One man stood out in the crowd…

He was tall and well built, but didn’t walk with that muscle-bound swing several of the others had. He didn’t have any visible tattoos and he carried himself easily. His gaze moved from side to side as if he was drawing his new surroundings in his head for future reference.

He looked straight at Eleanor. She caught her breath. So much anger, so much bitterness, so much grief. It was as though in that one glance she’d been able to see inside him.

“Move.” The CO dug the man in the kidneys with his baton.

A second later he dropped his eyes and became simply another con, shuffling along with the others.

Eleanor didn’t like that moment of recognition. She hoped he wouldn’t wind up on her team.

In fact, she hoped she’d never see him again!

Dear Reader,

Most of us believe that if we are honest, hardworking and treat others with compassion and dignity, we’ll get the same treatment in return.

This is the story of two people who found out the hard way that’s not always true. Dr. Eleanor Grayson, large-animal veterinarian and part-time employee of Creature Comfort Veterinary Clinic, lost her husband, her practice and her self-confidence. After two years she’s finally back up to speed, professionally and emotionally. Steve Chadwick lost his wife, his business, his freedom and his good name. For the past three years he’s known only bitterness and grief.

Now Eleanor has taken a job building a prize cattle herd for the newly reopened prison farm. She wants to save the money to buy a partnership at Creature Comfort, but she also wants to teach her “team” a skill they can use on the outside. She’s been warned against prisoners who prey on gullible women. She knows that almost all convicted criminals swear they’re innocent. But Steve seems different. When he says he’s innocent, she wants to believe him.

Until now, Steve hasn’t cared whether anyone believed him or not. He’s spent his time planning the perfect murder, and refuses to allow his growing attraction to Eleanor to deter him from his goal. He can’t become a part of her life. She must not become a part of his. Yet neither feels alive except when they’re together.

I hope you enjoy reading Steve and Eleanor’s story.

Carolyn McSparren

The Payback Man
Carolyn McSparren

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To all the veterinarians, their families and their staffs who lent me books, let me watch procedures and answered a million questions. And to all the cowmen who regaled me with tales of cows, bulls, buffalo and their idiosyncrasies.

Especially for everyone at the Bowling Animal Clinic, for Bobby Billingsley who warned me I wouldn’t be able to stay on a cutting horse thirty seconds (he was right) and for Sam Garner, who gave me chapter and verse on buffalo and beefalos alike.

If I’ve gotten anything wrong, it’s my fault. Whatever is right is because of the good people who helped me.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

“GUILTY.”

Stephen Chadwick stood at attention behind the defense table. He was too stunned to react. Behind him, the spectators erupted into noise. He heard doors open and close as reporters ran to report to their editors. He thought he heard his sister wail.

This couldn’t be happening. His lawyer, Leslie Vickers, leaned over to whisper to him, “Don’t worry, boy, we’ll get you out on appeal.”

Appeal? How long would that take? Months? Years? Meanwhile, what would happen to him?

The hollow thud of the judge’s gavel struck through his consciousness. He gripped the edge of the table and willed himself to keep standing straight. Until this moment, he’d believed Vickers. An innocent man is never convicted. There was no real evidence against him. “Piece of cake,” Vickers had told him.

Most of all he’d believed in the system.

“Stephen Chadwick.” How could the judge’s baritone sound so casual? This was Stephen’s life he was talking about! “You have been found guilty of manslaughter by a jury of your peers. The penalty phase of this trial will commence after lunch.”

Now Stephen knew why all those prisoners he’d watched being sentenced on television never showed emotion. None of this felt real, but it was nothing like a nightmare. He knew he was awake. He knew this was the end of his life as he’d known it. He simply couldn’t take it in. He wanted to scream, but that would do no good. At this point, why should his precious dignity mean anything?

It was all he had.

How could the jury believe he’d killed his beautiful, clever, funny wife? His Chelsea, his friend, companion and support in all his crazy schemes?

As he was led away to the holding area and the bologna sandwich, already curling at the corners, that awaited him as it had every day from the start of the trial a week earlier, he kept his eyes straight ahead.

ALL AFTERNOON character witness after character witness testified to his value to the community, his kindness, his honorable business dealings. Even his sister spoke for him through her tears. Their father the Colonel would make her pay for that.

Stephen glanced around the courtroom, not really expecting to see his father. Yet he hoped that somehow the Colonel would support him in this way if in no other.

It was as though the witnesses were speaking of some other man. How do you prove you’re a good man when you’ve just been convicted of killing your wife?

Most who spoke up for him were business acquaintances or men he played polo with, women he knew casually from the committees his wife had sat on.

How trivial his life sounded. He hadn’t been a great philanthropist, hadn’t adopted orphans or even coached Little League. He’d worked eighty hours a week building his company, and when he played, which was seldom, he played polo.

Vickers had told him after lunch that it was the polo that had convicted him. In the eyes of the jury, a man who plays polo is perfectly capable of killing his wife. But even they weren’t certain enough of his guilt to convict him of murder. How could they be? Dammit, he was innocent!

He sat up when Neil Waters took the stand on his behalf. Neil was his only true friend, and as his brother-in-law, he must have endured hell from his wife, Chelsea’s sister, to come forward like this. He said he still believed in Stephen’s innocence, just as he had as a hostile witness for the prosecution during the trial.

Then it was over. He stood to hear his sentence.

“Stephen Chadwick, I have heard a great deal about what a fine man you are, but a fine man does not kill his wife. Granted, the jury only found you guilty of manslaughter, but I can hardly sentence you to community service. I therefore sentence you to not less than six years nor more than twelve years in prison.” Again the gavel sounded.

Stephen couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. From behind his shoulder, Neil said, “Don’t worry, old buddy, you can handle it.”

The judge gaveled the room to silence, and Leslie Vickers went up to the bench. “Your Honor, we request continuance of bail until such time as an appeal can be heard.”

The prosecution broke in hurriedly. “Your Honor, the defendant is a wealthy man with many ties worldwide. He is a substantial flight risk. We request that bail be denied.”

The judge looked at Stephen with something like compassion. Then he said, “Bail is denied. The defendant will begin serving his sentence immediately pending appeal.”

Again the sound of wood on wood. He’d never forget that sound. It would doom him again and again in his dreams.

He felt the heavy hand of his jailer on his shoulder and barely heard Leslie Vickers’s words of encouragement. As he was led away, the voice of the prosecutor cut through his consciousness. “Leslie, old son, you give me a hostile witness like that Waters guy and I’ll whip your ass every time.”

Stephen stopped and turned to look at the prosecutor. Despite his appearance—big, heavy, florid, in a suit too tight across the shoulders—he was a formidable lawyer. His laugh was as big as he was, and it boomed out as he clapped Vickers on the shoulder. “Talk about your damning with faint praise.”

Stunned, Stephen turned to look into the courtroom. Neil Waters was just walking out. No, not walking. Swaggering. The way he swaggered in the plant when he’d just pulled off a really great marketing ploy.

Neil Waters was happy.

CHAPTER ONE

“IS RICK CRAZY to recommend you to that place? Are you crazy for even considering the job?” Dr. John McIntyre Thorn looked up momentarily from resectioning the flipped intestine of the young Great Dane who lay on the surgical table in front of him.

“Probably.” Dr. Eleanor Grayson watched carefully. Her specialty was large animals, but she never missed an opportunity to observe Mac Thorn’s surgical expertise with small animals. Not that the Great Dane was small—except in relation to a thousand-pound horse. Amazing that such a large man as Mac Thorn could work so delicately. She’d once watched him successfully pin the tiny broken bones of a sugar glider’s leg.

“So why are you applying for the blasted job?” Mac continued speaking but went back to his careful cutting. “Those men are dangerous. Oh, damn and bloody hell!” He picked up a section of intestine that had been hidden behind the original necrosis. As he worked to remove the necrotic tissue, he kept up a string of epithets aimed not at the dog but at the owners who had allowed the dog to suffer for twenty-four hours before bringing him into Creature Comfort Veterinary Clinic for treatment.

His longtime surgical assistant, Nancy Mayfield, raised her eyebrows at Eleanor. There was probably a smile to go with the eyebrows, but it was hidden behind her surgical mask.

Eleanor kept silent until Mac finally relaxed, allowed Nancy to irrigate and tossed the dead tissue into the waste barrel beside him.

“Well,” he asked, “why are you applying for the job?”

Eleanor sighed. “First, if I get the job, I can keep working part-time here at Creature Comfort. With Sarah Scott three months’ pregnant, you’re going to need another large-animal vet for as many hours as I can manage. Second, it’s a minimum-security prison, so probably most of the inmates are in for nonviolent crimes. Third, they’re starting their beef herd from scratch as a show herd for the prison farm. I’ve never done that before, and it ought to be a real challenge. Fourth, the stipend includes a three-bedroom staff cottage on the grounds, so I’ll have no rent to pay, and fifth, the pay is fantastic for part-time work. I can probably save enough in a couple of years to buy into a decent vet practice somewhere in East Tennessee.”

“Or here?” Mac glanced up over his magnifying glasses. “If Sarah wants to cut down on her hours after the baby is born, we’ll have room for another full-time partner. Sponge, Nancy, dammit!”

Nancy, whose hand had already been poised over the intestine with the sponge, didn’t bother to nod. At least Mac was an equal-opportunity offender. He cussed everybody—everybody human, that was. Never an animal.

“Okay. Let’s close this sucker.”

“Will he live?” Nancy asked.

Mac shrugged. “Lot of dead tissue, but with luck, he’s got enough gut left.”

The intercom beside the door crackled. “Eleanor?” The strangled voice of the head of the large-animal section of Creature Comfort, Eleanor’s immediate boss, Dr. Sarah Scott, came over the intercom.

“Yes, Sarah?”

“We’ve got a bloated cow over at the Circle B ranch. You mind taking it? I’m tossing my cookies every five minutes. Oh, blast!” The intercom switched off.

Eleanor began stripping off her gloves and scrubs. “Poor Sarah. I don’t think she planned on having morning sickness quite so badly.”

She went directly to her truck in the staff parking area at the back of the Creature Comfort main building. Sarah was probably in the bathroom. She’d confessed to Eleanor that she and her new husband, Mark Scott, vice president of operations for Buchanan Enterprises, Ltd., and financial manager of Creature Comfort, hadn’t planned to get pregnant quite so soon after their marriage six months earlier. Now the pair couldn’t be happier. Except for Sarah’s morning sickness. Everyone kept saying it would pass after three months, but so far she still spent at least an hour a day in the bathroom.

That put a strain on the large-animal staff of Creature Comfort, which consisted of Jack Renfro, a Cockney ex-jockey who knew everything that could be known about horses, their part-time assistant, Kenny, a senior in high school, and part-timers hired on an as-needed basis. Eleanor worked three nights a week and most weekends, and was on call when someone was needed to fill in.

Eleanor sped out the gates to the clinic, past the brass sign that read Creature Comfort Veterinary Clinic—Aardvarks to Zebras, and turned right toward the Circle B.

She drove as fast as possible along the back roads under big old oaks still not bare of leaves, although it was October. In West Tennessee, this close to the Mississippi River and the Mississippi border, the area usually stayed warm through Thanksgiving.

Indian summer would be a blessing if she did get the job at the prison farm. There’d be a great deal of work to clean up the old cattle barn and make it usable, as well as fences to be mended, pastures to be trimmed—a dozen major tasks that were easier in good weather. Once the cold rains came in November, working outside could be miserable.

Eleanor had one final interview at two o’clock for the position of veterinarian-in-residence at the new prison. Well, not new. That was part of the problem.

The prison had been run as a penal farm in the forties and fifties, then allowed to deteriorate while the prisoners were hired out as road crews.

Now that the farm was being reopened and recommissioned, the county was putting a significant amount of money into making it a model operation.

A real opportunity for a veterinarian. But so far, getting the job had been an uphill fight. Eleanor could not afford to be late for her interview. She knew that she was not the unanimous choice of the board, but despite the problems, she wanted the job badly.

She turned into the gates of the Circle B Limousin farm and prayed that the bloated cow would deflate fast and without complications so she’d have time to change from her coveralls and rubber boots before her interview.

