Ten
Josie was ready when John came back to pick her up. He didn’t have JJ with him this time and he looked as if he was angry
about something. She climbed up into the truck, noticing that he didn’t offer to come around and open the door for her as
usual, and they drove back to the ranch in a long static silence.
“I know we were going to get the tree, but there was an emergency. One of the men got stepped on by a bull and needed Dad
to take him to the doctor. It was old Bill. You know JJ’s been hanging around him, listening to stories about the ranch in
the old days?”
“Oh, yes,” she said quietly. “JJ loves ranch history.”
“He’s crazy about Bill, too, so he wanted to go to the hospital with Dad and Bill. I told him we’d get the tree later.”
She nodded. “Good idea.”
“I took the feed and salt by the ranch while you were getting your stuff. Is that it?” he asked, eyeing the small bag she’d
brought.
“I don’t have many clothes with me,” she confessed. “I honestly thought this trip would only last a few days.” She sighed. “That’s life.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “That’s life. Mom’s closet is full. If you get desperate, she’ll loan you something.”
She smiled gently. “Your mom’s very special.”
“Was yours?” he asked.
She nodded. “Very. She was the first to go and the last to leave in any emergency. She was special.”
He glanced at her. “Didn’t you think about how it would affect her when you started getting in trouble with the law?”
Her face tautened. She’d always been a straight arrow, never even fined for jaywalking. But she couldn’t admit that to John.
She looked out the window. “I guess not,” she said in a quiet tone.
He studied her covertly, scowling. She was a puzzle he couldn’t solve. Everything about her seemed conservative, never wild
or outlandish. He wondered why.
Well, he told himself firmly, it wasn’t his business. They were stuck with her through the holidays. He’d just grit his teeth
and make the best of it.
Late that afternoon, Tanner Everett showed up.
Tanner drew Josie off to one side near the curio cabinet where Maddie Brannt’s little statuettes were kept. This would give
them an alibi in case any of the others saw them together.
“Something big is going on,” he told Josie. “Phillip James has his back to the wall and he’s fuming because he’s being targeted
for a massacre he took part in overseas. He’ll be looking for soft targets. I can take care of Stasia. And Tony will be looking
out for Odalie. I don’t want to add to your problems, but it would be a great help if you could keep your eye on Heather and
JJ. Dad will be on the lookout for any disturbances. And so will John.”
“You’re going to warn them, right?”
“Of course. But it won’t hurt to have many eyes on the situation, especially now that Mom and JJ will be the most obvious
soft targets. I don’t want to alarm them, but nobody’s going to be safe until we get the guy in front of a congressional subcommittee.
The best defense is a good offense.”
“Indeed, it is,” she agreed. “And it wouldn’t hurt to get Marlowe in on this. His background makes him invaluable in situations
like this.”
“Yes, it does. I knew him before he ever became sheriff here. He’s had a lot of tragedy in his life, which probably makes
him a lot more cautious when it comes to danger. He’s always had something of a sixth sense about people and situations. It’s
come in handy in dangerous situations in times past.”
“He seems very capable,” she said.
“Oh, he’s definitely capable. Not a man you ever want as an enemy. As Velasquez will find out if he keeps sniffing around
here. Do you have any idea why your local drug boss is so interested in that lot of calves that Dad’s selling at the private
auction? Does his boss really raise purebred cattle?”
“Raines says he does,” she replied. “In fact, he has a huge ranch somewhere down in Mexico across the border. But doesn’t
it seem a little coincidental that he’s interested in these particular calves at this time?”
“I was just thinking that myself,” he said. “I think he’s got something in mind. God knows what, but it’s probably something
dangerous. I wonder if he knows how much Marlowe hates him?”
“Because he deals drugs, you mean?”
“It’s something more. Something dark. Marlowe doesn’t ever speak of it. But anytime Velasquez’s name is mentioned his eyes
go as cold as a morgue. There’s something there, something between those two men. A history.”
“Marlowe hates drug dealers. I know that.” She paused. “Doesn’t he have a family?” she asked curiously.
“Here’s some free advice. Don’t ever ask Marlowe that. Just don’t,” he said tersely.
Before she could ask anything else, the back door opened and John came in. Josie and Tanner came from the study into the living
room.
“I was just asking where everybody was,” Tanner told John. “I’ve got news.”
