Dark Paradise (21 page)

would have done. "It's just for a week or two. I'll pay you."

"I don't want your money," he said sharply, offended. "I don't take money

from neighbors."

A part of him was sorely tempted to turn her down all the way around. He

didn't like the feelings she shook loose inside him. He didn't like

where she came from or who her friends were. But she owned this land

now, land that he wanted. If he didn't help her, she would turn

elsewhere.

She looked up at him, her dark brows tugging together in consternation.

"But-"

"I'll see to the stock," he said, pulling down the brim of his hat. He

lifted his reins and Sarge instantly brought his head up, ready for the

next command. "I just won't take money for it."

Marilee shrugged, at a loss, feeling once again like a visitor in a

foreign land. "Suit yourself."

"Yes, ma'am," he murmured, nodding. "I usually do."

She watched him ride away, frustration and weariness rubbing at her

temper. Something else thrummed beneath it all, something she didn't

have the patience to deal with.

She didn't have the patience to handle attraction to a man who made her

want to scream and tear her hair out.

Men like that, attractions like that, were good for only one thing - wild,

hot, mind-numbing sex. She hadn't come to Montana for wild, hot,

mind-numbing sex. She had come for friendship and a fresh start.

But as she walked toward the house with the Mr. Peanut tin tucked in the

crook of her arm, her mind drifted to a line from Lucy's letter and a

warm blush washed through her from head to toe. Ride 'im, cowgirl . . .

She climbed the porch steps and sat down on a bench with her back

against the log wall and her eyes on the hillside where Rafferty had

disappeared among the trees.

She had more important things to think about, such as what she was going

to do with this ranch and the llamas, and what she was going to do about

the uneasiness that tightened like knots inside her when she thought of

Lucy's death.

The sun slipped farther behind the mountains. Shadows crept in from all

sides. The knots twisted in her belly.

A killer who never saw his victim. A drifter who vanished. A man J.D.

Rafferty didn't want her near. A lifestyle that cost the moon. A last

letter that made no sense.

"You've got a lot to answer for, Luce," she muttered, her arm around the

peanut tin, her eyes on the hillside that suddenly felt as though it

were staring back.

He watched the woman through a Burris Signature 6-24X bench rest/varmint

scope, clicking the iris adjustment to get the lighting just right. A

Ruger M77 Mark 11 held tight into his shoulder, he rested against the

trunk of a fir, silent, still, so still he blended in with his

surroundings as if he were a rock or a tree. It was that quality of

stillness that had made it possible for him to live as long as he had.

Not that that was such a good thing.

Automatically, his mind calculated range and bullet drop. He had learned

the ballistics tables not long after he had learned the multiplication

tables, and he knew them better. He wouldn't use the figures now. It was

just good to work the mind, that was all. Keep the wheels oiled and

moving.

He had told himself to stay away from this place, to stay away from the

blonde. But she had haunted him badly the last two nights and he had

finally decided he needed to see if she had come back to the house.

This wasn't the woman he had expected. She was blonde, like the other

one had been, but different. Much different. He could tell not only by

the way she dressed, but by the way she moved, the way she sat. Relief

flooded through him, weakening his limbs. The Ruger bobbed in his hands,

suddenly weighing a thousand pounds. She wasn't the one.

The woman laughed, a husky, healthy sound that floated up the

Mountainside and brushed across his ears like sweet music. Not like the

other one. Her laugh had held an edge to it, a bitter sharpness. The

echo of that laugh brought flashes of memory, like a strobe light in his

head. Darkness. Dogs. The crack of a rifle. The sight of blood. The

smell of death.

He dropped the Ruger down and pressed the heels of his hands against his

eye sockets, as if the pressure might blot out the scenes. Panic rose

inside him, clogging his throat, stiffening his lungs, making him shake.

The images in his head tumbled into a confusing mix of the distant past,

the recent past, the present. Sounds of war, sounds of laughter, screams

of the wounded and the dying, orders, shots, explosions, the stench of

death and decay and swamp. His heart pounded like an angry fist against

his sternum. Sweat soaked his clothing, robbing his body of heat as the

cool evening air closed around him.

Sucking in as much air as his aching lungs would allow, he held the

breath and concentrated on pushing every thought from his mind. As the

mental screen went blank, he exhaled slowly, counting the seconds,

concentrating on slowing his heart rate.

Every moment of his life was like taking a shot - he had to stay centered,

in control, tight within himself. Focus, aim, take a breath, exhale

half, caress the trigger, start again. That was how he made it. One shot

at a time.

No distractions.

No pretty blondes with husky voices.

Taking up the rifle, he rose from his crouch and started up the

mountain, letting the darkness swallow him up like a phantom.

Samantha finished work at four for the first time in a week. The evening

was hers. The thought made her stomach cramp with dread. She hated the

idea of spending time alone in the small house she had shared with Will.

