Where family bonds are made and broken, and where young love sparks as old flames grow dim, Ransom Canyon is ready to welcome—and shelter—those who need it

With a career and a relationship in ruins, Jubilee Hamilton is left reeling from a fast fall to the bottom. The run-down Texas farm she’s inherited is a far cry from the second chance she hoped for, but it and the abrasive foreman she’s forced to hire are all she’s got.

Every time Charley Collins has let a woman get close, he’s been burned. So Lone Heart ranch and the contrary woman who owns it are merely a means to an end, until Jubilee tempts him to take another risk—to stop resisting the attraction drawing them together despite all his hard-learned logic.

Desperation is all young Thatcher Jones knows. And when he finds himself mixed up in a murder investigation, his only protection is the shelter of a man and woman who—just like him—need someone to trust.

Praise for Jodi Thomas and her RANSOM CANYON series

“Jodi Thomas is a masterful storyteller. She grabs your attention on the first page, captures your heart, and then makes you sad when it’s time to bid her wonderful characters farewell. You can count on Jodi Thomas to give you a satisfying and memorable read.”

—Catherine Anderson, New York Times bestselling author

“Thomas sketches a slow, sweet surrender.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Compelling and beautifully written, it is exactly the kind of

heart-wrenching, emotional story one has come to expect from Jodi Thomas.”

—Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Jodi Thomas has the ability to reel me in every time with her enterprising, intelligent and caring cast of characters and

Ransom Canyon has some of the best yet. ”

—Fresh Fiction

“This book is like once again visiting old friends while making

new ones and will leave readers eager for the next visit. A pure joy to read.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Thomas could make a city girl hang up her pumps for a pair of boots with her descriptions of clear blue skies and dusk-red dirt. Fans will anxiously await the next book in the series because, like meeting with old friends, catching up with the characters of Ransom Canyon can’t come soon enough.”

—BookPage

“Ransom Canyon is a tale of redemption and hope filled with authentic dialogue and characters engaging enough to chat with over a cup of coffee.”

—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Ransom Canyon introduces readers to a close-knit society that takes care of its own… In true Jodi Thomas fashion, readers will be drawn into this tale, feeling empathy for the beautifully written characters, and enjoying the everyday life in a small town.”

—Romance Reviews Today

“Western romance legend Thomas’s Ransom Canyon will warm readers with its huge heart and gentle souls.”

—Library Journal

Lone Heart Pass
Jodi Thomas

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

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

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

Jubilee Hamilton

November 2009

THE GEORGETOWN STREET in front of Jubilee Hamilton’s office looked more like a river of mud than a beautiful old brick lane.

“Why does it always have to rain on election day?” she asked the life-size cutout of her candidate.

The few volunteers left in the campaign office were cleaning out their desks. The polls hadn’t been closed an hour, and Jubilee’s horse in the race had already been declared the loser.

Or maybe she was the loser. Two months ago her live-in boyfriend, the man she’d thought she’d someday settle down with and have the two-point-five kids, had said goodbye. David had called her a self-absorbed workaholic. He’d accused her of being cold, uncaring, thoughtless, self-centered.

When she’d denied it, he’d asked one question. “When’s my birthday, Jub?”

She’d folded her arms as if to say she wasn’t playing games. But this time her mild-mannered lover hadn’t backed down.

“Well,” he stared at her, heartbroken.

When she didn’t answer, David asked again. “We’ve been together three years. When is my birthday, Jub?”

“February 19,” she guessed.

“Not even close.” David picked up his briefcase and walked toward the door. “I’ll get my things after the election is over. You won’t have time to open the door for me before then.”

Jubilee didn’t have time to miss him, either. She had an election to run. She worked so many hours she started sleeping at the office every other night. Sometime in the weeks that followed, David had dropped by the apartment and packed his things. She’d walked in on a mountain of boxes marked with Ds. All she remembered thinking at the time was that she was glad he’d left her clean clothes still hanging.

A few days later the Ds were gone and one apartment key lay on the counter. There was no time to miss him or his boxes.

Jubilee had thought of crying, but she didn’t bother. Boyfriends had vanished before. Two in college, one before David while she lived in Washington, DC. She’d have time for lovers later. Right now, at twenty-six, she needed to build her career. As always, work was her life. Men were simply extras she could live with or without. She barely noticed the mail piling up or the sign on the door telling her she had six weeks before she had to vacate the premises.

Then the rain came. The election ended. Her candidate had lost. She’d lost. No job would be waiting for her at dawn. No David would be standing in the door of their apartment this time, ready to comfort her.

Her third loss as a campaign manager. Three strikes, you’re out, she thought.

She walked through the rain alone, not caring that she was soaked. She’d given her all this time and she’d ended up with nothing. The candidate she’d fought so hard for hadn’t even bothered to call her at the end.

When she unlocked the door to the apartment that now looked more like a storage unit than a home, she wasn’t surprised the lights wouldn’t come on. David had always taken care of minor things like paying the bills.

She sat down on one of the boxes and reached for her phone before she realized she had no one to call. No friends. No old school buddies she’d kept up with. All the numbers in her contacts were business related except the three for her family. She scrolled down to the Hamiltons.

First number, her parents. They hadn’t spoken to her since she’d missed her sister’s wedding. Jubilee shrugged. Really, how important was a bridesmaid?

Destiny’s wedding was beautiful anyway. Jubilee saw the pictures on Facebook. Had she attended, as the too tall, too thin sister, she would have only crumbled Destiny’s perfection.

She moved down the list. Destiny. Her sister, six years older, always prettier, always smarter, never liking having her around.

Jubilee ran through memories like flashcards of her childhood. Destiny had cut off all her hair when she was three. Told Jubilee she was adopted when she was five. Left her at the park after dark when she was seven. Slashed her bike tires when she was ten so she couldn’t follow along.

Oh, yeah, Jubilee thought, don’t forget about telling me I was dying when I got my first period. The whole family was laughing as she’d written out her will at twelve.

The flashcards tumbled to the floor in her mind along with any need to talk to Destiny whatever-her-last-name-was-now.

If big sisters were measured on a scale of one to ten, Destiny would be double digits in the negative.

She moved down to the next Hamilton on her contact list. Her great-grandfather. She’d lived with him the summer she’d been eleven because her parents wanted to tour college options with Destiny. They’d all waved as they dropped her off at Grandpa Levy’s with smiles as if they’d left a bothersome pet at the pound.

Two weeks later they’d called and said they couldn’t make the trip back to Texas to get her because of car trouble. A week after that there was another school to consider. Then her father wanted to wait until he had a few days off so the trip from Kansas to Texas wouldn’t be so hard on the family.

Jubilee had missed the first two weeks of school before they made it back, and she hadn’t cared. She would have stayed on the ranch forever.

Grandpa Levy was ornery and old. Even at eleven she could tell the whole family didn’t like him or want the worthless dry-land farm he’d lived on since birth. Levy talked with his mouth full, cussed more than Methodists allow, only bathed once a week and complained about everything but her.

Jubilee’s parents barely took the time to turn off the engine when they picked her up. The old man didn’t hug her, but his knotted, leathered hand dug into her shoulder as if he couldn’t bear to let her go. That meant more than anything he could have said.

She never told anyone how wonderful Grandpa Levy had been to her. He gave her a horse and taught her to ride, and all summer she was right by his side. Collecting eggs, birthing calves, cutting hay. For the first time in her life no one told her what she was doing wrong.

Jubilee stared at his number. She hadn’t talked to him since Christmas, but the moment she’d heard his raspy voice, she’d felt like the eleven-year-old again, giggling and telling him things he probably cared nothing about. Her great-grandfather had listened and answered each rant she went through with comments like, “You’ll figure it out, kid. God didn’t give you all those brains for nothing.”

She wanted to talk to him now. She needed to say she hadn’t figured anything out.

Jubilee pushed the number and listened to it ring. She could imagine the house phone on the wall between his kitchen and living room ringing through empty bedrooms and hallways that always smelled dusty. He lived in the two rooms off the kitchen and left the other rooms to sleep, he claimed.

“Answer,” she whispered, needing to know that someone was out there. Right now, tonight, she could almost believe she was the only one left alive. “Answer, Grandpa.”

Finally, after twenty rings, she hung up. The old guy didn’t even have an answering machine, and he’d probably never heard of a cell phone. Maybe he was in the barn or over near the corral where the cowhands who worked for him lived from spring to fall. Maybe he’d driven the two-lane road to town for his once-a-month trip. If so, he’d be having dinner at the little café in Crossroads. He was probably ordering two slices of Dorothy’s pie right now.

She wished she were there in the booth across from him.

With the streetlight’s glow from the window, she crossed to her fireplace and lit the logs. Strange how after more than a dozen years she still missed him when she’d never missed anyone else. She had lived years with her parents and remembered only slices of her life, but she remembered every detail of that summer.

As the paper-wrapped logs caught fire, the flames’ light danced off the boxes and blank walls of her world. She found a half bottle of wine in the warm fridge and a bag of Halloween candy she hadn’t been home to hand out. Curled up by the fire in her dark apartment, she began to read her mail. Most of the time she would fling the envelope into the fire without opening it. Ads. Letters from strangers. Catalogs filled with stuff she didn’t need or want.

One by one she tossed the envelopes into the fire along with every hope and dream she’d had about a career as a campaign manager.

In the last stack of mail, she noticed a large white envelope hand-addressed to her. Curiosity finally caught her attention. The postmark was over a month ago. Surely it wasn’t something important, or someone would have called her.

Slowly, she opened the envelope.

Tears silently tumbled as she saw the top of the page. She began to read Levy Hamilton’s will. Word by word. Aloud. Making herself feel truth’s pain.

The last page was a note scribbled on a lawyer’s office stationery.

Levy died two months ago, Miss Hamilton. We were unable to reach any family, so I followed his request and buried him on his land. When he named you his sole heir of Lone Heart Ranch, he told me you’d figure out what to do with the old place. I hope this will get to you eventually. I’ll see you when you get here.

Jubilee turned over the envelope. It had been forwarded twice before reaching her.

She laid the will aside and cried harder than she’d ever cried for the one person who’d ever really loved her. The one person she’d ever loved.

After the fire burned low and shadows slowly waltzed as if circling the last bit of light, she thought she felt Levy’s hand resting on her shoulder. His knotted fingers didn’t seem ready to let her go.

At dawn she packed the last of her clothes, called a storage company to pick up the boxes and walked away from her life in DC with one suitcase and her empty briefcase.

She’d go to her parents’ house over the holidays. She’d try to find the pieces of herself and see if she could glue them together. But together or not, she’d start over where the wind never stopped blowing, and dust came as a side dish at every meal. She may have only lived there a few months, but Lone Heart Ranch might be the only place where she’d ever felt she belonged.

CHAPTER TWO

Charley Collins

February 2010

“SET ’EM UP, CHARLEY. We’ll have another round.” The kid on the other side of the bar was barely old enough to drink, but his laugh was loud and his voice demanding. “It’s Valentine’s Day and none of us have a date. That’s something to get drunk over.”

Charley Collins swore under his breath. The drunks had had enough, but he’d be fired if he didn’t serve the college boys, and he couldn’t afford to lose another job. This dark, dusty bar wasn’t much, but it kept food on the table and gas in his pickup.

“Aren’t you Reid Collins’s brother?” asked the only one of the boys who could still talk without drooling. “You look like him. Taller, maybe a little older. Got that same reddish-brown hair he’s got. Red River mud-color if you ask me.”

Before Charley could say anything, another drunk shook his head wildly. “No brother of Reid would be a bartender.” He burped. “Collinses are rich. Deep-pocket rich. They own more land than a cowboy can ride across in a day.”

Charley moved down the bar, hoping to slip out of being the topic of conversation. He hated the way they’d been talking about women all night, but that was better than listening to a conversation about him.

The sober one continued just loud enough for Charley to hear.

“I heard Reid had a big brother a couple of years older than him. Papa Collins disowned his oldest son. I remember Reid saying his dad ordered an armed guard to escort his brother off the ranch like he was some kind of criminal. Davis Collins told his own son that if he ever set foot on the land again, he’d have him shot for trespassing.”

Charley picked up the box of beer bottles and headed outside. He’d heard enough. He needed air.

