Chapter 3
Sara’s purse jumped in her hands. Fortunately she got it into the booth with her before it spilled out all her cosmetics and pocket change. She fumbled it closed and put it to one side.
“Why do you want to know?”
she hedged.
He had the most piercing eyes she’d ever seen. They were very dark and very intent on her flushed face.
She grimaced. She couldn’t outstare him.
“He wants to do a feature story about me for his radio station and the daily newspaper in the city.”
While he was contemplating that, the waitress brought steaming cups of vanilla cappuccino and placed them in front of the customers with a smile.
Blakeney thanked her, and the woman, young and very pretty, grinned and started talking to him.
It was fascinating to Sara to watch him absolutely freeze out the overly friendly waitress.
He wasn’t rude. He just stared at her, a piercing gaze that could have made ice out of hot water. It was the same look he’d given Sara when she didn’t want to tell him about Danny Hartman’s visit.
The waitress got the message very quickly, smiled, and retreated.
“Wow,”
Sara said under her breath, observing him openly.
Both dark eyebrows went up in a question.
“I thought I was the only person who could do that,”
she explained, a little hesitantly.
“Do what?”
“Freeze people,”
she replied. She sipped her coffee. It was delicious, but very hot. Sara put the cup back onto the saucer. She then looked up at Blakeney, who was puzzled.
“I don’t like forward men,”
she said after a minute. She flushed.
“Well, overly friendly ones, I mean. I’m sort of out of step with the modern world.”
“Do you have the problem very often?”
he wondered, as if in disbelief.
She glowered at him.
“Any young woman with a passable figure does,”
she told him.
“Modern city men think anything feminine can’t wait to go to their apartments with them. At night, too!”
He blinked.
“What does night have to do with it?”
She sighed, shaking her head. Didn’t men know anything about convention.
“I’ve been told, by a number of people, that if a woman goes alone to a man’s apartment or house, at night, that she’s looking for a good time. I don’t do that,”
she added curtly.
“Not ever.”
He was remembering how easily his former girlfriend had done that. And not only with him. Now he was studying Sara with intense scrutiny.
“Could you stop doing that, please?”
she muttered, averting her gaze.
“You make me feel like a throwback to Victorian England.”
He actually chuckled before he sipped his own coffee.
“Sorry. But you sound like one.”
He sighed.
“I’ll bet you even go to church.”
She glared at him.
“There’s nothing wrong with going to church.”
“To be told that everything you do is wrong,”
he scoffed.
She glared harder.
“The point of the thing is not to do things that are wrong. Not that many people in this modern madhouse of a decade would have any idea what that is.”
He put down his cup and cocked his head. In the overhead light, his dark hair had a sheen like a raven’s feathers.
“I don’t like being lectured,”
he said quietly.
She just smiled.
He wrinkled his nose.
“And don’t smirk at me,”
he said irritably.
“I wasn’t smirking,”
she replied.
“You were,”
he accused.
She sighed.
“Okay. I was smirking a little. Just a little. But even you would have to admit that life in the cities is way different than life in rural Colorado.”
“Parts of it,”
he agreed.
“How’s the wuppie?”
She sighed.
“We got the kitchen repaired,”
she replied.
He chuckled again.
“Told you.”
“He’s just a baby,”
she replied with a smile.
“We’ll teach him, and he’ll learn.”
“Leave him alone and you won’t have a kitchen next time.”
She studied him curiously.
“You know a lot about shepherds.”
“I used to have one,”
he said, and his voice softened.
“Had him for thirteen years.”
His eyes lowered to his coffee.
“Still miss him.”
“I’m sorry,”
she said.
“I know what it’s like to lose a pet.”
“He wasn’t exactly a pet. But it’s comparable.”
She was dying to ask what he meant, but she bit down on the question. It was obvious that he didn’t want to discuss it. She sipped more cappuccino.
“Mr. Hartman doesn’t like dogs or cats.”
“Mr. Hartman is an a . . .”
She held up a hand.
