Chapter 2
It was very late when they pulled up at the ranch house. Ed would normally have been asleep at this hour, but because of his wuppie, he was wide-awake.
“I’ll bet he missed us, huh, sis?”
he asked excitedly as they walked up onto the porch and heard him barking inside.
Sara laughed.
“I expect so, Ed.”
She unlocked the door and they walked in.
Ed ran ahead of her to open the kitchen door. She turned on the lights and put up her coat and purse and Ed’s toys that he’d taken with him.
Eventually, it registered that while the puppy was making excited noises, Ed was not.
She frowned and went to investigate.
Ed looked at her with dread.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
she asked.
He sighed and stood aside.
She looked into the kitchen and caught her breath. Part of the linoleum was torn right off the floor. A baseboard was shredded. Goose’s wee-wee pads were in small pieces.
A small throw rug had been mutilated. And the corner of a kitchen cabinet looked like the victim of a buzz saw.
“He’s just a baby, sis,”
Ed said worriedly, trying to ward off disaster. His eyes, so like their mother’s, were bright with threatening tears.
Ty’s words came back to her. German shredder.
She could have cried. But fortunately, they had enough money to repair the damage. And he was, after all, a puppy.
So she laughed.
Ed relaxed.
“Yes, he’s just a baby,”
she agreed.
“We can fix this. But we’re getting him a big crate, and next time we leave the house, he’s going to stay in it.”
She looked down at the grinning puppy with his one floppy ear down and the other standing straight up.
“You bad furry child,”
she chided gently while the puppy looked up at her with bright, laughing eyes and his tongue hanging out while he panted. He looked the very picture of innocence.
Then she laughed and picked him up and hugged him close.
“I guess we have to expect a few surprises. After all, you’re not really even housebroken yet, Goose.”
“And he’s so sweet!” Ed said.
“Yes. And he’s so sweet,”
she agreed, kissing the pup’s head.
So they had old Mr. Loudermilk come and replace the linoleum and fix the chewed places, and they bought a crate for Goose.
“He’ll grow up,”
Mr. Loudermilk assured them with a grin.
“And he’ll be a lot of protection for the two of you. The ranch is really out in the sticks.”
He grimaced.
“Would have suggested maybe moving to town, but I know you wouldn’t hear of it,” he added.
“I love the ranch. It belonged to my grandfather before it passed on to Mom. I can’t imagine living in a little apartment in town. Besides,”
she said.
“Goose needs lots of room to run. And we’ve got it. Wonky old fences and all!”
They had fences, all right. Fences and cattle, although not a huge herd of them, and two part-time cowboys who looked after the cattle. When they had to breed them, or vet them, neighbors came to help. Sara loved the cattle business. She was a third-generation cattle-woman and couldn’t imagine any other way of life.
Painting canvases, of course, helped keep things going here. But it was not a substitute for buying and selling bulls and cows.
Ed loved it, too. He’d already participated in his first rodeo, riding a pony that had been Sara’s when she was his age. The pony was old, but of a good temperament, and just the right size for a little cowboy.
It surprised Sara one Saturday to find a late-model sports car coming down the driveway toward the corral. It pulled up next to Sara’s beat-up truck and the engine died.
A man got out. A familiar man.
“Well, Mr. Hartman,”
Sara stammered as she went to meet him, with Ed right at her heels.
“What a surprise!”
He grinned from ear to ear. Like one of those funny little dolls that you knock down and it comes right back up, she was thinking. He smiled too much. But then she hardly knew him. It was unfair to judge him when she didn’t really know him.
“What brings you all the way from Denver?”
she added.
“This.”
He handed her an envelope with a flourish.
“The gallery owners were going to mail it, but I had a better idea. I’d like to do a human interest piece about you for my show. Maybe for the daily newspaper as well,”
he added as wheels started turning in his head.
“Your painting is sheer genius. And there’s a lot of money in art, as you’ll see when you open that envelope!”
She stared at the business envelope in her hands. It had the return address of the gallery in elegant bold script. She scowled as she opened it and took out the check. If she’d had a chair, she’d have been sitting in it, and very quickly.
“They must have made a mistake,”
she began, dazed.
“Not likely,”
he said easily.
“There’s big money in art, really big money, if you have the talent. And believe me, you’ve got it,” he added.
She was still gaping at the check.
“What’s it for, sis?”
Ed was asking.
She drew in a breath and looked down at him.
“Well, there’s enough that you can go to college and we can buy a yacht and a few Rolls-Royces, and a stable of good polo ponies . . .”