It took several steps before the noise and smell of the bar cleared, but he walked all the way to the alley. After he set the bottles down by the trash, he stared at the open land behind the Two Step Saloon and took a deep breath. He needed clean air and space and silence. He was born for open country, and he had no idea how he’d survive working in a beer joint and living above it in a tiny two-room apartment.

Every time he swore things couldn’t get worse, they did.

Staring at the full moon, he felt like cussing or drinking his trouble away. But cussing wasn’t a habit he needed and he couldn’t afford the liquor.

He couldn’t quit and he couldn’t run. Not without a stake to start over somewhere else. Charley had a feeling that somewhere else wouldn’t fit him anyway. This part of Texas was in his blood. He belonged here even if it did seem half the people for a hundred miles around were trying to run him out.

Like a miner taking one last breath before he climbed back into the hole, Charley filled his lungs and turned around.

He saw a woman in the shadows near the back door. She was tall and perfectly built even in silhouette. Long dark hair circled over her shoulders in the breeze like a cape. For a moment he hoped she was a ghost. Lately he’d been a lot less afraid of spirits than women.

When he was five feet away he made out her face—not that he needed more than the outline of her body to know who she was. “Hello, Lexie. You miss the turnoff to the ladies room?”

Her laugh was low and sexy. She was in her thirties now, but nothing about Lexie had slipped from the beauty queen she’d been. He’d seen her come in an hour ago with some guy in a business suit and fancy boots that had probably never touched dirt.

“I followed you out, Charley.” She waited like a spider waits for a fly to land on its web. “Anyone ever tell you you’re one hell of a handsome man? Tall, lean with bedroom-blue eyes. I was trying to concentrate on my next husband, but all I could do was stare at you. You got that mixture of Prince Charming and Bad Boy down pat. I can tell how good a man is going to be in bed just by the way he moves and, honey, you are walking sex appeal.”

Charley thought of arguing. She must be blind. He was two months past due for a haircut, four days late on shaving, and he’d slept in the jeans and shirt he had on for the past two nights.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that lie before,” he answered her question. “My last stepmother told me how irresistible I was about an hour before my father disowned me.”

Lexie moved closer. “Must have been one wild hour.”

He wasn’t about to go into detail. Half the town probably already knew. He’d been screwing up his life since high school. Frogs had more sense than he did when it came to knowing the opposite sex. He’d been in his last year of college when his father, the powerful Davis Collins, finally had enough.

For once, Charley had been back home for a few days over Christmas break. He’d decided to stay at the Collins ranch headquarters and try to at least have one conversation with his father about his plans after college. Charley had studied and dreamed of taking over managing pasture that had been in his family for a hundred years. He was one semester away, and his dad was ready to hand over the work so he and his latest brainless bride could travel.

She’d been his dad’s fourth wife, young enough to be Davis Collins’s daughter. Charley had never turned down a pretty woman’s offer, and he didn’t turn her down when she came to his room wearing nothing but the bottom of her silk boxer-length pajamas. She hadn’t even said a word, just closed the door and smiled.

The rest was common knowledge. His old man found them together and kicked him off the ranch. He had everything in Charley’s room, as well as his horse, packed up and loaded in a trailer. Collins had a few of his cowhands deliver the load to Charley’s address at the university.

Charley’s accounts and credit cards were closed before New Year’s Day. He had to drop out of school and find a full-time job. So, he abandoned his dream of graduation and came home to Crossroads, Texas, where his few true friends still lived. They offered help, but after a while, he had to step away. He had to figure out life on his own. There comes a time when even working a lousy job and living in a dump is better than charity.

Only Lexie whatever-her-name-was-these-days wasn’t offering charity tonight.

“What are you doing in town, Lexie?”

“Trying to get rid of my aunt’s rundown dump of a house. You know anyone who’d want to buy it? The place is huge.”

“No.” He knew neither one of them cared about any house. They were just passing time.

“What time do you get off, Charley? We could have some fun after midnight. My sweetie has to head back to Dallas in a few minutes and I’ll be all alone.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’m not interested.” He unwound her arm from around his. “Maybe some other time.”

He almost ran to the open door, pushing himself back into the noise and the smells; they were a lesser kind of hell than what she was offering.

Charley stayed busy at the bar and didn’t see her leave. He just looked up and saw the table where she had been was empty. Lexie was a kind of poison he didn’t need.

A few hours later, the bar was quiet and all the drunks were gone. He washed the last of the shot glasses and headed upstairs. When he passed the bar owner, Ike Perez, Charley nodded a good-night.

“Tell Daniela to hurry on down. I don’t want to wait on her.” Perez sounded gruffer than he really was. In truth, he’d been one of the few in town to even give Charley a chance. There was lots of one-day part-time seasonal work, but he needed something regular. This job came with low pay for weekend work and a place to live.

Charley tapped on his own apartment door. Fifteen-year-old Daniela, rubbing her eyes, pulled the door open. “I know,” she mumbled. “Papa is ready to go.”

“The little princess asleep?” Charley asked as he passed the girl who’d probably already reached her full height of five foot three. Daniela was young, but she made a good babysitter.

“Yeah. I got a new strategy.” Daniela giggled. “I let her watch TV until she nods off. Otherwise she never stops talking. That kid has an imagination that won’t quit.”

Charley handed Daniela her backpack. “Thanks.” He passed her a ten—half his tips for the night.

“No problem. I’d rather be here than home helping Mama cook for the weekend.” She clomped down the stairs as he closed the door. “Good night, Mr. Collins. See you next weekend.”

Charley tugged off his boots and tiptoed into the little bedroom. A tiny nightlight lit the room just enough for him to see the bump in the bed. Carefully, he sat down beside Lillie and pulled her small body close, loving the smell of her. Loving the soft feel of her hair.

“Good night, pumpkin,” he whispered. “I love you to the end of forever.”

Lillie stretched as her arm circled his neck and whispered, half-asleep, “I love you too, Daddy.”

He rocked her small body until he knew she was asleep again, then moved into the living room. Taking the blanket and pillow from behind the couch, he tried to make his long legs fit into the small space.

In the silence, he smiled. Of all the mistakes he’d made in his life, Lillie was his only blessing. Five years ago his father had been furious when he’d learned Charley’s girlfriend was pregnant. Eventually, Davis Collins had accepted them getting married, but he’d never invited Sharon or Lillie to the ranch. Davis Collins had never even seen his only grandchild.

A year after Lillie was born, Sharon left Charley, saying motherhood wasn’t her thing. Charley had another fight with his dad when Davis found out Charley planned to keep the baby. He’d agreed to pay tuition and nothing more. Davis had simply said, “She’s your mistake, not mine.”

So Charley worked thirty hours a week and carried a full load. Sharon’s parents, the other grandparents, agreed to keep Lillie on Charley’s rare visits to his father’s ranch.

Charley had survived almost two years taking care of Lillie alone. He’d almost made it to the end of college, when he’d have had his degree and could have forgotten about any family but Lillie. He’d thought his father would turn over the ranch to him and move permanently to Dallas. Maybe Davis would even accept Lillie, eventually.

Then Charley messed up again. But he’d had no thought of sleeping with his father’s brainless fourth wife until she walked into his room and his brain shut off.

Charley climbed out of his makeshift bed on the couch and walked to the fridge to get a bottle of water. The floor in the apartment creaked so loud he was afraid it might wake up the little princess.

Neither the water nor two aspirin could take his mind off his mistakes. He remembered that at first he’d hoped his father would cool down. After all, Davis himself bragged about sleeping with other men’s wives. Even after his dad kicked him off the ranch, Charley thought he’d go back to school and finish his last semester. But no money came in for tuition. He scraped all he could together, but Lillie got sick. Between doctor bills and missing work, he couldn’t make ends meet. He took incompletes, planning to return to college as soon as he got on his feet. But there was Lillie to take care of, and a kid can’t live in the back of a car and grow on fast food. And then his car was towed.

He finally gave up trying to survive and stay in school. He borrowed enough to buy an old pickup and made it back to Crossroads. Now Lillie was five and he was no closer to finishing the last semester. No closer to getting his life in order.

He stared at the ceiling as though it would give him an answer to the problems he faced, but no answer came.

He’d sworn off women for good. He’d probably never live down what he’d done with his stepmother even though his father was now married to wife number five. Folks in this town had long memories. So he got up every morning and did the jobs he hated because of Lillie.

He climbed off the couch again to check on her, something he did every night no matter how tired he was.

After pulling the cover over her shoulder, he went back to his bed.

That first year, he remembered, she’d cried for her mother. Charley made up his mind that she’d never cry for him because he planned to be near and no matter what mistakes in life she made, she’d never stop being his daughter.

In the stillness over the bar, Charley counted the jobs he had lined up for the next week. Day work on two ranches for one day each, hauling for the hardware store on Wednesday, stocking at the grocery any morning he could.

His ex-wife’s parents, Ted and Helen Lee, helped with Lillie when they could. They’d take her to kindergarten on the mornings he had to leave before dawn, and pick her up on the days he didn’t get off work early enough. But every night, Charley wanted to be the one to tuck her in.

Sharon’s folks were kind people. They hadn’t heard from her in over a year and that had been only a postcard saying she was moving to LA.

The old couple didn’t have much, but they were good to Lillie and him. Some days Charley thought the kid was their only sunshine.

He smiled as he drifted to sleep. He had a very special standing date come morning. Sundays he’d make pancakes with Lillie and then they’d saddle up her pony and his quarter horse and ride down into Ransom Canyon while the air was still cold and the day was newborn. They’d ride and talk and laugh. He’d tell her stories his grandfather told him about the early days when longhorn cattle and wild mustangs ran across the land.

When they stopped to rest, she’d beg him for more stories. Her favorite was all about the great buffalo herds and how, when they stampeded, they’d shake the ground.

She’d giggle when she put her hand on the earth and swear she could feel the herd headed toward them.

Charley would laugh with her and for a moment he’d feel rich.

CHAPTER THREE

Jubilee

February 22

DAWN WAS BARELY up over the Lone Heart Ranch when Jubilee Hamilton heard the first knock on the downstairs back door.

“Go away!” she yelled and pulled the covers over her head.

How inconsiderate, she thought, pressing her eyes closed as if she could force herself to go back to sleep. Didn’t anyone in this flat, worthless country understand that she was in the middle of a nervous breakdown and she didn’t want to be bothered?

“Open the door, lady!” A man, obviously standing just below her window, yelled.

“No,” she answered.

“All right. I’ll leave the groceries on the porch. They’ll be rotting by noon.”

“Groceries?” She sat up. “Food?” She’d left her parents’ house three days ago eating nothing but carrot sticks and protein bars before she finally stopped at the little town called Crossroads to buy food. The grouchy grocer had hurried her, saying it was almost closing time.

She’d been too exhausted to hurry or care what time it was. When she checked out, the grocer interrogated her until he found out she was Levy Hamilton’s great-granddaughter, then he rattled off directions he’d called “the short cut” to Levy’s place.

She ended up lost for a few hours on back roads with no signs or even mile markers. When she finally pulled onto the ranch, she discovered she’d also lost the groceries. The back of her car, where she thought she had put them, was empty.

That had been two, or maybe three days ago. Since then she’d been crying, talking to herself and wandering around a big old house packed with things no one would even bother to sell in a garage sale. She’d rationed M&M’S the first day. Eaten peaches from the only can on the shelf the second day, then decided to sleep until starvation took over.

Nightmares of her Christmas with her parents would wake her from time to time. Her mom dispensing advice endlessly. Her father comparing Jubilee to her perfect sister. And Destiny dropping in like the evil fairy to show off. As if rich husband and new car weren’t enough, she brought in adorable twins. Destiny always was an overachiever.

Days of hiding in the room where she grew up finally ended with her mother’s morning lecture coming with a list of jobs in the area. “You have to have a goal,” her mother had shouted. “It’s not normal not to have goals, Jub, and right now my goal in life is to make sure you get one.”

Jubilee could think of only one goal. Leave. Which she did. She packed her suitcase and drove away with her mother still lecturing from the front steps. She’d put off her trip to the Lone Heart Ranch long enough.

“What’s it going to be, lady?” The cowboy interrupted her unpleasant memories.

Jubilee’s left leg caught in the covers as she fell out of bed.

