would surely start a riot.”

  “There’s plenty of ice cream if you give them a reasonable amount instead of — Oh, you.” El swatted her brother-in-law’s shoulder as he completed a gesture of having hooked her and reeled her in. “Go ahead and laugh you two—”

  Though Val wasn’t sure her sound qualified as a laugh.

  “—But I do have one more thing to say. If you turn on the TV, do avoid the news stations. That horrible story’s all over.”

  “What horrible story?” Kiernan asked.

  Instead of answering him, El turned toward her, her eyes glinting with mischief. How could it be so good to see her cousin so happy while she felt so bad for herself? “You know, Kiernan doesn’t have time for such paltry things as news these days. Not since he met her.”

  “Her who?” she asked, playing along, even as Kiernan groaned.

  “That’s exactly what Cahill and I have been asking, but he’s been all mysterious about this one, unlike the dozens and dozens of others.”

  Val knew her role. She propped her hands on her hips, facing Kiernan. “So what’s she like, this woman you’re being so mysterious about?”

  “She’s smart and lovely and intriguing—”

  “Intriguing,” repeated Eleanor. “In other words she doesn’t fall over in a faint at your feet?”

  He pointedly ignored his sister-in-law, instead addressing her cousin. “Just because I’m not running my mouth—”

  Val interrupted. “The way you usually do about your conquests.”

  An arrested look came into his eyes. It was gone before she could examine it as he slipped behind a cloak of overdone dignity.

  “If we leave behind the sordid world of gossip — not to mention the outright abuse of himself—” He spoke the insert in a broad brogue before returning to pompous TV announcer intonations. “—And return to the topic of today’s important news.”

  El sobered instantly. “It is truly horrible. They’ve arrested a man in Pennsylvania. They’ve found all these poor girls buried in his mother’s basement, including his own cousin, who went missing from her college right after her boyfriend’s birthday party years ago.”

  Pennsylvania…. Missing from college … her boyfriend’s birthday party. Val grabbed El by the shoulders. “What’s her name? The cousin who went missing — what’s her name?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember. Why? What’s—?”

  “The killer. What’s his name?”

  “Robbins? Robinson? Or Roberts, I think — no. Robertson.”

  “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

  Val was only peripherally aware of El asking her what was wrong or of heading for the TV in the living area or hearing El ordering Kiernan to keep the kids in the playroom as Val turned on the TV and sat on the edge of the coffee table in front of it, wildly flipping through channels.

  A strong male hand took the remote. “It’s the news you’re wanting then?”

  Cahill McRae found CNN, keeping the volume too low to be heard in the other room.

  She was aware of Cahill and El conferring behind her, but she was too focused on the screen, too intent to bother with what they might be saying.

  When a commercial came on, Cahill took the remote again and muted the set.

  Val was already reaching for her phone. “I have to get there. I have to get there right now.”

  “Val, what is this about?”

  “I have to get to Jack. Please, will you take care of Addie? Will you help me?”

  Cahill gripped her shoulders gently, crouching down so they were face to face. “We’ll move heaven and earth for you Val, but you must be telling us what this is about.”

  “Jack was that girl’s boyfriend when she disappeared — the cousin of the man who had all the bodies buried. The prosecutor wouldn’t try him criminally. Her parents took him to civil court for wrongful death. They lost. Because there was nothing. But for Jack, the questions, the media, the trial, all of it. Coming on top of losing the girl he loved and having her parents accuse him … It nearly killed him. It did ruin him. In so many ways. He can’t — And now … Oh, God. I have to get back there.”

  El hugged her, but Val backed out of the embrace. “I can’t … I can’t cry. There’s too much to do. I need to fly back. A car there. As fast as I can. After the first wave of the story, they’ll remember him. They’ll look for him. They’ll find him.”

  Would he leave? Would he cut ties from the place and people he loved — yes, he did love them, no matter what he said. And he needed them. If he were ever to believe that he could love again, he needed them all desperately.

  He had to stay in Knighton. He had to.

  “Addie will be fine. Don’t worry about her. Flights?” El looked at her husband. He nodded, taking out his phone and heading toward the kitchen. “And we’ll go get you packed now.”

