Читать книгу Married In Montana - Lynnette Kent - Страница 10

ON SATURDAY MORNING, Paradise Corners was crowded with just about everybody Thea knew. She identified them by their trucks, just as they did her, and returned their greetings—the truly friendly ones, the wary ones, and the ones designed to make points with Boss Maxwell by sucking up to his daughter. For those, she smiled through gritted teeth.

Outside Grizzly’s Diner, the deputy’s bloodhound posed with the regal attitude of a conquering lion. Thea crouched to meet him at eye level. “You’re in control, aren’t you? Got your eye on the whole town from right here.” He let her stroke his baggy jowls and crinkle his ears, but didn’t give up his watchful pose. Reluctantly, she straightened up and pulled on the diner’s door. Time to meet the man waiting inside.

First she had to meet and greet at every other table in the place, saying hello to the folks she’d had as teachers and church leaders, school-trip chaperons and sports coaches. There were others, too, who gave each other nods and shrugs and deliberately ignored her as she moved past them. All the time, shaking hands and smiling, she was aware of Rafe Rafferty in the booth at the back, watching and waiting. For her.

When she finally got there, he stood up. “Good morning. Thanks for coming.”

She’d forgotten how tall he was. How tanned. How gorgeous.

“Hi.” Completely inadequate as a greeting, but she couldn’t do any better at the moment. Just to have something to do, she took off her jacket and slid onto the seat. A glance out the window gave her something to say. “I met your dog outside. He’s a good guy.”

Grinning, Rafe sat down across the table. “Jed’s the best. What would you like to drink? Want something to eat?”

The memory of the slaughtered doe, on top of the tension twisting her stomach, made facing food impossible. “Just coffee, thanks.”

He signaled Mona Rangel behind the counter. Before the pause between them could get too awkward, the former teacher set two heavy white mugs down on the table. “Good morning, Thea.”

Yet another reason for nerves. Thea had always regretted that she hadn’t been able to talk her dad out of his fury over Bobby’s sixth-grade failure. “How are you, Mrs. Rangel?”

The older woman nodded. “Just fine, thank you.”

“Glad to hear it.” Thea emptied the usual three packets of sugar and a good dollop of milk into her cup, stirred furiously, then looked up to find the deputy watching her.

“Something wrong?”

Great…he could read her like a book. She picked the least embarrassing reason for her edginess. “Um, nothing major. I…I found a poached deer on the property as I was leaving. I guess it shook me up a little.”

“The season started this morning.” He doctored his coffee, then took a gulp. “Maybe the hunter hadn’t got there to collect the carcass yet.”

“This was an old kill. The coyotes had been at it.”

His straight eyebrows drew together. “What else?”

“The head was gone. And it was a doe.” Thea cradled her mug in both palms, waiting to be teased for her squeamishness. “I know, I know, it’s inconsistent to raise cattle for the market and balk at hunting.”

“Maybe a little,” Rafe agreed. His tone was almost gentle. “But this wasn’t an animal taken for food, was it? Just a trophy for somebody’s wall. That’s the wasteful part.”

She stared at him, amazed at his perception and his attitude. “You’re exactly right, it’s the waste that bothers me.”

He smiled. “Don’t sound so surprised. Not every man on the planet likes to spend his time in the woods killing game.”

“Every one I’ve ever met.”

“Well, then,” Rafe drawled, “I’d say it’s time to broaden your experience.”

The look in his eyes—half smile, half challenge, all male—robbed her lungs of air. He was flirting again.

But Thea didn’t know beans about that game. Anyway, she was here for a different reason. After a sip of coffee, she found her voice. “You said you wanted to talk about Bobby?”

Rafe sat back, and the warmth in his face faded. “He’s been in town every night this week.”

“I know.”

“Raising hell.”

Thea squeezed her eyes shut.

“Probably drunk more often than not.”

She didn’t say anything.

“He’s got a problem, Thea. You have to see that.”

“He’s only nineteen.”

“But he’s been drinking for years. Right?”

She lifted her chin, trying to deny it. “How would you know something like that?”

“You mean, because there aren’t any records? Because LeVay makes sure the law stays away?”

The word Thea muttered under her breath would have horrified Beth Peace. “You’re guessing.”

“Am I wrong?”

“No, damn you.” A sudden lull in the hubbub around them told her she’d been too loud. She lowered her voice. “But what, exactly, do you think I can do? Or anybody else, for that matter?”

Rafe leaned his elbows on the table. “Talk to him? Better yet, get your dad to talk to him.”

“You’re assuming Robert Maxwell would admit to himself or anybody else that his son wasn’t the finest specimen walking the earth today.”

