Dark Paradise (77 page)

opera on the television that stuck out from the wall on a black metal

arm. Nora stopped talking in mid-sentence as J.D. made his entrance.

"I'll come back later, honey," she said, patting Marilee's leg through

the thin white sheet as she slipped down off the stool. "See if I can't

sneak you in a piece of chocolate pecan pie."

"Thanks, Nora," Marilee murmured.

Nora scooted around the foot of the bed, turning off the TV as she

passed by. "J.D.," she said.

He nodded to her, but his eyes were locked on Marilee.

She blinked at him sleepily.

"Hey, cowboy, how's tricks?"

"Came to see how you're doing."

"So come in and see. Stab wounds aren't contagious."

He moved from the door to the foot of the bed and stood there, staring

at her from under his straight, somber brows. He looked drawn and tired

beneath his tan. The broad shoulders sloped down as if they bore the

weight of the world. And he seemed wary, as if he fully expected her to

add to the burden. Not exactly the way she had dreamed of seeing him.

In the half-light of dawn she had floated between memory and wishes and

narcotic-induced melancholy, picturing him bent over her, cradling her

against him, sheltering her from the rain and stroking her hair. She had

imagined tender words and knew she was dreaming, because Rafferty was

not a man of tender words.

You sure know how to pick 'em, Marilee.

"How's Samantha doing?" she asked.

"She's pretty rattled. It's gonna take her a while to come out of it, I

expect. Doc says her face will scar, but the cut didn't go deep enough

to sever any nerves, so I guess that's a blessing. It'll all heal in

time."

Except the scars no one could see, Marilee thought, hurting for the

girl. "Is Will with her?"

"Yeah. He's pretty shaken himself. This put the fear of God in him. He's

sworn off drinking and women and honky-tonks and gambling."

"Will he hold to it?"

J.D. thought about that for a minute, thought about the conversation he

had shared with Will before the arrival of Orvis Slokum. "I think maybe

this time he will."

"I hope so."

Neither of them spoke for several moments as that phantom promise of a

clean start hung in the air between them, tempting but unable to

penetrate the dense layer of their brief past.

J.D. broke the silence first. "How are you feeling, Marilee?"

She found him a wry smile. "Like I been rode hard and put away wet."

"Doc Larimer says you'll be all right," he said quietly.

"Yeah. I won't be throwing the javelin anytime soon, but it's just a

flesh wound, as they say in the movies.

"Larimer is a piece of work. I think you could be hit by a bus and he'd

tell you to stop whining and walk it off."

She sobered, the gravity of the situation tugging down on the corners of

her mouth. "I was very, very lucky. I'd be dead if it weren't for Del."

"He's a hell of a shot."

"I'd be dead if it weren't for you," she said. Just as she expected, he

shrugged off his own role in the drama, looking uncomfortable at the

prospect of her gratitude.

She sighed and let it go for the moment. "Is Del all right?"

Rafferty looked out the window, the muscles in his jaw flexing. "No,

he's not. He hasn't been all right in thirty years. I should have faced

that a long time ago."

"What will you do?"

"I don't know."

The strain in his voice brought tears to her eyes. She knew how deeply

he cared for his uncle. She knew how strong his sense of responsibility

was, how he prided himself on taking care of what was his. He thought he

had failed. The struggle to deal with the self-recriminations was

visible in his face. She wanted to offer him some comfort, but she knew

he wouldn't want it, and that hurt.

She also wished there were something she could do for Del. He deserved a

medal for fighting past his own fears and mental demons to help her. He

deserved a whole box full of medals. She caught a fleeting glimpse of

just such a box in her memory, but she was tired and couldn't

concentrate on anything more than the moment at hand.

"Quinn arrested Evan Bryce yesterday," he said, turning his attention

back to her. "The district attorney and a federal prosecutor are going

through the evidence Lucy left and what they got out of Bryce's

house. Turns out he had tapes of two dozen or more hunts.

Some big people are gonna take big falls. Quinn thinks they'll have

enough indictments to fill a wheelbarrow. He sends his apologies for not

believing you sooner."

"Yeah, well, there was a lot of that going around. I can't really blame

him for choosing the path of least resistance. I probably would have

done that too in my past life.

"Come pull up a chair, Rafferty," she said, nodding to the stool Nora

had vacated.

Her hair was its usual mess, and it tumbled across her face with the

gesture. She swept it back with her right hand. Through the thin fabric

of her hospital gown J.D. could see the bandages that swathed her left

shoulder and banded across her chest. He felt sick at the memory of her

lying on the ground, her blood oozing out between his fingers.

"I should have listened too," he said, easing himself down on the seat.

Marilee gave him a wry look. "I was under the impression cowboys are

anatomically incapable of listening to women. Tuned in to a different

wavelength or something."

He didn't smile. He stared at his old boots and sighed.

"Look, J.D., you had no reason to suspect what was going on. No one

could have guessed."