“YOU DO SEE OUR PROBLEM, Dr. Grayson,” Warden Ernest Portree said.

“Absolutely. I don’t agree it’s a problem.” Eleanor sat across the conference table from the five male members of the prison governing board that had the power to hire her or not. She adjusted her body language, hoping she looked comfortable, open, at ease.

She felt miserable, hot, tired and exasperated. The bloat had taken longer than she’d hoped, and she felt thrown together and unkempt.

The small dapper man at the far end of the table chimed in. “When Dr. Hazard, who is, I believe, the managing partner in Creature Comfort, recommended you for this post, he said that you were an excellent veterinarian. He did not, however, mention your other attributes.”

Eleanor gave him a smile and tried to remember his name. “What other attributes?”

“You are a young and, may I say, attractive woman.”

She didn’t acknowledge the compliment. Actually it sounded more like an indictment.

The warden frowned down the table at his colleague. “Gender wasn’t in the job description, Leo. You wouldn’t want to get us in trouble with the EEOC, now would you?” His voice was tight.

“She will be working closely with a crew of convicts, some of whom have histories of violence.”

“But you have female guards,” Sarah answered. Violence? She’d been assuming these guys were behind on their child-support payments or heisted cars.

Leo What’s-His-Name said, “We call them correctional officers, Dr. Grayson.”

“COs for short,” Warden Portree added.

“I stand corrected. But you do have women. Young women. Several I saw on my way over here could be considered attractive.”

“They are trained for their positions, Doctor. You are not.”

“I am trained for the position of veterinarian. The job description said nothing about having experience as a correctional officer. Frankly, it didn’t say I had to look like a boot, either. It did say that I would be protected by your COs whenever I was working with the inmates. Was I mistaken about that?”

“No, no, that’s correct.”

“Also, I thought this was a minimum-security facility. Doesn’t that mean that the level of violent offenders is pretty low?”

“Not necessarily,” Warden Portree said. “When we’re completely full, we’ll have a good many low-level dope dealers and white-collar criminals, but even a murderer with a good attitude and a clean record in prison can be accepted if he is not considered a flight risk.”

“Oh.” Eleanor took a deep breath and sat up straighter. The seat of the wooden chair hit the backs of her legs midthigh. She tried to wiggle her ankles so that her legs would hold her when she stood up. “I still don’t think my age or gender is a problem.” She leaned forward. “Gentlemen, you are looking for a veterinarian who can set up and oversee this new beef cattle operation. You are also considering bringing in other kinds of feed animals in the future, and a rescue-dog program. Correct?”

“Yes, but—”

“I will be maintaining my present position as a part-time staff veterinarian at Creature Comfort. That gives you access to the top veterinary facility and staff in four states as my backup. It also gives you a ready source for jobs for inmates who are eligible for work release and have shown themselves capable and willing to learn.”

A fortyish man with thinning hair and gentle brown eyes leaned forward. The others wore jackets and ties. He wore jeans and a V-necked sweater. “We were introduced earlier, Doc, but you probably don’t remember all the names. I’m a doctor, too, psychologist and psychiatrist. Raoul Torres.”

Sarah nodded. “I remember you, Dr. Torres.”

“Most convicts are master manipulators. A majority of them have conned their way through life. They’ll fawn all over you and tell you you’re wonderful, and before you know it you’re smuggling in cigarettes for them and calling their lawyers to discuss early parole.”

“I’m not that naive, Doctor.”

“Don’t believe it. Some may even convince you they’re innocent. A lot of these guys can’t read and write. We try to teach them that skill at least while they’re here. A few are geniuses, but many have below average IQs. That doesn’t mean they don’t have street smarts, but nearly all of them have rotten impulse control. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have committed robbery or stolen cars or even taken drugs. Just remember they see nothing wrong in using you to get what they want.”

“That’s a pretty grim picture, Doctor. Why on earth are you working with them at all if that’s the way you feel?”

“How can I help anyone I can’t diagnose properly? Many of these guys are close to being released back into society. If we can teach them impulse control, break the cycle of poverty, addiction and anger, and give them a skill needed on the outside, then maybe we’ll give them a chance for a decent life. Believe me, buying into the games doesn’t help anybody.”

“And in the meantime, we put them to hard work and help pay the expenses of keeping them,” Portree said. “Prison farms everywhere used to support themselves with market gardening and livestock. Then that theory went out of favor, but what goes around comes around. Several states now have very successful prison farm programs. Angola—about the toughest prison around—even has an inmate rodeo once a year to show the general populace what they’ve accomplished.”

“You want a rodeo?”

“Not immediately of course, and it probably wouldn’t be under your jurisdiction in any case,” Portree said.

“Mr. Portree, gentlemen, I can do this job. I am not going to get caught up in inmate intrigues. I will teach them to be cattlemen and horsemen—”

“Horsemen?” the man named Leo said. “Nobody said anything about horsemen.”

Eleanor sighed. “You have a choice. Either work your cattle from horseback or from four-wheelers or motorcycles. I don’t imagine you want your inmates to have access to motor vehicles. Horses are smarter, think faster than either men or cows, and go places four-wheelers can’t go. You can teach cows to come in on their own to eat, but if you have to move them any distance, you’ll need horses. I’d also recommend a couple of good herding dogs eventually.”

“She’s right.” This came from J. K. Sanders, a big, rawboned man with graying hair who sat beside Portree. “I got three or four old cutting horses out at my place I’ll let you have. They’re pretty much retired now, but you won’t be working them hard, and I think they’d enjoy the excitement.” He smiled at Eleanor, who nodded in return.

“This is getting complicated,” Portree said.

“It’s going to get worse,” Eleanor continued. “A commercial cattle operation looks fairly simple, but you want a prize herd, don’t you? Even a small herd of fine cattle gets complicated if done right.”

“We don’t want a large herd, Doctor,” Leo clarified.

Eleanor suddenly remembered that his last name was Hamilton—Leo Hamilton.

He went on. “We want an exceptional pedigreed herd that wins prizes at fairs, brings good prices at auction and shows off what a good job we’re doing. It’s to be as much a public-relations project as anything. We don’t expect to provide beef for an entire prison population. At least not initially, and perhaps never.”

“Then you need a few exceptional cows, preferably with calves at foot and pregnant again, and a really superb bull that will win prizes for you quickly. You can make money from selling his semen, as well as using it yourselves. You’ll have to change bulls every two to three years, otherwise you’ll have an inbred herd.”

“You know how to buy cattle?” The question came Sanders. Eleanor suspected he had probably bought and sold a few in his day.

“I haven’t done it in a while, and I’d be grateful for your assistance, Mr. Sanders.”

“Sure thing, little lady.”

Her mother had taught her that the way to make a friend or ally was not to do something for them, but to ask them to do something for you. This time it seemed to have worked. “If you agree, I’ll also enlist the help of the large-animal partner at the clinic, Dr. Sarah Scott. She’s an expert in breeds and breeding. Have you decided the breed you want?” Eleanor asked.

“We’re open to suggestions,” J. K. Sanders replied, “but my choice would be Beefmaster. I know a couple of excellent local breeders who’d let us have some stock at affordable prices.” He shrugged. “Might even donate ’em for the write-off on their income taxes, but we’ll have to pay a pretty penny for a good bull.”

“You do know they’re the largest breed of domestic cow,” Eleanor said.

“And one of the showiest,” Portree said.

“Your inexperienced men will be handling over a ton of bull.”

“Doctor, some of those guys could throw a bull over their shoulders and walk off with it. Besides, you’ve got the experience.”

“Even I cannot pick up a three-thousand-pound bull.”

“So you can’t handle it?”

“I didn’t say that. There’s not that much difference between a three-thousand-pound Beefmaster and a two-thousand-pound Brahma, except that the Brahma is probably a whole lot meaner.”

“Those are details we can discuss later if and when we decide to employ you,” Portree said.

“There is one thing that bothers me. Animals don’t work business hours. They often require care twenty-four hours a day, and most cows decide to calve at night. I know your prisoners sleep in dormitories in an inner compound. Will I be allowed to keep them at the barn when I need them? Nights, weekends?”

Leo Hamilton spoke up again. “The bakery begins work at three o’clock in the morning outside the compound. The mess-hall staff works weekends. We have a number of men who leave the prison each day for work release and return each evening. The men who are already here and the ones who’ll continue to arrive until we reach capacity are considered trusties. They are well aware that if they try to escape, they will be returned to maximum-security prisons and lose the good time that they have accrued.”

“So nobody tries to escape?”

“Occasionally,” Warden Portree said, “but not often, and we invariably catch them. The general rule among prison professionals is ‘three and three.’ Escapees are caught within three hours and within three miles of the prison.”

“So the men on my team will be able to work overtime?”

“When absolutely necessary,” Hamilton said. “They can be signed out by you or a CO and signed in again when they return.”

“I won’t abuse the privilege.”

“That’s all we ask,” Portree said. “Now, on to another subject. You know that a cottage on the grounds comes as part of the stipend?”

Eleanor nodded.

“It’s one in a row of overseers’ bungalows, built sometime in the forties. We’ve brought it up to code, but it’s not fancy.”

“I don’t need fancy.” She felt her spirits lift. Surely they wouldn’t be talking about housing if they weren’t going to offer her the job.

“You mind living inside the prison gates?” Torres asked.

“But outside the internal compound, right?”

“Yes. Just inside the perimeter fences.”

“There are five or six other cottages, aren’t there?”

“Yes, but not all occupied yet. We hope to have the work done—by inmates—by the middle of February. Then we’ll put the remainder up for bids to our top staff.”

“Good idea.”

“At the moment,” Torres continued, “it’s pretty lonely—only three or four others occupied.”

“I’m used to being alone. And I like being close to my charges. Besides, Creature Comfort is only ten minutes away by car, so it works out well.”

“All right, Doctor, what say we call you in a couple of days with our answer?” Portree asked.

Eleanor nodded and stood to shake hands all around. Raoul Torres winked at her and gave her a small thumbs-up.

She felt their eyes on her back as she walked out. The moment the door to the conference room closed behind her on their murmurs, she leaned against the wall and let out a deep breath.

“Did you get it?”

Eleanor felt Precious Simpson’s hand on her arm. Precious, principal of the general education program at the prison, had called her boss at the clinic, Rick Hazard, about the job posting in the first place.

“I have no idea.” She thought a minute. “Maybe.”

“Great. We’ll be neighbors. Those bungalows aren’t much, but it’ll be fun having another woman close by. Right now all I’ve got is a couple of crotchety old COs who don’t have any family.”

Precious was the warm, golden brown of a ripe peach, and wore her hair in tiny braids that hung down to her shoulders.

“I think Leo Hamilton really hates that I’m a woman and what he calls ‘attractive.’” Eleanor wrinkled her nose. “You’re a beautiful woman. How come he doesn’t worry about you?”

“Leo probably doesn’t consider my type beautiful.”

“Does being inside scare you?”

“Sometimes. A lot of the inmates they’re bringing in are huge. Most prisoners pump iron constantly. Sometimes when I’m walking in a group of them past the mess hall or into class, I realize I’m one woman among a bunch of convicted criminals who haven’t had a woman since they were sentenced.”

“How do you handle it?”

“Keep my eyes front, walk like I know where I’m going and don’t stop to chat. Then I duck into the staff common room, have a cup of coffee and shake for a while.”

“But you keep coming back.”

“Hey, the pay is great, the rent is free. But what keeps me here is the occasional success—like when some tattooed crack dealer reads Crime and Punishment and actually gets it.”

Precious walked Eleanor out to the staff parking area. As they stood beside Eleanor’s truck with Creature Comfort emblazoned on its side, a yellow school bus pulled through the gates and stopped by the administration building, a battered two-story brick building left over from the Second World War. The bus door opened, and a corrections officer stepped down and shouted to the passengers.

Their hands were cuffed in front of them, but they weren’t wearing leg or waist irons. They wore identical blue work shirts under jean jackets, jeans and running shoes.

“You’re right,” Eleanor whispered. “Most of them are enormous. My Lord, look at that one.”