“Please. There are women and children present,”
she said with a grin, reminiscing about the story she’d imparted to Hartman, about what happened down South to some men who cursed in front of women.
He burst out laughing. He genuinely liked her. She had a quirky personality and she was the most straightforward woman he’d ever met.
“Sorry,”
she said with twinkling silver eyes.
“I couldn’t resist it.”
She sipped more coffee.
“You don’t like Mr. Hartman,”
she murmured.
“If they ever make homicide legal for a day, I’ll make sure I’m in Denver when it happens,”
he said enigmatically.
She cocked her head and studied his hardened features. Her eyes went almost involuntarily to his chiseled mouth. Her heart skipped and she looked hurriedly away.
“You want to ask why, but you won’t,”
he said, puzzled.
She grimaced.
“I don’t like to pry,”
she said simply.
“If you do that, you lose people’s respect. Besides, I don’t like it when people do it to me.”
Her own features tautened.
“People like Hartman?”
he queried with a sardonic smile.
She sighed.
“Well, yes. He pries.”
She looked up.
“I guess it’s because of the job he does, but it’s uncomfortable. I don’t like talking about my life.”
He knew why.
“Your father should have been handcuffed and put in jail for several years,”
he said curtly.
So he knew. She drew in a long breath. Probably everybody from Benton to Raven Springs knew. Her father’s behavior was notorious.
“It wasn’t easy living with him.”
“How old are you?”
She blinked, startled.
“Twenty-four,”
she blurted out.
“You were of age. You could have left home.”
She nodded.
“But Mama was always sickly and needed nursing. Then she died and there was Ed. My father couldn’t manage alone, and we had no other family that could take care of him.”
“You were trapped,”
he said quietly.
She started to protest, shrugged, and finished her coffee.
“I was trapped,”
she agreed finally.
“And incapable of getting out, even if there hadn’t been Ed.”
Her heart skipped. She just stared at him.
He leaned back against the booth, watching her.
“You probably don’t realize it, but there’s a certain posture you see in people who’ve been physically assaulted.”
She flushed.
“It’s not something you can handle on your own,”
he said.
“But Jeff Ralston would have helped, if you’d asked him.”
She let out a sigh. “How?”
she said.
“If Dad had been arrested, Ed would have gone into a foster home. I was flat broke. I couldn’t afford a lawyer. And even if I could have, Dad said . . .”
She bit down hard on that.
He nodded.
“He said he’d kill you both.”
“How in the world did you know that?”
she asked, aghast.
He stared into the cup in his hand.
“Long life experience,”
he said shortly. He looked up.
“I’m thirty-four. I’ve seen the elephant.”
In other words, he’d seen the world. It was an expression she knew, from a long fascination with histories of the Old West.
She smiled gently.
“I’ve spent my life reading histories of the western states. I understood that reference,”
she added, wondering if he’d get what she was saying.
“Cute,”
he said, and chuckled.
“I loved the first Avengers movie. Captain America said that when his comrades mentioned the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz.”
“You’re quick,”
she remarked.
“I’ve always had to be,”
he said enigmatically.
She was looking at his hands. They were very steady. Where the cuff of his shirt was briefly pushed back, there was a deep scar.
He glared at her.
“Some people are too quick,”
he said, pulling the cuff back over the scar.
“And no comment.”
“I don’t tell tales,”
she said softly.
He studied her.
“No. I don’t think you do.”
“I’ve had enough told on me,”
she said simply.
“Everybody knew about Dad. I got ragged in school because of the things he did.”
Her dad would get drunk and start fights at the single bar in Raven Springs. Often, the sheriff or one of his deputies would intervene and take her father home to the ranch. She’d never understood their quiet care of him. He was never arrested.
“It’s so odd, the way the sheriff’s department was with Dad. They never arrested him when he went brawling.”
He knew why.
He didn’t share it.
She was learning too much about him already.
He didn’t like it.
Even his girlfriend had never reached inside him the way Sara did.
The other woman liked him in bed and loved his money, but there was no love in the relationship.
He’d turned his back on love years ago.