"I knew Lucy was into something," he admitted. "She was always making

sly remarks, then watching me, like she was waiting to see if I could

figure them out. I ignored her because I didn't want to believe her

world had anything to do with mine. And then when she was killed, I just

kept thinking jesus, what if Del did it?
 
What would I do?
 
How could I

turn him in?"

The questions tormented him still. He stared straight ahead as he

searched for answers within himself, the muscles in his jaw working, his

short thick lashes beating down hard. "After all I said about outsiders

coming up here, it would have been my finger on the trigger as much as

his. What does that make me?"

"Human," Marilee murmured. "Don't beat yourself up, cowboy. Nobody can

blame you for wanting to protect what's yours."

She reached out and stroked her fingers along the back of the hand that

gripped his thigh. A strong hand. Work and weather-rough. Slowly he

turned it palm up and laced his fingers between hers and held her tight.

In many ways it was the most intimate act they had shared.

Emotion swelled in her chest and filled her eyes. I love you. The words

were bittersweet on her tongue. She would not say them. He would not

want them any more than he would want her sympathy. Too bad, because

after living in a dormant state for so long, she finally felt alive,

brimming with life, full of feeling. She needed to give. She needed

someone who wanted her love. No more half-life, no more half-love. No

more clinging to the wrong things for the wrong reasons.

J.D. looked down at the pale hand twined with his and felt unworthy. He

had set out to use her. He had hurt her a dozen times. All in the name

of a higher purpose, a clever guise for his own fear. He had accused her

of much and given her little, and he was the guilty one. He boasted a

code of honor; Marilee had lived it. She had risked her life for the

truth, for her friend. She had stood up to him and stood up for herself

and for justice. She lay in a hospital bed, an escapee from death's

door, and yet she reached out to offer him comfort.

He had never felt so ashamed of himself.

How long had he told himself he didn't want a woman's love, that it was

a burden and a curse, a pernicious thing that fed on a man's weakness

and left him less than whole?
 
When the truth of it was, he didn't

deserve it. He had spent so long hardening himself against it, he

wouldn't have known how to accept it had she offered. And so he let the

moment and the opportunity slip past and told himself it was just as

well for both of them.

"Well," he murmured after a long while. "There's chores need doing."

He looked up at Marilee, his heart squeezing in his chest. She had

fallen asleep, her face turned toward him, tears on her cheeks.

Gently, he tucked her hand beneath the covers, leaned down, and kissed

her. Then he walked out of her life.

"Darling, are you certain you're feeling up to this?" Drew asked for the

ninth time. He slid Marilee's guitar case carefully in the back of the

Mystic Moose courtesy van and turned to her with one of his

concerned-brother looks.

In spite of the tension that lingered between them, Kevin joined forces

with Drew in this effort, his brown eyes as hopeful as a spaniel's.

"Really, Marilee, you can stay as long as you need to. We hate thinking

of you way out on that ranch all alone."

In a symbolic gesture, Marilee swung the van door shut and gave them

both a wry look. "Then you'll have to come out and visit me, guys. It's

only nine miles. Besides, I won't be alone. I'll have Spike with me."

At the mention of his name, the black and white rat terrier she had

adopted from the Eden Valley Veterinary Clinic jumped out from beneath

the shade of the van and set up a yowling that made Drew and Kevin

cringe. Marilee grinned at him and praised him, leaning down to rub his

head with her good hand. Her left arm was still immobilized, though she

was due to begin physical therapy soon to rehabilitate the damaged

muscles.

Two weeks had passed since that terrible day on the mountain. In that

time, she had been visited and pampered and fussed over by her new

friends and bullied by Doc Larimer. She had spoken at length with the

district attorney and the federal prosecutor and Sheriff Quinn, who

brought her a plate piled high with his wife's caramel-fudge brownies as

a gesture of apology. She had declined interviews with no less than a

dozen newspapers and broadcast news people.

She had spent time with both Will and Samantha, who were working hard at

starting their young marriage over.

Samantha had a lot of healing to do - emotional as well as physical, and

Will had a tough row to hoe beating his drinking problem, but at the

heart of the matter their love was real and sweet and tender. Marilee

wasn't going to bet against them. As far as she was concerned, true love

needed all the backers it could get. Too much of what passed for love

wasn't real, and too much that was on the vine. And too many people

never got the chance to find out one way or the other.

She had not seen J.D. once since the day they had held hands in silence

in her room.

Tucker had come to pay his respects. Chaske came with him and presented

her with a Ziploc bag full of powdered rattlesnake skin that was

supposed to give her body strength. He told her the recipe was handed

down to him from a Sioux medicine man, a claim that made Tucker roll his

eyes. The two had entertained her for nearly two hours bickering with

each other and telling stories. They had offered her small glimpses of

J.D. as a boy, as a teenager, as a young man shouldering the burden of

running the ranch after his father died.

Marilee had pictured in her mind's eye the events that shaped him into

the man he was today, and she felt she understood him a little better

than she had, but she couldn't see that the knowledge was going to be of