“You all right?” he shouted.

“I’m coming,” she yelled back as she rummaged through her one travel bag for anything clean enough to wear.

If she died, someone would have to wash clothes to bury her. She didn’t even have clean socks. Everything she owned, except a suitcase of dirty clothes, had been packed in a moving pod in November.

“Food,” she said again as she grabbed at something, anything, to wear, fearing the cowboy and the groceries might disappear. Real food. Green vegetables. Fruit. Sweets. She stumbled to the window as she tugged on clothes. “Where’d you find my groceries?”

“You left them in the basket at the store in Crossroads two and a half days ago.” The man bellowed, sounding angry. “They stored them in the cooler thinking you’d return. When you didn’t, the manager hired me to bring them out.”

She straightened, putting on an old army green raincoat as a robe and a worn pair of socks she’d found in one of Grandfather Levy’s drawers. One had a red band around the calf and the other had blue stripes, but who cared.

When she leaned out the window, all she saw was the top of a worn Stetson. “I forgot them? I just thought they evaporated while I was lost, or fell out when I hit the hundred bumps in the road. I didn’t come back for them because I don’t think I could remember how to get back to town. I drove hours before I stumbled on this place.”

The cowboy looked up and she swore he growled. “Could you tell me your life story later? I’d like to set these groceries down.”

He lowered his voice, but she heard him add, “Lady, you’re only twelve miles from town, not lost in the Amazon jungle.”

She moved down the stairs and slowly neared the door, picking up an old umbrella as she tiptoed. The raincoat didn’t reach her knees, but it would have to do.

He must have gotten tired of waiting because he yelled, “You are Jubilee Hamilton?”

She opened the door a few inches and stared at a handsome man dressed in boots, jeans, a worn shirt and a cowboy hat. “How do you know that?”

He smiled at her. “You left your credit card at the store, too.” He studied her a minute, then asked, “You want these groceries or not? If you do, you got to open the door a little wider. If you don’t, I need to be getting back to town.”

She lifted her umbrella. “How do I know you aren’t here to rob and rape me?”

He looked down at the ugly mismatched socks with a hole in the right big toe and then up to what she was sure was wild, dirty blond hair. “It’s tempting, lady, but I’ve sworn off women. Maybe some other time. As for robbing you, I could have already done that. I’ve got your card.”

Jubilee slowly opened the door. “I own this farm, you know.”

He carried in the first bags. “I figured that and it’s a ranch, not a farm.”

“Whatever.” She let her head bobble.

“Old Levy died several months back.” The cowboy didn’t bother to look at her. He just headed to the kitchen. “Heard someone say his big-city great-granddaughter now owned the place and all the land around. When I saw Hamilton on your card, I had a pretty good guess as to where to take the groceries even before the manager told me. You look just like Levy.”

Jubilee straightened. “I do?” She remembered her grandfather as bent over, bald and so tanned he looked as if his skin was leather.

“Yeah. Crazy.” The cowboy still hadn’t turned around to face her so she wasted the nutty cross-eyed look she made just for him.

She followed him to the kitchen. “You knew my great-grandfather? You know this place?”

“Sure. I used to come out and help the old guy. He wasn’t able to do much, but he didn’t mind telling me how. He paid good wages.” The stranger went out for another load.

She followed like a puppy. She was still too tired to make her mind work. Leaning on the umbrella, she simply watched.

When he brought in the last load, he removed his hat and nodded politely just like his mother must have taught him. “I’m Charley Collins. I’m sorry for your loss. I’ll miss the old man. He was always straight with me.”

“What kind of work did you do for my great-grandfather?”

The man called Charley shrugged. “He ran about fifty head. I helped brand in the spring and round up in the fall. Last year I helped him plant his spring hay crop. By the time we harvested, he was too weak to climb into the cab of the tractor. I made sure the hay got into in the hay barn.”

The good-looking man watched her. “You have any idea how to run a ranch of this size, Mary Poppins? It’s not big, but there’s plenty to do.”

She shook her heard. “Nope. Why’d you call me Mary Poppins?”

“It was either that or Paddington Bear. With a rain coat, an umbrella and those ugly socks, you could go either way on Halloween.” The slow grin came from a man who probably knew just how it might affect her. If he’d had new clothes and boots that weren’t scuffed, he could have been a cover model.

She frowned back. Nice try, cowboy, but forget it. I’ve been vaccinated against good-looking men.

His face became serious. “The work’s never done on a place like this. When you’re not farming to provide grain for winter or checking on cattle, you’re mending fences and repairing equipment. If you run cattle, they’ll need checking on every day. The fences need constant repair, and every time it rains part of them will wash out and your workload just doubles.”

“I was afraid of that.” She scratched her wild hair, feeling as if something must have crawled into it and set up house while she slept.

The guy just stared at her as if she was a baby kitten trying to walk on water. “You know, lady, you’re about four months behind already. You might want to think about selling the place and going back to the city. It would take a dozen men to get this place ready for spring in time.”

“I’m staying.” Lifting her chin she met his blue-eyed stare. She didn’t have to tell this stranger she had nowhere else to go. He’d probably figured that out already.

“Then I wish you luck, Miss Hamilton.”

She shook the cobwebs out of her brain and took a step toward her only chance. “Would you work for me? I’ll pay whatever he paid you. To tell the truth, I’m not sure where to start but I’ve got to make this work.” Even if it cost her all her savings.

“I don’t know,” he shook his head. “It’s a long way out here, and I only have one, maybe two days a week open. I don’t think one day a week would make much difference in this place and to come out on weekends I’d have to quit my bartending job. If I did that, I’d lose the free apartment that comes with it.”

Jubilee’s mind cleared enough to realize he was negotiating, not turning down her offer.

“There is a house over by the corrals. When I was a kid, a hired hand and his wife lived there. I don’t know what kind of shape it’s in now. If you’ll work for me five days a week, I’ll pay you five dollars more an hour than Levy did and throw in the house.” She knew she had to make it fair because no one else was probably going to take an offer to help farm on a place in the middle of nowhere.

She didn’t know much about this man, but he was honest or he wouldn’t have brought the groceries and her credit card. He was a hard worker if her great-grandfather used him regularly, and he knew the place.

“Does the school bus stop anywhere near here?”

He surprised her with his question. “I have no idea. Do you have a family?”

“A daughter.” He didn’t look happy about the offer. “If I worked for you, I’d take off time to get her to school, and when she’s here, I’d work around the headquarters so I could keep an eye on her.”

Jubilee looked around the yard. There was enough work within shouting distance to keep him busy for months.

“Fair enough.”

“I’d need to stable my two horses in the barn.” He glanced over his shoulder. “At least it’s in good shape.”

“No problem. There are a dozen stalls.”

He studied her. “Make it ten dollars more an hour and you got yourself a foreman, not just a hand. I furnish my own horse and gear. I’ll charge for a fifty-hour week, but I’ll work until the job is done. I’ll also hire men when needed and you’ll pay them the going wage.”

Jubilee thought of mentioning that ten more an hour seemed very high, but what choice did she have? Her savings were solid. Her car paid for. She might as well put it all into the pot. This chance was the only game in town.

She nodded.

He put his hat back on. “I’ll move in late this afternoon and be in for breakfast tomorrow morning. We’ll talk about where to start.”

“Breakfast?”

“That was the routine with Levy. We planned over breakfast and I worked until the job or the day was finished. Any problem?”

“No.”

“You can cook?”

“No, but how hard can it be?”

He smiled, and she realized how young he was. Maybe a year or two younger than she. But she didn’t miss the steel in his stare. He hadn’t had an easy life and she guessed he wouldn’t trust easily. That was fine with her, since she felt the same.

“I’ll bring a few boxes of cereal and milk,” he said as he moved off the porch. “You make the coffee. Tomorrow we’ll set a plan.”

She met his stormy blue eyes again. “Will you help me make this place work? It’s kind of my last chance.”

He nodded once. “I’ll help you, but you got to wear normal clothes, lady. Folks around here might cart you off to the hospital for dressing like that.”

“I’ll remember that, Mr. Collins,” she said, trying not to react to his insult. She thought of adding that she didn’t do friends, so don’t even try. Maybe they should keep the relationship formal? She wouldn’t tell him too much and he wouldn’t try to advise her on wardrobe choices.

What would be between them would be purely professional. She had a feeling he wanted it that way, as well.

As he drove away, Jubilee went back to bed, remembering how early her great-grandfather had served breakfast. Her last hope, before she fell asleep after eating half a dozen pieces of fruit and the entire bag of cookies, was that she wanted breakfast to be closer to brunch when they talked each day. Surely he’d agree to that; after all, she was the boss. She should be able to set a few rules.

CHAPTER FOUR

Thatcher Jones

February 23

THATCHER JONES RACED down the neglected dirt road as if he was an IndyCar race driver and not still too young to get his license. A rusty old sign marked the beginning of a ranch called Lone Heart. What had once been a heart-shaped brand hung lopsided on the marker.

He eased his boot off the gas a bit. He and his 1963 Ford pickup just might make this run before the rain hit. No one was at the ranch anymore; it should be easy to get in and out without anyone noticing.

Thatcher had been keeping an eye on a nest of rattlesnakes under the back cattle guard on this ranch for four months. Now there were new folks moving in near the pass and he was about to lose two hundred dollars if he didn’t act fast. To add hell to fury, a storm was blowing in from the north even though the day was hot for February.

The sheriff’s cruiser pulled out in front of him from nowhere. Thatcher cussed a streak of swear words.

He slammed on the brakes, leaned out the window and yelled, “Hell, Sheriff, get out of the way. My brakes are no good.”

Sheriff Dan Brigman didn’t budge and, judging from Thatcher’s experience with the law, he knew that Brigman wouldn’t change or move no matter how much he yelled.

He pushed on the brakes with both feet but had to pull off into the bar ditch to avoid a collision.

Once the beat-up old Ford finally clanked to a stop, Thatcher piled out of his truck with a stranglehold on the top of a grain sack.

“You trying to kill us both, Sheriff?” Thatcher shouted, challenging the lawman, even if he barely came up to Brigman’s shoulder. “I ain’t lived fourteen years just to die in a fiery crash with a cop.”

The sheriff crossed his arms and said calmly, “What you got in the sack, kid?”

Thatcher had been told a dozen times not to hunt snakes off his own land, but listening wasn’t one of his talents. Neither was honesty. “I got cow chips. The Boy Scouts are doing a demonstration down in the canyon about how folks used to burn the dry ones so they could keep warm in the winter. This ain’t nothing but fuel for their fire.”

Brigman glanced at the bag and Thatcher prayed it didn’t start wiggling.

“I’ve told you, son, hunting rattlers is not something for a kid to be doing.”

“It’s cow shit, Sheriff. I swear.”

Brigman shook his head. “It’s shit all right. Tie that bag off and put it in the bed of your pickup. You’re not old enough to drive, and you’re out here in the middle of nowhere hunting rattlers in an old truck that might not even make it back to your place. I can think of a dozen ways I might find you dead.”

“I’m old enough to drive. I don’t have to sit on the blanket anymore to see out, and hunting ain’t dangerous. I’ve been doing it since I was ten. You just got to jitter when you reach for them so you’re a blur to the snake and not a solid target.”

“Who told you that?”

“My grandpa. He was a jittering fool, he’d been bit so many times.” Thatcher winked, giving away his lie.

“Get in the cruiser.” Brigman didn’t crack a smile. “I’m taking you home. But Thatcher Jones, I swear this better be the last time I see you on any road in this county.”

The boy walked toward the officer’s car. “You said I could drive the back roads out past County Road 111.”

“Yeah, but I’m guessing you had to cross at least four other county roads and one highway to get this far from your place.”

“You ain’t got no proof of that, Sheriff.” He knotted the sack, tossed it in the pickup bed and climbed into the front passenger seat of the cruiser, hating that it was starting to feel familiar. “You can’t arrest me unless you see me do somethin’.”

“That’s why I’m taking you home.”

Thatcher ran his dirty fingers through even dirtier brown hair. He hadn’t even made it to the Hamilton ranch. Hell, the snakes would probably be six feet long before he could get back. He sighed, knowing Brigman wouldn’t change his mind. “We stopping at the Dairy Queen before you drop me off back home, Sheriff?”