“He’s a successful rancher. He has to be a realist.”

“About everything but Bobby.” She heard her own comment, realized how jealous and petty she sounded. Hands flat on the table, she tried to retrieve her self-respect. “Look, Bobby’s always been a handful. He’s not real happy being at home right now—that youthful desire to see the whole world, you know?”

He grinned. “I’ve been there.”

She stiffened her spine against the urge to melt. “So, he’s got to get this out of his system. Better here in Montana, where there aren’t so many people, than Los Angeles or San Francisco. He’ll settle down.” She knew how naive she sounded. “Start taking the work and his place in it seriously. We just have to wait for him to grow up a little.”

Rafe’s gaze acknowledged her wishful thinking. “I can’t cut him that much slack. I have other people to consider.” He reached out, ran his knuckle along the back of her hand from wrist to fingertip. “You’re one of them. I can see you’re caught in the middle.”

Thea knew better than to fall for such an obvious line. She’d recognized Rafe Rafferty as a ladies’ man from the beginning.

But, oh, she wanted to believe. Something inside her ached with the need to believe that touch, to accept the concern in that handsome face, those dark brown eyes.

While she was still battling herself, Mona came back to the table with the coffeepot. “Refills?”

Grateful for the diversion, Thea pushed her mug to the edge. “Sounds good.” Rafe did the same and they all watched the process in silence…until Thea’s stomach produced a loud and unmistakable growl. She felt her cheeks heat up, wished the earth would open and swallow her whole.

With only a half smile, Rafe glanced at his watch. “It’s after eleven. That’s close enough to lunchtime, isn’t it?”

The other woman wiped a cloth over the table between them. “Far as I’m concerned. I made a big pot of chili this morning and there’s corn bread baking. Want me to bring you each a bowl?”

Thea managed to meet Rafe’s eyes for a split second, found his eyes kind. Maybe even hopeful. “Sounds really good.”

Mona nodded. “Back in two shakes.”

Rafe added sugar and milk to his fresh coffee, wondering how to get the woman across the table to relax. He’d had his own nerves about this meeting. He cared way too much about what Thea thought, about the way things between them turned out. But she seemed almost paralyzed. And Rafe really didn’t think he was that intimidating. At least, not without a gun in his hand.

So he set himself to calm her down, with as innocent a topic as he could come up with. “You must have quite a few dogs on the ranch.”

She grinned, and her flush faded a little. “Cow dogs, sure. And strays the hands feed, who never leave again. Seems like each cowboy has his own mutt to take care of.”

“Don’t you have a mutt of your own?”

Her black hair bounced as she shook her head. “I guess it seems weird, but we don’t have house dogs at all. Our housekeeper got bitten when she was little, and something like that tends to stay with a person, I think. She’s been running the house since forever, so what she says pretty much goes. The dogs stay outside.”

There was a wistfulness in her eyes that prompted him to ask, “What kind of dog would you choose if you could get one?”

She grinned easily, for the first time. “Well, I think I’d want a big one…”

The chili arrived while they talked about dogs. With their second helpings, they moved on to horse breeds and training.

“I didn’t realize you had ranch experience.” Thea crumbled corn bread over her chili. “More than just summer camp, I’d say.”

Rafe decided to take that as a sign she’d been wondering about him. “I grew up on a spread in southern California. Nothing even a tenth the size of Walking Stones. But I learned the business.”

“Do your folks still run cattle?”

“The ranch belongs to my aunt and her husband. My parents died when I was six.”

She looked up at him, her eyes dark with pain. “I’m sorry. That’s really hard.”

“I didn’t mean to make a play for sympathy.” He shrugged. “I grew up okay.”

“Most of us do. That doesn’t mean it’s the best way. Bobby might not be such a…a problem if our mom hadn’t died when he was four.” In one of the lightning change of moods he was coming to appreciate, Thea chuckled. “Who knows? Maybe Dad wouldn’t be such a pain in the butt, either.”

Rafe laughed with her. “There’s a thought.”

Mona’s apple cobbler with ice cream and more coffee took them into movies and books. Rafe surrendered to impulse and recounted his one run-in with a Hollywood star while on the L.A. police force. “We spent four hours combing every inch of Rodeo Drive, looking for this crazy lady’s dog. You haven’t felt like a fool until you’ve crawled through an alley on your hands and knees yelling for Horatio.”

He got another one of Thea’s deep chuckles for his efforts. “Where’d you find him?”

“In the back room of a jewelry store. The dumb dog had slipped through security and curled up on a workbench in the middle of a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds. They had to brush the stones out of his fur.”