It had been necessary not to feel much of anything.
Emotional attachments would be found out and exploited.
He became immune.
But his girlfriend had caught him at a time when he was reliving painful memories, when he needed someone badly.
He’d thought she cared about him. He’d thought he loved her. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
He looked at Sara and thought about sharing his true background with her.
Then he laughed to himself.
She, with her sterling morals and quiet acceptance of whatever life threw at her, with her bedrock of faith, would never understand the things he’d had to do.
So it was just as well that he had no real interest in getting to know her.
Of course, he was trying to save her from Hartman.
But it wasn’t personal, he told himself.
Certainly he had no involvement with her, and planned none.
“You want to watch Hartman,”
he said as he finished his coffee and put the cup down.
He had beautiful hands, she thought absently.
They were big and strong-looking, with pale olive skin, like his face.
He was good-looking.
He seemed the sort of man who would fight through impossible odds for anyone he cared about.
Fascinating, how much she knew about him, how much she learned, without words.
“What are you thinking?”
he wondered aloud.
“About how much . . .”
She stopped abruptly and flushed. “Nothing,”
she amended quickly.
His eyes narrowed.
“You see right inside people, don’t you?”
The flush grew deeper, making her look pretty. It irritated him. He’d had enough of women for the time being, even as acquaintances.
“Don’t let Hartman railroad you into anything,”
he said out of the blue.
“He’s pushy, and he won’t stop until he gets a story, if he’s after one. Don’t share anything you don’t want the whole planet to see.”
She laughed.
“I’d already figured that out,”
she said softly.
“He’s like a bulldozer.”
“I know.”
“Yes, because you’re like that,”
she blurted out.
“except you don’t do it for material gain . . .”
She ground her teeth together and looked away from his shocked, angry face.
“I’m sorry,”
she bit off.
“That just slipped out. I’m really sorry,”
she repeated, her eyes pleading.
He took a deep breath.
“You take some getting used to,”
he muttered.
“I don’t do it on purpose,”
she told him quietly.
“It’s just something I was born with. I know things. I don’t know how.”
His dark eyes narrowed on her face.
“Do your people come from Scotland originally?”
She caught her breath. How had he known that?.
“Well, yes. On both sides of my family.”
“Any McLeods or Stewarts in your lineage?”
he persisted.
She was shell-shocked.
“Yes. Both.”
He smiled softly.
“Both were known for having the ‘second sight.’”
“Really?”
she exclaimed. This was exciting.
“Really.”
He reached for his cup and saucer. She dived for her own. They both got up.
“Next time you need a ride to Denver, let me know. I’ll tell you about the clans on the way up.”
“Oh, there’s a party next weekend. Mr. Hartman said he’d come get me . . .”
She frowned.
“I’ll pass along your regrets to Mr. Hartman and I’ll drive you up.”
“But it’s a party . . .”
“I was invited, too,”
he said, and smiled.
She laughed and flushed a little, because it was flattering that he’d volunteered to take her.
“Just one thing,”
he said, and he became serious.
“Yes, it’s just a casual thing so don’t start weaving daydreams around you,”
she finished for him, with humor sparkling in her silver eyes.
“Damn,”
he bit off.
“Sorry. Ancestry,”
she added, warding him off.
He rolled his eyes as they started for the counter. When they got to it, he snatched her bill out of her hand and paid for both.
She protested all the way out of the coffee shop.
“Next time, it’s your treat,”
he said simply.
She hesitated. That sounded fair. “Okay.”
She nodded.
He smiled. He liked the way she only came up to his shoulder. She was pert and perky and smart and cute. Of course, there was that odd perception in her. But she was unlikely to guess certain things about him, and nobody alive knew them. It was safe enough to escort her to a party in Denver, he assured himself. He wasn’t getting involved.
“Cell phone?”
he asked, holding out his hand.
She was surprised into handing it over. He made a face as he opened her contacts list and put his number there, obtaining hers at the same time.
“Good Lord,”
he muttered.
“Why don’t you go and buy a decent phone? Surely you can afford one now.”