“It’s standard police procedure, kid. Double meat, double cheese.” Brigman started his car. “How’s your mom?”

“She died again last week.”

Brigman glared at him but didn’t say anything.

“She was at the tent revival over the Red into Oklahoma. Preacher pays her a hundred dollars every service to keel over and let the Holy Spirit save her. Not a bad gig. She only gets twenty-five for talking in tongues and fifty for coming in on crutches.”

The sheriff frowned.

“It ain’t against the law, Sheriff.” Thatcher saw it more as a sideshow and his mom did the entertaining. He changed the subject before the sheriff started asking more questions about his mom. “If somebody steals my truck, Sheriff, I’ll have you to blame.”

Brigman smiled. “If they do they won’t be hard to find. They’ll be dead on the road after they open that sack you got in the pickup bed. Bitten by cow chips is an odd way to die.”

They drove in silence all the way to Crossroads. Thatcher figured if he said anything the sheriff would start another lecture. Brigman could lecture the wheels off the fiery chariot.

Just as the lady handed them burgers through the drive-up window, lightning flashed bright and thunder rolled in on the wind. “Storm’s coming in early,” Thatcher said more to himself than the sheriff. He, like most farm folks, lived his life by the weather. It always surprised him that town kids woke up like chickens and headed outside without knowing or caring what was happening in the sky above. If rain or snow started, they took it personally, as if it was their individual plague and not the way of things.

“How about we eat these in my office, son?” Brigman turned toward Main Street.

“Not a bad idea, Sheriff. I seen the way you drive in the rain.”

A few minutes later, they raced the storm to make it into the county offices before they were both soaked.

They moved past Pearly Day’s front desk in the wide foyer to Brigman’s two-room office. Pearly’d gone home and apparently left her candy bowl unguarded.

She was the receptionist for all the offices housed in the two-story building and also passed as the dispatcher in Crossroads. When she left at five she patched all 911 calls to her cell. If anyone had an emergency they didn’t yell “call 911,” they yelled “call Pearly.”

Brigman cleaned off a corner of his desk for Thatcher and set the food in front of him. “I need to check my messages. Go ahead and eat.”

Thatcher attacked his hamburger while the sheriff listened to his messages. Nothing much of interest. A lady’s voice shouted that her dog was missing and she thought someone had stolen it while she was at bingo. A man left a message that he thought the bridge south of Interstate 40 exit near Bailey might flood if it rained more than two inches. Some guy called saying he’d locked his keys in his car and complained that the only locksmith in town wasn’t answering either his office number or his cell.

One call sounded official; it was about drug traffic suspected on the interstate. That was no big news, Thatcher thought, there was drug traffic going on in the back hills where he lived. Folks called the rocky land that snaked along between the canyons and flat farmlands the Breaks. The ground was too uneven to farm more than small plots, too barren to ranch in most spots. But deer and wild sheep lived there along with wild pigs and turkey. And, Thatcher decided, every crazy person in Texas who didn’t want to be bothered. Outlaws had once claimed the place, but now it was populated by deadbeats, old hippies and druggies. If the sheriff even knocked on trailer and cabin doors in his neighborhood he’d need a bus to bring in the wanted.

Thatcher watched the sheriff making notes as he finished his burger. Rain pounded the tin porch beyond the office windows, making a tapping sound that was almost musical.

He saw the sheriff open a letter, then smile. It couldn’t have had much written on the one sheet of paper because after a few seconds Brigman folded it up, unlocked his bottom drawer and shoved the letter inside.

Thatcher decided it must be some kind of love note because if it had been a death threat then Brigman wouldn’t have smiled. Only who’d write a man like him a love note?

The sheriff was single and would probably be considered good-looking in a boring, law-abiding kind of way, but Thatcher still didn’t think the note was a love letter. Sheriffs and teachers in a little town were like the royal family. Everyone kept up with them. So maybe the note was a coupon or something.

Brigman glanced up as if he just remembered Thatcher was there. “Your mother will be worried about you. Wish she had a phone.”

Thatcher nodded, but he knew she wouldn’t be worried. His ma had a rule. The minute the first raindrop fell, she started drinking. When he got home, she’d either be passed out or gone. One of her boyfriends worked road construction, so any time it rained was party time for him.

While the sheriff made a few more calls, Thatcher unwrapped the second double-meat, double-cheese burger. After all, greasy hamburgers were no good cold. He’d be doing the sheriff a favor by eating it while it was still warm.

About the time he swallowed the last bite, the main door in the lobby flew open. Thatcher leaned back in his chair far enough to see a man and three kids rushing in past Pearly’s desk.

Brigman stood and stepped out of his office, but Thatcher just kept leaning back, sipping his Coke and watching.

“Sheriff,” the man said, his voice shaking from cold or fright, Thatcher couldn’t tell which. “We’re here to report a murder.”

The three kids, all wet, nodded. One was a boy about eight or ten, the other two were girls, one close to Thatcher’s age.

“Bring the blankets from behind my desk,” the sheriff yelled toward his office.

Thatcher looked around as if Brigman might be ordering someone else into action, but no such luck. He let the front legs of his chair hit the hardwood floor and followed orders.

By the time he got the blankets and made it to the lobby, the man was rattling off a story about how he and his kids were walking the canyon at sunset and came across a body wrapped in what looked like old burlap feed bags.

Thatcher grew wide-eyed when Brigman glanced at him. “Don’t look at me,” he said in a voice so high Thatcher barely recognized his own words. “I’m just collecting cow chips. I didn’t kill nobody.”

The sheriff rolled his eyes. “Pass out the blankets, kid.”

While the man kept talking, Thatcher handed every dripping visitor a blanket. The last one, he opened up and put over the girl who was probably the oldest. She was so wet he could see the outline of her bra.

He tried his best not to look, but failed miserably. Her breasts might be small, but she was definitely old enough to fill out a bra.

“Thank you,” she said when the blanket and his arm went around her.

“You’re welcome,” he answered as he raised his gaze to the most beautiful green eyes he’d ever seen.

Until that moment, if you’d asked Thatcher Jones if he liked girls, he would have sworn he never would as long as he lived. When you’re the poorest and dumbest kid in school, no one has anything nice to say to you and most girls don’t even look your direction. During grade school he’d been kicked out several times for fighting, but now, since he was no longer in grade school, he’d decided to ignore everyone and skip as many classes as possible.

But this girl just kept smiling at him like nothing was wrong with him.

He didn’t want to move away. “Did you see the body?” he whispered.

She shook her head. “I saw the sack. It had brown spots on it. Blood, I think. My dad didn’t let us get too close.”

Thatcher thought of all the blood he’d seen in his life. He’d killed animals for food since he was six or seven. He’d washed his mother up a few times when one of her “friends” beat her. He’d watched his own blood pour out with every heartbeat once when he’d tumbled out of a tree, but none of that mattered right now.

“I’m sorry you had to see such a thing,” he whispered to the green-eyed girl.

“He was murdered,” she said so low only he could have heard her.

“How do you know? He could have committed suicide. Folks have done that before, or died in accidents down there in the canyon.”

Her eyes swam in tears. “Do people who die from suicide or accident stuff themselves into sacks?”

Thatcher nodded. “Good point.”

Then the strangest thing happened. Right in the middle of the sheriff calling in backup and Pearly coming in to take statements, and the storm pounding so hard against the north windows that he feared they’d break...right in the middle of it all, the girl reached out and held his hand.

As if she needed him.

As if in all the chaos he was her rock.

* * *

AN HOUR LATER, Thatcher stood in the drizzle and watched the sheriff working the crime scene. He’d been told, since he’d insisted on coming along, that he had to hold a big light down the trail toward where they found the body. Nothing else. Just hold the light, as though he was nothing more than a lamppost.

The county coroner had come in from Lubbock County to pronounce the dead guy dead. Which Thatcher thought was a bit of overkill. He stood thirty feet away and he could tell the guy was dead.

“I’m going to list the cause of death as undetermined,” the coroner shouted loud enough for Thatcher to hear him.

He thought of yelling down that the huge dent in the burlapped man’s head should be a pretty good hint as to how he died. What was left of his face looked more like the Elephant Man than anyone Thatcher had ever seen.

“Get back in the cruiser,” Brigman yelled as he started up the path.

“Yes, sir,” Thatcher answered without moving. This was far too interesting to crawl back into the car. He wasn’t sure he could do the sheriff’s job, but he decided to check into becoming a coroner. It didn’t look that hard.

As men lifted the body and began the slow journey back up the canyon, Thatcher watched and tried to figure out why someone would leave a body in Ransom Canyon. Wouldn’t any old bar ditch do?

A beefy deputy from Lubbock County stepped up behind him and flashed a beam of light in his face. “What you doing here, kid?”

Thatcher smiled. “I was called in to help with the investigation. What are you doing here, deputy?”

“You’re Thatcher Jones.” The lawman said his name as if he was swearing. “You got anything to do with this?”

“Nope. How about you, Officer Weathers?” Thatcher made a habit of always remembering any lawman he met. When he’d seen the tall deputy once in Brigman’s office, Weathers had been wrestling two drunks and hadn’t had time for an introduction.

About the time Weathers reached for him, the sheriff stepped between them. “You know Thatcher?”

The deputy nodded. “He...”

“Don’t tell me,” Brigman interrupted. “I can already guess and I’ve got my hands full right now.”

Thatcher grinned at the deputy and followed Brigman to his car. Once they were inside, he whispered, “I’m staying in your county from now on, Sheriff—that deputy scares me. I don’t mind cops who come in small, medium and large, but somebody supersized that guy.”

Brigman laughed. “It’s comforting to know you’re selective about where you break the law. Weathers is a good man. Anytime I need him, he’s always got my back.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Jubilee

February 24

THE RAIN STARTED an hour before sunset, just as it had the day before, and kept falling until full dark. The land, long dry, didn’t seem to know how to take in all the moisture. Tiny lakes formed for as far as Jubilee could see. Water was suddenly everywhere, if only an inch deep.

She swore a storm had never roared like this one. Lightning so strong she felt the whip of fire in the air. Thunder rumbled, shaking the earth and sky. Nature seemed to be running full blast to tell the world that the months of drought were over.

Jubilee had spent the day listening for the sound of a truck, hoping her boxes of clothes, favorite books and office supplies would arrive today. Since her first year of college she’d always kept a home office. No matter what a mess her world was in, everything had its place in file folders or drawer organizers.

Only between noon and the storm she’d only seen one car, a sheriff’s cruiser, driving down the road in front of her place. She wasn’t sure if it made her feel safer to know her ranch was part of his route or not. Surely very few vehicles headed her way, except the moving truck that was supposed to come today, of course.

Jubilee never realized how little she had worth moving. The old pots and pans she’d had since her freshman year in college had gone to Goodwill a year ago when she moved in with David and he had a fully stocked kitchen. He’d furnished every room of their apartment except for one table. The used dining table she’d bought fit perfectly in the corner. It was so wobbly she had to prop it up with a book under one corner, but he’d thought it rustic.

When she’d left Washington, it simply went to the trash.

In the end, she’d had fewer than a dozen boxes to move.

The memories of a life she’d thought mattered lingered in the shadows of her mind like gray ghosts. If she could have she would have tossed them out, as well. How could she have lived twenty-six years and had so little worth keeping? For the five years since college, nothing mattered but her job, and in the end, it didn’t really matter, either.

She was one of those people whose name could be wiped off the whiteboard of life and no one would notice. David hadn’t called since he moved out months ago. Her parents hadn’t bothered to check to see if she’d made it safely to Texas. If she disappeared, there would be no one to fill out a missing person report.

Jubilee guessed if she’d been able to mark her growth with lines on a doorframe, her chart would be heading down, not up. When she’d left what she’d thought would be a brilliant career, not one person had dropped by to shake her hand. No farewell cake. Not even a card.

As she stood in the doorway of her great-grandfather’s house that was now her only home, she wondered if things could get much worse. The man she’d hired as foreman on the place had said at breakfast—cereal and milk—that he’d finish moving in today and they’d walk the land tomorrow. But, with the downpour turning everything to mud, she doubted they’d be able to start for a week.

Not that it mattered. She’d planned her last life and look how it had crumbled. Why bother to plan this one?