A gigantic man, probably close to seven feet tall, who weighed at least three hundred pounds and all of it muscle, stepped from the bus and stood blinking in the sun. His skin was almost pure white—prison pallor. His white-blond hair was cropped so short it looked like peach fuzz.

“Move,” the CO shouted.

The big man shuffled forward obediently. From under his brows he noticed the women watching and smiled at them shyly. His eyes were pale blue. Eleanor thought he had the sweetest smile she’d ever seen.

Then she glanced at the man behind him. He, too, was tall and well built, but didn’t walk with that muscle-bound swing several of the others had. He didn’t have any visible tattoos and he carried himself easily. His gaze moved from side to side as though he was drawing his new surroundings in his head for future reference.

He looked straight at Eleanor. She caught her breath. So much anger, so much bitterness, so much grief. It was as though in that one glance she’d been able to see inside him. A second later he dropped his eyes and became simply another con shuffling along with the others.

“Move, you.” The CO dug the man in the kidneys with his baton.

She didn’t like that moment of recognition. She hoped he wouldn’t wind up on her team. With luck, she’d never see him again.

CHAPTER TWO

PLANNING WAYS TO KILL Neil Waters had kept Steve Chadwick sane during his three years in prison.

At first he’d sought advice from the murderers he met inside, but they were obviously incompetent. After all, they were in prison. They’d been caught. Amateurs, all of them. Apparently professional killers didn’t often wind up behind bars.

He lay back on his bunk with his hands locked behind his head. Minimum security. At last.

One step closer to freedom.

He’d have to settle on the way to kill Neil soon.

The bunk beside him was occupied by an elderly con named Joseph Jasper, known as “Slow Rise.” He told the other cons he got his name two ways. He was usually easygoing, slow to anger, but his wife had finally pushed him too far. He’d caught her in bed with her lover and was now serving twenty-five to life because he’d picked up his shotgun and “caught him on the rise, like a damn fat mallard.” He said it was a satisfying experience, but not worth spending the rest of his life in prison over.

Slow Rise said the only truly successful murders were listed either as accidents or natural deaths and never investigated at all. He had great respect for the skill and doggedness of homicide detectives once they were alerted that a killing had taken place. He suggested Steve kill Neil with poison, and even mentioned a few varities that could handle the job. Born and bred in the country, Slow Rise knew a dozen ways to turn common weeds into deadly potions.

“If you don’t do it but once and don’t do anything stupid right after like marry his woman or buy a yacht with his money, chances are it’ll be put down to a heart attack,” Slow Rise had advised.

Steve couldn’t use poison. That was the sort of sneaky method Neil might try. Besides, he wanted Neil to know he was being killed, by whom and for what. He wanted Neil to be afraid, to beg for his life.

Steve had expected to have to wait until he was paroled in two years or less to kill Neil, but if he kept his nose clean at the penal farm, he’d probably be sent out on work release soon—maybe in a few weeks if he was lucky. He could easily escape from work release.

To outsiders, two years to serve until parole might seem like no time at all, but Steve didn’t think he could stay sane another two years, assuming he was still sane now. Killing Neil seemed perfectly reasonable. Did sane men think that way?

“Hey.” The man on the other bunk sat up and poked Steve’s shoulder.

Steve ignored him. He loathed Sweet Daddy, a small-time pimp imprisoned for cutting one of his ladies—his “bottom bitch”—when she tried to leave his employ to start her own business. Steve had inadvertently protected Sweet Daddy in the yard at Big Mountain Prison one day when a motorcycle freak had threatened to break him in two for stealing cigarettes. From that moment on, Sweet Daddy had stuck to Steve like a limpet.

Steve couldn’t imagine any woman being attracted to Sweet Daddy’s ferrety face and scrawny body, but apparently he’d run a large and generally loyal stable of beautiful and expensive ladies. Guess he could be charming when it behooved him.

Steve forced himself to stay calm, to keep his eyes closed, to feign patience. The trick was to seem relaxed, uncaring. If they thought you cared about anything, they took it away from you. Prison taught patience.

But now he had resources. He had the contacts to obtain false identity papers that would pass the closest inspection, and he could sign Neil’s signature so well that Neil himself couldn’t detect the forgery. Prison did teach a few useful skills.

Steve would have preferred to see Neil brought to trial for Chelsea’s murder, convicted, sentenced to prison, see his good name, his wealth, his family stripped from him as Steve’s had been.

Steve knew that wasn’t possible. He’d have to be content with exacting his revenge personally. He’d have to spend the rest of his life in Brazil, which had no extradition treaty with the United States. A small price to pay.

Prison had also taught him there were no completely satisfactory endings.

Before he was convicted, he had believed in the United States criminal-justice system, that being an honorable, moral man was all the protection he would ever need. No more.

Everybody expected Brazil to be corrupt. There would be no nasty surprises. He’d be one more crook among many. Bribery would work every time.

His only worry was that actually killing Neil wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable as the hours spent planning it.

“I THOUGHT I GOT TO PICK my own workers,” Eleanor Grayson said to Ernest Portree. She had been formally hired as resident veterinarian at the farm one week earlier. Up to now she’d been filling out reams of paperwork, going over the old cattle barn and the pastures to see what needed fixing and moving her few possessions into her new bungalow.

This was her first real meeting with the warden since she’d been hired. She looked at the list of six names. These men were unknown quantities and would be her “team.” All had only recently been moved into the facility from Big Mountain Prison in East Tennessee.

“Seniority and good time are inflexible criteria in prisons, Eleanor, or at least this prison. These men have shown good conduct or they wouldn’t have been moved here in the first place. We want the inmates to see a carrot, as well as a stick, in this assignment.”

“They think setting up a cattle operation is a carrot?”

“Better than working all day in the hot sun tending chili peppers.”

“But chili peppers and tomatoes and whatever else you’re growing die in the winter. Not much to do except prepare the land for planting in the spring.”

“We already have two hydroponic facilities set up under canvas and expect to have a couple of temporary hothouses before our first heavy frost, so there’ll be even more to do this winter. It would seem there’s a mystique about working with animals, especially large animals, that attracts the men. Better than digging in dirt or wading in muddy water.”

Eleanor sat across from Ernest Portree at his desk—a broad slab of walnut that had been made in a prison woodworking shop. At least she supposed it had—everything else had. If so, the men who built it were craftsmen who should have no problem finding honest jobs on the outside.

“I’ve been doing some reading, Ernest. What Raoul Torres calls his ‘dummy’s guide to psychopaths.’ He’s been a real godsend. He told me I can call him any hour of the day or night if I have a problem. Okay, with those criteria you mentioned, I’m willing to work with the men selected, with a couple of stipulations. First, no arsonists.”

Portree nodded.

“Second, no one with a record of animal abuse.”

“Of course. Why no arsonists?”

“Because they often progress to violence toward animals. Besides, barns are full of inflammable material. I’d rather not have prisoners who like to start fires.”

“You have been doing your homework. How do you feel about murderers?”

“I read that several of the governors used to staff their mansions exclusively with murderers. They were the least likely to commit another crime—unless, I guess, the circumstances of the first one were duplicated. Anyway, I won’t know.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Raoul suggested that I not read their charge sheets or their prison records so I won’t be looking for trouble. I won’t know the drug dealers and pimps from the guys who embezzled from the mortgage company. They’ll all start with a clean slate. I also want to be able to toss anyone off my team for cause, but I won’t do it without reviewing my reasons with you first.”

“Agreed. All moved into your new cottage?”

Eleanor rolled her eyes. “I’m still unpacking, and a good deal of my stuff will have to stay in storage, but at least I can sleep there tonight.”

“Keep your pager beside your bed.”

“Oh, that makes me feel really safe.”

“You’re probably safer in that cottage than you are anywhere in town. But do it, anyway.”

Eleanor stood. “So when do I meet my guys?”

“Tomorrow morning okay?”

“Fine. Early. Right after breakfast. That old barn is going to have to be dug out to the clay and rebedded before we can bring in any stock. It’s knee-deep in rotted manure from twenty years ago when the penal farm shut down. The first day I’ll stick with the guys. Then, until they’re finished, I’ll delegate that to the CO in charge and check on their progress as often and for as long as I can. That way I can still work at the clinic part-time. Once the cows arrive, I may need space to do classroom instruction, as well as the hands-on stuff. Is that possible?”

“Yes, if you don’t think the office in the barn is large enough. I’ve assigned a CO to you. He should be able to keep the men working.”

“But not drive them into the ground?”

“That’s entirely up to you. The guards take orders from you, and it’ll be up to you to monitor them.”

“Fine.”

“J. K. Sanders going to help you pick out the cows?”

“Monday. We should have our first cows in our pasture that afternoon.”

“Good luck. Keep me abreast of your progress.”

“Thanks, Ernest, I will.” She hesitated. “I need one more thing. I don’t know how many changes of uniform the men have, but each man needs a spare set from underwear out that will be kept in the office at the barn.”

“Why? They normally have three. One dirty, one clean and one they’re wearing. You want a fourth?”

“I’m afraid so. There are going to be times when they’ll be in the barn all night without being able to leave. If someone falls in the pond, say, or we have to mend a fence in a driving rainstorm, they’ve got to have a change of clothes available. I, personally, carry two sets in my truck, along with a spare pair of boots and a set of surgical greens for emergencies.”

Ernest rubbed his chin. “I don’t know. That’s an extra expense that’s not in the budget.”

“It’s a very minor expense when you put it against the hospital costs of caring for a prisoner with pneumonia.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.”

“In exchange, we get all that rotted manure for our hydroponics.” He grinned. “Unless you have a better use for it.”

She smiled back “Agreed. We’ll pile it, you move it out.”

She left him working through a stack of paperwork inches high. She nodded cheerfully at his secretary, Yvonne Linden, as she went by. If they knew how terrified she was, they’d fire her before she even got started.

DR. RICK HAZARD CAUGHT ELEANOR on her way into the large-animal area of the clinic late that afternoon and pulled her into his office for one of his “chats.” Eleanor hoped this one wouldn’t take long.

“I’ve heard prisoners can scent fear,” Rick said. “You sure you want to take this job? I’m having second thoughts about recommending you.”

“Not you, too?”

“Come on, Eleanor. You’re finally completely back to top-notch form professionally. I’d hate to see you get too stressed-out.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll still be available to take up the slack here at the clinic. And as to scenting fear, well, so can an angry terrier.”

“The terrier can do a real number on your ankles. A 250-pound man can do a number on your life, just like a lion or tiger. Better make sure you carry your whip and chair.”

As managing partner and the man whose wife and father-in-law had invested a large part of the money to open Creature Comfort, Rick Hazard’s priorities were his clinic first and the remainder of the world a distant second. “I worry that you won’t have time to spend here once your program at the farm gets into gear.”

“I should have guessed that was the real problem. Come on, Rick, how much time can a small herd take once it’s up and going? I’ve never let you or Sarah down yet, have I? I owe you, Rick. If it weren’t for you, I’d never have gotten my nerve back after Jerry died. A year ago I couldn’t have faced all the responsibility alone. I couldn’t decide what shirt to wear.”

Rick slumped in his desk chair and propped his knee on his desk. “You were just worn out.”

“I was exhausted all right. I just didn’t know how badly. Two years of watching Jerry getting sicker and sicker, trying to keep the practice going with interns, arguing with the pharmaceutical companies, losing client after client. I’m a good vet, but Jerry was the shining light in the practice. He was the guy all the old ladies wanted when Muffy had a sore throat or their stallion needed a blood test.

“After he died, I was stupid enough to think it was all over. It took a whole year of fighting with the IRS, the insurance companies, the hospitals about the bills for Jerry’s treatment, and finally losing everything we’d dreamed of in a bankruptcy auction. I suppose it’s no wonder I lost my nerve. It was as if everything I touched went wrong. I’ve been a widow two years, Rick. Sometimes it seems like a lifetime, and others it seems like a heartbeat.” She flashed him a smile. “Anyway, thanks for having enough faith in my professional comeback to recommend me for this job.”

“No good deed goes unpunished as someone once said.”

Rick was not as tall as Mac Thorn nor as handsome, but despite his reputation as being something of a fussbudget about the clinic, he was a formidable administrator and manager when faced with a crisis. He was also a darned good veterinarian, though he also preferred small animals to cows and horses.