It was so empty without him. The quiet pressed in on her until she could

stand it no longer.

She couldn't go into the tiny kitchen without seeing him standing there

with messy dishes and pots and pans stacked around him, his grin

exuberant as he cooked spaghetti. He always made enough for an army. The

freezer compartment of the old refrigerator was virtually an icy wall of

frozen spaghetti in Ziploc bags. She couldn't go into the bedroom

without seeing him sprawled across the mattress, naked, frowning in his

sleep, or with those devilish blue eyes locked on her, one hand reaching

out to her, inviting her to come make love with him.

Longing as strong, as desperate as the need to breathe, dug into her

heart and tore it open all over again. The pain flowed through her like

fresh, hot blood.

What went wrong, Will?
 
Did I need you too much?

Did you need more?

She thought of the way she had jumped at his offer of marriage. In her

memory it was the most casual of questions. He had asked her with no

more concern than if he had asked her to go off on a wild ride with him.

And in her memory she all but pounced on him, grabbing on to him with

greedy hands that threatened to choke the life out of him.

No matter how she looked at it, the blame always came back to her. She

had been too demanding, too needy. She wasn't pretty enough or

woman enough or experienced enough in bed. As angry as she was with him

for walking out, as hurt as she was by his cheating, she always blamed

herself.

That truth made her think of her mother, slinking around her father like

a whipped dog, her eyes downcast, always apologizing for imagined sins.

She hated to think that she compared with her mother in any way, had

always hated to think that she was even related to any of those people

in that shabby house with the weedy yard and the dirty-faced children.

The guilt that thought brought was no more welcome than the truth that

the Neills were her family.

She looked around the bar as she untied her apron, folded it, and tucked

it into a cubbyhole. People were drifting in for happy hour. Smiling,

beautiful, wealthy people. Couples. Her focus horned in on the women,

who all seemed to hold some secret wisdom in their eyes that she

couldn't even guess at. They had it all. They had their husbands and

their fancy cars and lavish homes and beautiful clothes. She imagined

that when they looked at her they knew that she had nothing, was no one.

All she had waiting for her at home was Rascal, the puppy Will had given

her for her birthday two weeks before he left her.

"Are you all right, Samantha luv?"

Mr. Van Dellen leaned close to her, brows knit in question. She fought

down the lump in her throat and murmured an answer she hoped would

satisfy him.

"You're sure?" he asked. "Because if you need to talk to someone or-"

"No, really, Mr. Van Dellen. I'm fine. I'm just tired, that's all."

He pressed his lips together in a way that made her think he was holding

back a challenge to her statement. She tried to smile, shrugging off his

concern. He didn't look convinced, but he didn't call her on it either.

"All right," he said on a sigh, and moved off to answer a call from one

of his customers.

Samantha felt the tension seep out of her like air from a balloon. She

couldn't talk about her troubles with him. He was nice and all, but

everybody knew he and Mr. Bronson were . . ..well . . . queer.

She didn't like the way the word sounded even in her own mind. It seemed

harsh and mean, when Mr. Van Dellen and Mr. Bronson were both very kind

to her. But she couldn't get past her upbringing either. The thought Of

two men . . . together . . . She gave a little shiver of revulsion. No,

she couldn't talk with Mr. Van Dellen about Will. He couldn't possibly

understand.

The problem was, she didn't know a soul who would understand. Not for

the first time in her life she wished for a real friend and for the

courage it took to be a part of that kind of friendship.

With a heart that felt as heavy as the purse she slung over her

shoulder, she started for the side exit and stepped directly into the

path of Evan Bryce.

"Samantha!"

The smile that stretched across his face was one for old friends, and it

threw her off balance more than their near collision had. "I'm sorry,

Mr. Bryce," she mumbled. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

"Don't apologize," he ordered with a mock frown as he settled a hand on

her shoulder. "And you call me Bryce. All my friends do." She started to

object, but he gave her shoulder a little squeeze, his pale eyes

shining.

"Come on. We are friends, aren't we?" he said with a big square grin. "I

don't loan my handkerchiefs out to just anyone, you know."

Samantha ducked her head, blushing at the memory of crying on his

shoulder. God, he was Evan Bryce and she was just Sam Neill from the

wrong side of town, just a little nobody. She couldn't be a part of

Bryce's crowd any more than a mutt dog could run with greyhounds.

Bryce studied her reaction from under his lashes.

"Come join us," he said, steering her toward his table.

"No, I can't."

"Why not?
 
You're off duty. There's no reason you shouldn't join us for

a drink, is there?"

There was every reason. She didn't belong. She wouldn't fit in. She was

married. She needed to get home - To what?
 
The thoughts tumbled through

her head, clearly visible in her dark eyes.

