Читать книгу Erin's Way - Laura Browning - Страница 7

Erin Richardson handed over some of her precious stash of cash and signed by the X for her rental car. Leaving a paper trail made her nervous, but reaching her destination quickly took precedence. Home sweet home. The black sheep of the family was returning to the fold.

Hating the heavy jacket she’d donned to keep out the last blast of winter cold, she tossed it in the back seat of the little sedan. The car would warm up soon enough. The bulky coat was a further reminder that she’d been forced to leave behind the warmth and her friends for the cold and uncertainty of the Blue Ridge…also known as home. Right. The place where she was headed had rarely felt like home, at least not as she had wanted it to be.

An image of a frowning face with snapping, dark eyes flashed in front of her. Sam. He was older now, but so was she. Not that it would make a difference. He was one more face lined up in judgment of her.

She slid behind the wheel and checked her reflection in the rearview mirror. A little different look than last fall when she’d dropped in on the ’rents so unexpectedly. Erin had kept the extra body jewelry but ditched the Goth-looking makeup and dyed her hair back to its natural color. This time when she returned home she wasn’t aiming to shock as she had been at Tabitha’s art showing. Erin was trying hard to fit the image of the senator’s daughter. That would be a first. But now totally necessary.

After what had happened right before she left the Virgin Islands, it was important to lay low and fit in. Maybe she should get rid of the ring in her eyebrow. No. She’d keep it for now. That was one too many changes for her to cope with at the moment. If she suddenly turned up in plaid and pearls, she’d make her family more suspicious than they would be simply by her turning up at all.

One thing hadn’t changed. Erin carried a bag of some high-grade pot, a few hits of ecstasy, and even a couple of Quaaludes she’d traded for with a guy from South Africa. She laughed humorlessly as she pulled out of Dulles and headed southwest in the rental. There was only so much goodness she could stand, and she certainly wasn’t ready to give up her escapes from reality. It might at least brighten the dullness of where she’d grown up. Mountain Meadow. She shivered. Her last memories of her hometown were some of the most humiliating of her life. She was far from happy to be back, but life had a way of throwing curve balls. She wished it wouldn’t throw so many.

With a long drive still ahead of her, she stopped at a Starbucks and wired up on a triple shot of espresso. As the miles slid by, her nerves tightened. She would so much rather still be on board the Sprite, but Andre Delacroix had certainly screwed that. Staying there after what she’d overheard? No way. She might be stupid, but she wasn’t suicidal.

Just thinking of Andre made her stomach tighten. She was afraid Rick, the Sprite’s captain, and the rest of his crew were underestimating how dangerous Andre could be. Rick was forever writing Andre off as nothing more than a spoiled, rich kid, much as he’d originally thought her. While his opinion of her had certainly undergone a radical change, his opinion of Andre hadn’t, and Erin was afraid they were all making a big mistake.

Her hands clenched on the steering wheel, her left leg adding a rapid tattoo. She still had part of a joint already rolled. Maybe a few tokes would calm her nerves, take her stress level down a notch. After all, if Stoner and Catherine were as uptight as ever, she’d need all the help she could get once she arrived in the middle of nowhere. A little brain fog might help blunt how underwhelmed her parents would be to see her. Maybe she could even pretend they would welcome her home. Erin laughed. Like that would happen.

Suddenly, surprising them didn’t seem like such a great idea. In the back of her mind, fear niggled that her parents would have asked her not to come if they had known of her plans ahead of time. How mortifying was that? She snorted. No more humiliating than being carried out of a party last fall tucked under Sam Barnes’s arm like a little kid in the midst of a temper tantrum. That had accomplished essentially the same thing that evening. Erin had taken the hint and cleared out before they could actually kick her out.

She had never been able to do anything right in her parents’ eyes. So now she was going back? Really. She needed her head examined. What was the definition of insanity? Oh right. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Erin yawned. God, she had forgotten how truly boring this area was. No people, almost no traffic and certainly no lights. Nothing, as a matter of fact, to help her stay awake. Even worse, she’d already hit several icy spots where she felt the car’s traction turn loose for an instant. After years of rarely driving at all and only in warm, sunny climates, the ice had certainly jolted her back awake. Erin shook her head and blinked her gritty eyes several times.