She gasped.
“Do you know everything?”
she asked, aghast.
“Why not? You do,”
he accused, but this time his dark eyes were sparkling.
She laughed. “Okay.”
“I’ll phone you when I’m on the way Saturday,”
he said. He eyed her.
“Buy something silver,”
he said abruptly.
“It will suit you. See you,”
he added, and he was gone, just that quickly.
One of the girls who worked as a clerk in the sheriff’s office was coming toward her. Tess Lowery went to the same church as Sara. They’d known each other for years.
Tess stopped, grinning.
“That is the first time I’ve ever seen Ty Blakeney take a woman into a coffee shop. Barring that barracuda he used to be mixed up with,”
she added, with rolling eyes.
“She was as cold as ice. No feelings at all. None of us understood why a man like that would even waste his time on her.”
She grinned.
“Of course, we had a pretty good idea. Still, he’s too nice for that sort of woman.”
“We just had coffee,”
Sara protested.
“He was warning me about a man in Denver who wants to do a story about me.”
“The guy in the sports car?”
The woman nodded. She made a face.
“Danny Hartman. We know him even over here in Benton. He’s bad news.”
She shook a finger at Sara.
“You’re a nice person. I’ve known you for years,”
she added.
“Don’t you let that awful radio man take you for a ride.”
Sara laughed.
“Tess, I wouldn’t dare,”
she replied.
“Ty Blakeney’s a much better bet. Under all that coldness, I’ll bet there’s a lava pit,”
she teased.
“He’s just driving me to Denver is all,”
Sara protested.
“He’s warned me off twice already . . .”
“Really?!”
Sara glared at her.
“You stop that,”
she muttered.
“I can’t help it. My life is like a sports news item. Yours is more like an ongoing soap opera.”
Sara shook her head.
“Don’t I know it!”
“How’s your wuppie?”
she asked.
Sara laughed.
“He’s just great until we leave him alone in the house.”
“He just needs a babysitter,”
Tess advised.
“Babysitter! Oh, my gosh, I can’t go to a party. I don’t have anybody to stay with Ed . . . !”
“Call Mrs. Grimes,”
Tess suggested.
“She doesn’t charge much and she loves kids and dogs. And you know her from church,”
Tess added with a smile.
“You’re a lifesaver!”
Sara said.
“And yes, I’ve known Mrs. Grimes for years!”
“Her number’s in the phone book. And there’s a sale at the Benton Boutique,”
Tess added.
“Hint, hint. They even have evening bags and sexy high heels on sale.”
“I’ll go right now,”
Sara said.
“Who’s staying with Ed?”
“He’s at class.”
Tess frowned.
“Kindergarten?”
Sara laughed.
“No. Art class. He’s taking lessons from Mrs. Scott. She’s so talented!”
“Yes, she is.”
Tess hesitated.
“You’re not teaching him?”
“He doesn’t pay attention to me. Mrs. Scott is creative. She inspires him!”
“What about the wuppie?”
“We have a carpenter on speed dial,”
Sara advised, and they both laughed.
Sometimes, Sara thought, things fell into place with insane precision. She’d seen a beautiful silvery cocktail dress in the window of the little dress shop in Benton. It was high-necked, ankle-deep, with a swirling skirt and fitted waist. Sara was certain that they wouldn’t have it in her size.
But the model was exactly her size, and it fit her like a glove. She pirouetted in front of the full-length mirror with wide eyes. It was perfect, and it did something witchy to her silvery eyes.
“That really suits you,”
the saleswoman said.
“And it’s amazing, because we’ve only got one, and you’re wearing it.”
“It was meant for me.”
Sara laughed.
“I’d second that,”
the other woman agreed.
“Besides, we have a matching pair of strappy high heels and an evening purse, if you’re interested.”
“I’m really interested,”
Sara replied.
“Besides that, I need a new pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts, and some new boots.”
She indicated the worn ones on her feet, which had been soaked so many times that the toes almost curled.
“Ranch work wears them out really fast!”