“Not your standard impression of police work in Los Angeles.” She was still laughing. “Drug busts, gang wars, high-speed chases—that’s what I would expect to hear about.”

“I did that, too.” Rafe shook his head. “Sometimes I think maybe I should have stayed, tried to improve the place. I guess you could say I bailed out.” Damn. Something else he hadn’t meant to say. The woman didn’t want to hear about his personal doubts.

“You can’t be responsible for saving the whole world, or the state of California, or even a neighborhood.” Her quiet tone respected his frankness. “I tend to think most people have a purpose in life, something they were meant to do. Maybe your responsibility lies somewhere besides L.A.”

“God knows there are enough troubles in the world to go around.” The woman had a way of making him feel good without even trying.

She nodded at his observation, and from there the conversation veered toward resolving world hunger, whale hunting and the destruction of the rain forests.

The lunch crowd came and went and they were still sitting there, trading philosophies. Rafe accidentally caught sight of the time. “Jeez, I didn’t mean to keep you here all day.”

She glanced at the empty tables around them and got a guilty look in her eyes. “You were probably supposed to work this afternoon.”

“Everybody knew where to find me if something went wrong. A little place like this doesn’t present all that many law enforcement challenges.”

Her eyes changed. “Except for Bobby.”

“Well, yeah.” Rafe couldn’t lie to her. “But he’s not too far gone. Like you said, he needs to realize it’s time to grow up.”

Thea sighed, then slid out of the booth. “I’ll see what I can do.” She bent to pick up her jacket, shook it out and started to stretch one arm into a sleeve.

Rafe took the soft black wool out of her hands. “Let me help.” She looked startled, but turned away so he could slip the coat over her arms. Surrendering to temptation, he straightened the collar and smoothed the cloth over her shoulders before he stepped back. “There you go.”

“Thanks.” Her voice sounded breathless, the way he felt. A grown man, especially one reasonably experienced with women, shouldn’t get a big charge out of such a simple touch.

But Rafe knew that right this second he wouldn’t trade places with anybody else in the world.

They said goodbye to Mona and stepped out to where Jed had waited patiently all this time. Thea crouched in front of the dog and ran her palms over his shoulders. “He’s been here for hours, just sitting. I thought bloodhounds had a tendency to bolt.”

“Jed’s not your ordinary hound.”

She glanced up at him with a smile. “No bias there, of course.”

Rafe grinned back. “Of course not. But he was the runt of the litter, and he was so grateful to be the center of attention when I took him home that it’s really rough getting him to stay by himself for very long. The tradeoff is that I keep him with me and he behaves himself. Works pretty well.”

“That’s the kind of dog to have.” She straightened up from her crouch without a wobble or a creak—just smooth, controlled movement. “Well, thanks for lunch. And…and for caring about Bobby. That’s really above and beyond the call of duty for you.”

Her hand was extended and Rafe took it, anticipating the feel of skin against skin. He wasn’t disappointed. There was a warmth between their palms that had nothing to do with body temperature.

Before he could stop her, she was backing away. “Um, I’ll see you later. Maybe church tomorrow?”

Rafe nodded, because he didn’t trust his voice. Thea smiled, looked worried, then outright scared. She bolted for her big black Land Rover, and was gone.

“YOU FORGOT the groceries?” Beth’s brown eyes widened. “How could you forget? That’s what you drove into town for!”

With her coat hanging off her elbows, Thea slumped back against the wall. Since leaving Rafe Rafferty, she hadn’t thought about groceries even once…until she walked through the door into the kitchen.

“I…I’ll go back and get them.” She shrugged her coat on again. It had started to sleet, and she could hear ice bouncing off the wide window over the sink. But facing a slick highway would be preferable to facing Beth’s disappointment.

“It’s after four o’clock, young lady. By the time you get back to town the market will be locked for the weekend. What am I supposed to fix for Sunday dinner tomorrow?”

“Um…we could eat in town. At Grizzly’s.”

Beth crossed her arms. “As long as I’ve worked here, your father has never had to eat his Sunday meal anywhere but at his own table, unless he chose to do so. I am not going to tell him I can’t make him a decent meal.”

Tired from a day of tension, wanting to be by herself to think over the time with Rafe, Thea kept her temper with an effort. “Well, this is a cattle ranch. There have to be steaks or a roast in the freezer. Bake potatoes, make a salad, grill a steak. If you fix some of your buttermilk biscuits,” she wheedled, “Dad will be perfectly satisfied.”