"You deserve a treat, I think," he said softly, their shared secret warm

and kind in his gaze as he tilted her chin up with a forefinger. "Don't

you?"

Samantha stared at him for a moment, feeling herself needing his

attention like a parched plant needed water.

Her loneliness swelled inside her. The thought of going to her empty

home had tears pressing against the backs of her eyes.

"Come make some new friends," he murmured.

She looked at the people sitting at his usual table along the back wall.

Smiling, beautiful, wealthy people. Laughing. Happy. She could be a part

of that for a little while.

She thought of Will, feeling that she was somehow betraying him. Then

she thought of Will with the blonde from the Hell and Gone . . . and she

thought of her empty house, and her empty life. She deserved something

more, didn't she?
 
A drink, a friend, a little time away from the aching

loneliness.

"Yeah," she said, nodding to herself. "Yes, I'd like that."

"Good girl," Bryce said, flashing his Robert Redford grin again as he

herded her toward his table.

Marilee walked toward the Mystic Moose, hands jammed in the pockets of

her denim jacket. She hadn't been able to manage the idea of dinner in

the elegant dining room at the lodge. Even after a shower to wash the

smoke and dust off, she felt something of the ranch lingering on her,

something that made her long for simpler surroundings and country music

on a jukebox. Supper at the Rainbow Cafe had seemed the perfect thing.

Chicken-fried steak and white gravy. Lyle Lovett and his Large Band on

the side. Nora Davis in her pink uniform and her air of world wisdom.

Replete, she strolled down the sidewalk, letting the town fill her

senses, letting the tensions of the day drift away. Main Street was

fairly busy. There was a line of big old pickups out in front of the

Hell and Gone, lined up like horses at a hitching rail. Even from more

than a block away she could hear Garth Brooks advising folks to go

against the grain, the sharp clack of billiard balls breaking over his

cowboy voice.

She wondered if J.D. hung out there. She told herself it didn't matter.

The stores that serviced the common folk stood dark and silent, but the

trendy shops were still lit up, their doors held open with crocks of

geraniums. There wasn't a soul going in or out of those boutiques that

didn't look like an outsider.

It seemed odd to her that she should be able to spot them. She was,

after all, an outsider herself. But something within her protested the

label. She felt as comfortable strolling these streets as if she had

been raised here.

More so. The upscale haunts of her mother and sisters back in Sacramento

had never felt anything but foreign to Marilee.

She stopped now in front of the post office and studied her shadowed

reflection in the dark glass of the front window. Her hair was a mess.

She had let it dry on its own after her shower and it made a wild cloud

of waves and tangles around her head, thick strands tumbling into her

face. She snatched them back behind her ears, her small hands darting

out the ends of her too-long jacket sleeves and disappearing again as

she dropped her arms.

She didn't think she looked like an outsider. Certainly, she didn't bear

any resemblance to the people drifting in and out of the Latigo

Boutique. Even the ones in jeans had an expensive look about them, a

sleek quality. Sleek was not a word anyone had ever used to describe

her.

"Marilee." Her mother ground her name out between her beautifully capped

teeth. She flapped her manicured hands at the sides of her Mark Eisen

suit in a gesture of futility. "Can't you even try to make an effort to

look good?
 
Your hair is impossible and you dress as if you shop at

Goodwill."

"I do shop at Goodwill. It's the best place to get clothes."

Abigail Falkner Jennings heaved a sigh of supreme motherly disgust and

shook her head. Her perfect champagne-blond tresses swung just enough

for effect and settled perfectly into place. "I don't understand you

Marilee. Why can't you be more like your sisters?"

Because I'm me, Mom, she thought to herself, her heart sinking. Marilee

the Misfit.

For twenty-eight years she had struggled to be a good Jennings girl like

Lisbeth and Annaliese were good Jennings girls. Instead, Marilee had

always been known as that Jennings girl. The one who stuck out like a

big toe through a fine silk stocking.

She had felt like an outsider her whole life, but she didn't feel that

here, standing in front of the New Eden, Montana, post office.

Rafferty thought she was an outsider.

"Damned city bitches . . . Are you like your friend Lucy?
 
You want to

know what it's like to tease a cowboy?"

"No," she whispered, not wanting to remember the sensation of his body

against hers or the taste of his kiss.

Not wanting to wonder what Lucy had done to him or with him.

She walked on down the street and turned on impulse into a New Age shop

called Selah, just for the distraction of people and lights. The store

was tiny, a rough cedar cubbyhole crowded with bookshelves and displays

of crystals and candles and baskets of polished stones. The spicy scent

of incense filled the air like a thick perfume.

From the speakers of a tape deck came the sounds of birds, running

water, the wind in the trees - nature in a box. Marilee's lips quirked at

the idea. Who would come to this land of paradise and settle for its

sounds on so many inches of flimsy tape?