Shit, she was so tired she’d started to see things. Was that a deer in the road? Was it a pot-induced hallucination? That most recent bag had been a doozy. At the last minute, she stared into a white face and wide, startled, brown eyes and yanked the wheel hard to the left. The car plunged off the shoulder of the road and through a dark board fence. The air bag exploded back at her, smacking her forehead and making it burn. Finally, the car landed at an odd angle, one wheel hanging over the bank of a creek. The only thing breaking the silence were the moos of panicked cows roaming in the darkness. Wow, this was some fucking trip. She slumped forward.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she groaned and touched her head. It was wet and sticky. She shivered. Her heavy coat was somewhere in the backseat. Why did it have to be so god-awful cold? She yearned for blue skies, even bluer water and hot, steamy nights. She could use a drink. Something alcoholic and on the rocks would be perfect. She hurt. Where the hell was she anyway?

It was dark, but this didn’t look or feel like St. Thomas. She fumbled with her seatbelt, and it finally popped open. Her legs refused to obey as she opened the door, so she stumbled and half fell out onto the frozen ground. God, it was slippery out here and so freaking cold! She rubbed her arms, her coat forgotten. Her teeth chattered, and that only made her head hurt worse.

Erin turned around and looked at the car. Holy shit! She was in the middle of a cow pasture, and her rental car was a mess. God, how stupid. As she surveyed the damage to the vehicle, she decided it would be a whole lot easier to handle with a little buzz going. Life in general was a lot easier to face when she was a little bit high. She’d discovered that early in high school. She went back to the car, pulled out her purse, fumbled around until she found another joint, and lit it. Breathe deep, hold, exhale. It was a routine. A couple of tokes and she felt her calm return.

She turned to look at the fence behind her. Wow! It looked even worse than the car, though God knew it was hard enough to see anything out here. Had she taken that much of it out? Erin giggled as she imagined a cartoon vision of fence pieces flying through the air like matchsticks. The image was like one of those old Road Runner cartoons where Wile E. Coyote keeps screwing everything up. Yep! That was her all right. Wile E. Coyote, the original screw up. Maybe she should check to see if the car she’d leased came from Acme rentals.

It all struck her as so amazingly funny. She sat on a rock, puffed on her joint, and giggled. Welcome back, Erin! Nothing like arriving in style in Mountain Meadow. Daddy, I’m home! A few more feet, and she’d have made a splash right into the bottom of a shallow creek. Wouldn’t everyone be so proud of her?

Some things never changed.

As she toked the joint in her hand, she looked around blearily. Where was she? She couldn’t be far from home. But God, it had been so long since she’d been here. Last fall didn’t count. She hadn’t even spent the night. So, yeah, where was she? A couple of blinks and she momentarily cleared her vision enough to see the dark silhouette of a cabin. As she looked at the hills and trees surrounding her, memories came back. Her cheeks flushed with humiliation. She was on Sam’s land. Why did every mortifying moment of her life involve Sam? He was the only man who had ever made her breath catch and her heart pound, and he was the only man who had never shown any sign of wanting her. Life was so unfair.

* * * *

With his long, sock-clad feet propped over the end of the couch, Sam had nearly dozed off when his phone rang. It had been a crazy day what with deputies on vacation or sick. Sighing impatiently, he snatched the cordless phone from its resting place on the table next to him. “Barnes.”

“Sam? It’s Stoner. Carter called me. There are cows out on the highway. He’s not sure whose they are. He’s already out there trying to round them up. I’d be happy to help, but that whole electronic tether thing…”

“Dang it, Stoner,” Sam snarled. “I’ll call the department and tell them to ignore the alarm and why. The neighbor kid who helps me is sick with pneumonia, but I’ll be out there as soon as I get my boots on to see what’s up.” Sam slammed the phone down with a bang.

At that moment, he would gladly have strangled the judge who sentenced former Senator Stoner Richardson to two years house arrest for pleading guilty to conspiracy charges. It was nothing but a major pain in the butt, when it wasn’t a downright joke. In the last six months, Stoner had probably spent as much time away from home as confined to it. Now he was going off the property again. If someone didn’t suspend his sentence soon, Sam might go beg the judge himself, so he wouldn’t have to play watchdog for the wandering senator. He would have to talk to Evan about it. The guy had served half his sentence already and had been a model prisoner.