Maybe she should take the opposite of her mother’s parting advice and go goalless for a while. She had forty thousand dollars in her bank account plus what she’d inherited. She could coast, at least for a while. Maybe she’d simply wait until a goal bumped into her for a change.

She had no idea what she was doing out here in Texas. For all she knew the foreman, Charley Collins, was the local serial killer. He might not have stolen her card; murder might be his thing. Think about it, Jub, she almost said aloud. What are the chances that the man delivering groceries and working at the local bar knows how to run a farm? Correction, he’d called it a ranch.

He did have his own horse, though. She had no idea if that was good or bad. What was a guy doing with a horse when he lived over a bar? Logic probably wasn’t his strong suit. He was easy on the eyes, though. The kind of guy who broke every heart he passed.

Only not hers. Three of her four serious boyfriends had told her she didn’t have a heart. Majority vote.

After breakfast, her new foreman disappeared for most of the day, then drove up midafternoon with his pickup full of boxes. He was pulling a trailer filled with a huge horse and a cute pony.

Since she had nothing else to do, Jubilee interrupted her breakdown long enough to watch him move into the little house by the corral. He had an easy way of moving, like a man comfortable in his own body.

She’d thought of going outside to stare at him or even help, but all her clothes were three wearings past dirty. The man in worn boots and a patched shirt had actually frowned when she’d greeted him at breakfast wearing a clean pair of old Levy’s socks and one of his long-sleeved shirts tied at her waist. Just to be proper she used a pair of her great-grandfather’s brand new boxer shorts as her shorts.

Charley looked as though he’d never seen the fashion.

She’d tried to explain that almost everything she owned was packed, but she doubted he’d like her navy suits any better. Three pairs of jeans and half a dozen tops were all the casual clothes she owned. And they were spotted with drippings from meals on the road or wrinkled beyond wearing.

Tomorrow morning she planned to ask him to turn on the water to the washer out back. Levy probably turned it off every month after he used it, and who knew where the dryer had run off to? Jubilee had a faint memory of the old guy hanging his laundry on a line somewhere.

She’d watched Charley unhitch his trailer and park it beside the barn, and then he’d left again just before the rain started. Jubilee finally moved out on the porch and studied the storm. At this point in her day of doing nothing, she wasn’t sure her life was afloat. No career. No friends. No family who would speak to her.

She wasn’t even sure if this ranch was a blessing or a curse. If she hadn’t inherited it, she would have had to pull herself up and start over. Now, she could just hide out for a while.

Slowly, her mind began to dance with the storm as the sky darkened, and her troubles started to drift away. She watched the rain form tiny rivers in the ruts that Charley’s truck had made. The sound of the horses in the barn blended with the tapping of rain falling off the roof into dead flowerbeds. Even as the world grew black except for the one light in the house by the corral, she refused to move or turn on a light.

She needed the night to surround her. For once she wanted to wrap up in the nothingness of her world. She wanted to be invisible for a while.

The rain finally slowed to a silent dribble. The storm was over. But still Jubilee didn’t move.

Truck lights turned toward her place. The white pickup her foreman drove rocked back and forth as it moved toward her on a road in desperate need of repair.

When he stopped beside the corral and cut his lights, she knew he couldn’t see her even if he looked her direction.

She watched his tall frame unfold. He stood in the lingering rain and raked his rust-colored hair back before putting on his hat. Within seconds his shirt was plastered against his body. Even in the low light she could tell there wasn’t an ounce of fat on the man. Just from the way he moved around the truck told her he was solid rock-hard muscle. Tall and lean and beautiful as only a cowboy can look.

She smiled. He’s definitely not too bright, she decided. No raincoat. No umbrella. Hopefully he’d know more about running a ranch than he did about coming in from out of the rain.

He opened the side door to his truck and reached in.

For a moment she wondered what one last thing he’d carry inside. What had he gone back into town for on this rainy night?

He lifted something out slowly, carefully, wrapped in his work coat. The bundle leaned over his shoulder, molding against his form.

In wide, slow steps he walked through the mud. One hand tucked beneath the bundle. One hand placed in the middle as if holding his treasure close to his heart.

Jubilee stood and watched, surprised and touched as she saw thin pale arms slip from beneath the coat and wrap around his neck.

He’d mentioned a daughter when he’d asked if a school bus passed her place.

In the last blink of faraway lightning, Jubilee saw Charley Collins in a whole new light. He might not have much. His clothes were worn. His pickup old. But the man obviously had one thing he treasured. His daughter.

Charley

THE HOUSE OVER by the corral was dusty and completely empty except for a stove and old refrigerator Charley was surprised still worked. The place looked as if no one had lived in it for years but the bones of the house were solid. At one time someone had loved this place. The molding was hand carved around the doors, and cabinets were crafted carefully. The place was solid. He had a feeling it would stand any storm.

Charley worked into the night cleaning out the four-room house while Lillie slept. Ike, his old boss, had helped deliver what little furniture he had while his crazy new boss was probably taking her morning nap. The bar owner kept telling Charley that he was making a mistake accepting a job from a woman who wouldn’t last six months on the land, but at this point in his life Charley figured one more mistake wouldn’t matter.

With a free place to live and twice the money he usually made, he could build his savings. He could plan for someday.

He’d put up the bed before dark so Lillie would have a place to sleep when he picked her up. Charley didn’t want her to see the place dirty. When she woke, their new home would be clean and her tiny play kitchen would be set up in one corner of the living room.

Finally, about 3:00 a.m. he had everything stocked and put away. The house was so sparsely furnished it didn’t look like much of a home. One couch. One bed. An old dresser someone had given him a year back. A card table and four chairs for a dining table. A rocker painted white that he’d bought the day his baby girl was born.

The house was bigger than the apartment they’d been in. Two bedrooms, even though one was empty. The house had a front porch where Lillie could play and a back porch where he could watch the sunset.

After he checked on Lillie, he stood out on the back porch and smiled. Fresh air. Open space. Silence. Someday, he’d have a place like this, but for now, working here was about as good as he could hope for. No more smelly bar or worrying whether he’d have enough odd jobs to make the bills. Now, with luck, he could save most of his salary. Maybe in a year he’d have enough to pay down on a place of his own.

He’d talked things over with Sharon’s parents. Now that they were both retired, they wanted to keep Lillie a few nights during the week, at least until summer. On the other days they promised to pick her up from school if the weather was bad or the school bus’s rural route wasn’t running.

He didn’t like not tucking her in every night, but on those two days she stayed in town he could work here until dark. Putting in a couple of fifteen-hour days would make the rest of the week lighter.

The Lees had turned Sharon’s old room into Lillie’s playroom. Here she only had a few toys, but at their house Lillie had a roomful. This time, he’d make her room more like a little girl’s room. He might have no idea how to raise a little girl, but he’d learn.

This ranch didn’t have much of a chance of making it, but he planned to give it his best shot. If they could make it through the summer, they might survive, but he’d need to think of a way to have money coming in now to help cover expenses.

As he stared out into the night, he swore he saw an army green raincoat marching across the open field between the main house and the end of the corral. For a moment he thought it was a flash from an old World War II film, then he saw long white legs and what had to be white socks.

Jubilee Hamilton. Taking yard-wide steps across the mud as if she were measuring it off.

Lightning flashed. The promise of more rain scented the air. His insane employer marched on, her damp blond hair plastered to her skull as the coat flapped in the wind.

He thought of going after her, but decided to just watch. Who knows, her kind of crazy might be catching. It was three o’clock in the morning and she was out walking. If she got hit by lightning, Charley decided he’d simply bury her and keep working the ranch.

Finally, exhaustion from a long day of moving from one kind of life to another got the better of him and Charley slipped inside, closing out any thought of his boss, as he closed the door to his new home.

An hour later in the stillness of his bed on the couch, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Something drew him to Jubilee even if he didn’t want to admit it. She seemed so lost. So alone. She wasn’t the kind of woman he’d ever be interested in, but deep down he wanted to help her make this place work. He’d taken this job to save himself, but he had to make it work. Not just for Lillie and him. For her, too.

Jubilee Hamilton needed to believe in something. Maybe the dream of this place working or maybe just herself.

One line she’d said earlier kept swirling in his mind. She’d said this was her last chance. Then, she’d closed up as though she hadn’t meant to say so much.

He understood last chances. He’d been living in that valley so long he thought he owned the place.

Charley closed his eyes. Who was he kidding? He was no knight in shining armor. But maybe just this once, he’d give it a try. If he failed at this quest, it wouldn’t be from lack of trying.

The next morning, by the time he drove back from taking Lillie to Sharon’s folks’ place, he’d decided not to mention having seen Jubilee Hamilton out walking. If she was crazy, she’d deny it. If she wasn’t, she might think he was spying on her.

He rushed into her kitchen, in a hurry to get started working. He was surprised to see that she’d made oatmeal and toast. The coffee even smelled drinkable today.

“Morning,” he nodded as he waited for her to sit down. She was dressed pretty much the same as yesterday, but she’d added a moth-eaten sweater. She’d also combed her hair and tied it in an ugly little knot that looked like a bulldog’s bobbed tail. It crossed his mind that she must have to work at it to look this homely.

She handed him his coffee and sat down across the table. “So before we get started, I have a few things that need doing.”

He leaned back, sipping his coffee.

“Can you turn on the water to the washer out in that little shed behind the house? I need to do laundry.”

“I can show you how,” he answered. “It’ll need to be turned off if there is any chance of freezing.”

“Fair enough.” She passed him one piece of toast. “Next, I want to plant a garden whenever the time is right. A big garden with all kinds of vegetables.”

“Did you ever grow anything?”

She shook her head. “No, but how hard could it be?”

“I’ve got a few books packed away on gardening that my mother used to make me read but we could ask Donald at the feed store. He’d know what would grow best here.” Charley grinned when her eyes lit up. “I could run a line from the horse trough in the corral to water it regular.”

“Great. A garden would save money on food, but I doubt it’ll make any money to bring in.”

He nodded. “Probably not, but it might if we ran a row of watermelons. I was thinking of boarding horses in the extra stalls. It would bring in steady money. You’d provide the feed and I’ll do the work. We could use the income as operating money for the headquarters.”

“Sounds like a good idea.”

Before he could tell her more, a blast from a truck horn ended the conversation.

“My stuff!” she yelled and ran outside waving, as if the lone truck on the lone road might miss the lone house.

Charley ate his breakfast of half a bowl of oatmeal and one piece of toast and then he ate hers. He refilled his bowl with cereal and downed it while he watched the trucker set a dozen boxes on the porch. The truck still looked full when the driver closed the doors and headed away to the next stop.

After refilling his coffee, Charley walked to the front door and watched her running from box to box, opening all her treasures as if she hadn’t seen them in months. From what he could see, she had a box of high heels, two boxes of books, one of pillows and blankets, and the rest seemed to be clothes. She carefully lifted one box and carried it into the crowded room off the kitchen that had probably once been a parlor but that Levy had used as a bedroom.

After she set the box down as if it held glass, she ran back to the other boxes.

“Wait for me,” she said as she grabbed a few things and ran past him and up the back stairs.

“No problem,” he said to himself as he began picking up the boxes and moving them into the kitchen. He had no idea where the stuff would go, but inside seemed a better place than outside.

Ten minutes later she emerged in gray slacks, low heels and a white silk sleeveless blouse that moved like cream over her slim body. If she hadn’t still been wearing that dumb knot on the back of her hair he might not have recognized her. She was tall and slim, but she was nicely curved in all the right places—if he’d been noticing, which of course he wasn’t.

“I’m ready.” When he just stared, she added, “I know I’m not dressed to ranch, but this will have to do until I can wash my jeans.”

“You look fine.” Charley was surprised how much he meant it. “We’ll be out all morning; you’ll need a hat and a jacket to cover those arms.”

“I’ll be fine.” She picked up a tiny red purse and slung the gold chain strap over her shoulder.

“Unless that’s a first aid kit, you won’t need it. We’re going to drive over your land, not go shopping.” Charley grinned. For the first time, she looked like the city girl he knew she was. All polish. No practical.

“Right.” She didn’t drop her purse. “I’ll leave it in your pickup,” she said as she followed him out into the sunshine. “I never go anywhere without a purse.”