“What about?” John asked, looking suspiciously at Josie.
“It’s about Phillip James,” Tanner began.
“Is this any of your business?” John asked Josie coldly.
“She’s living here for the time being, isn’t she?” Tanner asked. “Anybody who’s living here needs to know about Phillip James.
I’ve given a senate subcommittee enough information to hang him. I hope. Meanwhile, he wants blood. Mine especially, but anybody
in the family who has blood will do. He wants a soft target. Nobody is safe while he’s still free.”
“Have you got enough people to watch Stasia?” John asked at once.
Tanner glared at him. “She’s got me. And I’ve got feds who work for me. Believe me, Stasia is not at risk.”
“What about when you all go up for Odalie’s Met audition?” John asked.
“Stasia will go with us to New York,” came the terse reply. “I won’t have her apart from me in her present condition. Besides
which, she’d never miss seeing Odalie on the stage. They’re best friends.”
Josie felt terrible for John. It was painfully apparent how he felt about his brother’s wife, and he must know it was hopeless.
But she didn’t let it show in her face.
Apparently, Tanner wasn’t anxious to pursue the subject because he changed it very quickly. “What’s this we hear about the snake?”
“You mean Precious?” John corrected.
Tanner rolled his eyes. “Yes, Precious,” he said in a long-suffering tone. “What happened yesterday?”
Josie had to smother a laugh. She didn’t dare let John see her amusement.
“Dad had a houseguest who walked into the wrong room and had a panic attack,” John said.
“Did the side patio storm door have a panic attack as well?” Tanner asked with twinkling eyes. “When we called yesterday,
Mom was sweeping up a lot of glass, and she said a guest had tried to go through the storm door to get away from the snake.”
“Precious was in his own cage under his sunlamp,” John said, offended. “He wasn’t trying to chase anybody. Poor old blind
thing can’t even see an inch in front of his face and his cage has a lock on it on account of everybody in this house has
a snake phobia!” He raised his voice.
“Everybody except you, dear,” Heather called from the kitchen. “You know, normal people have dogs and cats . . .”
“They wouldn’t have them here. They’d get eaten,” Tanner said with a gleeful grin.
“Your father’s guest said he was chased,” Heather called, persistent.
“Precious was in the cage!” John sounded exasperated. “How could he chase anybody?”
“John, you’re shouting,” Josie murmured.
He glared down at her. “It’s my damned house. I live here. I can yell if I want to!” he growled at her.
She looked at Tanner and rolled her eyes. Tanner chuckled. John glared at both of them and just walked off.
Tanner glanced down at her, frowning. She was wearing jeans and boots and a T-shirt with a big flannel shirt over it all. But the pancake holster was vaguely outlined at her back, despite the loose fit of the garment.
“Gun’s showing,” he pointed out.
She sighed. “Not many places I can hide it, and it won’t fit in my boot,” she pointed out.
“I just hope John doesn’t start using his perfectly good brain and start wondering how a woman with a rap sheet is allowed
to carry. Conceal carry at that,” he added.
She made a face. “I can lie to Raines and say I have to carry it because I have enemies and damn the law. But that won’t work
with your brother.”
He sighed. “No. It truly won’t. He’s already suspicious of you.”
She drew in a long breath. “I just wish this project wasn’t taking so much time,” she murmured. “I want to go home.”
“Where’s home?” he asked.
“It used to be Wyoming, but my dad is selling our ranch.” She grimaced and stared into space. “My mother and her parents and
grandparents are buried in our family cemetery on the property. It breaks my heart. If I got paid what I was really worth,”
she added with a mischievous glance, “I could buy it myself.”
“Yes, and your boss would say if you got paid what you were really worth, you’d owe him money!” he chuckled.
“I guess you know him,” she sighed.
“Everybody on the Hill knows him,” he corrected. He shook his head. “Why he hasn’t been fired—or more accurately locked up
for his own safety—I’ll never know. God, the stunts he’s pulled!”
She laughed. “It’s why we all love working for him,” she replied.
“He had a tip,” Tanner continued. “A very contentious terrorist wanted by Interpol was lounging on a beach in Florida, at
a mansion he bought with embezzled foreign aid payments.”
“Mansion. Foreign aid . . . don’t even get me started,” she sputtered.