“What does Sarah say?” he asked.

“She’s all for it. She’s going with J. K. Sanders and me Monday to pick our herd. She’s promised to help me get set up. And, Rick, remember the clinic will get all the business from the farm as long as I’m there. Plus a ready source of semitrained brawn on work release. Think of it as a win-win situation.”

“Yeah. If you say so.” He didn’t sound convinced. “You planning to take drugs with you? I’ll bet a bunch of those guys would just love to get their hands on some Ketamine or Winstrol.”

“I’ll only carry the bare essentials for emergencies double-locked in my vet cabinet in the back of my truck. They won’t even know I have them. My truck should be in view at the barn nearly all the time—either I’ll be able to see it or one of the COs will.”

“How many of those guys you think can pop a car lock and pick the lock on your cabinet within twenty seconds?”

“Probably all of them. The COs are supposed to keep that from happening.”

“Is the anxiety worth the money you’ll be making? Don’t try to tell me you’re not anxious.”

“Of course I’m anxious, but I’m also excited. It’s the first time since Jerry died that I’ve had the guts to try something new on my own. I don’t expect to do it for more than a couple of years. By that time I should have enough money to buy a partnership in a good practice somewhere, maybe even here, if you have room and I can afford the cost. I can’t go on working part-time forever. I have to build some sort of a life.”

“You picked one hell of a way to do it.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Okay, but if I see a problem, I’ll let you know.”

“I would expect that. Thanks. You won’t be sorry.”

He stood up and pulled the top of his surgical greens down over his stomach. “Man, I’ve got to go on a diet. Margot feeds me too well. You have time to help me in surgery?”

“A couple of hours. What’ve you got?”

“Skin graft on that silky terrier that got burned. Floor furnaces should be outlawed.”

She followed him out of his office and down the hall, stopping at the storage cabinet to pick up a set of greens. Nancy Mayfield would have everything else ready, including the surgical packs. As she caught up to him at the door of the surgical theater, he asked, “What breed of cattle you getting?”

“Beefmaster.”

“Good God, woman, you pick the biggest breed of beef cattle in the world?”

“They want publicity, as well as a prize herd. J. K. Sanders and I figured Beefmaster would give them that.”

“You’re crazy.”

“You said that before.”

So far nobody except Sarah Scott’s new husband, Mark, who looked after the financial end of the clinic as part of his duties as CFO of Buchanan Enterprises, had encouraged her. He alone saw the financial gains she could make in a short time.

Anyone who thought bankruptcy was a quick and easy way to get out of paying bills had never tried it, but after Jerry’s death, there had been no other way out for Eleanor. Their practice had been liquidated to cover the cost of Jerry’s medical bills, but she had still felt like Sisyphus, sentenced to push a heavy rock to the top of a hill, only to have it slide back to the bottom again and again.

With the help of her friends at the clinic, she could pull off this new job. With Sarah pregnant, she’d have to shoulder more of the inevitable responsibilities at Creature Comfort. Good thing she’d gotten used to making do with little sleep during Jerry’s illness and after.

“MAN, I DIDN’T TAKE THIS JOB to shovel cow manure. I already broke two nails,” Sweet Daddy grumbled. Sweet Daddy worked hard to keep his small hands smooth, his fingernails long. One day shoveling aged cow manure from the old barn, unused for more than twenty years, would destroy his manicure and leave him with blisters.

“Shut up and shovel,” said Mike Newman, known to the inmates and the other COs as “Lard Ass Newman.” He was a bully and a sadist. If his authority was questioned or he felt any personal slight, payback was vicious. Steve had only come into contact with him a couple of times before today, but he’d been warned to avoid even a hint of arrogance.

“When’s this bitch coming?” Sweet Daddy asked.

“Use that word near her and you’ll be walking around with those pretty hands in casts,” Newman snarled.

“Might be worth it,” Sweet Daddy whispered. “Oooh-eee, what have we here? Yo, mama.” He grinned at something over Steve’s shoulder.

“Good morning, gentlemen. I am Dr. Eleanor Grayson. We’re going to be working together.”

Steve hadn’t been called a gentleman in years, and probably nobody had ever called any of the others gentlemen. He rested on the handle of his pitchfork and turned toward the voice. The others had stopped work, as well.

It was that woman he’d seen with the other one—the beautiful black woman who worked with the GED program—the day he arrived at the farm.

This woman was taller, with brown hair pulled back severely, revealing her strong bone structure. Almost no makeup. Oversize sweater and jeans.

Bet she thought that sweater would hide her womanly charms. Not from these guys. Three years without a woman gave a guy X-ray vision and one hell of a fantasy life.

Steve glanced at Sweet Daddy. The little man’s eyes were burning into her, stripping her in his mind with professional skill. From the way he licked his lips, Steve knew that he was assessing Dr. Grayson as if she were one of his women.

Steve loathed Sweet Daddy’s attitude toward women. He longed to smash the pimp’s face, but that would give Newman a chance to smash his in return, probably kick him off this team and maybe out of this facility. He concealed his anger and kept his face blank.

“At the moment there are only six of you on my team. I know you feel as though you are getting the dirty end, having to clean out this place, but I’ll be driving a tractor with a front loader and scraper blade for you. That should make things go smoother and faster. Also, when we do need additional personnel, those of you who make the grade will remain as supervisors of the new people. You’re getting in on the ground floor, no pun intended. Tomorrow we’re bringing in painters and carpenters to repair everything that needs repairing. The plumbing and electricity have already been done, or redone. There’s hot water in the shower room and on the wash racks. Monday of next week I’m bringing in our first cows. Any questions so far?”

“Yeah.” Sweet Daddy raised his hand. Steve could already see the blisters on his palms beginning to pucker.

“Yes, Doctor,” Newman said with menace.

“Right, yeah. So, Doctor, do we get first choice on the steaks?”

Everybody but Newman laughed. He snarled and started to move forward. The vet stopped him.

“Good question. Not for a long time. It takes time to build a herd, especially a show herd like this one. But I promise you if you’re still here when we slaughter our first cow, you guys will definitely get steaks.”

Everybody cheered.

“Anybody here know how to ride a horse?”

Steve raised his hand. So did a couple of other men whose names he didn’t know.

“What kind?”

“Just horses,” Steve said. “Nothing special.” The last thing he wanted was for these guys to know he’d played polo.

One of the others admitted to riding horses as a child, and another had ridden occasionally many years earlier.

“Okay. The horses you will be riding—” she waited until they’d settled down “—are cutting horses. I guarantee they are smarter and can move faster on a cow than you can think. You will fall off. A lot. You’ll also learn how to take care of horses. That should give you a skill that will be readily usable in this area, given the number of horses we have and the lack of knowledgeable stable help. You won’t be doing much riding until we get set up, and then just straightforward riding, and not much herding. Learning to stay on a cutting horse when he starts ducking from side to side to work a cow will take some time.”

She rubbed her hands together. “Now, how about we go over names? I have a list, but if I go strictly by that, I’ll never keep you straight. If you introduce yourselves, I probably won’t remember your name right away, but I’ll try. Let’s start with you.” She pointed to the giant. Steve had sat behind him on the bus and beside him at meals, but he had never heard him speak.

The big man hunched his shoulders and shook his head.

“I’ll start,” Steve said. The giant gave him a grateful look. “Steve Chadwick. I’m here for—”

“No. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know what you did. I only care what you do from this point on. Clear?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Clear.”

She nodded and pointed to the man at Steve’s left, instead of back to the giant, who stood at Steve’s right.

“Elroy Long, at your service. Call me Sweet Daddy.” The wiry little black man sketched a deep bow and grinned at her and then at the others. They snickered.

She moved on.

“Joseph Jasper, ma’am—uh, Doctor. They call me Slow Rise. I ain’t young, but I’m strong. Grew up on a farm. Worked cattle most of my life. Rode some years ago. Had my own place.”

“Wonderful.”

The fourth man was completely bald. Like the rest of them, he wore jeans and a work shirt, but all the visible skin, pate included, was covered with elaborate tattoos. Most were prison tattoos. Steve could tell from the black and blue ink and the lack of skill. Some, however, were colorful and beautifully done. A red-and-yellow dragon curled from the back of his right hand all the way up his arm, or at least as far as the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt allowed Steve to see.

“Gil Jones,” he said.

Steve thought he’d look more at home on a motorcycle.

Dr. Grayson waited, but Jones said nothing more.

Next to him stood a very young black man in a stocking cap. He was as tall as a basketball center but scrawny, as though the bone growth had outstripped his muscles. “Robert Dalrymple,” the boy said. His tone and expression were sulky.

She inclined her head and smiled at him. Newman growled in the background. “You rode horses?”

“My granddaddy had a couple of racking horses,” the kid said. “Ain’t been on no horse since.”

“Let’s hope the skill stayed with you.”

Finally she’d come back around to the giant. “You’re our last man,” she said with surprising gentleness. “What should I call you?”

He raised his head and glanced around at the others. “My name is Bigelow Little, ma’am.” He sighed. “See, folks call me Big.”

Sweet Daddy guffawed. “Big Little? Look at the size of him. Word up, man, you a freak.”

Big hunched his broad shoulders again and ducked his head between them like a turtle.

“That’s enough!” Dr. Grayson snapped. “Big, I’m glad to have you on this team. May I call you Big, too?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Newman snapped.

“It’s okay. When you work as hard as we’re going to work, we can’t stand on ceremony. Now, gentlemen, I’m going to go get the tractor, and we are going to clean out as much of this barn as we can manage before quitting time.”

For a civilian and a woman, Steve thought, she handled herself extremely well. She hadn’t allowed Newman to walk over her, and she’d shown real compassion toward Big Little, who was obviously used to being taunted. There hadn’t been a lot of kindness in Steve’s life these past years, and he realized how much he missed it. And from a beautiful woman…

Allowing Dr. Grayson to become a distraction would be a mistake. He’d have to watch himself.

ELEANOR WAS MILDLY ANNOYED when she found that the men had to march all the way back to the mess hall for lunch. She decided to ask the warden if they could bring their lunches with them in future. Although the cows wouldn’t require a great deal of coddling, she’d need the men on site for as many hours as possible during the day if she was to teach them.

She drove to her cottage for a quick lunch, looked at the pile of packing boxes and the small empty rooms with dismay, and wound up eating her salami-and-cheese sandwich standing at the counter in the galley kitchen before she drove back to the barn.

The men had returned before her. Like soldiers detailed to dig latrines, they didn’t seem anxious to start without her. They lounged on the grass, enjoying the late-October weather. She heard Sweet Daddy groan as she got out of her truck, and she motioned him over to her. He smirked at the others and sauntered toward her truck.

“Move it!” the CO snapped. She knew from Precious that Newman had a reputation for sadism, and that his nickname was Lard Ass. She doubted he’d be pleased if she called him that.

Sweet Daddy’s saunter changed to a lope.

“Hold out your hands,” Eleanor said when he reached her.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I noticed you seemed to be having difficulty earlier. I don’t know how you’ve managed to avoid manual labor thus far in your sentence, but at the moment you’re courting a bad infection in those blisters. Possibly some of the rest of you are, as well. Mr. Newman, I believe I asked that these men be issued heavy leather work gloves.”

Every head turned toward the guard. For a moment he said nothing, simply glared at Eleanor with angry, piggy eyes. “Yeah. Some kind of mix-up.”

Eleanor inclined her head. “You don’t by any chance have the gloves with you, do you? It would certainly be easy to forget to give them out.”

Newman glared at her.

“Oh, well, I can call the supply office on my cell phone. No doubt they’ll issue the gloves in the morning,” Eleanor said. She kept her voice mild, but she could see Newman knew a threat when he heard one. She was furious with herself for not checking on the gloves earlier.

She also didn’t know why she guessed that Newman might have the gloves, but one look at his enraged face told her she was right. She had to fight to keep her eyes on his. He looked away first. Good thing. She was starting to shake.

“Yeah. Maybe I forgot I had ’em.”

“Perfectly understandable. But I’d appreciate your distributing them now. Elroy, let me clean those hands and put some bandages on them.”