When he opened the pickup door, she smiled at him. “Thanks for taking in the boxes.”

“You’re welcome.” He liked the way she talked when she wasn’t yelling at him. She had a nice voice. The kind of low voice that a man wouldn’t get tired of listening to.

For the next hour they drove every trail on her land. He tried to fill her in, but he had the feeling he was talking to himself most of the time.

“This is good pastureland. With the natural spring you could run fifty head out here easily, maybe more. If you want I could buy a few calves. We might have to feed them until the grass greens, but it won’t be long.”

“How much per head?”

“Three hundred, this time of year. By the end of summer they’ll be worth a thousand or more.”

She looked at him then. “That’s a great profit.”

“Not as much as you think. We’ll need to supplement-feed some of them. Then there would be shots and tagging. That’ll cost you. We might lose a few before we sell them.”

She was silent for a few minutes, then said, “Buy sixty head. If we lose five we’ll still make enough to buy a hundred next time and have a nice profit. Would this next pasture also hold a hundred head?”

“It would over the warm months if we get plenty of rain.” He was surprised at her quick logic. The lady might not know ranching, but she understood numbers.

“Then we go with the hundred. I’ve got enough to make the investment and I understand Levy has a ranch account with the bank.”

Charley was impressed with her quick calculation. He had no idea what background she came from. “I’ll make the buy before the end of the week.”

She nodded once and went back to silence.

He continued talking, “You got a gravel pit over there across the road. Always a source of quick money if you need it, but once it’s gone, it’s gone. We might want to save it for emergency money. The flat few acres up ahead are good for farming, but it’s dry land.”

The second question came, “What’s dry land mean exactly?”

“It means without rain you don’t have a crop. Most years crops need irrigating, but it’s expensive to buy and maintain.”

Again came the question of how much. If Charley hadn’t been saving every dime he could to realize his dream of owning his own ranch, he might not have been able to give accurate answers. As it was, he knew down to the penny every cost.

Charley kept talking about what they could do with money or without. She must have enough money to pay him, but he doubted old Levy had left her much else. Maybe she was planning with her own money. The Lexus she’d parked near the house couldn’t have been more than a few years old and the clothes she wore now weren’t picked up at a dollar store. If the lady had money to invest, this ranch could be a great deal more than Levy ever planned.

“You going to take notes?” he asked.

“No,” she answered. “I’ll remember. I’ll set up my office tonight and make some charts. I like to see the progress.”

“I agree.” This was what he’d studied to do. If he’d been able to do it on his family ranch he’d be counting cattle by the thousands. Here the numbers would be small, but for the first time since he’d left college, he could do what he loved, even if it was with someone else’s money.

When they stopped near the edge of a narrow canyon that crawled along one side of her land, he asked her if she’d like to see the Lone Heart Pass that the ranch had been named after.

The sun was getting warmer. He walked with her to within a hundred yards of a column of rocks maybe thirty feet high. “There is no easy way into the canyon for miles except for this pass. It’s like a rock hill split in two a few million years ago and left a passage. If we were on horseback we could go one at a time, slow and easy, through to the pass, but it spooks some horses to be all closed in by the walls.”

She took a few steps on ground that suddenly turned rocky and uneven.

His hand shot out to grip her arm to steady her. The feel of her skin beneath his fingers was hotter than he’d expected it to be. One touch made him aware of her as a woman. Before, he’d thought of her as lost, crazy, way out of her depth. Now, with the silk blouse clinging to her, Charley felt as if he was really seeing her for the first time.

Like the land around her, there was a beauty about Jubilee that most people didn’t see at first glance. Not that he was interested, he reminded himself, but still, he could notice her.

Looking toward the passage, she asked, “Can we walk in? I’d love to see the canyon on the other side.”

Charley shook his head. “Not in those clothes or shoes. It’s beautiful, but it would take us an hour or so to walk through then get back to the truck.” He could see already that her bare arms were blistering and the climb just to get to the pass opening would ruin her slipper shoes.

An instinct to protect her rose in Charley, surprising him, but she was no damsel in distress. The only way he could help her was to show her how to make this ranch grow.

She turned to face him. “Take me to town, then. Show me the way. If you have things to do here, I’ll drive back in and buy what I need later, but I need to learn the road.” Her chocolate brown eyes met his and he saw determination in her gaze. “I want to be ready to start work tomorrow. It’s time we started making something of this place. I’ll need the right kind of clothes and shoes to do that.” She frowned as if suddenly fearing her own words. “Can you buy me a horse?”

“I’ll make a few calls,” he answered. “Can you ride?”

“Of course.”

She’d answered too fast to be telling the truth. He grinned. “I’ve heard tell that brown eyes never lie,” he said.

She faced him square with her lying brown eyes looking a bit angry. “I can ride.”

She might be crazy, but nothing about Jubilee Hamilton was lazy.

As they walked back to his truck, she added, “Mr. Collins, I’ll buy your lunch when we get to town. I’m starving. My breakfast seemed to have evaporated.”

He wasn’t sure if she was kidding or not. The lady was hard to read. “I’ll accept the offer for lunch, but call me Charley.”

“Fair enough. My family calls me Jub.”

He opened her passenger door. “If you don’t mind, I’ll call you Jubilee. Jub seems more like a drink than a name.”

When he climbed into the driver’s seat, she was busy rummaging through her tiny purse that couldn’t hold more than three or four things. She didn’t look at him.

For some reason, he thought he’d won a round, but Charley had a feeling it would be a long time before they knew each other well enough to even be friends. They were as different as two people could be.

Ten minutes later when she asked for the vegan menu at Dorothy’s Café, Charley had to fake a coughing fit to keep from laughing.

CHAPTER SIX

Thatcher

February 27

LAUREN BRIGMAN, the sheriff’s daughter, stared at him with those sky blue eyes, as if he was toad-level in her world. She was all dressed up in her Texas Tech University jacket with silver buttons and he looked as though his whole body served as the tester kit for paint samples. Somehow in two hours he’d managed to drip more paint than he got on the walls. The sheriff would think long and hard about hiring him again.

But he didn’t care. He couldn’t stop looking at Lauren’s beautiful long hair. Something must be wrong with him. He couldn’t think of five girls’ names at school but all at once he was aware, first of the girl in the rain the other night, and now of the sheriff’s only child. At least the girl whose father found a body in the canyon was his age. Lauren was way too old for him.

But Thatcher didn’t care. A guy his age didn’t get to talk to a girl in college very often, so he was happy to be in the sheriff’s office with her even if she didn’t appear to be.

He felt smarter just being in the same room with Lauren. He heard someone say she’d never even got a B in her school career. Neither had he, but Thatcher knew he was coming from the other direction.

She might be six or seven years older than he was, but she’d never been mean to him. That meant something to him. Since grade school, every time he saw her, Brigman’s daughter had at least nodded at him. Most of the other kids treated him as if he was a pound dog who’d escaped.

He did his best to act as though he barely noticed her while he painted the far wall of the sheriff’s office. This was his job for the morning and the sheriff must have assigned her duties, as well.

Every now and then she’d glance up as if she’d just remembered that she was supposed to be watching him while she filed. He didn’t accept the idea of having a babysitter. Hell, he’d been his own man since he was six or seven and his mom started making a habit of disappearing every weekend. Sometimes the weekends seemed to run together before she came home. He never minded being alone.

But this morning Lauren’s silence was starting to bug him.

“How old are you, Lauren?” he asked without stopping his work.

She didn’t look up from her computer. “Twenty-one. That must sound pretty old to you.”

He ignored the fact that she thought of him as still a kid when he was taller than she was and almost fifteen. “I guess that’s not too old to still be minding your old man. I was just wondering how many days of school you missed to be stuck here in your dad’s office on a Saturday.”

She smiled. “I didn’t miss any school. In fact, much as I hate to think about it, I’m almost finished with college. It’s a place where no one makes you go to class—you just go because you want to. Whole new concept for you, Thatcher.”

He groaned, feeling a lecture coming on. He figured all the Brigmans must share some mutant gene that made them give advice the minute their mouths opened.

She laughed as if she’d read his mind. “I just came in this weekend to help Pop with the filing. My dad’s a great sheriff but somehow the folders never move off his desk and into the right filing cabinet. County said they’d hire him a secretary, but he’s always saying he’d have to clean up and organize first.”

Thatcher set his paintbrush down and took his third break of the morning. “You know, come to think of it, twenty-one is old. My mom was married and had me by then.” When Lauren didn’t answer he added, “You’re real pretty so I’m guessing it’s the fact your dad meets everyone at the door wearing a gun that keeps men away.”

Lauren nodded. “That’s it. How about you, Thatcher? At the old age of almost fifteen you’re probably looking for a girlfriend, right? Maybe already have the lucky future Mrs. Jones picked out?”

Leaning on the corner of the desk, he crossed his arms. She was probably talking down to him, like a lot of townsfolk did, but he needed a few answers and she might know enough to help him. “I thought that girl whose dad found the body in the canyon a few days ago wasn’t so bad looking.” He shrugged. “Or she might have been cute if she hadn’t been all wet and shaking like a coyote with his ear shot off.”

“You see a lot of coyotes with their ears shot off?”

“I seen a few.”

Lauren closed her laptop looking as if she didn’t believe him. “The girl with her father that night is named Kristi Norton. Her dad took over as the new high school principal on Monday. He and his wife grew up around here. I think Kristi is your age, so you should have seen her in school.”

“I ain’t been to school lately. That’s why I’m here today. I made the mistake of telling the sheriff that I was too embarrassed to go to school because I didn’t have lunch money. I was thinking he’d loan me some, but instead he offered me a job. If I’d turned it down, he’d know I was lying and there weren’t no telling what he’d do. I swear the past few years I seem to have my own guardian cop and I ain’t sure if he’s from heaven or hell.”

“Tough life, kid,” Lauren said as she went back to filing. “I’m basically here for the same reason. My father doesn’t believe in loaning money, not even to his only daughter. For once, before I get out of college, I’d like to go somewhere for spring break besides Crossroads, Texas. Maybe a beach.”

“What about your mom?” Thatcher moved over to the coffee pot and mixed half coffee with half milk. “Did she run off or something?”

“My folks are divorced. Mom would give me money, but it comes with strings. She’s in that do-I-still-look-like-I’m-in-my-early-thirties stage. If I told her I wanted to go to the Gulf for spring break, she’d probably buy the exact same bathing suit and go with me.”

Thatcher nodded but had no idea what she meant. He wasn’t even sure what she meant by divorce. “My mom has been common-law married four times—all the guy does is move in and she starts calling him her husband. Then, when he moves out, she considers herself common-law divorced. She claims it’s cheaper that way, but I never called a one of them Dad. I figured, judging from my mom’s taste in men, that I’m better off not knowing who the bastard was that fathered me.”

Lauren’s light blue eyes stared at him. “You’ve got to go to school, Thatcher. I think, somewhere beneath all the dirty hair, there just might be a brain.”

No one had ever said that to him. He wanted to tell her that he made two thousand three hundred and fourteen dollars last year selling snakes, and almost eight hundred selling eggs to farms too lazy to bother with chickens.

But he didn’t say anything because one of his mother’s boyfriends told him if he told anyone he was selling snakes or eggs the government would come after him for taxes.

“Lauren, could I ask you a question?”

“If it’s about how to impress Kristi, I’d say start with a haircut, a bath and clean clothes. You’ve already got the brains and that cute smile.”

“No, it’s not that,” Thatcher said as he stored the information away for later. “Could you tell me where the grid is? Mr. Fuller told me once that I lived off it.”

Lauren laughed. “You mean old Mr. Fuller who retired years ago?”

“Yeah. He came in to substitute when Mr. Franks ran off with Miss Smith-Williams back before Thanksgiving.” Thatcher scratched his head. “That was strange. Mr. Franks was old and mean and Miss Smith-Williams always seemed confused. Couldn’t even pick a last name. And, no matter where she was—her class, the hallway or the parking lot—she’d jump when the bell rang. You’d think after teaching high school for twenty years she’d get used to it ringing.”

Lauren giggled. “Wonder where they are now?”

He winked at her. “Probably on a beach where there are no bells to ring or kids for Mr. Franks to yell at. I can see them wearing matching bathing suits and listening to country swing.”