Sam’s already taciturn mood grew even more thunderous as he yanked on his coveralls, slipped his big white-stockinged feet back into thick-soled work boots, and pulled a cowboy hat on. Sweet Mary. He’d be glad when spring got here. Better yet, summer so he could work in either a T-shirt or shirtless.

Most of all, he wished he wasn’t going out in the dark to round up cows in the freezing cold. Just in case, he threw a roll of barbwire, some temporary posts, and his wire cutters into the back of the truck before he bumped down the drive.

Please let them be Stoner’s Angus and not his Hereford crosses. It would please him to no end to have something to hang over the senator, but as he reached the road, he saw broad white faces reflecting back at him in the moonlight. It was his baldies. Stoner would never let him hear the end of it.

Crap!

Even in the dark, the tall, angular form of the former senator leaning against his pickup was plain to see. He spoke as soon as Sam got within earshot. “Carter’s herded most of them through the gate, but we haven’t located the break in the fence yet. You know, Sam, if you’d hire another hand or two…”

Sam spun on his neighbor, fists clenched, but only glared at him. “Not all of us drip money, Senator.”

Stoner’s two-way radio crackled. “I’ve found the problem, Mr. Richardson. An accident. Fence is busted pretty good here in the corner by the creek. Car’s hanging with one wheel over the bank.”

Sam instantly converted from farmer to sheriff. “Any injuries you can see? Do I need to radio for an ambulance?”

“Don’t think so. There’s a woman here. She seems okay, I guess. She’s laughing.”

“Laughing?” Stoner’s mouth twisted.

Sam growled with anger. Probably some teenager out joyriding. Just what he needed, something else to drag him back into town tonight when all he wanted to do was crash. “Hop in, Senator. I’ll give you a ride. You and Carter mind helping me put up a temporary fence?”

“Not at all.”

“I know we haven’t exactly been on the best of terms….”

Stoner cut Sam off. “That was years ago, Sam. Besides, looking back, I don’t think you were the one at fault. Erin was out of control.”

Sam nodded, deciding it was better not to respond. Erin always seemed to be at the middle of any discord. He might not be at fault for his actions, but his thoughts about the senator’s daughter had been anything but pure. It was twelve years ago, so maybe it was time to let things lie. After all, Erin was gone and it didn’t look like she would be back. Last fall hardly counted. He rubbed the back of his neck and frowned at the thought.

As they drove down the road, Sam used the radio in his truck to call in the accident and said he would handle it until they could get someone out in the morning. As he and Stoner climbed out of the truck in the darkness, Sam saw how much of his fence was smashed.

“Holy freaking cow! Could the stupid idiot have done any more damage?”

“Damn,” Stoner added. “It almost looks like the driver did it on purpose.”

“Or fell asleep at the wheel,” Sam grumbled. Fools. Nobody needed to be out on a night like this one, especially just joyriding. Icy patches from the last storm were still refreezing at night, making driving risky.

In the pasture, on the other side of the car, they heard Carter’s deep rumbles and a higher pitched voice.

“I’m fine, man. Hey, jerk, get your hands off me. Ooh! Was that cow shit I stepped in? Oh, God. Oh gross. That is so freaking disgusting. Man, I hate this place! I always hated this place.”

Stoner looked at Sam, who saw the same shock of recognition reflected in the senator’s features before both of them slipped and slid down the embankment in a sudden hurry, running across the pasture to the car. Sam skidded to a stop, all of his thoughts jumbling together, but what lingered in his mind was, not like this, Erin, not like this.

Erin looked up as she heard them and grinned. The grin started Sam’s heart pounding until he saw her bloodshot eyes in the glow of the flashlight. “Hi, Daddy! Hi, Sammy! I had a little accident.” Then she leaned over and vomited right at a very surprised Carter’s feet. Sam doubted it was the puke that floored Carter. Hearing Erin call Stoner Daddy probably accounted for the look on the foreman’s face.