“We’ve got a good selection of boots,”
the woman told her.
“Need a jacket?”
“In the worst way.”
Sara sighed.
“I’ve patched this old denim one so many times that it looks like it belongs to a hobo.”
The saleswoman laughed.
“Do you have another denim one?”
“Let me look.”
Sara took off the pretty dress and got back into her working clothes. She brought the dress out carefully on its hanger while the saleslady came back with a selection of jackets.
One of them was a newer and heavier denim jacket that reached to Sara’s hips and had plenty of pockets.
“This one’s just my style,”
Sara told her.
“You can just never have too many pockets when you’re working around livestock.”
“Isn’t it the truth?”
the saleswoman agreed.
“Okay, I found two pairs of jeans and two T-shirts, and a couple of dresses for church. Now I need an evening purse and those strappy silver high heels,”
Sara replied.
“Right this way!”
Sara picked Ed up at his art class, after admiring his latest project, an impression of Goose that he’d drawn to the best of his young ability.
“It doesn’t really look like him, does it?”
he asked sadly when they were getting out of the truck at the local department store, where Sara was taking him to get some new clothes.
“I think it’s great,”
Sara told him with a warm smile.
“It’s not how accurate a drawing is, it’s how much feeling you put into it. Drawing is like math; the more you do it, the better you get.”
“Oh.”
Ed grinned.
“Now come on and let’s get you some new clothes!”
“Can I have a T-shirt with a horse on it?” Ed asked.
“Sure you can.”
They found him two T-shirts with horses, but Sara insisted on two plain ones to go with new jeans, and a new pair of sneakers. She also bought him a suit and some nice shoes to wear to church.
“Can’t I just wear jeans to church?” he asked.
“Sure you could. But I always like to dress up for church. It’s respectful, and it’s not like we have any other place to be dressy,”
she replied.
“You’re going up to the city to that party, though,”
Ed pointed out.
“Yes, I am, and Mrs. Grimes is going to babysit you and the wuppie,” she said.
“Can’t I go, too?”
he asked plaintively.
She stopped and hugged him.
“Any other time, yes, you could. But this is a big-people party,”
she said.
“It’s sort of like going to work.”
She wasn’t sure about that, but it had seemed like it, when Danny Hartman had spoken to her about going.
“You can’t go by yourself,” Ed said.
“I’m not. Mr. Blakeney is going to drive me.”
He nodded.
“I like him.”
She smiled.
“I like him, too.”
“I don’t like Mr. Hartman,”
he added.
“He’s mean, like Daddy was when he was drinking. Except Mr. Hartman doesn’t have to drink to be mean. He just is.”
She wrinkled her forehead.
“You’re pretty keen, Ed.”
“If he hurts you, I’ll sic Goose on him. Goose didn’t like him, either,” Ed added.
“I noticed that.”
“I’ll bet he’d like Mr. Blakeney, though,” Ed added.
Sara thought so, too, but she didn’t say so.
They watched the news on their new color television, the night before the party in Denver.
“I like our new TV,”
Ed said, sprawled on the area rug in front of it.
“Me, too.”
“But I like the Xbox best of all.”
He giggled.
Sara had splurged to buy it for him. One of the boys in his art class played on it, and he’d asked Ed if he had an Xbox. They could play together if Ed got one, he added.
Ed had gone without so much in his young life that Sara felt guilty. She bought him the game system and a couple of CDs for it. She surprised herself by enjoying the games as much as her little brother did. They already had the Internet connection to go online—Sara couldn’t do without it on the ranch. But she did upgrade their conservative plan to a faster modem speed.
That Sara liked playing on the Xbox had amused Ed no end. There was a way to do a split screen and play against each other in the arcade game. Ed and Sara had enjoyed it so much that they rarely watched television anymore. Gaming was far more fun.
The night of the Denver party, Mrs. Grimes arrived just before Ty Blakeney did. Sara was all thumbs, nervous and jittery.
“Maybe I should just stay home,”
she told Ed and Mrs. Grimes.