“And I get to sit down, right?”

“No. You’ll be fine with gloves.”

She heard the snickers from the other men. Sweet Daddy curled his lip and threw her a glance of such malevolence that she stepped back a pace.

She treated his hands and watched as Newman gave him a pair of heavy gloves, which he pulled on with a grimace.

“Anybody else have bad blisters?” she asked. No one answered.

“Fine, then put on your gloves and let’s go back to work. I think we can finish cleaning out this muck before quitting time if we really try.” She knew she sounded like a schoolmarm with a bunch of kindergartners, but she couldn’t seem to strike the right note with them.

The way they watched her and moved around her reminded her of Rick Hazard’s remark about her whip and chair. It was like being in the midst of a pride of lions. She had no way of knowing whether they’d had their fill of prey or not.

Newman couldn’t have forgotten he had those gloves. He had withheld them out of pure meanness. And for half the day he’d gotten away with it. She’d be more careful in the future.

She squared her shoulders and walked ahead of the men toward the tractor, which sat on the concrete pad in front of the barn. They followed.

Without warning, she felt a pair of muscular arms around her waist. She was lifted off her feet and swung violently away from the tractor.

“Hey!” Newman yelled.

She was hoisted across Steve Chadwick’s chest. His cheek brushed hers. She could feel the stubble and smell the musky scent of his sweat.

“Snake!” Big screamed.

From her position on Steve’s hip she looked back at the concrete. In the shadow cast by the tractor curled the largest copperhead she’d ever seen. One pace more and she’d have stepped on it. It had been sleeping, but now it lifted its triangular head and prepared to defend itself.

“Damn!” Newman hauled out his gun.

Steve said quietly, “If you plan to shoot at that concrete, I’m sure the doctor and the rest of us would appreciate the chance to take cover from the ricochet behind one of the posts.”

“How else we gonna kill it, smart ass?” the CO hissed.

Gil Jones, as though his dragon tattoo conferred immunity from copperhead venom, took one step to the side, reached down, grasped the copperhead right behind its skull, hefted it one-handed while with the other he kept the writhing tail from wrapping itself around his arm. He took a couple of steps toward the open meadow and hurled the snake end over end the length of a football field into the tall weeds.

He threw an arrogant glance at Newman and returned to his place in the group.

“Thanks. You can put me down now,” Eleanor gasped.

“Right,” Steve said, and let her slide down his body.

She could feel her pulse thrumming in her throat. Her skin tingled where his hands had touched her. Fear. The residue of fear. That was all it was.

To cover her nervousness, she went to Gil. “Thanks. How on earth did you learn to handle snakes? I have to work with them from time to time, but I’m still terrified of the poisonous ones.”

For a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he looked across the meadow to the general area where the snake had fallen and said so softly that she could barely hear him, “My people’s into snake handling. They say that if you got enough faith, you can drink poison and handle snakes and not be hurt.”

“Have you been bitten often?”

“Hell, no. I had faith, all right, faith that if they sank those fangs into me I was dead. I can throw a rattler clear to the Mississippi River. First chance I got, I run away, and I ain’t never been back.”

He smiled. Eleanor thought it was even more chilling than his normal stony expression.

“I was a great disappointment to my daddy,” he finished.

Not for the first time, Eleanor wondered if she was doing the right thing by not finding out what the members of her “team” had done to wind up in prison. Maybe imagining was worse than reality. Even if Gil looked like an ax murderer, he might be inside for nothing more sinister than stealing motorcycles.

She realized that Big hadn’t moved since the snake was spotted, and his face was ashen. If such a man could cower, that was what he was doing. “Big?”

He made an inchoate sound deep in his throat. He was petrified.

“Big man, scared of a little ol’ snake,” Sweet Daddy crooned.

“Hush, Elroy,” Eleanor said. “I didn’t notice you stepping forward to deal with it.” She touched Big’s shoulder. “It’s all right, he’s gone.”

“He’s out there someplace. He could come back.”

“Unlikely. And hey, we’ve got Gil to protect us, right, Gil?”

Gil shrugged.

“What if there’s more of them in there?”

“Too late in the season for a nest,” Gil answered. “We need us some big ol’ king snakes—keep the bad ones down.”

Until now, Robert Dalrymple had stood silent at the edge of the group. Now he took a step toward Gil. “Snake is snake. I see me another one, I’m gonna chop it in bits.”

“Yeah.” Newman said. “Hey, Jones, why the Sam Hill didn’t you kill the thing when you had it?”

“Got a right to live same as us. Just trying to find someplace warm before dark. This late in the year they get sluggish, can’t run away from you.”

Eleanor hesitated, then turned to Steve. She couldn’t hold his eyes. “Thank you again.”

“My pleasure.”

That deep voice as much as the words sent a jolt of heat through her. The others sounded as though they came either from the country or the “mean streets,” but Steve spoke like an educated man. He must be one of those white-collar criminals. He didn’t seem to belong with the others.

“So, barring unforeseen critters, let’s get back to work,” Eleanor said. She looked carefully around and in the tractor before she climbed aboard.

“I can run a tractor, ma’am,” Slow Rise said. “No call for you to have to do it.”

“Thanks, Slow Rise, you can take over tomorrow or when I’m not here. Today I’d rather have you on the ground directing where to drive and how deep to dig.”

“Yes’m.”

They worked through the warm afternoon without further incident. Sweet Daddy kept up a litany of complaints, but the others worked in near silence. At one point she looked around for Newman and found him propped against the side of the barn in the sun sound asleep. Great protection. Any of the men could have overpowered him. She didn’t wake him. She’d already made an enemy of him.

Maybe she could get another CO assigned to her. Preferably one that wasn’t vicious or ill-tempered—and one that didn’t sleep on the job.

She was beginning to feel more comfortable with the inmates—at least some of them—than she did with the guard.

ELEANOR LOOKED DOWN at her grimy arm and brushed the dirt off the face of her wristwatch. Four-thirty. The men were supposed to work from eight in the morning until five in the afternoon—later if she needed them for something special.

Since Warden Portree agreed to let the men work nights and weekends when necessary—the animals would have to be fed and watered Saturdays, Sundays and holidays—she had to agree to see that they were properly checked in and out of their dormitories. And to have a CO with them. “I’ll set up a roster,” she’d told him.

Today the men must be completely exhausted. They weren’t yet used to the hard physical labor they’d been doing for hours. With the exception of Sweet Daddy, who she was pretty sure goofed off every time her eyes weren’t on him, the inmates had worked harder and longer than she would have believed possible.

Tomorrow she’d have a private talk with Sweet Daddy. He’d either do his share of the work or she’d find someone else who would. This evening she wanted to give them all a break.

Everybody was filthy and sweating. She was certain her own face was streaked with grime. All she wanted was a shower. No doubt so did the men.

But could they have showers? They might only be allowed to shower on certain days of the week. If so, she’d have to get Warden Portree to make an exception for her crew. Tonight she’d request an exception from Newman. He’d better not refuse, or she’d see that Ernest knew how he’d slept on the job.

The pile of rotted manure and shavings that they’d dug out of the barn was as tall as Big, and looked rich enough to nourish the weakest vegetables. Portree should be pleased about that. He could never buy fertilizer one-tenth as rich for his hydroponic vegetable gardens.

But he could darn well have somebody else move it from the back rear of the barn to his gardens.

“Okay, guys, let’s knock off.” She leaned back in the tractor seat and pulled the kill switch for the engine. “I’ve got a cooler full of soft drinks in my truck if you’re interested.”

“Got beer?” asked Gil. “I could go for a brew.”

She shook her head. “You know better than that.”

Newman grumbled. “You got no call to supply sodas.”

“Sure I do. Big, how about you help me bring over the cooler, then we can all sit in the shade.”

He ducked his head and followed obediently. The cooler was large and full of semi-melted ice and soft drinks, but Big hefted it as though it were a roll of paper towels and carried it back to the concrete pad in front of the barn.

The shed roof over the pad projected ten feet or so beyond the walls so that trucks and stock could be unloaded in bad weather. At the moment that side of the barn was in shade, and the evening was already cooling, but the concrete still radiated warmth. She considered suggesting they bring the cooler inside. The men, however, seemed to prefer being outside—anywhere outside—to being within walls.

She handed out drinks, then realized as she took one herself that she’d have to sit beside someone. Even so small an action could be misconstrued. She sat on the cooler, instead.

“Plenty more.”

The men had simply opened their throats and poured the soda down. She stood, bent over, and realized all they could see was her upended denim-covered rear. She straightened quickly. “Big, why don’t you hand them out?”

He seemed grateful to be chosen and shuffled over.

When she sat again, she said, “Here’s the plan for tomorrow.” Groans. “The worst part is over. Tomorrow you’ll be helping the painters, setting up the office and the storeroom, and rebuilding the fences that divide the pastures. The old barbed-wire fences are twenty years old but still in fairly good shape in most places. The posts are concrete and broken ones have been replaced during the years. We’ll still have to walk the fence lines, mark the few posts that may need to be replaced, restring wire and enclose the bull’s stall and paddock in electric fencing to keep him in.”

“Just like us,” Robert said.

She caught her breath. He was right, but what could she say to that? “This electric fence will simply give him a jolt when he touches it.”

“Yeah, up at Big Mountain, we touch the fence, we get a lot more than a jolt.”

“Will it stay on all the time, ma’am?” Slow Rise asked.

“Good question. Depends on the bull we get, as I’m sure you know, since you raised cattle.”

“Yes’m.”

She turned to the others. “Bulls are as individual as people. Some of them will test the electric fence a couple of times and never go near it again. Others will try it every time they go out to pasture. Still others will take the jolt and keep right on going—straight through.”

“And some jump over.” Slow Rise grinned at her.

“If we get one like that, we send him back where he came from. Once a bull learns to jump out, there’s no way to keep him in.”

Robert again. “Come on, man. Bulls can’t jump.”

“Hell, they can’t,” Slow Rise said. “Why, I’ve seen a bull jump a five-foot fence soon as look at you.”

“Nah, old man, you’re crazy.”

Slow Rise surged to his feet with blinding speed for a man who had to be over sixty. In an instant he stood over Robert, his fists clenched, his face dangerously red. “You take that back.”

The kid raised his hands in front of him. “Hey, man, chill, okay?”

“Sit down.” Newman’s voice was dangerously hard and flat.

The moment passed, but Eleanor realized how close to the surface violence flowed among these men. She glanced over at Steve, who hadn’t moved, his knees drawn up, his fine-boned hands dangling between them.

He was watching her, possibly had been watching her throughout the exchange. She felt her skin flush and looked away quickly. The connection between them had been—was—visceral. As though they were alone. She shivered and knew he’d seen her reaction.

“Okay, guys, drop the empties into the cooler, and, Big, would you put it back in my truck for me? Thanks.”

“Up.” Newman prodded Sweet Daddy with the end of his baton.

“Ow, man, ain’t you got nothin’ better to do with that thing?”

“Don’t you sass me, little man.”

The men stood and formed a ragged line.

“Oh, La—Mr. Newman—the men will be allowed to shower and change into fresh clothes when they get back to the compound, won’t they?”

“Huh?”

“Let me rephrase that. They—we—all smell like goats. We’re filthy. They should shower and change before they come in contact with any of the other inmates, not only for comfort but for health reasons.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Steve caught her eye. He raised one eyebrow and nodded almost imperceptibly. She raised her chin. Apparently she’d done something right, and though she shouldn’t give a darn what Steve thought of her or her decisions, she felt a glow from his approval.

She climbed wearily into her truck and watched as the men trudged up the hill toward the compound.

She’d expected them to turn from mere inmates into people to her, but not this soon and, in one case especially, not so personally.

“YOU BASTARDS THINK you gonna have it easy ’cause she’s a civilian and a female. You ain’t, not with me around,” Mike Newman said. “Showers! Shee-ut.”

“But she said we—” Robert clamped his mouth shut as Steve’s hand fell hard on his forearm.

“She said, she said. What she said don’t mean squat. What I say’s what counts.”

“If we show up dirty in the morning, she’s gonna be pissed.” Slow Rise’s voice was plaintive.