Mr. Hartman was laughing.
“Not that much,”
he chided.
“Okay, we’ll leave off the stable of polo ponies,”
she said, and shot him an amused glance.
“But it’s still a lot. A lot!”
she emphasized.
“Does that mean I can have a really good soccer ball to practice with?” Ed asked.
She smiled down at him and ruffled his thick hair.
“You bet you can!”
Up until now, they’d only been able to afford a cheap one and not regulation size for his age. He was using an adult ball, which was inadequate for him. Too heavy and really too big. He needed the smaller size.
“Maybe for your birthday next month!”
“You like soccer?”
Mr. Hartman asked Ed.
“I love soccer!”
came the reply.
“When I grow up, I’m going to play in the world championship game!”
Sara smiled indulgently. Last week, Ed had wanted a career in baseball. The week before, he wanted to be an astronaut and go to Mars.
“Not a bad idea,”
the man said.
“Sports stars make millions!”
Sara frowned slightly. Did the man only think in terms of money?
“So, how about it?”
Mr. Hartman asked.
“We can do a taped interview and maybe get a few photos for the newspaper layout. You’ll get a lot of publicity. It will help sales.”
She grimaced.
“We’re very private here,”
she said slowly, indicating the ranch.
“And there’s just the two of us. Is it wise to advertise that? I mean, there are some awful people in the world these days.”
“Most people are awful,”
he said with faint boredom.
“But if you have enough money, you can bypass them.”
His eyes were suddenly faraway and his expression grew dark.
She wondered why he was so obsessed with money. Maybe it had something to do with why he was so negative about other people.
“Anyway, it’s not something you have to worry about right now, is it? Can we go inside and talk?” he added.
“But it’s so pretty outside,” Ed began.
“Dust and pollen,”
came the terse reply.
“Besides, I could use a beer.”
Sara cleared her throat.
“Uh, I don’t drink,”
she said slowly.
“Sorry. There’s just water or ginger ale.”
He looked at her incredulously.
“Ginger ale?”
She nodded.
Ed looked up and nodded, too.
He sighed.
“Okay. When in Rome . . .”
“This is Raven Springs,”
Ed said knowledgeably.
Sara laughed out loud.
Ed was staring at her. “Huh?”
“Mr. Literal,”
Sara teased, picking him up.
“Okay, let’s go get something to drink. I think there’s some leftover chocolate cake, too.”
The man made a face as they walked.
“I hate chocolate.”
“We don’t,”
Sara said cheerfully, ignoring his contrary look.
“Ed and I love chocolate.”
“Yes, we do.”
Ed chortled.
Mr. Hartman just shook his head.
Later, while Ed played with the wuppie, Sara and Danny sat at the kitchen table, in the midst of the destruction the wuppie had left behind. Mr. Hartman had asked her to call him by his first name.
“You need to do something about that puppy,”
he said, his expression distasteful as his eyes swept the damage.
“He’s just a baby.”
“I can’t stand little things, and I loathe dogs,”
Danny said.
Her eyes widened.
“How about cats?”
“Nasty things to have inside. Animals belong in the yard. My ex-wife was always bringing home stray animals to take care of. I wouldn’t let her keep them, of course. I’ve never understood why people want to give human qualities to their pets. It’s insane.”
“Because we love them,”
Sara said simply, and smiled.
“I’ve never been without a dog or a cat. My mother was partial to cats, though. I haven’t spent much time with dogs, except my grandfather’s working dogs.”
“Working dogs?”
“He had a pair of Jack Russells,”
she explained as the coffee maker announced its completion with a loud beep.
He frowned.
“Jack Russells? What did they do on a ranch?”
“They put up livestock for my father.”
He still looked puzzled. She wanted to laugh. Obviously, he knew nothing about ranching.
“When the cattle were obstinate, and didn’t want to go in new pasture, Dad would turn the dogs loose. They were trained to nip at the heels of the cattle to make them move. They don’t hurt the animals, they just get them going.”
She chuckled.
“Cows and bulls can be very stubborn and, considering their size, it’s a real job to make them mind. The dogs are like an extra pair of cowboys.”
“Well, I never,”
he said after a minute. He glanced at the counter.
“Coffee’s ready.”
She almost called him Captain Obvious. But he was a guest, and Sara minded her manners.
She got up and poured coffee into two thick white mugs. She’d already put cream and sugar on the table. She handed Danny his.
He made a face as he noted that the utensils were of different patterns.
“Nothing matches,”
he pointed out.
“These are just cheap odds and ends,”
she said, her tone a little defensive.