As Stoner slowed, so did Sam. They approached cautiously, as if they had encountered a wounded grizzly and weren’t quite sure how it would react. But then confronting Erin had always been that way. He never knew exactly which Erin would show up. Would she snap his head off or twine herself around his heart? Sam had been struggling with that since he’d first met her when she was nine. No matter how much he’d tried to forget her over the years, it hadn’t happened. His feelings had just changed.

“Erin?” Stoner ventured quietly. “What are you doing here?”

Sam sniffed the air, inhaling an all too familiar odor. Any nostalgia he might have been experiencing evaporated. “Darn it, Erin. Have you been smoking pot right here on my land?”

She straightened, her eyes wary as she looked between the two men. “Don’t worry, Daddy…Sam. I’m fine, just a little head injury. So nice of you to ask, and nice to see things haven’t changed. Oh wait, I guess they have, because the last time you two were this close together, Daddy, you were trying to choke Sam at the same time you were calling me… Let’s see. What was it? Oh yes, a ‘white trash tramp and no daughter of yours.’ Fourteen was such a good year.”

She glanced at Carter’s gaping jaw and smiled coolly. “Another fond memory of childhood in the Richardson household.” Erin tilted her head back and laughed. “Hi, Daddy. I’m home!”

“Damn it, Erin,” Stoner muttered as anger and concern warred with each other in his expression, but when he reached for her, she stumbled backward, shivered, and glared at him. Her whole body trembled, and Sam wasn’t sure if it was from cold, drugs, or just plain nerves.

Depression weighed on Sam. He rubbed the back of his neck where the muscles tightened with tension. Just once, he wished his encounters with Erin and Stoner could be different, but they all seemed to begin and end the same way with all three of them tense and on the defensive.

Erin scrubbed her hands up and down her arms as if she were trying to jumpstart the circulation there. “I can’t find my coat. I thought it was on the backseat,” she blurted angrily, “and I’m cold.”

Sam saw she had on only a sweater. He pushed past her and searched the car, emerging in a moment with a polar fleece-lined ski jacket. He helped her on with it and zipped it. Then he saw the blood trickling down the side of her head. His breath hitched. Fear tightened his gut. He stepped in close enough to touch her head, nerves tightening when she looked up at him for just a moment with her guard down.

“Erin,” he murmured, but the door had already closed. Her guard was up and her chin jutting. “You’re hurt.” Without waiting, he swung her into his arms and carried her back across the pasture. Somehow, he managed to get her up the bank without landing either of them in the mud. After ripping open the back door of the still running truck, he set her in the warm interior. Erin’s face was pale and her eyes big and dark in the dim light.

“Stay here!” he ordered. His face felt tense, his brows drawn tightly together. “We have to fix the fence, then I’ll run you and Stoner back to his truck.”

Erin stared at him. As if the life had suddenly drained from her, she closed her eyes. She leaned her head back against the seat, grimacing in pain. “Okay,” she muttered tonelessly.

“Erin!” Sam grasped her shoulder, thinking of last fall when she’d bolted as soon as he’d left her alone at Richardson Homestead after giving her a ride home. “You will stay, right?”

For a second he saw something hot and intense in her gaze, but she looked away and the moment was gone. “Yes. I have to. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

He ignored that remark for now. In his experience, Erin appeared and disappeared wherever and whenever she felt like, as long as it was nowhere near him. He tamped down the ache in his chest that thought brought with it. The more drama she could create with her abrupt arrivals and departures, the better. Sam slammed the door and yanked the spool of wire and the temporary posts out of the pickup bed. He turned as Carter and Stoner reached the road.

“Let’s get this fence up,” he growled. “We’ll run a couple of strands and use battens between the posts that are still up. That should hold until morning when it will have to come down anyway in order to get the car out.” He looked at Stoner, “I guess you had no idea she was coming?”

Stoner grunted an affirmation. “When have we ever had any idea what Erin planned? Hell, she came out of the womb feet first just to be different.”

Carter, who had only been with Richardson Homestead for the last four years asked, “That young woman is your daughter, sir? I thought you had only Evan and Tabby.”

Stoner sighed, then explained, “Erin is Evan’s younger sister. Tabby is their younger half sister. I’d better call Catherine and prepare her. No. On second thought, I don’t want to break this to her over the phone.”