Lauren winked back at him. “You might want to keep that vision to yourself.”

They both laughed.

He leaned over the desk and figured it was time to risk another question. “See that bottom drawer of your dad’s desk?”

“Yes.” She was back to working.

“You have any idea what he keeps in it?”

“Papers, I guess.”

Thatcher knelt down and tugged on the handle. “Then why is it locked?”

Now he had her attention. She swiveled around and also tried the drawer. “I don’t remember him having a locked drawer. He has a safe to keep evidence in. Why would he need a drawer?”

Thatcher shrugged. “Letters from a lover. Weapons. Drugs. Body parts.”

She frowned. “My pop doesn’t have time for lovers. He carries his weapon. Drugs would be locked in the safe and body parts would smell.”

Before he could ask any more questions, the phone on the sheriff’s desk rang.

Lauren answered, nodded a few times and said yes once, then hung up.

Thatcher moved closer.

She’d turned eggshell-white.

“What?” he said.

Lauren stood slowly. “The coroner has the report ready on the man they found dead in the canyon. He’s faxing it over. He said he wants my pop to see it immediately.”

“So call him up and tell him.” Thatcher might not have a cell phone, but everyone else in the world seemed to.

“I can’t. He’s down in the canyon looking for clues. No cell service in that tiny sliver of canyon behind Lone Heart Pass.” Lauren looked worried as the fax machine spit out three sheets of paper. “I have to get this report to him. I know there’s nothing down there, but going to where someone died gives me the creeps.”

Thatcher set his cup in the sink and washed his hands. “Don’t worry about anything, I’m going with you.” He lowered his voice, trying to sound older. “This is official police business and you might need backup.”

“But...”

He moved a few feet, blocking her exit. “The sheriff told you to keep an eye on me, didn’t he?” Thatcher saw the truth in her eyes before she had time to think of a lie. “Well, the only way to watch me is to take me with you.”

She grabbed her purse. “Then come on.”

Thatcher exploded. “Wow! We’re on a job. Do I get a gun?”

“No,” she shouted as she bumped his shoulder on her way out.

“Well, fine,” he yelled back. “But we’re picking my truck up on the way back. The last bit of paint is probably rusting off right now from being left out in the rain.”

When she didn’t answer, he tried asking another question as they reached the small parking lot beside the county offices. “Any chance I could drive your car? I could use a little practice with something that I don’t have to shift.”

“No,” she answered as she climbed into the driver’s side.

Lauren started the car and shoved the gear into drive before he had a chance to close the passenger door.

Thatcher didn’t care. He was on official police business. This was exciting. He might have to rethink becoming a coroner.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Charley

February 27

THE MORNING WAS COOL, but Charley could feel spring coming as he saddled his horse, Dooley, and prepared to ride out. The calves he’d bought yesterday at the auction would arrive after lunch and he wanted to cross the pasture on horseback a few times just to make sure there were no surprises. A leftover round of wire or a nest of snakes could kill a calf. He had the feeling Jubilee couldn’t take much of a loss.

One bite from a rattler on a horse or cow’s neck could cut off the windpipe and suffocate the animal. There would be nothing a cowboy could do to help.

He also wanted to check the quality of the water. Sharon’s parents had taken Lillie to the farm and ranch show in Amarillo, and on this rare Saturday without her, he planned to put in an extra five or six hours of work. He knew his daughter would have fun with her grandparents, and he needed every daylight hour he had to get this place ready for spring. He was making progress, but not fast enough. On Monday he’d hire men to help him work the cattle but today he was working on his own.

Grinning, he remembered Jubilee mentioning twice yesterday that she was glad it was Friday. She wouldn’t be helping him today. City people might take off Saturdays and Sundays, but most farm and ranch folks kept working. Livestock don’t know it’s the weekend.

He’d spent more time explaining things to her this week than working. He should have added in the bargain that he would get paid double for every day she helped. Yesterday, when he’d gone in for breakfast, he noticed she’d turned what had been a living room/bedroom for Levy into an office. Calendars, maps and goals for each month were taped to the walls.

The woman was as much a puzzle to him as she’d been the first day when she’d stormed out in her raincoat and socks. Bossy one minute and completely confused the next. She was her own private merry-go-round of emotions.

What made it worse was that he felt the need to help her, watch over her. She seemed adrift, without any friends or family. As far as he knew, not one person had called to check on her. Now and then he had to fight the need to just hold her and tell her it was going to be all right. She didn’t have to fight so hard or always put on such a brave face.

Only Charley wasn’t sure he believed that himself. He knew what it was like to have few friends and no family that cared. Sometimes being brave was the only choice because the other alternative was too dark to think about.

Jubilee did look good in her jeans and boots, though. He’d give the crazy lady that. And she always took the time to stop and talk to Lillie, even if she barely spoke five-year-old.

He’d found them sitting in the middle of Jubilee’s dirt garden one afternoon. They were laughing about all the strange vegetables they could grow if plants mixed.

“If an apple married a carrot,” Lillie had said, “I’d call it a carropple.”

Jubilee made several suggestions for new plants and that night she brought over a tower of vegetables for Lillie to eat with her supper.

Her being kind to Lillie mattered to Charley.

The second day, when Lillie mentioned to Jubilee that her daddy was sleeping on the couch because there was no bed in his room, Jubilee insisted they go shopping in the upstairs rooms of her house. Four bedrooms were completely furnished and looked as though no one had slept in any of them for over fifty years. Plus, extra furniture lined the walls of the attic.

When the three of them moved furniture out of the old place, Charley looked around. The big old house wasn’t in bad shape even if it did seem haunted with a hundred years of memories.

The fifth bedroom, the one over the kitchen, was obviously Jubilee’s. She must have decorated it when she’d lived with Levy as a child. It looked as if she hadn’t changed a thing.

When they started lugging the bed frame into his place, Charley complained all the way, but that night he stretched out in a full bed and slept like a rock. When he tried to thank Jubilee the next morning, she brushed it off as nothing, saying she’d had fun with Lillie.

As he led Dooley out, saddled and ready on Saturday morning, Charley noticed Jubilee walking in the dirt she called her sleeping garden. This time she had the book in her hands he’d given her. The woman was always planning. More than a dozen times over the week her quick mind had surprised him and, though he wouldn’t admit it even to himself, he found that sexy as hell.

He waved and thought of reminding her to put on sunscreen, but he reconsidered. He hadn’t minded two nights ago when she’d knocked on his door and asked him to cover her back with aloe vera lotion. She’d worn a sleeveless blouse with tiny straps that morning and blistered both her front and back all the way down to the top of her bra line.

For a moment he’d just stood there staring at her bare shoulders.

“Well?” she said. “Would you mind helping me?” She’d obviously taken off her blouse and bra and wrapped herself in a towel.

He couldn’t stop staring. The towel was low enough to show off not only the sunburn, but the white line below where no sun had touched. With each intake of breath a tiny bit of creamy breast seemed to push up from beneath the towel.

“I’ll help. Sure.” He tried to sound simply polite.

She handed him the lotion and turned, lifting her hair off her red shoulders.

He poured the lotion in his palm and slowly spread the cream over her skin. Back and forth from just below her hair, down her neck, over her shoulders and down to where the towel blocked his progress down her back.

If he didn’t know better he’d think his soft caress was absorbing the heat from her skin, for he felt as though his entire body was growing hot.

When she turned and his hand moved over the tops of her breasts where the skin was burned the worst, she let out a whispered cry.

Charley wasn’t sure if he’d hurt her or if she was simply reacting to the feel of his touch.

Lillie pushed her way between them. Taking the lotion away from him, she claimed his rough touch made Jubilee jump.

The five-year-old had taken over the doctoring, even insisting Jubilee stay for ice cream as part of her treatment.

Charley tried to apologize, but when he looked at her talking to Lillie, smiling at her, letting Lillie be the doctor, he couldn’t seem to form words.

The feel of her warm skin lingered on his hands but he’d done his best to ignore it the next day. No women in his life, he reminded himself. If he ever did need a woman, he’d pick someone like Lexie, who’d know from the start that there would be no strings, no commitment, no future. He’d been fighting to get his footing since his dad kicked him off the ranch and made sure his college days were over. He’d worked and saved and done his best to raise Lillie. Nothing would stop him. No woman would ever get to him again.

Not even one with skin like silk and breasts that promised to be irresistible.

Don’t get involved, he reminded himself—so often that it started echoing in his mind.

If he’d had any doubt that Jubilee wanted it the same way, all he had to remember was yesterday morning. When he’d asked how the sunburn was, she’d said “fine” as if drawing a line of what should not be talked about. The rest of breakfast had been formal, all business. He’d eaten his burned eggs and almost-raw bacon without another word about her body.

Of course, he couldn’t help it if now and then his body went rogue with memories of its own. The way she’d felt. How he could feel her breath brushing against his throat as he leaned closer. The soft cry that could have been pleasure or pain.

Yesterday morning, all that seemed to have vanished with the dawn. Maybe he’d just imagined how good it felt so close. Maybe he was simply starved for a woman and had seen a request only for help as an invitation.

He had looked across the table. All business.

“Fine,” Charley had finally echoed under his breath when she got up to get her notepad. He wanted it that way, too. The last thing he needed to do was get involved with her on anything but a business relationship. She’d told him while they were eating lunch a few days ago that she’d lost both her job and her lover, whom she didn’t really love anyway.

She was the definition of mixed-up. He hadn’t asked any questions, but now he wished he had.

“Someone’s coming,” she called to him as she closed her book and walked across her sleeping garden toward him.

He noticed the cloud of dust flying behind a little compact car. “Looks like the sheriff’s daughter’s VW Bug. Don’t know anyone in town who drives a yellow one except Lauren.”

Jubilee raised an eyebrow. “You know everyone’s cars in town?”

“No, but I know Lauren’s. She’s had that one since she left for college. She and my little brother are friends, or at least they were the last time I talked to Reid. He’s a year older than her but my dad said once that they dated some.” Charley clamped his lips together. Too much information, he decided. Jubilee wouldn’t care. Why did he always feel as though he needed to explain everything about not only the ranch, but also the town, to her?

It occurred to him that maybe he talked so much because he wanted to learn more about her. Or maybe he simply liked that low voice of hers that was starting to whisper through his dreams. Who knows, maybe if she knew the place and the people better, she’d stay.

As the car turned into the dirt drive, Jubilee commented, “I didn’t know you had family in the area.”

“You didn’t ask and the answer is no, I no longer have family in the area. None that claim me anyway.” He could hear the bitterness in his words, but he didn’t plan on explaining. Let everyone for a hundred miles around believe whatever they wanted. He was the bad seed in the Collins clan. He’d gotten one girl pregnant and she’d left him with a kid. He’d slept with his stepmother. He’d never amount to anything. He was blacker than the blackest sheep.

Charley clenched his jaw to keep the swear words from spilling out. He’d prove them all wrong even if it took him a lifetime.

Before Jubilee could ask more questions, Lauren jumped out of the VW and hugged Charley. “It’s good to see you,” she said. She was laughing, though for some reason she looked a bit nervous. “I’ve missed your being around campus, Charley. You’re my favorite Collins, you know.”

He guessed Lauren was trying to tell him she wasn’t one of the ones who judged him. He didn’t know her well, but she’d always been kind. He’d been sad when he found out she’d dated Reid. She deserved better.

“It’s good to see you, too.” That was it, he thought. The limit to their conversation since they’d been toddlers.

The last time he’d seen Lauren was the day he packed to leave college. She’d been much more of a kid then, it seemed. Tall, slender, her hair blowing across her face wiping away tears. She hadn’t asked questions then, she’d simply looked sorry for him.

“I wish you could stay,” she’d said even though they seldom saw each other on campus. “It isn’t fair. You only need to finish one semester.”

Charley hadn’t explained. He figured she’d heard the stories. “Don’t worry about it. No big deal.” He’d lied. “I’ll come back when I have time.”

Now he needed to think of something to talk about before she started asking questions. She’d had over a year to think of a few. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about ancient history.

With his arm still resting on Lauren’s shoulder, he turned her toward his boss. “This is Jubilee Hamilton, old Levy’s great-granddaughter. I’m helping her get the place up and running again.”