“Same here. Anyway, your boss had a friend fly him down there. He dressed up ninja style, ambushed the guy on the beach, zipped
him into a body bag and had a team of mercs he knew fly him straight to Belize, where he was tossed onto another private plane
and handed over to Interpol to appear before the World Court for war crimes.”
He was laughing. “We heard about that. But why is it funny?”
“Guy was wearing a thong at the time.”
She started laughing, too.
John walked back in and stopped short at the comradery so apparent between his brother and this puzzling woman who was living
with them. “What’s funny?” he wanted to know.
“I was telling your houseguest about a guy in power in DC. Some of the stunts he’s pulled are pure legend.”
John rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t give you a fig for anybody in power in the nation’s capital,” he muttered. “They’re all
crooks.”
“Not quite all,” Tanner replied. He looked at his watch and grimaced. “I’m late. Stasia’s making lasagna. I have to be there
before the cheese congeals. See you later,” he told John, slapping him on the shoulder as he passed.
John glared at Josie when the truck was pulling out of the driveway. “And aren’t you getting cozy with my big brother,” he
said suspiciously.
“Cozy,” she muttered. “He was telling me about a guy he worked with. How is that cozy?”
His pale eyes narrowed on her face. She had her red-gold hair piled high on her head and she never seemed to wear makeup.
But she was pretty just the same. That spread of freckles over her nose made her look vulnerable somehow.
“How’s Bill?” she asked, unnerved by his close scrutiny of her face.
He shrugged. “Can’t kill a weed. He’ll be out of the hospital in a couple of days and back to work.”
“I’m glad. JJ really likes him.”
He smiled. “JJ likes everybody.”
“That’s true. He’s a great kid.”
“We missed out on getting the tree today,” he said. “But we’ll try again in a couple of days. JJ wanted to stay until visiting
hours are over with Bill. He said he’d like to go back tomorrow.” He turned to her. “So I guess it’s just us going to see
the Brannts and Penelope.”
She grinned from ear to ear. “Penelope is a darling.”
“Yes, she is,” he replied quietly. He sighed. “I guess in a few months we’ll have a baby around here. Stasia thinks it’s a
girl. The rest of them think it’s a boy.”
She stopped and looked up at him. Her expression was quiet and sympathetic. “There’s this saying from St. Francis of Assisi.
I had it on my wall at home. It was a Christmas present from Mom.” She shrugged. “I was always impatient about things. She
said I needed perspective. So she got me the plaque.”
“I know it by heart,” he replied. “It’s all about changing what we can and accepting the rest.”
She nodded slowly. “It’s good to remember that there are things we can’t change, no matter how much we want to change them.”
Her eyes looked haunted.
He scowled. He’d thought she was making a dig at him over his feelings for Stasia, but that was stark anguish in her green
eyes, not vengeance.
“You lost somebody,” he said.
She drew in a breath. She nodded slowly.
“I lost somebody because I did the wrong thing at the wrong time,” she added.
And she had. She’d exchanged assignments that one day because she wanted to get off early to watch a TV movie she’d anticipated.
And because she wasn’t there, and her former partner had been paired with a raw, naive recruit, her partner had died. It lay on her conscience like acid.
“That must be a tough thing to carry,” he said unexpectedly.
She looked up at him with tormented eyes. “Hell on earth. And no matter how far I run or how fast, I’ll never outrun it. But
acceptance . . . that won’t ever happen.”
“Was he the sort of guy who held grudges?” he asked, anticipating that she’d let down a fellow criminal during some crime.
Even so, he wasn’t demeaning her. She was hurting.
“No,” she said, sighing. “He was a gentle man. He had a wife and little children . . .” She took a long breath. “She blamed
me. I blamed myself. It was the only time I ever did such a stupid thing. But one time was all it took.”
“We all make mistakes, because we’re human,” he said quietly. “It’s why they put erasers on pencils.”
She smiled sadly. “There’s no eraser big enough to undo this mistake,” she said. “So I just go from day to day, trying not
to mess things up again.”
He smiled gently. “Good philosophy.”
She shrugged and smiled back. “So they say.”
Cole called John from the barn to talk to a visiting rancher who’d just shown up, and Josie went back into the house to help
Heather. Presumably, they’d go see the Brannts later. Meanwhile, she was seeing a shift in John’s antagonistic attitude. It
felt . . . nice. She smiled to herself.