“Mama had real silverware that had been handed down in her family for two hundred years. My dad pawned them to buy alcohol.”
“We never had an alcoholic in my family,”
he countered, sipping coffee after wiping the lip of the mug meticulously with his paper towel that served for a napkin. Sara saw that and felt uncomfortable. They didn’t have much. Even coffee was barely within her budget. She had a lot of money coming, but until she put this check in the bank or the wire came through from the lawyer about the will, she and Ed were pretty much living on credit. She wished Danny hadn’t made her feel like a hobo.
“Now, your friend Blakeney, there’s a man who can hold his liquor. At least, most of the time,”
he said in a sarcastic tone.
She liked Mr. Blakeney. He’d taken her all the way to Denver and back and repeatedly refused her offer to pay for the gas. But she kept all that to herself. It was obvious that this man and Ty were adversaries. It was far and away a better idea to stay out of the line of fire, especially when she didn’t know what had caused it in the first place. But Danny Hartman here was the sort of person Sara tried to avoid. Negative people just used up what energy she had and made her feel inferior. Her father had already done a good job of that. She wasn’t anxious to have someone else take over for him.
She sipped the coffee. It was good and strong, just the way she liked it. She took hers black, but she noticed that Danny put four spoons of sugar and more than a dollop of cream in his own coffee.
“I liked him,”
she said with a reminiscent smile.
“He volunteered to drive me to Denver. My poor old truck wouldn’t have made it to the county line!”
“I noticed. It’s a piece of junk,”
he said bluntly.
“Well, we buy what we can afford,”
she muttered.
“Blakeney is a pain to deal with,”
he said flatly.
“He was like that long before his fiancée ran off with another man and married him.”
Her heart jumped. She hadn’t expected that, goodness knew why.
“He was engaged?”
“They called it an engagement, but they were just shacking up.”
“For a long time?”
He shrugged.
“For two years. She liked to party,”
he recalled, smiling with the memory.
“I took her dancing a time or two. Well, Blakeney would come up to Denver on business and just dump her in any hotel he was staying in. He liked room service. She liked people. He’d go to meetings and she’d call me. We’d go out on the town while he did his thing. He never even noticed where she’d gone. Hell of a way to treat a woman,”
he added with rancor.
“She must not have cared much about him,”
she ventured. She took a swallow of coffee and had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out. It was really hot.
“She said he was great in bed and he bought her lots of expensive stuff,”
he said sarcastically, oblivious to Sara’s scarlet blush.
“Hell of a reason to live with somebody, in my opinion.”
“They don’t sound very compatible.”
“They weren’t, but the last person who pointed that out to him went onto a table backward. And the table was full of food. Blakeney got barred from the restaurant,”
he added on a chuckle.
“Talk about poetic justice . . .”
“Maybe he loved her,”
Sara pointed out.
“Who knows? He’s the sort of man who never lets emotion get the better of him. In years past, they called him Mr. Snow.”
He glanced at her and laughed.
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
Sara thought he sounded terribly lonely, but she didn’t say it out loud. Mr. Blakeney had been kind to her and Ed.
“How did you meet him?”
he asked suddenly.
She laughed.
“Well, Ed saw a small animal on the side of the road and insisted on looking for it. We were near Mr. Blakeney’s place. He saw us and came out to see what we were doing on his property.”
“Yes, well, you want to be careful about that. He carries a .45 automatic and he’s been known to shoot at people who come on his land without permission.”
“That’s pretty much how we do things out here,”
she reminded him.
“You can get arrested for that.”
“This is rural Colorado,”
she said gently.
“Yes?”
She sighed.
“Things are different out West in rural areas. People don’t see issues the way city people do.”
“Examples?”
“In the city, if someone cuts you off in traffic or calls you names, or starts insulting you, that’s likely all that will happen.”
Her eyes were even as they met his.
“Out here, you call somebody a bad name, especially a woman, somebody’s going to send you to a doctor. From what I hear, it’s even worse down in the South.”
He just stared at her, uncomprehending.
“Example,”
she told him.
“There was a family at a football game in Georgia. This man sitting next to a family in the stands was loud and abusive, and used every dirty word in the book. He was yelling at the players, calling them obscene names, using profanity. The father of the family asked him very politely to stop because there were women and young children present.”
She took a sip of coffee. He was waiting, his eyes wide. “So,”
she said.