  “Yes. Thank you. Thank you both. But first I have to call…” She had her phone out, hearing it ring as El led her out to her car, gesturing for the keys so she could drive.

  “Slash-C,” said the familiar voice.

  “Oh, thank God. Donna. It’s Val. Jack needs your help.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  She slowed at the sight of three trucks, two news vans, and a rare passenger car pulled over near the main entrance to the Slash-C. It was the first time she’d seen the gate closed. A clot of people were by the gate, but a few had stayed back by the vehicles. They looked at her closely as she went by, but appeared to dismiss her when they saw a woman they didn’t recognize.

  “Give it up. No interviews,” one called to her, apparently taking her for a fellow journalist.

  As she slowly rolled closer, she heard one say to the men behind the gate, “Why are you blocking this road?”

  “Because it’s a private road, and the people who own it want to keep it private,” said Hugh Moski. He appeared to be the leader of the four men she recognized as stool-sitters from the Knighton Café.

  “Ralston has been completely exonerated. You’d think he’d want to celebrate.”

  “We don’t need no reporters saying he’s been exonerated in order to know the man he is. Where were you all when he was getting a rum deal? Not so interested in the real story then, were you?”

  Val suspected at least a couple of the reporters had been in high school at the time, but she wasn’t about to raise that point.

  “We just want to ask him a few questions.”

  “He don’t want to answer your questions, and that’s what matters to us — us and the folks who own this ranch and these roads. Oh, and a couple more folks, too. The sheriff’s department of Clark County. Hey there, Val. Good to see you back. C’mon through.”

  “Why’re you letting her in?” demanded indignant voices.

  “She’s a friend.”

  He winked as she passed through the gate he’d opened for her.

  *

  Jack must have seen her coming. He straightened slowly from the open back of the horse trailer where he’d been stashing things in a saddlebag and faced her.

  She’d worried that being near him again would weaken her resolve, but seeing him packing took care of that.

  “You aren’t leaving,” she said. An order.

  “Val. What are you doing here? I have to—” His gaze did a quick scan around, then came back to her face. “Where’s Addie?”

  “El and Cahill are looking after her,” she said, because she saw real concern. But he wasn’t getting out of this that easily. “You—”

  “Are you okay?”

  His interruption surprised her enough to stop her. “Me?” She started again. “I’m here to help you, Jack.” And tear anyone who tried to hurt him apart with her bare hands. “You are not leaving this ranch, do you understand me, Jack Ralston?”

  He considered her an instant, then tugged down the brim of his hat. “Michael John Ralston. Don’t you listen to the news?”

  “Yeah, you’re back in the news. And, yeah, there are reporters and cameras outside the gates dying to dig into your life and ask you questions. Your worst nightmare. I know. But you are not leaving the Slash-C. Because you do love it, whether you’ll admit it or not. You love the life here. And there are people here who love you, whether you’ll admit that or not. So you’re not going to run, thinking that will make you feel better. Because it won’t.”

  “Like when you ran away from Gloucester to Washington State, then realized it didn’t make you feel better and you wanted to be home to have your baby.”

  “Exactly.” Her flash of triumph evaporated as she tried to absorb that he was agreeing with her.

  “What about your leaving here?” he asked. “You like it here, too. Don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. It’s amazing and the people are — But that’s not the point. I wasn’t running away from here. I was going home. Totally different thing.”

  “Is it? Or could it have been a little bit of something else?”

  “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “You do, Valerie. You do.”

  “I wasn’t running away.” This time she left off the “from here” because they both knew that wasn’t the issue. “I’d pushed you and pushed you and you didn’t—”

  “I was all tangled up with my thoughts. It’s like I told you with the horses, sometimes you’ve got to push so they stop reacting from habit and start thinking.”

  She sucked in air between parted lips. Fighting hope, holding on to sense. “Like you told me, huh?”

  “Yeah. Like I told you. After you spent most of this summer hammering away at me, in ways above and—” He gave her a significant look. “—below the belt.” Then he grinned. “Somebody I know told me to quit choking myself with the rope I’d wrapped around my own neck.”