“Shut your yap, old man. Or you gonna find out what this here stick’s for.”

“He’s right, you know,” Steve said mildly, and knew the moment the words left his mouth that he shouldn’t have spoken.

Newman already disliked him. He’d recognized that immediately. Steve tried to be just one of the cons, but he’d never managed to get the shuffle down quite right. Newman saw attitude and arrogance in him and hated both.

He was also looking for revenge after Dr. Grayson called him about the gloves. Someone had been almost certain to take a beating over that. Steve had just broken the cardinal rule of prisoners the world over. He’d called attention to himself.

“You saying I’m wrong? Huh? Yeah, you saying ol’ Mike Newman is wrong. My, my. Well, I do apologize. Sure wouldn’t want to trample on no civil rights of any of you gentlemen, now would I?”

The last rays of sunshine had given way to twilight. Steve knew the blow was coming, but not where or with how much force. He tried to brace himself, but he wasn’t fast enough. The steel baton slashed across the backs of his knees and dropped him. As he fell forward and gritted his teeth to keep from howling, the baton slammed across his kidneys.

Now he couldn’t howl. He couldn’t even breathe. The pain was electric, as though he’d been hit with a cattle prod rather than a baton. He tried to gather strength to roll over, to resist somehow, or at least to present a smaller target, but Newman was nothing if not expert in delivering pain.

Newman could crack his spine with that baton, and there was nothing, not a damn thing, that Steve could do to stop him.

“Enough.” The voice was Gil’s.

God, Steve thought, now Newman would go for Gil. Although Steve barely knew the man, he didn’t want to be responsible for another man’s pain. He groaned and tried to struggle to his hands and knees.

He expected to hear the whish of the baton, to feel it across his shoulders or his hips.

Instead, Newman said with the kind of bluster that usually covers fear, “Ain’t nobody tellin’ me I’m wrong.”

Steve felt hands under his armpits. Sweet Daddy on one side and Slow Rise on the other barely managed to hold him up. His back felt as though it had been broken, but he could still feel his legs, so he supposed it hadn’t.

Newman tried to laugh, but the sound came out strangled. “Hell, even when I’m wrong, I’m right. You remember that. You go on, git, and take your damned showers.”

Steve didn’t turn around. He didn’t think he could move without help, but after a couple of steps he managed to keep his legs straight, to put one foot in front of the other. He gulped in air with every step. He felt like an old man who’d had a stroke.

“Man, you stupid.” Sweet Daddy sounded put out. “Man hates yo’ ass, fool. Next time he gonna kill you.”

Steve turned to Gil. “Thanks,” he managed to choke out.

Gil shrugged. “Hey, man, the bastard kills you, we gonna be up to our asses with Internal Affairs and union reps. I’m not lying for Newman. Easier to keep you alive.”

“Yeah.” Steve managed a faint grin. They reached the door of their dormitory.

Originally an old army barracks, the room now held cots for twenty men. So far only fifteen had been assigned. A two-drawer chest with a lock sat at the end of each cot, and beside it, a single bedside table with a lamp. No posters on the walls, no personal possessions in the open where they could be stolen, nothing to enliven the drab green of the walls or cover up the scars on the old wooden floors. At the far end of the room were latrines and a gang shower that could hold ten men at a time.

The men who were already lounging on their bunks waiting for the call to dinner looked up curiously, then quickly dropped their heads back to their books or porn magazines. Something had obviously happened. Nobody wanted to know what.

“Can you get your clothes off without help?” Slow Rise asked.

Steve nodded. “I think so. I’ll be better after I stand in the shower awhile.”

And he was. He managed to carry his own tray through the chow line and sit down at one of the long tables to eat. As usual, he didn’t speak, and afterward walked slowly and hesitantly to his bunk, lay down and prayed his kidney damage wasn’t permanent. He knew he was leaching blood, probably would be for several days.

Work tomorrow would be difficult if not impossible, but he didn’t dare go to the infirmary. He’d have to explain what had happened or make something up. He suspected the people at the infirmary would take one look at his bruises and recognize precisely what had happened to him.

That would not be a good thing. Either Newman would make up some excuse to deprive him of the good time he’d accrued, or Newman would be brought in and disciplined. Then he’d really be out to get Steve. Either way Steve would lose.

He couldn’t tell Eleanor, either—he already thought of her as Eleanor. She’d tear into Newman with the same effect. Newman would take out any dressing-down he got on the men.

Most of them could fend for themselves. Sweet Daddy was small, but he was wiry and fast. He was also cagey. He usually talked his way out of trouble, or whined his way out, if need be.

Obviously Newman had decided not to mess with Gil Jones. Steve had no idea what Gil had done to land behind bars, but he suspected this wasn’t his first trip. From the tattoos, Steve guessed he was well allied with others in the prison. Newman apparently knew it, too. Together Gil’s people could take on Newman or any of the other guards, take them out if necessary, and nobody would ever know who did the actual killing. Best to keep on Gil’s good side.

Slow Rise was simply a decent man who had a bad temper. Prison had made it worse. He was also an aging con among young men. He had to seem invulnerable to survive.

Robert was an unknown quantity. He could be a kid who went for joy rides in other people’s cars, or a gang member who had gunned down someone on an opposing gang. Steve was fairly certain drugs played some part in his sentence, but whether Robert was a consumer or a supplier, Steve had no way of knowing.

And Big? Despite his size he seemed like a shy, frightened child. Forrest Gump in extra, extra large. If so, why was he in prison?

Steve had taught reading at Big Mountain. He’d written letters for illiterate cons, helped with their business problems. Many knew they owed him. If and when he got a chance to talk to any of them, he’d try to get some information about the team members he did not know. Inside the fences, knowledge was definitely power.

He’d been offered a job teaching here, as well, but working inside the compound all day didn’t serve his purposes. He had to seem trustworthy on his own, away from the group, even if that meant passing up chances to escape in favor of better chances down the road.

He had always worked out and, besides polo, had played handball, tennis and golf. He’d run in charity races. He was already in shape. When he discovered the weight room at Big Mountain, he put on twenty pounds in six months—all of it muscle.

One con had tried to attack him with a knife, but Steve had countered him successfully and won grudging respect. His knowledge of business eventually won him some measure of protection, as well. As long as he kept his mouth shut, he was moderately safe at Big Mountain.

The prison farm, however, was a new environment. He didn’t understand the rules or know many of the people, and they didn’t know him. He’d met sadistic guards before, but not one who had an unreasoning personal grudge against him.

Eleanor had to be the catalyst. She was the outsider, the female among males. A peahen for a Lard Ass Peacock to preen in front of. Newman’s ego had taken a beating from her. Maybe he’d picked Steve for his scapegoat because he and Eleanor seemed to have an affinity.

The CO was right. Steve and Eleanor did have a connection. Steve had felt it the moment his eyes met hers in that parking lot. Nothing that happened since had changed his mind. Today, when he’d snatched her away from the snake, he’d felt her in his marrow. Newman had punished him tonight not so much for touching Eleanor as for Eleanor’s response. He’d nearly forgotten what a woman’s soft voice sounded like, how she thought, the way she felt.

He’d have to be more careful.

The problem was that he wasn’t certain he could be. It wasn’t simply that she was an attractive woman, someone with the same kind of background as his. Not even that she was the first woman he’d touched in three years.

No, not even that.

If he had met her at a cocktail party or a polo game before…well, before, he knew he would have felt the same pull. She stirred his blood, yes, but more than that, she stirred his imagination. He could hear her voice in his head, see the gentle smile she’d given Big. Wished that smile had been for him.

He couldn’t afford to lose his objectivity, his separateness, his focus.

He was going to escape and kill a man. He needed to husband his anger, hone his bitterness, remember his grief.

He did not want to feel anything but hatred.

CHAPTER THREE

“SO HOW DID YOUR FIRST DAY GO?” Precious stretched out her long legs and propped them on the nearest cardboard box in Eleanor’s small living room. The white walls were devoid of pictures. Except for an old leather couch and matching chair, a couple of end tables and a rolled-up rug in the corner, the room was furnished with cardboard boxes.

Eleanor handed her a glass of white wine, then took her own and sat on the chair across from her. “Weird.”

“How weird?”

“On the one hand, they seem like people you’d meet anywhere, might even like, and then some tiny thing sets them off and, bang, it’s World War III.” She shuddered. “Slow Rise, this country boy over sixty, nearly came to blows with Robert Dalrymple, a lanky black kid, when the kid said he was crazy. I don’t think Robert meant anything by it—just a casual remark.”

“I know Slow Rise,” Precious said, watching the wine swirl in her glass. “He’s usually very gentle, but he’s inside for killing his wife’s lover in a fit of rage.”

“My God! Now I’m terrified.”

“Don’t be. Most of the time he’s the soul of kindness. He’s got another ten years to serve before he can even think of applying for parole.”

“He probably won’t live that long.”

“No, he’ll likely die in prison.”

“Lord, how sad.”

“Don’t let the sad stories get to you, Eleanor. Remember he did kill a man.”

Eleanor leaned her head back against the chair. “You’re right. I had no idea I was this tired. Do you mind if we skip the unpacking tonight? I’m grateful for your help, but I really think I just want to go to bed. Tomorrow I’ve got the men in the morning, and then I’m working a full shift at the clinic in the afternoon and evening.”

Precious finished her wine and stood. “Girl, you are going to burn out at that rate.”

Eleanor didn’t bother to get up. She was sure her legs would be too weak to hold her.

“Want me to fix you some soup or a sandwich?”

“No thanks, Precious. I’m sorry to be such a poop.”

“Forgedaboudit, as they say in the gangster movies. We’ll do it this weekend.”

“You have things to do.”

Precious laughed. “Right. A couple of rich radiologists are just breaking down my door trying to take me away from all this. Girl, I so have nothing to do this Saturday except unpack your stuff. Now, go get some sleep.”

She moved to the door. “I’ll let myself out.”

Eleanor listened for the closing door without opening her eyes.

Not since the long nights and days nursing Jerry had she felt this completely depleted nor this close to despair. She roused herself long enough to call Raoul Torres. When he answered, she said, “Raoul, were you serious when you offered to give me some help understanding this place if I needed it?”

“Absolutely. You feeling overwhelmed on your first day? Want me to come over? I can be there in five minutes.”

“Thanks, but it’s not that urgent.” In the background, Eleanor heard the sound of at least two children, one of whom was screaming something in Spanish.

“Pipe down!” Raoul shouted. “Lupe, tell my children I will chain them to the whipping post and flog them as soon as I’m off the telephone.”

A woman’s voice said something indistinguishable, and the screaming children began to laugh.

“Okay, if not tonight, when would you like to get together? Tomorrow sometime?”

“What?” Eleanor had lost track of the conversation momentarily. “Oh, how about I buy you lunch tomorrow? Someplace close to the farm. I shouldn’t be as dirty as I was today.”

“You got it. I’ll pick you up at the barn about eleven-thirty.”

“Thanks, Raoul. I really need to talk about the men. If I’m going to work with them, I need to understand them.”

“Don’t worry about everything so much. It will work out.”

“I hope God’s listening to you on that one.”

She crawled into bed certain that she’d fall asleep instantly, but found she was too tired and ached in too many places to get comfortable.

How many nights after Jerry died had she slept rolled in a comforter in his old leather recliner, hoping to capture a fleeting scent of the man he had been before he got sick? How many days did she try to remember his face, his smile, the way his laughter crinkled the corners of his eyes?

Since his death no other man had stirred her blood. Her friends told her she was still young, still attractive. She didn’t feel either young or attractive. Until today she’d have sworn that the juices had all dried up. Until today when she’d felt Steve Chadwick’s strong arms around her waist.

Raoul would undoubtedly tell her she was attracted to Steve because he was completely out of her reach and therefore safe. But there was nothing safe about him. It was insane to feel attracted to him. He was a criminal, for God’s sake. A man who had done something dishonorable, and that made him unworthy to be Jerry’s successor.

That sounded priggish even to Eleanor, but it was true. Jerry had been the kindest, the most generous and honorable of men. He had devoted his relatively short life to saving the lives of animals, even though he could have gone to medical school and possibly made a lot more money.

