Читать книгу Danger On The Ranch - Dana Mentink - Страница 17

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.