“the man threw down his soft drink and started cussing the father. Who drew back a fist like a ham and knocked the man down three bleachers in the stands. When the guy got back up, with his jaw aching and his eyes as wide as saucers, he walked back up where the family was and asked the father what the heck he thought he was doing. He said he was just cussing the man. And the father told him that down South, men don’t fight each other by cussing at them. ‘You cuss a man here,’ he said, ‘and he’s going to knock you on your butt!’”
He just stared at her.
“You’re joking!”
“I’m not,”
she replied with a smile.
“We had a waitress at our local café who lived in Georgia. She went to college there just briefly, and it was at a school football game that she saw that go down. Long story short, the cussing man finally apologized. He and the father shook hands and sat down. The cussing man didn’t cuss anymore.”
She laughed.
“I guess maybe sometimes it’s better to stay quiet and appear dumb than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
He chuckled, the first real laugh she’d seen from him.
“Well, now I’ve heard it all.”
“I don’t know Mr. Blakeney very well,”
she continued.
“but I think he’s the sort of man who would hit only if he was pushed by another man his age.”
He whistled.
“Boy, does he hit,”
he murmured. He looked up from his coffee.
“He comes to Denver on business from time to time. In one restaurant he frequents, there’s a waiter. The waiter is Russian. He and Blakeney are good friends now, but they weren’t always. About two years ago, the Russian made a pass at Blakeney’s girlfriend and told her if she ever wanted a real man, he was available. He did this right in front of Blakeney.”
“What did Mr. Blakeney do?”
she exclaimed.
“He folded his napkin, told his date to hurry and finish her dessert. He stood up and smiled at the waiter, who backed up a step.”
“But he was smiling,”
she pointed out.
“Blakeney doesn’t smile. Ever.”
“Oh.”
“He moved before the waiter even saw it coming. Stepped forward, shot his hand out, and with one quick movement, he sent the waiter flying into the table beside them. The customers were eating cheese fondue at the time and drinking red wine.”
He pursed his lips.
“The wine was the exact shade of the waiter’s blood.”
“Oh, my goodness!”
she exclaimed.
“Did they arrest him?”
He shook his head.
“The waiter refused to press charges.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, Blakeney speaks Russian, which helped calm things down when the waiter realized it. Not a lot of people are fluent in it, in that area of the city. Besides that, Blakeney is filthy rich and he has some rather alarming connections. Nobody sane makes an enemy of him. He’s formidable enough on his own. But his connections are pretty scary.”
“Now I’m intrigued. What sort of connections?”
“He has a cousin in the Russian mafia,”
he replied, and finished his coffee.
She whistled.
“I’d ask how . . .”
“Best not to,”
he interrupted.
“Even his enemies don’t try him. So he pretty much does what he pleases. He likes to gamble occasionally, and he loves to fight. When he’s between women, he likes a willing companion. His only scruple is that he never goes near innocent women. If he has one virtue, that’s it.”
He shook his head.
“Guy’s a walking conundrum. I hate his guts. But he does have one or two admirable traits.”
She moved her mug around on the table.
“He drinks,”
she said in a monotone.
“I’ve had my fill of men who can’t turn away from alcohol.”
“How so?” he asked.
She just smiled.
“I see. Barely acquainted, so we only share surface secrets, I gather?”
“Give that man a prize.”
She chuckled.
“Okay, then.”
He got up.
“I have to go back. I wanted to know if you’d like to go to another party, a week from Saturday.”
He nodded at the envelope that contained the check.
“You can certainly afford a dress, so I won’t take no for an answer.”
He smiled again.
She sighed.
“I can afford a dress. But I don’t have a way to get to Denver. And I can’t dance.”
“No problem. I’ll come and get you.”
He leaned down, not too close.
“And I’ll teach you how to dance.”
He was nicer than she’d thought at first. She smiled.
It changed her face, made her almost pretty. He was glad his instincts hadn’t let him down. He smiled.
“Okay,” she said.
“Get something pretty. Something not black,”
he added firmly.
“It’s not a funeral.”
She laughed.
“Everybody talks about women needing a little black dress.”
“Yes. As little as possible, as in, don’t buy one!”
She stood up, too.
“Okay. I’ll get another color.”
He glanced at his watch.
“Have to go. I’ve got an interview soon over in Benton with a former racing star who moved here. I’ll see you a week from Saturday about five in the afternoon. Okay?”
She nodded.
“Okay. Thanks for asking me,”
she added.
He shrugged.
“Not a problem. See you then.”
He passed Ed, who was sprawled on the area rug, without speaking to him, and went straight out the front door.
“I don’t like him,”
Ed said softly.
She had the same sort of feeling but she didn’t put it into words. She wasn’t sure why she’d agreed to go out with him. She wasn’t attracted to him and she didn’t really like him, but he did go out of his way to bring her check up to her.