To his surprise, Jubilee was very professional. Shaking hands. Saying she’d seen the sheriff’s car drive by a few days ago and looked forward to meeting him.

Charley didn’t miss the gentleness, a true friendliness, in Jubilee’s welcome. She’d been like that with Lillie, too. Maybe he was the only one alive who brought out her anger? Or maybe it was men in general—after all, every boyfriend had left her, she’d admitted. Which he found hard to believe, remembering the feel of her skin.

Charley tried to get his mind back in the present.

“What brings you out here, Lauren?” he said as he noticed the bone-thin kid Thatcher Jones trying to get out of her tiny car. He reminded Charley of a long-legged spider. “Did you bring the boy out to pick up his truck? I saw it parked down the road in the bar ditch.”

“Something like that.” Lauren glanced back as if she’d forgotten Thatcher was there. “He’s riding shotgun on my mission.”

Charley waved at the kid and Thatcher waved back. He’d seen the boy around. They’d never talked, but they were on waving terms.

“I’m looking for my father.” Lauren straightened as if finally getting to the reason she’d driven out. “Hikers found a body in the canyon a couple of nights ago. My dad said he’d be north of Lone Heart Pass this morning looking for clues. I’ve got information he asked for and thought the pass might be the quickest way to get it to him.”

Charley got the picture. Lauren needed his help, but she didn’t want to give more away than necessary. “You could go down into the canyon behind the museum, but I’d pack water if I were you. It could be a long walk. Or I could saddle up another horse and take you through the pass. I’m stabling several extras here and I figure the owners would be happy if I got them out for a little exercise. Once we ride down the hiker trail, we’ll probably be within sight of the sheriff if he’s still in the canyon.”

“Would you?” Lauren smiled, but like always, she seemed a bit shy. “I’d appreciate it if you’d go with me, Charley.” She gave him that you’re-almost-like-my-big-brother look she used to shoot him when she visited the ranch. Reid, who was more her age, and his friend Tim O’Grady usually ignored her at parties and roundups. Charley would always end up saddling her horse, or talking to her for a few minutes.

“Sure. Glad to help,” Charley answered, knowing he’d be working later into the night to make up the time.

The Thatcher kid’s voice cracked with excitement. “Mind saddling two horses, Mr. Collins? Like Lauren said, I’m traveling with her.”

Charley turned and saw the boy walking tall and serious. Charley gave the kid his due. “Happy to. I can always use another man who can ride.” He offered his hand. “The canyon can be tricky.”

“Glad to help.” Thatcher shook hands. “Might as well. I’ve been helping Lauren at the sheriff’s office all morning.”

Charley had an idea there was far more to the story, but he didn’t ask.

“I’m going, too,” Jubilee announced. “Just give me a minute to get my new boots on and find that hat with the strings on it.”

“But...” He tried to think of a reason for her not to tag along, but saying that his ears could use some rest from her constant questions didn’t seem polite.

Her stare locked on him. “I’m going.” She turned around so fast he had no doubt the discussion was over.

Charley fought down a groan. He’d be willing to bet his boss hadn’t been near a horse in years. He’d bought a gentle one for her while he was at the auction buying cattle and she’d yet to touch the mare.

Five minutes later, when the others climbed into the saddle, Jubilee walked to the wrong side of her mount.

“This side,” he whispered.

“Of course. I knew that.” She circled around.

She seemed so determined. He whispered a few instructions as he placed his hand on her backside and shoved her up into the saddle.

She stared down at him with angry eyes. Before she could comment, he slid his hand along her leg and shoved her boot into the stirrup. “Try to hang on to the reins, Jubilee.”

Now she looked too angry even to speak. Which Charley decided wasn’t a bad idea.

When he passed Thatcher, he whispered, “Stay close to the lady and make sure she doesn’t fall off.”

“Will do, boss,” Thatcher answered as he saluted.

As Charley expected, the kid rode as if he’d slipped from the birth canal directly onto a saddle.

On the mile ride to the pass, Lauren and Thatcher stayed on either side of Jubilee, giving her pointers, but she bounced up and down all the way. Charley had a feeling her shoulders wouldn’t be the only things red tonight.

As they entered the pass, Charley looped a lead rope from her horse to his saddle horn. Within minutes they had left the morning sun and ridden into the cool darkness of the passage. The walls on either side shot toward the heavens, and a slice of light slid down the rock, showing off the beauty of the stone that had stood silently against the weather for more than a million years.

When anyone spoke, the words echoed off the passage walls, bouncing back and forth like dueling chimes.

Every time Charley glanced back, Jubilee looked terrified. Her hands had a death grip on the saddle horn and her eyes were wide. But her back was straight and she didn’t cry out or demand they stop.

“You’re doing fine,” he offered, but she didn’t look at him.

Lauren’s calm voice whispered from behind them. “I remember how frightened I was when I rode through this pass for the first time. The night was cold, but I wanted to see the moon cross the opening above. There is a legend that if you see the full moon while in the pass, your heart’s wish will come true. Only that night I was too scared to wish for anything, even though my Pop was with me.”

From behind her, Thatcher added with a laugh, “I’d be scared if the sheriff was with me right now. I get the feeling he’s worrying his brain trying to come up with one more thing I’m doing wrong.”

Charley laughed, remembering when he was in his teens and felt the same way about Dan Brigman. Only since he’d been back from college, somehow they’d become friends. Dan had even asked him to help out a few times, manning a road block one night, rounding up drunks after a barn party and, once, directing traffic at a funeral for a ninety-year-old O’Grady. They’d had ten family cars that day. Charley didn’t want to be a deputy, but he didn’t mind being the sheriff’s friend.

After several minutes of silence, Jubilee whispered from just behind Charley, “It’s like we’re walking among ghosts in here. Like we don’t belong. Like this is a passageway only for the gods.”

“Trust me,” Charley whispered back. “If anyone were in here with us, ghost or human, we’d know it. I heard once that outlaws used this pass to disappear into the canyon.”

Thatcher didn’t help the tension by adding, “This would be a great place for snakes to hide. If it were warmer, we could probably find a whole nest curled up sleeping the day away.”

When no one commented, he added, “You know the young ones can be as deadly as the big ones. I saw a rattler not yet a foot long kill a pup once. Bit him on the nose.”

When no one joined the conversation, Thatcher started whistling softly.

Everyone took a deep breath when they made it to the other side. The small canyon, no more than a few hundred feet deep in this spot, opened out with colors ribboning the rocks and the first brush of wildflowers along the base.

Lauren and Thatcher took the lead, winding down to the bottom of the canyon so they could follow the shallow creek. From there they could look up and spot the sheriff easier.

Charley held back until Jubilee rode even with him. “You did good in there,” he encouraged. “Don’t worry about snakes. I’ve never seen one in the passage.”

“Thanks. I wasn’t worried about snakes. Or wishes, for that matter,” she said, her lips still white around the edges, showing her lie. “Only one thing I do need to say to you before we go any farther. Don’t put your hands on me again. I can manage on my own.”

“You got it, lady,” he snapped as he nudged his horse ahead of her without looking back to see if she followed.

All he’d done was help her up. She acted as though it was an assault. With his luck, she’d have him arrested when they found the sheriff.

A few moments later, Lauren yelled, saying she’d spotted her father.

Sheriff Brigman was riding toward them on a huge bay Charley recognized as part of the Kirkland stock.

Lauren handed him an envelope and the sheriff instructed her and Thatcher to walk their horses down along the stream to search for anything that didn’t look as if it belonged in the canyon. Then Brigman headed up the trail.

Charley waited, halfway between the bottom stream and the top ledge of the passage. He knew he needed to stay close to Jubilee no matter how much she wanted him to keep his distance.

Glancing back, he saw her slowly picking her way down to where he waited. The sheriff reached him first and Charley was glad of the opportunity to ask a few questions with no one around.

“Morning, Sheriff.”

Brigman touched his hat in greeting. “Thanks for bringing Lauren down. Knowing her, she filled you in.”

“She did, but she didn’t seem to know how the guy died. Natural causes, or something suspicious?”

Brigman tapped the file against his leg. “Coroner said he was in his late sixties or early seventies, signs of a hard life, lots of old scars and tattoos, no dental care, probably heavy drug use at one time.” He looked straight at Charley. “But someone had to be with him. Someone wrapped him in the burlap sacks. Maybe they didn’t kill him, but the man did not die alone. So, why didn’t whoever was with him simply turn him over to the police? The only reason I can come up with is that whoever was there either killed him, or caused his death.”

“Any hint as to cause of death?”

“Blow to the head. Caved the side of his skull in.” Brigman paused as if thinking through the crime. “Strange thing is the coroner said it looked like someone beat him after he was dead. Bruises, cuts, even dents all over him. A little blood soaked into the burlap, but not as much as would have if the heart had still been pumping. Some of the cuts must have happened after he’d been wrapped and tied up like a mummy.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Charley knew the kick of a horse could easily break bones or crack a skull, but why would someone put a dead man in sacks and then beat on him? Or, why would anyone leave his body here in the canyon?

Both men swung from their saddles as Charley asked, “Exactly where did you find the body?”

The sheriff pointed to a small ledge twenty feet to the left of them. It was not more than six feet wide or deep. “He was laid out on his back like someone put him on display. I saw no trail of how he got there because of the hard rain that hit the other night. Mr. Norton, the man who found him, said he remembered seeing drops of blood around, but it was all washed away before I got here.”

Brigman paced, thinking aloud. “The trail is too narrow for a four-wheeler, so whoever brought him here had to have carried him.”

“Or brought him out here alive. Killed him. Then beat the body bloody and left before the rain even started.”

“Possible,” the sheriff agreed. “Or he could have used a horse to transport the body. If so, he would have been on Hamilton land. He would have used the pass. Any other way in would have been too public for too long. Someone would have seen him.”

Charley shook his head. “I’ve been working for Jubilee Hamilton for a week. I can’t see the entrance to the pass from the headquarters, but I was working outside. I would have heard anyone crossing the land pulling a trailer. On horseback he might have stayed in the trees that run along the windbreak almost to the pass entrance.”

Brigman frowned. “The man hadn’t been dead more than a few hours. He was probably left in the canyon about twilight. Most of the hikers would have been gone by then. Norton grew up around here; he knew the trail so he’d let his kids stay late in the canyon.”

“So no clues?” Charley tried to think why someone would kill an old man and leave his body out here by a trail hikers used. He must have wanted the body found. Maybe he wanted to make some kind of statement?

Or whoever did this was planning to come back and bury the body when the rain stopped. There were spots where the ground was soft—easy to dig a grave. There were caves, too. This unfortunate fellow probably wasn’t the first body buried out here.

Charley remembered that about ten years ago a science class looking at rocks had found a skeleton buried with handcuffs like they’d been on the man when he died.

“One clue,” the sheriff said as he pulled a plastic bag from his vest pocket. “When we moved his body, this was underneath. One joint.”

“Drugs?” Before Charley could say more, his boss’s horse brushed his shoulder.

He turned and lifted his arms in an offer to help her down, but the last thing she’d said about not touching or helping her crossed his mind. Patting her mount, he lowered his hands, hoping the sheriff didn’t notice the coldness between him and Jubilee.

Charley simply stood, holding the reins as she tried to swing out of the saddle with at least an ounce of grace.

The horse shifted, widening his stance on the uneven ground. Jubilee’s body slammed against Charley as she lowered. The full impact of her moving against him shook him. He forced calmness far beyond what he thought possible as her soft parts moved against him, reminding him he may have sworn off women, but he wasn’t immune to them.

As her boots crunched against the rocky ground, the horse moved away, and Charley felt the loss of her pressed against him like a sudden blow.

Jubilee had the nerve to look at him as if their accidental brush had been a conspiracy. As though Charley and the horse had planned the whole encounter.

He held open his palms as if to say he had nothing to do with it. At least this time, if she accused him of anything, he could use the sheriff as a witness.

Only when Charley glanced at Brigman, the sheriff looked as though he felt sorry for him, rather than planning to come to his defense.

Charley swore to himself again he’d have nothing to do with any woman. Even the crazy ones had the ability to mess with his mind.

He told himself she could stay or go. He didn’t care. All that mattered was the job and he needed this one to last long enough to save a little more money.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

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