The housekeeper drew a deep breath. “I suppose so. But what in the world possessed you—”

Thea left her coat on as she backed out of the kitchen into the dining room. “I’ll get your groceries first thing Monday. Promise. And I won’t forget again. I…I guess I just had my mind somewhere else.” Before Beth could ask where, Thea hightailed it across the house to her bedroom, where she shut and locked the door.

She hung her coat over the chair at the dressing table, then sat down and propped her elbows on the table’s edge, staring at herself in the mirror and wondering if Rafe saw the same face she did. Kind of ordinary, really—good enough skin, maybe a little too tanned, cheeks that got too red in the cold, a mouth too wide, a chin too square. Definitely not beautiful.

And he was a man who was surely used to having beautiful women in his life.

But he had talked with her for hours, as if what she said really mattered. Was he that good at the game? What did he think he would win?

Or was the rapport…the sense of connection…real? Could she trust it? Was this going to be the one?

A fist pounded on her door. “Hey, Thea, we’re back. Open up.”

She dropped her head into her hands. “Give me a couple of minutes, Bobby. I just got back myself and I’m bushed.”

“You can’t be as tired as I am. Man, we sat out there till I thought my knees would crack when I stood up.”

“Did you get anything?” She almost dreaded asking.

“Nah—they’re still pretty shy. We found a few scrapes, and some tracks, but it’s early yet. Another couple of weeks, there should be deer everywhere.”

“Great.” Thea sighed. “Go away, Bobby. I’ll talk to you after dinner, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” He went on down the hallway to his room, whistling. When Bobby was good, he was very, very good. And when he was bad—

Yet another knock on her door. “Althea, I want to talk to you.”

When her dad used that tone there was no putting him off. Thea opened the door. “Yes, sir?”

“We’ll go to my office.” He turned on his heel, and she followed him, as he expected her to.

Robert Maxwell’s office suited a man of his importance, his interests. A huge oak desk stood in the center of the room, surrounded by a bank of file cabinets and a wall of books. Not novels, of course, but bound professional journals, textbooks on cattle and agriculture and business. Two comfortable armchairs rested in front of the desk, but Thea wasn’t asked to sit.

“I spoke with Hal LeVay on my way through town.” Her dad filled his pipe, tamped it, lit the tobacco and puffed. “He said you spent most of the day in that woman’s diner, talking to the deputy sheriff.”

Thea put her hands in her pockets. “I was there for a few hours, yes.”

“Talking about what?”

“Different things.” At twenty-nine, she considered herself past the age of interrogation, and her dad should, too.

He regarded her over his pipe. “What was the reason for this meeting?”

“We had coffee together, then lunch.”

“He asked you to meet with him?”

“Yes.”

“This was a date?”

She wished she could say yes, if only to be defiant. “He wanted to talk to me about Bobby.”

“Dammit, I told him to stay out of our business.”

“Bobby makes that hard, Dad. He’s been raising hell in town. Rafe…Deputy Rafferty has a responsibility to keep the peace.”

“His responsibility stops where my authority begins. And that means my children.”

“Then maybe you need to exercise more of your authority over your son.” Her dad’s eyes narrowed, but it was too late for Thea to turn back. “Bobby’s drinking way too much, has been all summer, and even before. He needs to recognize that he has a problem with alcohol and deal with it.”

Robert Maxwell’s response was short and rude.

“Dad, you know this is true. He can put away a six-pack between the end of work and dinnertime. He has no idea of moderation or control.”

“So you’re going to let this deputy interfere in your family? Is this the way you were raised?”

“I was raised to think Maxwells were damn near as perfect as a human being could get. But I figured out the truth. We’re no better than anybody else, maybe not even as good as most.”

Thea saw her dad’s fingers tighten around the bowl of his pipe, recognized his impulse to physical expression of his anger. He’d administered her last spanking when she was twelve—the point at which her mother had forbidden him raise his hand to her children ever again.

But then their mother died. The girls had been too old for corporal punishment at that point, but Bobby had received his share, and then some. Would he be in better shape if their dad had abided by his wife’s decree even after her death?

“Look, Dad.” She closed the distance between them and put a hand on his rigid arm. “Think about this. Ask yourself if Bobby is really in control of his drinking, of his life in general. Maybe there’s something we can do to help him settle down. That’s what you want, isn’t it? For Bobby to take up his part of the ranch work and love it the way you do?”

He shut his eyes for a second, then looked at her again. “I want your brother to be a part of the team that runs this place. Bobby and Herman and I should be working together, keeping Walking Stones strong.” Still puffing on his pipe, he stepped out from underneath her palm and went to stare out the window. “If I see Bobby’s having trouble with that…I’ll figure out what to do about it.”