“Nonsense.”
Mrs. Grimes chuckled.
“Ed and I will have fun. And so will you, once you get there. You’ve never had much of a social life, Sara. It’s about time you did.”
“I’m not sure I’m cut out for a social life,”
Sara groaned.
“I know I’m not,”
Mrs. Grimes agreed.
“So I stay home and play World of Warcraft and Destiny 2.”
“What’re those?”
Ed asked, all eyes.
“World of Warcraft is a computer game,”
Mrs. Grimes told him, her blue eyes lighting up with pleasure.
“I’ve played it for fifteen years. You can go on raids and do dungeons, and you can be a caster or a melee fighter. I play with people from all over the world. It’s great fun!”
“And what’s Destiny 2?”
Ed persisted.
“That’s an Xbox game,”
she said. She pulled a CD out of her purse and showed it to Ed.
“I brought my copy over so we can play it!”
“Oh, boy!”
Ed exclaimed.
“It’s got spaceships!”
“You’ve found the way to his heart.”
Sara chuckled.
“Do you play?”
Mrs. Grimes asked her.
“In fact, I’m just learning to,”
Sara replied.
“It’s something Ed loves, and I like having something we can share.”
“Well, this is one of the best . . .”
A sharp rap on the front door cut her off.
Sara went to open it. Ty Blakeney gave her a long look out of dark eyes, approving of the color and fit of the dress she was wearing.
“Not bad, Miss Whittaker,”
he murmured lazily.
“You look very nice.”
She was flustered and trying to hide it.
“Thanks. You, too. Come on in.”
He closed the door behind him and moved into the living room, where Ed was loading Destiny 2 into the Xbox.
“That’s my favorite game,”
he remarked, nodding toward the television set where the Destiny logo was being displayed.
“Is it, really?”
Mrs. Grimes asked.
“Mine, too!”
He gaped at her. She was all of sixty, with silver hair and blue eyes and a warm smile.
“Well, I’m not too old to ride a rocket bike, you know,”
she told him.
He chuckled.
“So much for my idea of what senior citizens do.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“We don’t rock and knit anymore. Now it’s two-handed swords and battlegrounds in World of Warcraft.”
She cocked her head.
“In fact, Horde wins more battlegrounds than Alliance on my server.”
She leaned forward with a wicked smile.
“I’m Horde.”
He pursed his lips. “So am I.”
Sara, all at sea, had no idea what they were talking about.
“I’ll explain it to you on the way to Denver,”
Ty told her. He glanced at his watch.
“And we’d better go.”
He paused.
“Where’s the wuppie?” he added.
“Oh!”
Ed got up and ran out of the room. He ran back in with a pretty little bundle of black-and-tan fur.
“Well!”
Ty exclaimed.
Goose made a beeline toward him. He went down on one knee and ruffled the little animal’s fur.
“You’re a beaut, Goose,”
Ty said in a deep, soft tone while the puppy tried to get closer to him. He looked up.
“Why ‘Goose’?” he asked.
“In my book, it says a goose is fearless,” Ed said.
“They are,”
Ty agreed.
“They make good watchdogs. Goose will protect both of you, when he gets a bit bigger. Does he play with toys?”
“Yes,”
Sara said.
“He loves balls. Ed and I are teaching him to play fetch.”
“He’s going to be amazing,”
Ty replied, ruffling the puppy’s fur one more time before he stood up.
“We need to go,”
he told Sara.
“You two have fun. Ed and I will fight monsters,”
Mrs. Grimes said.
“Where’s the other controller?”
Sara asked Ed.
He looked sheepish. He drew it out from under the coffee table and handed it to Sara.
She groaned. It had teeth marks.
“He’ll grow up,”
Ty told them, and chuckled.
“Right now, he’s exploring the world, and he does that with his mouth. Besides,”
he added.
“a few teeth marks aren’t going to affect the controller so much.”
“I guess not,”
Sara said, shaking her head as she looked down at the panting, happy puppy.
“We won’t be late,”
Ty told the others as he herded Sara out the door.