  She propped her hands on her hips. Partly because they were shaking. Partly because if she didn’t hold onto herself she was either going to drum her fists against his chest or fling her arms around his neck. Neither seemed like a good idea until they had this straight.

  “Just like that? You’re finally going to listen to sense just like that? Oh.” Her hands dropped. “No. It’s not that. I’m so tired and so worried, I’m not thinking straight. It’s not that you’ve decided you deserve a life and love. Of course, not. It’s from the news. From knowing—”

  He moved so fast that even at her best she couldn’t have avoided him clasping her shoulders and drawing her close enough that she had to tilt her head way back to keep looking into his eyes.

  “No. It’s not. You’re wrong. The news — I’d be lying if I didn’t say it wasn’t a relief. It is. It lifts … To know what happened. To know the Robertsons know. To know Hayley can be mourned now. And I can remember her — just her — separate from what followed. But you have to know…”

  His hands tightened on her then eased.

  He started again. “After you called Donna about the news breaking, there was a lot of talking. It was decided this is a good time to start trailing cattle down from the mountains to get ready for roundup. By the time those people at the gate figure out other ways to get to me I’ll be gone up the mountains.”

  “Oh.” For the first time, she took in that Storm and Buster were loaded on the trailer. If he’d been leaving, he might have taken Storm, but not Buster. She should have realized that. But she’d been too tired, too scared, too happy to see him that she hadn’t taken the time for logic. “But if they find out you’re up there alone—”

  “Won’t be alone. Takes a fair number of hands to bring the cattle down. Even if some reporter could find his way to where we are … well, these are all people who wouldn’t approve of my privacy being disturbed. Not to mention our cattle drive being disrupted.”

  He grinned a little, but she didn’t return it.

  That’s when he started worrying.

  “Thank God,” she said. “So Dave and Ed are going with you?”

  “And Matty and Bryan and Cal and half a dozen others. It’ll take a few days. Those folks at the front gate will get bored by then. So when I get back, we’ll talk.”

  She shook her head. “I have to go.”

  “Go where? Oh, you mean the Flying W? The foreman’s house. Okay, but reporters might—”

  “Gloucester.”

  “You’re leaving again?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was strained, with tears and more. “If I don’t, you’ll never know what you want.”

  “I know I want you.”

  “I know you do. That’s not enough. It would have been more than enough for me before. But not now, not with Addie. Now I have to have more. I have to have what you’ve denied yourself for more than a decade — a future. And for me to know we’re going to have that with you, to be sure, you need to come to us.” She looked up at him, the motion making the tears spill down her cheeks. He didn’t realize he’d started to reach for her until her raised hand stopped him. “I need you to come to us.”

  “It’s going to be roundup soon. No way can I leave. Wouldn’t do that to the Curricks, wouldn’t be able to hold my head up.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. It’s more practical if you stay here. Well, go get Addie, bring her back, then stay here. That’ll work.”

  “What works and what’s practical are your problem. I came to be sure you’re okay now that everyone knows what happened to Hayley. You are — or you will be. But that’s separate from—” She waggled her hand back and forth between them. “—us. That doesn’t depend on practical or convenient. Addie and I deserve the grand gesture.”

  “Grand gesture? What kind of grand gesture?”

  “That’s your problem, too.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Jack.” Dave shouted from the driver’s seat of the trailer. “Sorry, Val, but we’ve gotta go now. Hugh called and says they’re talking about coming around from the south on county roads. If we don’t get out ahead of them…”

  “Go,” she said.

  Jack tried, “If you stay until I get back—”

  “No.”

  “Damn it, Val—”

  She stretched up and kissed him on the lips. “Good-bye, Jack. I love you.”

  Again? Again? He would have been ticked at her if her shoulders hadn’t been shaking as she walked away.

  He swore and swung into the trailer.

  *

  It was too dark to see it, but the sound and the smell of the ocean were with him as he rang the doorbell on Great-Aunt Susan’s house on the beach in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

  “Just a minute!” Val called from inside. The sound of her voice swelled his heart until he thought it might burst.

 

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