Sam turned away with a frown and began anchoring the first strand of barbwire. In his mind, he saw again the brave little nine-year-old he’d met so long ago and the way she’d stood up to her father’s chewing out even with the broken arm that had to have hurt like hell. Almost eighteen years later and nothing seemed to have changed. To Stoner, Erin was still a problem to be handled and hidden.

Sam’s mouth tightened. He wanted to punch Stoner, or at the very least knock some sense into the man. Erin wasn’t a problem. She was Stoner’s daughter. Sam hammered the wire staple with enough force to anchor it in one swing. He was just as mad at himself as he was at Stoner. He had treated her the same way the last time she’d shown up. For a few minutes last fall, as he took her back to her parents’ house, he’d gotten a glimpse through the attitude and seen the loneliness she so successfully hid. Something inside him had responded immediately, just as he’d always responded to her, but there’d been no chance to explore it before she had once again fled. Now she was back, and he had to wonder why.

Sam hammered the last fence staple in place, then hefted his wire and fence tools. “Thanks, gentlemen. That should hold everything until morning.”

“No problem,” Stoner’s foreman replied. “’Night.”

Carter climbed back into his truck, started the engine, and turned around, saluting Stoner and Sam as he drove back down the road to the caretaker’s house where he and his young wife lived. Sam and Stoner walked side-by-side back to the truck without saying a word. Sam tossed the fence tools and the wire into the bed before opening the back door to check on Erin.

She was still there. Sam refused to examine why it mattered so much to him. His heart beat in a heavier rhythm as he took stock of her. She was curled into a ball on the back seat, her shapely little jean clad derriere pointed right at him. He pulled his glove off and checked her pulse. Steadier than his, that was for sure. He frowned when she didn’t stir and looked across the seat to Stoner.

“She’s always been a heavy sleeper,” he said.

Stoner climbed in the passenger side in back and sat next to his daughter. It surprised Sam, but then Stoner was a changed man, so perhaps things would be different for Erin this time. Sam hoped so. The thought made his gut unknot a hitch.

“Erin, honey!” Stoner said. “Sit up. Let’s see that head.”

She struggled to open her eyes, blinking owlishly. Her brow furrowed as her glance went from side to side as though not sure where she was. When she finally focused on him, he saw no recognition in their depths. Sam wasn’t sure if it was from the pot, the injury, or sheer exhaustion. She looked like hell.

“Think she needs to go to the hospital?” Sam asked.

Stoner shot him a meaningful look. “Your house is closer. Can we take her there for now? I still have to tell Catherine. It will be enough of a shock for her that Erin’s here, but I hate to show up with her in this shape.” Stoner’s expression pleaded, and that made Sam very uncomfortable. Stoner Richardson didn’t beg for anything.

Sam frowned as he looked at Erin. No hospital—because she didn’t need it or because Stoner didn’t want the embarrassment? Sam clenched his jaw, trying to leave his personal feelings out of it.

The cut wasn’t bad. It looked more like a friction burn, probably from the airbag, so chances were she didn’t have a concussion.

“She’s your daughter, Stoner.”

“You think I don’t know that? You think this is something new? It’s happened so often before, Sam, all through high school. We tried rehab…shit!” Stoner’s jaw worked as he stared out the window, his fist clenching and unclenching.

Sam sighed. Stoner’s struggle to handle Erin’s abrupt and unexpected appearance was obvious, and it made Sam’s heart ache. As much as he knew having anything to do with Erin would be like volunteering to step into a snake pit, he couldn’t stop himself. He’d never been able to when it came to anything having to do with her.

“Yeah. Stay here,” he finally told Stoner. “I’ll see if she has a suitcase.”

Sprinting back to the car, he found a small purse and a duffel bag in the trunk. Not many clothes if she planned to stay any length of time, but from what he understood, Erin rarely stayed anywhere long. From sporadic e-mails to her parents, they knew she’d bounced from job to job in the islands…even working as a hostess at a topless club for a while. Sam slammed the trunk with unnecessary force.

Better not to go there. Thinking about her without clothes would only lead to more trouble than he wanted.

When they reached the farmhouse, Sam carried her in and laid her on the couch in his den. The wood stove still sent out waves of heat. Stoner was right behind him with her purse and her bag. Seeing Erin in his house brought back memories Sam didn’t want to think about…erotic memories he’d worked hard to put behind him with an astounding lack of success and a barn-full of guilt. She could stay for one night. That was it. Then she had to go. Erin in his house was more temptation than Sam could handle.

