Dark Paradise (64 page)

electricity that raised the hair on the backs of Marilee's arms. She was

alone, but suddenly she didn't feel alone. She felt the intensity of a

gaze on her, eyes that could have been anywhere in the darkness.

Kendall Morton's round, ugly face floated through her imagination. She

had called a friend who worked the night shift in the California Highway

Patrol computer room and called in six years' worth of markers for

favors. Could he contact the Montana computer banks providing Montana

had computer banks and get a rap sheet on Kendall Morton?
 
He had sighed

heavily, made noises about losing his job, then promised to have

something for her by morning.

Kendall drifted away and a vision of Del Rafferty took his place. An

apparition. A ghost. Another of the walking dead from her dream. One of

the suspects. She wanted to pity him, but she couldn't discount him. He

had been a paid killer in the service, and the war had never ended for

him. Or maybe he had traded one war for another; service to his country

for service to the Rafferty land.

She didn't want to find out the hard way.

She eased herself forward in the chair, trying to breathe slowly,

straining to hear above the drumbeat of her pulse in her ears.

"You sleep like a city girl."

J.D. eased out of the shadows at the corner of the house, hands in the

pockets of his jeans, big shoulders hunched. Marilee glared at him over

her shoulder as she rose from the chair.

"What are you doing here?"

"Some big mountain lion could have had you for supper."

"Not likely," she retorted, calling up her guide-book facts. "There's

never been a report of a mountain lion attacking anyone in this area."

He raised a brow. "Maybe the poor son of bitch wasn't around afterward

to tell the tale."

Refusing to play games, Marilee ignored his line of questioning and

stuck with her own. "I asked you what you were doing here, Rafferty. You

weren't invited."

"I saw a light in the upstairs window," he said, leaning back casually

against the railing. He didn't feel casual. He felt like a clenched fist.

He felt pressure from all sides compressing him into something hard and dangerous.

And she looked soft and sleep-rumpled. If he pulled her against him now,

he imagined her body would be warm, her nose cold, and her hair would

smell like dew and pine. But her eyes were wary beneath the slash of

dark brows, and he knew she wouldn't willingly come to him now. He had

seen to that. He had pushed her away. Because it was for the best.

Because he didn't want the distraction or the danger of a woman in his

life.

Never been a liar, J.D.?

"You've been relieved of your duties as caretaker," Marilee said.

"You're not responsible for this place."

His concern hadn't been for the place, but he wouldn't admit that. It

wasn't the time. The time had passed.

"Habit," he said.

"Break it."

"Del says he saw a big cat up along Five-Mile Creek," he said, looking

off to the south, as if he half expected to see something prowling among

the dark stand of trees.

"Yeah, I'll bet Del sees a lot of things," Marilee said, more sharply

than she had intended. She would have skinned snakes with her teeth for

a cigarette. Her fingers flexed and clenched, nervous for something to

do.

"Don't, Marilee," J.D. warned, his voice tight and weary. "This day's

been too damn long already. I don't want to talk about Del." Or think

about Del, or deal with Del, or believe what Del might have become while

living under the protective banner of the Stars and Bars.

"Tell me about it. I started out the morning by finding a dead body.

That just set the tone right off, you know what I mean?"

J.D. pushed himself away from the railing and stared at her. "You what!"

She gave a look that said she had been the butt of a tasteless practical

joke. "Found a dead body. Yesterday was your lucky day; today was mine."

His gaze had the intensity of lasers. The tension that suddenly held his

whole body rigid hummed in the air around him. "Who?"

"MacDonald Townsend. Esteemed judge. Philanderer. Coke-head. That

MacDonald Townsend. You'll like this; it's very macho: he blew the top

of his head off with a .357 Colt Python."

"Judas," he said, the word blowing out of him on an exhaled breath. He

narrowed his eyes and focused hard on Marilee's face. She looked as pale

as cream in the dark. "Are you all right?"

She jammed her hands in the pockets of her denim jacket and tipped her

chin up, as if he had affronted her pride. "I don't think I'll eat grits

again anytime soon."

"Judas," he muttered again.

He had to give her credit for not falling apart just in retelling the

tale. He thought most women would have.

But then, as Marilee liked to remind him, she was not most women. She

was seldom what he expected her to be - or wanted her to be, for that

matter. He would rather she sobbed and threw a fit of histrionics. He

would have been less inclined to pull her into his arms and hold her.

But she just stood there beside him with her chin up, daring him. Tough

little cookie.

He raised a hand and cupped her face, the tips of his fingers brushing

the baby-fine hair at her temple. Her cheek was soft and white against

his work-roughened skin. Her lips parted slightly as she stared at him.

An invitation. He wanted to accept. It didn't matter that it was

foolish. It didn't matter that he had been the one to push her away. His

heart beat harder now in anticipation. The need to protect, to shelter,

to comfort ached through him. And then there was the need to shut out

the madness of the world around them. He wanted to pull her into his

arms and transport them both to some new Eden, an untouched paradise

where there was only the two of them and endless time and no intrusions,

no obligations, no battle lines, no bodies.