Even more important, after Jerry died she’d sworn never to invest herself so completely again in any man or any relationship. No one should have to endure losing a true love even once, much less twice. She didn’t dare love that way again.

She would devote herself to her goal—saving enough money to buy a decent veterinary partnership. She had enough problems without Steve Chadwick.

Getting even slightly involved with any of the men she worked with would be a fatal error. Whatever crime Steve Chadwick committed probably had to do either with drugs or with money. He could never be considered a love interest.

She’d been wrong not to check her team members out. She did need to know what these men had done to land in prison. If it colored her opinion of them, so be it. She’d discovered that not knowing was much worse than knowing.

“MORNING, EVERYBODY,” Eleanor said with a cheeriness that made her want to throw up. So obviously phony, but then, no matter what she said or did outside of actual work seemed to sound phony. She climbed out of her truck, locked the doors and pocketed the keys, although the only people around were her crew and the new guard.

“Where’s La—uh—Mr. Newman?”

The new CO, a fiftyish woman who could probably have held her own in a fight with Big or Gil, grinned at her. “Mr. Newman is off today. I’m Officer Selma Maddox.” She turned to the men standing in a ragged line behind her. “And I do not want to hear one word about my ass or any other part of my anatomy, you got that?” No response. “I said,” Selma repeated patiently, “you got that?”

Heads nodded.

“Good, we understand each other. Now, Doc, what say we put these lazy bums to work? What you got for ’em to do?”

Eleanor motioned for Selma to follow her as she moved out of earshot. She didn’t want to put Selma on the spot, particularly since, unlike Mike Newman, she seemed to be a reasonable person.

“The painting crew should be here any minute,” Eleanor told her. “They have their own team leader, and I’ve already discussed with him what they need to do. I have a suspicion you don’t want my guys spreading out to check fence lines alone, do you?”

Selma laughed. “This may be minimum security, but it’s still a prison. Outside the compound the fences are intended only to keep the herd animals we’re going to be raising in separate pastures. Four-foot-high barbed wire will not keep your average inmate from climbing over and taking off. Then we have to go after them with bloodhounds. The bloodhounds enjoy it, but I don’t.”

“I take it that’s a no?”

“Right.”

“Okay, so we’ll put them to work helping the painters. They can start painting the one-by-six pine boards for the stall enclosures—they’re easier to paint flat before they’re nailed up. Tomorrow we can go do the fence lines as a group. I doubt anyone but Slow Rise knows how to tension a wire fence, so he can teach the others. It’ll be slow going, but we’ll get it done.” She leaned against the building. “Will you be back tomorrow?”

Selma snickered. “Maybe. I think Mike Newman is angling for a cushy job indoors. He’s not much into the great outdoors, ’specially when it’s still so warm.”

“I’ll ask the warden if we can keep you. You seem pretty relaxed around the men. They don’t tense up around you the way they did with Newman.”

“That’s because even the nastiest con usually has a soft spot for his mother. In some cases I can’t understand why they would, but they do. Anyway, that’s how they see me. I have kids and grandkids, and I try to keep my temper. But a couple of them already know I can come down on them hard if I have to.”

Eleanor raised her eyes as a truck labored up the rise toward the barn. In the back were a dozen prisoners. “The painters have arrived. Let’s get started.”

She walked back to her own team and told them what they’d be doing. She met the painters’ team leader, asked him to give her guys paint and brushes, and followed them to the piles of wood.

She knew immediately that something was wrong with Steve. He moved like an old man, carefully keeping his torso erect and shuffling his feet slowly, keeping his knees straight with obvious effort. She started to say something to him, then shut her mouth. She watched the men set up makeshift sawhorses and saw him bend to pick up one end of the first board.

He nearly fell on his face. Slow Rise caught the end of the board, hefted it easily and put a hand in the center of Steve’s back to help him straighten up. Something was very wrong, but the men apparently didn’t want anyone to know.

She went back to her truck, unlocked it, picked up her laptop computer and carried it back with her.

“Hey, Chadwick,” she called.

He turned pained eyes her way.

She’d better make this good. “You know anything about computers?”

He nodded.

“Good, then I’ve got some extra work for you. The rest of you keep on with what you’re doing. Chadwick, let’s go into the office.”

She turned on her heel and marched away through the barn as though oblivious to anything behind her.

The government-issue steel desk, two desk chairs, a table and a couple of file cabinets sat in a jumble in the middle of what would eventually be the cattle-operation office. An equally utilitarian steel credenza sat against the wall beside the door. She walked in, waited for Steve to pass her, then shut the door and set the computer on the credenza.

“Can you sit?”

“I’m not supposed to sit unless you do.”

“That wasn’t my question. Can you sit?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Of course you do. How badly are you hurt?”

The lines around his mouth tightened, his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed. “I’m not hurt.”

“Bull. Turn around.”

He didn’t move.

“I said, turn around.”

“Against the rules to be alone without a guard and the door closed.”

“Then we’ll leave the door ajar.” She opened the door a dozen inches and called to Selma, “This shouldn’t take but a couple of minutes. Okay with you?”

“Whatever,” Selma replied. “It’s your show, Doc, within limits.”

“Thanks. Now,” she said to Steve, “do as I asked, please.”

He turned around carefully.

“Assume the position if you can. Hands flat on the desk.”

He managed not to groan, but she heard the sharp intake of breath. She hadn’t wanted to ask him to do that, but it was the only way she knew to make certain he wouldn’t interfere with her examination.

She reached for his shirt and began to tug it out of the waistband of his jeans, pulling slowly and with infinite care.

“Stop that.”

“Shut up. I want to find out what’s wrong with you.”

His shirt came free and she lifted it as high as she could. She caught her breath. “Oh, my God, who did this to you?”

“I fell over a curb.”

“Newman. How many times did he hit you?”

“He didn’t.”

“Steve—” She couldn’t conceal the anguish in her voice. “Please sit down. Let me help you.”

She slipped under his armpit, put her arm across his back to his shoulder and lifted to take the weight off his hands. She felt the tension in his muscles, heard his breath sough in his chest. She tried to turn him so that she could slide one of the desk chairs under him.

“No. Forwards.”

She caught the chair with her left foot and pulled it across in front of him, then lowered him so that he straddled it. She sat in the other chair, knee to knee with him. He closed his eyes.

“I’ll get you to the infirmary, then I’ll go straight to the warden. I’ll have that bastard fired.”

Steve shook his head. “He’s civil service and union with high seniority. You can’t touch him.”

“But if the others saw it…”

“They didn’t see anything.”

Eleanor was certain he was lying.

“Why did he do it?”

“He doesn’t need a reason.”

“It’s because I humiliated him in front of the men, isn’t it? He took it out on you.”

He looked up and into her eyes. He wasn’t certain she recognized the connection between them. Newman had certainly picked up on it. He guessed the others were aware of it, as well.

He nodded. “Yeah, I think that was his reason.”

He had rested his hands on the back of the chair he sat in. She covered them with hers. They were warm and strong, and yet gentle. The touch flashed along his nerve endings.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, and snatched her hands away as though she had only that moment recognized the intimacy of the gesture. She stood up and moved to the back of the office to look out the single dirty window. “I wanted to make things better, not worse.”

He was so used to hearing only commands from his captors that the pain in her voice caught him off guard.

He longed to stand, go to her, tell her he’d survive, that it wasn’t her fault, that he’d had worse, but he didn’t think he could manage to stand without help. “Newman was looking for an excuse. You were only the trigger. It’s personal with him.”

“Because you’re not like the others.”

“I’m exactly like the others. Don’t ever forget that.”

“No, you’re not. I don’t know what you did that brought you here, but I know that Newman is a redneck who resents you because you’ve managed to keep your dignity even in this place. He can’t endure it.”

“Then I’m the one who has to endure it. If I make trouble, he’ll find some way to send me back to Big Mountain. I can’t—I don’t want that.”

He could see from her expression that she thought she understood that he didn’t want the soul-numbing life behind steel bars, that he preferred to serve his time in the open air. He let her think that was what he meant. He wasn’t certain whether she would be a help or a hindrance in his flight plan. She was already a distraction.

She sighed deeply, then said, “I’ll have to respect your wishes this time. You understand the dynamics of the place better than I do.” She squared her shoulders and became all business. “I wasn’t kidding about needing some computer help. I hope you weren’t kidding about knowing how to work the things.”

“I’ve had experience.” More experience than anyone within ten miles, probably.

“I need a database to keep track of the cattle program, start to finish. I know the basic information I need to be able to track—vaccinations, insemination and calving dates, that sort of thing. I know some of the ways it should be cross-referenced, but I have no idea how to set up the program. Can you do something like that?”

“Doesn’t sound too difficult.”

She nodded. “That’s a legitimate way of keeping you in here and sitting down for a couple of days. Since Lard Ass isn’t here, at least he won’t know about today.”

“He’ll know, all right.”

“It will still be my choice, not yours. I’m going to request that we keep Selma and find another job for Newman. If he does come back, I’ll put the fear of God and the warden into him.”

He caught her hand. She drew in her breath sharply, braced against him.

“You will not.” It was the voice of command. He hadn’t used it in three years. Amazing how quickly it came back.

“Let go of me,” she said softly.

“Sorry.” He released her and struggled to his feet.

He could see from her eyes that she was suddenly uncomfortable with him, perhaps even a little afraid. He dropped his hands. “I apologize. But I’ve got to make you see that you can’t interfere with Newman on my behalf or the behalf of any of the other men.”

“Of course I can. He’s a stupid man.”

“He’s a sadistic bastard, but he’s clever at that, if nothing else. He’s also dangerous, and not only to me and the other men. If you cross him, he’ll find some way to hurt us. And he may hurt you, too.”

“Hurt me?” She laughed and walked to the computer. “He wouldn’t dare use his baton on me. What’s he going to do, get me fired? I don’t think so.”

Steve shook his head. “Not fired and not hit with a baton. And not by him directly. Probably not even on prison property, but hurt, nonetheless.”

“You’re serious.” She wrapped her arms around herself and hunched her shoulders.

He longed to pull her close, feel the warmth of her body against him. The very thought shredded his nerve endings. He didn’t dare allow her warmth to seep into his soul. He might begin to question his goals.

He had to teach her how to be careful. She was more vulnerable than she knew. “This place has its own unwritten rules. A man like Newman has power that reaches outside the prison gates, to men who owe him, who know they may be under his control again someday.”

She raised her eyes. They were hazel, the color of the last leaves of autumn. She leaned toward him and, without the consent of his body, his hands reached for her arms.

“Hey, Doc, you okay in there?”

They jumped apart like a couple of guilty adolescents caught in the hayloft.

“Absolutely.” Eleanor opened the door the rest of the way. “Come in, Selma. You need to know what’s been going on and what we’re planning.”

Steve shook his head. He knew she saw the gesture, but whether she’d keep her mouth shut about Newman’s attack, he had no idea.

She shut the door behind Selma and leaned against it. “Okay, here’s the deal. Chadwick, here, knows enough about computers to set me up a database to track the cow program. It’s fairly complicated, and heaven knows we can’t afford to pay one of the computer geeks at the university to do it. Any problem with that?”

Selma looked from one to the other. “Nope. He’s working for you. You want him to dig a hole to China, he starts digging.”

“Will the others resent it?”

“Sure. Not much we can do about that.”

“I can handle the others,” Steve said quietly.

“Good. Then let’s get started,” Eleanor said. “What’s happening with the painters?”

“I am going to kick Sweet Daddy all the way to the mess hall at lunch,” Selma replied. “Other than that, we’re okay.”

“I thought the men were brown-bagging it.”

“Not until tomorrow. You know changes take time when you work for the state.”

“Okay. Tomorrow. Today, I’m the one going out for lunch. Raoul Torres is picking me up here at eleven-thirty. I’ll get Steve—Chadwick—started with what I want and leave him with it.”

“Fine.” Selma turned to leave.

“Leave the door open all the way, will you?” Eleanor said.

“Sure thing.”

The moment the CO left, Eleanor said to Steve in a businesslike tone, “I spent last night making notes about what I want in the database, but they’re very rough. I’m not precisely certain what should connect with what.”