Stoner looked at him with steady, gray eyes. “I owe you, Sam. Catherine was so distraught over what happened last fall. I don’t want to see her hurt again.” His gaze slid to Erin, and Sam saw the shadows there, but whatever Stoner’s true feelings were, he kept locked inside. Maybe that was part of the problem. Erin and Stoner had a lot in common. Everything that mattered, everything important, they locked deep inside, unable or unwilling to allow themselves to appear vulnerable.

Stoner looked at Erin’s pale face. “You want me to stay? Help get her cleaned up?”

Sam shook his head wearily. “I’ll do it. Take my truck and go back to Catherine. Call me in the morning.”

Stoner put his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “I owe you.”

“Yeah. So you’ve said.”

After the door shut behind Erin’s father, Sam looked at his uninvited guest and sighed. He felt like he’d been picking up after this particular Richardson for years. He left her sprawled on the couch while he stalked off in search of his first aid kit. She was awake when he returned but, for once, not ready to start a fight. She leaned against him limply while he cleaned the scrape on her head. It wasn’t big, but she did have a bump to go with it. She watched him from somber, blue-gray eyes. After a couple of minutes of her almost unblinking stare, he arched one brow at her.

“If you have a question, Erin, I wish you’d just ask it.”

“Where am I?” she asked.

“My house. It was closer. Your dad thought it would be better for you to spend the night here.”

A flush of anger quickly replaced the flash of hurt he’d seen in her face, but then she blinked, masking her expression. Long lashes dropped as she shifted her gaze away. Her eyes had always been the chink in her protective armor because they mirrored what she truly felt. Sam wanted to grab her, make her look at him, and for once tell him what she really felt.

“I see.” Her mouth twisted with a cynicism he hated to witness. “Am I supposed to pay you for the fence while I spend the night? Is that the deal?”

Anger burned like acid inside him, but he wasn’t sure exactly who he was angry with—her, himself, or her father. What he did know was he hated the hurt that lingered in those big eyes of hers, and he knew one surefire way of getting rid of it.

“I don’t work that way. You might end up paying me for my fence, but it won’t be on your back. The fence cost a lot more money than one night between your thighs is worth, baby.”

The haunted look disappeared and fury replaced it. She twisted away from him. “You prick! You over-sized gorilla. Take your freaking hands off me.”

He’d take her anger over her hurt. He was big enough to handle the fury, but he had no idea what to do with the wounded woman lurking behind it. Sam stood, set the first aid kit aside, and stared her down. “Let me have your purse.”

She clutched it to her. “Why?”

“Unless you plan to spend the next little while in jail, hand me your purse, Erin. And tell me what you’re on.”

She tossed the purse at him. “Just a little weed.”

“If it were anyone else, I’d say you need to be at the hospital, but you’re a Richardson. Y’all have hard heads.”

“I might have a concussion.”

Sam arched a brow as he dumped the contents of her purse on the table and began going through them. He found the pot, the papers, her lighter, her stash of ecstasy, and the Quaaludes. How the devil had she gotten through customs with this stuff? It was a freaking pharmacy in here. Finally he held up an oblong package with pills. “What are these?”

“Birth control pills,” Erin snapped defiantly.

Sam’s hand tightened. What was he getting uptight about? She was nothing to him. He was nothing to her. She wasn’t a kid. She was almost twenty-seven. Had he expected she would continue to hero worship him? Save herself for him? She’d had a teenage crush on him, but she’d obviously moved on. Maybe it was time for him to do the same. How much of a fool was he? “I don’t see a prescription.”

“It was on the box, not the compact.”

He put the birth control pills in a different pile. When he was through, he picked up all the drugs, opened the door on the woodstove, and tossed them in.

Erin leaped off the couch. “What the hell are you doing? Do you have any idea how much all that shit cost?”

Sam glared at her over his shoulder. “I don’t give a flying feline, and what I’m doing is saving your cute little butt from jail time, idiot. Darn it! I’m the County Sheriff. You can’t have this stuff, especially not in my home.”