"How's the obsidian working?"

She turned away from a display of birch twigs in a bark vase and jerked

her gaze up to meet M.E. Fralick's intense visage. She was in another

of her jumpers, this one deep blue over a salmon silk T-shirt. A cameo

on a strip of blue velvet circled her graceful throat.

"Excuse me?"

Behind the big lenses of her glasses, M.E. rolled her eyes with a drama

that befitted her profession, propping one long hand on her hip and

gesturing with the other to the heavens, invoking the attention of who

knew what gods. . "She's not centered," she said with impatient disgust.

Turning her attention back to Marilee, she explained as if she were

speaking to the most backward of children.

"The stone I gave you yesterday. Obsidian. Obsidian works wonders for

blocking disturbing vibrations."

"Oh, well."

Marilee shrugged apologetically. She dug the small stone out of her

jacket pocket and held it up to the light. "I probably need something

more the size of a basketball. But I appreciate the thought. Thanks."

The actress shook her head, frowning gravely. "You must get centered.

Talk to Damien, darling," she said, nodding to the enormous bald man

behind the counter. "He's a Zen master."

Marilee eyed him dubiously. He looked like a hairless version of Chef

Paul Prudhomme. His bulk took up the entire space behind the counter. She

couldn't help thinking that if he got himself truly centered, small

moons would go into orbit around him.

A fresh group of customers streamed into the shop, snagging M.E.'s

attention, and Marilee managed to escape the actress and the store

without the pleasure of meeting the Zen master.

She returned to the Moose as the moon was beginning to rise over the

Absarokas and went up to her room to get her guitar. Rafferty

notwithstanding, she had enjoyed her time out back of the lodge the

night before. Just the moon and the mountains and her music. The

prospect was more soothing than a wheelbarrow of obsidian.

Kevin Bronson was standing in the hall when she stepped off the

elevator. He looked up at her from the stack of reports in his hands and

grinned engagingly.

"Hey, Lucy told us you played," he said, gesturing at her old guitar

with the papers.

"She did?"

"Yeah, she said you were great. She said you were wasting yourself in

lawyers' offices, that you should have been in L.A. or Nashville or

someplace, doing justice to your talent."

"Lucy said that?"

It seemed inconceivable to her. Lucy had listened to her play on a few

occasions during jam sessions in local bars. Sometimes during their B&B

sessions in Marilee's apartment when the conversation had run out she

would pick up her guitar and just toy with it, sing a few bars of

something that had been taking shape in her head, absently, casually;

and Lucy would listen and sip her beer and make a wry comment when she

was done. You oughta be a star, Marilee. Idle talk. Just something to

fill the silence after the last note.

Kevin seemed a little baffled by her surprise, but he was too well bred

to comment. He stood there in navy pleated chinos and a white polo

shirt. A Yale boy from his GQ haircut to the tips of his Top-Siders.

"I was just on my way into the bar to join Drew for coffee. Will you

come with us?" He smiled again, even white teeth flashing in his lean

face. "Maybe we'll be able to persuade you to play something for us."

She laughed and fell in step beside him. "Don't worry about twisting my

arm; I'm shameless."

They sat at a table near the fire and talked over French roast spiked

with Irish cream. Marilee told them about her adventure with Miller

Daggrepont, and they both shook their heads and chuckled over Lucy's

choice of resting places.

"That's positively macabre," Drew said, sipping his coffee. "How very

Lucy."

"I can't believe she left everything to me," Marilee blurted out into

the silence, needing to say it again even though she felt as if she were

confessing to a crime.

Drew and Kevin exchanged a glance, but there were no exclamations of

shock or denial. Drew curled his fingers over the head of the guitar she

had propped against the table and rocked it gently. "Will you stay?"

"I don't know. I don't know what to think," she said, but she thought of

the view off the deck of the log house, the sense of peace she absorbed

from the mountains, the sense of fitting in she had longed for in

futility her whole life. She thought of Rafferty rolling her beneath him

in the dust of the corral, holding her awkwardly while she cried, and a

warmth rose inside her that had little to do with the low-burning flames

on the fieldstone hearth.

She forced herself to think of Lucy, and the questions came to the

surface of her mind like oil on water.

"So what was the deal with this hired man she had working for her?" she

asked. "I heard he just vanished after the accident."

"Kendall Morton?" Kevin made a face. "Sleazy, I always thought he looked

like Pigpen grown up and gone bad. Tattoos, bad teeth, B.O."

Drew took a sip of his coffee and nodded. "Odd fellow. Never had much to

say. Always skulking about in the background."

"The guy is that weird and nobody thought to question him after Lucy's

death?" Marilee said, gaping in disbelief.

"There was no reason to," Drew explained. "Sheffield came forward and

that was the end of it. Besides, Morton had no reason to kill her."

"Since when do people need a reason?"