But before she could further analyze it, the wuppie ran out of the kitchen as Ed freed him, and straight for Sara.
“Ooof!”
she exclaimed, laughing as he jumped up on her and almost tipped her over.
“Bad wuppie,”
Ed chided.
She laughed.
“I can see that we’re going to need some more books on how to train dogs, Ed,”
she tol.
“the little boy.
“And the sooner the better!”
She’d just come out of the gallery in Benton, where she’d turned in her latest canvas to the Grays, when she ran almost headlong into Ty Blakeney. The contact, so brief, was devastating to her senses. She’d never had such a reaction to a man in her life. He set all her nerve endings tingling, so that she felt sensations she hadn’t experienced since her early teens.
“Whoa,”
he said, righting her with big, warm hands.
“Where are you going in such a flaming rush?”
“Back home,”
she said.
“before our resident shredder takes up the rest of the kitchen floor!”
“Come have coffee with me first,”
he replied, and his dark eyes were solemn.
“I need to talk to you.”
She hesitated.
“I have no nefarious purposes,”
he pointed out.
“Just coffee. Not even an invitation to join me in a rebellion.”
She laughed self-consciously.
“Are you planning one?”
she asked.
“Well, not this week,”
he replied.
“In that case, okay. But Dutch treat,”
she added.
“What, exactly, does that mean?”
he wondered aloud.
She frowned.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t sound particularly kind, though, does it?”
“It doesn’t. So I’ll buy my coffee and you can buy yours.”
He hesitated.
“If there’s only one Danish and we have to split it, we’ll work out how much each of us has to pay for that and our vanilla cappuccino on our Dutch treat.”
He stopped and his dark eyes widened.
“We started out on coffee and now we’re doing a world tour.”
She burst out laughing. She’d rarely ever done that. He made her feel bubbly inside. She didn’t dwell on why. It was enough just to enjoy the next few minutes.
“Okay, then,”
she said.
“The world tour it is.”
He drew change out of his pocket and counted it.
“I have twenty-seven cents, a button, a gym clip, and two mints.”
She did the same. “Ha!”
she said.
“I’ve got seventy-five cents, four pennies, a tack, two horseshoe nails, and a washer that goes to something, but I don’t know what. I win.”
He dumped what he had in his hand into what she had in her hand.
“Then you’re buying,”
he said, tongue in cheek, and led the way out of the restaurant. Several people watched them go, with much curiosity.
She grimaced as they walked down the street to the new fancy coffee shop.
“What is it?”
he asked. He was wearing working gear, jeans and shotgun chaps, boots and a flannel shirt, because it was nippy.
“It’s a small community. We’re being watched,” she said.
He sighed.
“Well, if they gossip about us, they’ll leave other people alone.”
“I guess.”
He looked down at her bent head.
“Don’t let gossip worry you,”
he said.
“You already know that small towns have people who love to talk, but it’s mostly kind.”
She made a face.
“No, it isn’t.”
He shrugged.
“Some of it is,”
he corrected.
“Except that I’m secretly a vampire—or maybe a secret agent working undercover—and you’re running a dog rescue or you’re one of the missing people who were kidnapped by aliens and the government is hiding you here until they’re ready to go public.”
She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and started laughing and almost couldn’t stop.
He grinned at her.
“See how gossip works?”
he asked pleasantly.
“At least, how it works around Benton, anyway. I understand that in Raven Springs, you’re a witch and I’m really a Slavic prince whose throne was taken away by his evil sister.”
“Really? Was it?”
she asked, all silver-gray eyes and curiosity.
He glowered at her.
“Just checking,”
she replied with twinkling silver eyes.
“Where are we going?”
“There.”
It was the newest coffee joint in Benton. They had the best coffee, too. Not that the Gray Dove’s coffee was bad. But this shop’s specialty was every kind of coffee harvested, and in many different flavors and forms.
Plus, the service was efficient and friendly. And, at this hour of the day, when most people who worked inside weren’t occupying stools, mostly empty.
They ordered coffee and paid for it, then found a booth against the back wall.
Ty leaned back in his seat, his dark eyes steady on her face. She felt like squirming. It was a very piercing scrutiny.
“Is there something on your mind?”
she asked finally, because she felt like a bug on a pin.
He nodded.
“What?”
“Why was Danny Hartman at your ranch?”
he asked bluntly.
She stared at him without speaking. Well, it was a small town, and people did gossip. But she wondered where Ty had heard about her visitor.