She lurched toward the woodstove, staggered, and started to slip sideways. He caught her as she fell.

“Sammy?” her voice was thready and frightened. Big, blue-gray eyes stared at him, and again her defenses went down for an instant. That was all it took to turn him into a marshmallow.

“It’s okay, baby. You’re okay.” His throat tightened. Maybe he did need to keep an eye out for a concussion. She was always so fiercely self-sufficient, wanting no one, needing no one, that it hurt his heart to see her weakened. He knew the lessons she’d learned years ago. He’d been an unfortunate part of more than one of them. He knew deep down she wouldn’t want to lean on anyone. She would see it as a mistake because her experience had shown her that, in the end, everyone else would let her down—even family. Especially family.

“Lie down, Erin.” Sam looked at her paper white face with real concern. Then he began to notice other things. The five earrings in her left ear and—Jesus H. Christ—was that an eyebrow piercing? “For heaven’s sake,” he ground out roughly. “Why the devil have you stuck all those holes in yourself?”

“It’s a personal statement,” she flashed, color starting to return to her fair skin.

“Of what?” he asked. “That you’d prefer life as Swiss cheese?”

“No… That uptight parents and nosy neighbors need to back the hell off. It’s my life, my body.” Her eyes narrowed spitefully. “I’ve got one in my navel too. Wanna see?”

Sam frowned with the memory, one that still aroused him. “I saw that one last fall.” He saw the look on her face. She wanted to shock him, make him squirm, make him lose his temper. It had always been like this.

“Then how about my tattoos?”

He quirked a brow. He didn’t remember seeing any tattoos when she’d shown up unexpectedly at Tabby’s art showing, and she’d only had the barest essentials covered. Even though he knew better, he still baited her. “What would you do if I said yes?”

Erin smiled wickedly and teased the snap on her jeans. “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.”

“For heaven’s sake!” Sam spun away from her. He had to. The sight of her finger sliding along the waistband of jeans was making him hard, making him want things he shouldn’t.

“Have some respect for yourself,” he said.

Silence reigned behind him. Suddenly, Sam knew he’d gone too far, hit her where she was the most vulnerable. That had always been her problem. As tough as she might seem, Erin had no self-esteem, and he had never understood why. He turned to apologize. She had her back to him and had gone still and silent, but he could see from her stiff posture that he’d managed to hurt her.

“Erin…”

“Go to hell.” It was barely an audible whisper, not her usual high volume bluster.

Sam raked his hand across his short hair in frustrated patience as he tried to explain. “The only room with a bed that’s made is mine….”

“Thanks, but no thanks, Sheriff. As you’ve already made clear again and again, you don’t want me there.”

But he did want to be fairly certain she would still be in his house come morning. “You can have my room, and I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Afraid I’ll take off?” she asked, some of her bluster returning, but only for an instant. “No, I’ll sleep on the couch. You’re too big to be comfortable here,” she mumbled. “I’m used to sleeping on a berth on board ship. This is fine for me. Leave me alone. I’ll be all right, and I will be here in the morning. Like I said earlier. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

It was the most she had said since he’d found her in the pasture, and it was without an attitude. She still had her back to him, still refused to look at him.

“Do you need anything?” he finally asked quietly.

“No.”

“Well, good night then. I’m down the hall if you need me.”

She snorted. “I won’t.”

* * * *

Stoner parked Sam’s truck behind the house and stepped into the kitchen. Catherine had already gone upstairs. She sat propped in their king-size bed. Seeing her made him smile. That was something else that had changed in the last six months. She had moved back into his bed. It had been a long time, not since they’d taken Erin and gone to Washington. Dear God, that was more than a third of their married life. Their daughter’s teenage years had been rocky not only for her, but for them too. In fact, their marriage hadn’t been on a solid footing since Erin’s birth.

When Catherine glanced up from what she was reading, he smiled, praying like hell Erin’s sudden reappearance wouldn’t erode what they had rebuilt. Guilt stabbed him for feeling that way. He wanted what was best for Erin, but in the past that had always translated into sacrificing the rest of the family.

“Did you find the problem?” His wife’s gaze held only mild curiosity. Most of the time loose cattle were the result of a gate left open or a broken wire, common enough occurrences in a rural area.