Slowly he lowered his mouth to hers and touched her lips with his.

Marilee shuddered at the contact, at the need.

God, the need terrified her. She could have melted into him, lost

herself forever in his embrace, in his kiss. But forever wasn't a word

that applied to her and Rafferty. She couldn't afford to lose herself.

Her breath hitched in her throat as she forced herself to turn her head

and she closed her eyes tight against the pressure of tears as the

moment slipped away.

"Where did you find him?" J.D. asked in a thick voice, stepping back as

she stepped away.

Marilee cleared her throat and tucked her hair behind one ear, staring

hard at the boards of the deck. "In his study. I went to talk to him about

Lucy. I thought he might know something. They were involved, you know. I

think Lucy might have been blackmailing him."

She cut a glance at J.D. for his reaction. He didn't so much as blink at

the suggestion. As if he expected as much from Lucy or thought that

blackmail was perhaps a common hobby among the kind of people Lucy had

associated with.

"Townsend," he said, his brows drawing together in concentration, a deep

line of concern digging into his forehead. "He a friend of Bryce's?"

"Was. Past tense. Why?"

J.D. didn't answer. He just stood there, stroking his thumb back and

forth across his lower lip as his mind worked. He had ridden back up

along Five-Mile Creek after leaving Del, as much to clear his head as to

look for signs of Del's phantom cougar. The creek ran through a narrow

strip of Forest Service land that acted as a buffer of sorts between

Rafferty land and Bryce's land. Heavily wooded, it had seemed like

twilight in the middle of the day - a sensation that might have been

peaceful if it hadn't been oddly disturbing.

He hadn't expected to find much of anything worth looking at. Some

tracks maybe, nothing more. The area was isolated, with no easy access.

Not the sort of place the tourists and hikers sought out. The Absaroka

Beartooth wilderness offered miles of trails for them, although he had

seen backpackers and signs of backpackers on Rafferty land more and more

as the legitimate park areas became more crowded. What he found on

Five-Mile Creek he couldn't attribute to weekend foot traffic.

Signs of horses - a number of horses - and dogs. The carcass of what had

been a big, strong hunting dog a week or so ago lay half in the creek,

its body torn and rotting, fouling the water. He pulled it out and left

it on the bank for nature to dispose of. The state of decay made it

difficult to determine how the dog had met his end. He thought of Del's

claim of a big cat, and wondered. A cougar would turn and fight if it

had to.

Horses, dogs, cigarette butts, and shell casings on the ground. Signs of

a hunt. But there was nothing in season.

Cougars were protected, at any rate - not that some didn't meet untimely

ends every year. There were guides who would promise big cats to hunters

for a price.

Poaching was one of the most common - and most profitable - times in the

state of Montana.

Horses, dogs, signs of a hunt. And just north of Five Mile Creek lay

Evan Bryce's private paradise. Bryce the sportsman. Bryce the high

roller. Bryce, who was a friend of the dead judge who was the lover of

the dead Lucy's, who was the client of the dead lawyer, Daggrepont.

"I broke the news to Bryce myself," Marilee said. "He was devastated."

She rolled her eyes and made a face. "Not."

J.D. looked at her sharply. "What'd he do?"

"He made the appropriate noises, but his heart wasn't in it. Actually, I

think he couldn't have cared less. I didn't see any genuine emotion out

of him until Will crashed the party. Talk about uncomfortable moments. I

don't think Emily Post ever covered what to do when a drunken cowboy

assaults the host and accuses him of playing the ol' bump and grind with

his wife."

"Oh, Jesus," J.D. swore, driving a hand back over his forehead and

through his short dark hair. He cocked a leg and huffed out a sigh as he

tried in vain to massage the knots from his neck. "What happened?"

"Will took a couple swings at Bryce, said some mean things to Samantha.

Samantha ran into the house in tears, then Bryce broke a chair on Will's

ribs. He's got an ugly temper. I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side

of it."

"I'd rather you didn't get on any side of him."

"Yeah, like you have anything to say about it."

She started to turn from him, as if she meant to walk away. J.D. snagged

her by the arm and took a subtly aggressive step toward her. "I mean it,

Marilee. I don't like the feel of any of this."

"And I don't like you telling me what to do," she said, scowling at him.

She felt as if she hadn't slept in days and the insulation on her temper

was being stripped away layer by layer, exposing a tangle of raw nerve

endings, which Rafferty poked at every time he came around.

"You're not a player here, cowboy, as far as I can see. You made that

very clear last night. And before that, and before that. All you ever

wanted from Lucy or me was sex and this land. You're not

getting either now, so that puts your nose out of joint. Tough.

"You don't want me nosing around Lucy's death. You don't want me

checking out your loony uncle. You don't want me hanging around Bryce.

Well, guess what, Rafferty?
 
I don't care what you don't want. You don't

want me on mutually acceptable terms, so get the hell out of my life."

She pulled her arm free of his grasp and started toward the house,

feeling old and battle-scarred. Fleetingly she wondered what the folks

back home would say if they could see her now. Little Marilee, who had

almost compromised her life away in a failed attempt to please everybody