“I’ll take a look at what you’re proposing, then I can make suggestions about changes and additions. Okay with you?” He kept his voice as businesslike as hers. No one overhearing them would think they’d had any sort of personal encounter.

“Be my guest.” She pulled a folded-up sheaf of lined yellow pages out of her jacket pocket and dropped it on the desk. “Can I bring you some lunch? The walk up to the cafeteria is going to be painful.”

He shook his head. “Cheeseburgers alone down here? Against the rules. Don’t worry. I’ll make it. I’m already feeling better.”

“I’m only an animal doctor, so I can’t prescribe for human beings, but I can offer some horse liniment that might help, so long as it’s our little secret. I use it myself for aches.”

“Thanks.”

She picked up the computer and placed it on the desk. “Good luck.”

“Right.”

He sat behind the desk and watched her walk out of the room, back straight, hair swinging. Sweet Daddy would call her “fine”—if he called her anything printable. Fine she was, and not only her sleek body. There was a directness, an honesty about her that he found disarming even as it worried him. That very directness might be her downfall. He wouldn’t be able to watch his back and hers, too, not if he got out of here safely.

Somebody had to look out for her, that was for certain.

At the door she turned. “You said not to forget you’re just like them. I can’t believe that.”

As she turned and walked out of sight, he said softly, “One difference. I’m innocent.”

ELEANOR HAD NO IDEA whether Steve had intended her to hear his comment or not. But she had heard, and now she wondered….

At eleven-thirty Raoul Torres’s dusty white minivan pulled up by the barn. She hurried toward it and opened the passenger-side door.

“Oh, sorry,” he said. “Just dump that stuff in the back.”

She scooped up a stuffed bear, a plastic dinosaur, six CDs for children, and a stack of books and papers and laid them on the seat behind, next to a pink child’s seat. She climbed in and fastened her seat belt.

“Where to?”

“Anywhere as long as it’s out of here,” Eleanor said as they headed down the driveway toward the open gates at the front of the farm.

“Rough morning?”

She ran a hand over her hair and leaned back against the headrest. “You might say that. Lard Ass Newman beat up on one of my guys last night, and the victim won’t let me say anything.”

“He’s right.”

“Why?” She turned in her seat so that she could see Raoul’s profile. “Why is everybody so afraid of rocking the boat? There are rules against that sort of thing.”

“You ever have a really bad teacher?”

“Of course. Most people have at least one.”

“But they go on teaching every year because the rules and regulations they serve under require such meticulous documentation to do anything about them, and they have such power to pass or fail you that you just endure it.”

She shrugged. “Yeah. I guess.”

“Ratchet that power up to about a million, and that’s how much power the COs have. The pay is lousy, the hours suck, certainly the ambiance, if you can call it that, is one step lower than the sewers of New York, and the people they are supposed to guard are dangerous. They have to have leeway to protect themselves. They have to be able to count on the support of the warden and administrators. Most of the people who work here are decent people trying to do a decent job. But sometimes even the good ones can be corrupted.”

“Power corrupts, I know.”

“Yeah, and these guys have almost absolute power. It’s a battle between good and evil, and mostly evil wins.”

“Can I avoid corruption?”

He grinned at her. “I don’t know. Can you?” He pulled into a second-rate strip mall and parked. “You like Tex-Mex?”

She nodded.

“Then let’s go stuff ourselves.”

When they were settled in Texas Pete’s and busily scooping up salsa on tortilla chips, she said, “I think I need to know the criminal records of my team.”

“Not a good idea.”

“I already know about Slow Rise. I can’t believe it, but I know it. And what could a sweety like Big possibly do to wind up in prison? Somebody must have led him astray.”

“I warned you.”

“And this morning one of them said he’s innocent.”

Raoul laughed so loud he choked on a tortilla chip and had to wave her away while he gulped down half a glass of iced tea. When he finally got his breathing back to normal, his eyes were tearing and his nose was red. “Didn’t think it would happen so quick, that’s all. I warned you in that first interview that most of the people in prison say they’re innocent.”

“But—”

“Certainly there are miscarriages of justice. DNA testing has freed a lot of convicted rapists and murderers who turned out to have been innocent. But the odds are still very high in favor of the justice system. Confessions, plea bargains and smoking-gun evidence are the order of the day. Take it from me, if he’s in for it, he did it.”

“That’s the thing—I think I need to know what ‘it’ is.”

“Okay. Your choice. I can copy your team’s records. I still think it’s a mistake, but I’ll do it for you. I can drop them by your place on my way home tonight.”

“Thanks. Actually, Raoul, I may decide not to look at them after I have them. I just want the chance to make that choice.”

“Good. Ever hear of Pandora’s box? Or Bluebeard’s chamber? Open the box or the door, and you can’t ever shut it again.”

“What if I find that there has been a miscarriage of justice?”

He leaned back as the waiter set a steaming platter in front of him. “Ah, I hate to think of what these fajitas will do for my arteries, but I can’t resist.”

She looked down at the taco salad in front of her and wished she had ordered the fajitas, as well.

Raoul began wrapping fajitas in tortillas. “Don’t even go down that road. These guys have lawyers and families to handle their appeals or fight for new trials. You do not have a vested interest. You have no standing with the courts. Remember the rules. Keep your distance. Do not get involved. If you do, you’ll get hurt.”

“St—one of the team members intimated that if I rock the boat about Newman, I could get hurt—physically hurt.”

Raoul stopped with his fork in midair and set the unfinished tortilla down in front of him. “He could be right.”

Eleanor banged her fist on the table. “I hate this.”

“Do your job, follow the rules, stay out of the way of prison politics, and you’ll do fine.”

“And if not, I wind up in cement shoes?”

The only thing that kept Raoul from choking a second time was the fact that he had his tortilla only halfway to his mouth. “I doubt it. And he won’t rake your car with submachine gun fire, either.” His tone turned more serious. “But you could be mugged coming out of a department store, or carjacked at a fast-food drive-through. Totally random, no connection with Mike. Do you carry a gun?”

“Of course not!”

“Do you have a permit?”

“I had to go through the course and get a permit before they’d hire me at the farm, but I certainly don’t carry one. For one thing, it’s illegal inside the gates.”

“It’s not illegal in your house, and there are lockers outside the gates for you to store stuff in while you’re inside.”

“That’s such a bother.”

“Think about it, that’s all I’m saying. And I would definitely keep one beside your bed at night.”

“I’m beginning to wish I’d never taken this job.”

“Actually, you’re safer inside than outside.”

“That’s what Ernest Portree says. I’m starting to disagree.”

By common consent, they spent the remainder of their lunch talking about Raoul’s two children, on whom he obviously doted, and his wife, a speech pathologist, whom he adored. They were silent on the way back to the farm.

As he parked in front of the barn to let her out, he said, “There’s an old New Jersey saying—don’t mix in. So don’t.”

She nodded. “I’ll try.”

She had beaten the men back to the barn by ten minutes or so. The place was completely deserted. She walked into the now completely open barn, half-painted in white enamel.

She found her laptop still sitting plugged in on her desk. The screen saver flashed scenes of green fields and mountains.

She heard conversation outside, and a moment later Selma stuck her head in the door, saw the computer and said, “Damn. Didn’t think. You need to requisition a safe to lock that computer up when you’re not here.”

“The credenza locks.”

“I could open it with a paper clip. Besides, you’ll need to store paper and things, won’t you?”

“Why would they steal the computer? They couldn’t use it.”

Selma came in and leaned against the doorjamb, easing her back against the angle of the door like a bear. “God, that feels good. Listen, they snatch the computer, they stash it somewhere outside, call a buddy, and shazaam, that night it’s picked up and sold before morning. The men aren’t moving around much on their own yet, but they will be when they start working the cows, won’t they?”

“Yes.”

“So requisition a safe.”

Eleanor nodded. “Right. Okay. And the warden finally agreed to issue an extra set of clothing to each man to keep here for emergencies. I thought we could put each set into a grocery sack with each man’s name on it. Think that would do?”

“You’ll have to lock the clothes up, too,” Selma said. “Won’t be room in the safe or the credenza.”

Eleanor thought for a minute. “Okay. I’ve got an old footlocker at my place I used to pack books. It’s a little musty, but it’s got a good padlock. How about I bring that down tomorrow?”

“Sure.” Selma grinned. “The least I can do is contribute the grocery sacks. My family hoards them.”

Eleanor looked at her watch. “I’m leaving for my regular shift at the clinic in about fifteen minutes,” she said. “Will you take the laptop home with you for tonight?”

“Sure.”

“You will be back tomorrow, won’t you?”

“I think so. Will you?”

“I beg your pardon?” Eleanor asked.

“Pretty obvious this isn’t what you thought it was going to be. So, are you going to pack it in or stick it out?”

Eleanor didn’t answer her right away. Instead, she headed out to her truck, Selma right behind her. Part of her wanted to leave this place and never come back, even though it meant finding another place to live. At least she wouldn’t be faced with Steve Chadwick every day. She wouldn’t have feelings she didn’t want to admit to herself, nor would she have to worry whether he was innocent or guilty. And if he really was innocent, what on earth could she do about it?

She slid into the front seat of her truck. Selma stood outside the door, hands on her ample hips. Finally Eleanor leaned out the window. “I’ll be here tomorrow and the next day and the next. I’m not quitting.”

“Good,” Selma said, then laid her hand on Eleanor’s arm. “Remember, if you want to keep your peace of mind, keep your distance from the men—all the men.”

CHAPTER FOUR

ELEANOR FELT HER FACE FLAME as she drove out through the farm gates toward Creature Comfort. She should have realized Selma would know that something out of the ordinary had happened between her and Steve.

He was plausible, good-looking, charming and intelligent. Of course, he might also be a sociopath and a liar. He probably had a dozen women writing him fan letters and coming to see him on visiting days. She sure did not intend to be one of them.

When she drove into the Creature Comfort staff parking lot, Jack Renfro, the ex-jockey and veterinary technician, and her boss, Sarah Scott, met her before she had a chance to climb out of her truck.

“Guess what you’re going to do this afternoon?” Sarah said. “You like sheep?”

“Not one of my favorite of God’s creatures.”

“I’m sure you’ll learn to love them before the afternoon’s out. You’ve got to vaccinate a herd of about thirty and oversee dipping them.”

Eleanor stared at Sarah. “You’re not going with us, are you? The last thing a pregnant woman needs is to be around all those chemicals.”

“Nope, you and Jack are on your own. You’ve got coveralls and rubber boots in the truck, haven’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Took time to persuade her to stay out of it,” Jack grumbled. “Sheep kick and butt like goats. I’ll not have you putting my godson in danger.”

“I do miss going out on calls,” Sarah said wistfully. “My stomach’s finally settling. I’m only three months pregnant, and I’m already starting to get cabin fever.” She looked down at the top of Jack’s head. “And your god-child is a she, not a he.”

“Not certain yet, are you? I’ll spot you eight to five on a boy.” Despite his years of riding racehorses in the United States and Canada, and his wife from Marion, Arkansas, Jack had traces of his Cockney accent, although overlaid with an Arkansas drawl and an occasional “y’all.”

“You’re just bored, Sarah,” Eleanor said. “Go help Bill Chumley with his exotics or Rick with the cats and dogs. Come on, Jack. Ah, the odor of sheep-dip on the balmy October air—my favorite perfume.”

They drove out before Sarah could change her mind.

“Jack, I have a very strange and terribly personal question to ask you,” Eleanor said after a few minutes on the road. “Tell me to stuff it if you like. I won’t take offense.”

“Takes a lot to offend me, Eleanor. Go ahead and ask.”

“Did you ever know anybody in prison?”

Jack sat up. “This side of the pond or the other?”

“Either.”

“Couple of what I believe are called ‘domestic disputes,’ a couple of public drunkenness cases among my friends when I was riding. Jockeys can come all over bad-tempered when they’ve had a drop too much or too many losses in a row. Small men, you know.”

“Not some overnight thing in the county jail. Real prison. For a long stretch.”

“Oh. Then, no.”

“Darn. I was hoping you could give me some advice. I don’t seem to be handling my new job very well.”

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