“Yes.” Stoner kept his tone casual. “There was an accident. A driver ran off the road and took out part of Sam’s fence. It was his cattle that were loose.”

“I hope no one was hurt.”

He smiled. “Just a minor injury. She’s okay. Carter and I helped Sam get the cattle back in and put a temporary fix on the fence.”

“Well, that’s good.” She was too intent on what she was reading to pay much attention, and he was relieved. After stripping, Stoner showered, wrapped himself in a thick robe, and returned to the bedroom.

As casually as he could he asked, “Did you ever hear anything back from Erin after you e-mailed her with the pictures of Tabby’s wedding?”

“No…not a word.”

“Was she still in the—where was it? The Virgin Islands?”

“Yes. That job as a cook on the sailing ship must agree with her. She’s been there longer than anyplace so far. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Just curious.” As soon as it came out of his mouth, he knew he’d said the wrong thing. Even his casual tone wouldn’t fool her.

He had her attention now. Catherine was anything but stupid. “Stoner, you said ‘she’ when you mentioned someone taking out Sam’s fence. Would that ‘she’ be Erin?”

He sighed as he sat next to her on the edge of the bed. They’d promised each other honesty when they’d healed their rift. “Yes.”

“Where is she, Stoner? Is she hurt?” There was a pause. Disillusionment colored her voice when she spoke again. “Was she drunk…or stoned?”

“She’s at Sam’s sleeping it off. She was stoned, Catherine. She hit her head, but nothing serious.”

There was a long silence before Catherine touched his arm. “Stoner… Something’s wrong. She only came back last fall because of Tabby, then immediately took off again. Now she turns up out of the blue?” She shook her head. “Honey, do you think she’s in some kind of trouble? It’s not like her to come back home willingly.”

The truth of that statement cut him to the core. Stoner knew how much it pained Catherine to acknowledge the depth of the rift between them and their daughter, but it was true. There had always been something about Erin that Catherine had never been able to touch, even when she was a little girl. Stoner might have been able to once, when Erin was small, but as the years passed his relationship with his daughter had gotten even worse than the one between mother and daughter.

Stoner laughed, but it wasn’t with any true amusement. “When has Erin ever not been in trouble, Katie?” He raked a big hand through his gray hair. “God! She makes it so hard to love her. It’s like from the moment she was born, she took one look at me, and thought ‘what can I do to piss him off?’ I don’t want to feel that way about her, damn it. She’s my daughter.”

“I know, honey.” Catherine took his hand and stroked the back of it. “Just a year ago, I would have chalked up your worry to concern about how Erin’s behavior would reflect badly on our family, but in the last six months you’ve changed.”

He took her hand. “How do I get through to her?”

She shook her head. “I wish I knew the answer. The two of you may be too much alike in some ways to ever have an easy relationship. You’re both hot-tempered.”

Stoner snorted. “Yes, but where I hang on to a mood for a long time, Erin is a flash fire.”

Catherine nodded. “There’s a lot to that. She could never understand how you could still be mad at her hours later when she had long since moved beyond whatever it was that triggered your argument.”

“And I thought she was trying to deliberately provoke me with an attitude that seemed uncaring and unrepentant.”

Catherine leaned her forehead against his shoulder. “God forgive me, Stoner. I don’t want to turn her away if she needs our help, but I can’t go back and relive what it was like all through her teenage years. It made our marriage nearly impossible to endure, and we weren’t on a great footing to start. We’ve come such a long way recently.”

She paused and took a deep breath. “There’s a part of me that wishes she would stay away.” When she didn’t say anything more, he looked at her. Her expression pleaded for understanding, guilt and sorrow mixing in equal measure. “Whatever happens, for whatever reason she’s come back, please don’t let it come between us. I need you, honey. I need what we’ve found again. These last six months…”

“…have been the best we’ve ever had,” he finished with a gentle smile as he leaned forward to kiss her lingeringly. “We could put her in the guesthouse.”

“Stoner!” She drew back in horror.

“Think about it. She’d have her privacy. We would have ours. She’s nearly twenty-seven, Katie. I’m sure there are areas of her life I don’t want or need to know about. And quite frankly, I think we’re due for a little privacy.” He grinned at her. “Maybe a lot of privacy.”