Hearts On Fire (2 page)

Chapter 3

    
“She should have been
here
by now or at least called.” Lizzie walked to the window and stared out.
The neighborhood was quiet, the weather keeping everyone in. Well, most
everyone. She turned back to Brian, her ex-husband, wringing her hands in front
of her. “I’ll just be gone until tomorrow night.”

     Naturally laid back,
Brian shifted on the arm of the couch, stretching out long legs and crossing
them at the ankles. “You’re really that worried about her?” he asked, mildly
surprised.

     “I really am. I’ve called
her cell phone several times and I get dropped right into voice mail. Like the
phone is off or something.”

     “She’s been known to shut
it off,” he told her.

     “She told me she was on
her way here.”

     “She’s said that before
too and then bailed.”

     She stared into Brian’s
soft hazel eyes. So kind. So calm. He’d been her rock, her port in the storm,
more times than she could count. They’d been best friends since high school,
then through college. And marriage. She sighed. He was handsome, witty and
charming. Everything a woman should want in a man. But between them there had
never been that fire either of them had been looking for. And the day she’d
told him so he’d smiled that patient smile of his and told her he’d wondered
how long it was going to take her to come to him and tell him. But they hadn’t
married for fire, had they? No, they had married for much different reasons.
“I’ll just feel better if I go check up on her.”

     “This weather is terrible,
Lizzie. The roads suck, trust me.”

     “I have four wheel drive
and brand new winter tires. I’ll make it.” She gave him a lopsided grin. “I’ve
driven in worse.”

     He knew that. “You know,
Lizzie, JD is in town.”

     Her heart nearly stopped.
As it was she knew all the color drained from her face. Still, she said, “So
what? I won’t be going anywhere near his family’s place or into town.”
Unless,
she told herself
, I can’t find Katy
. “I’m sure he’ll be going back to
Denver at the end of the weekend anyway.” She could only hope.

     Brain shrugged a big
shoulder, his usually calm gaze intense. “You should talk to him, Lizzie. You
should tell him about—”

     She cut him off with a
wave of her hand and a sharp glance toward the ceiling. Toward Sean’s room.
“Don’t lecture me, Brian.”

     “The guy has a right to
know.” He sighed when she shook her head. “And so does Sean.”

     “Leave it alone,” she
warned.

     He knew when she would
not budge. “Fine.” Getting off the arm of the couch he crossed the carpet,
stopping a foot from her. “Sean and I will have fun. I’ll take him ice skating
tomorrow.”

     “He’ll like that.” Though
Sean knew Brian wasn’t his father he loved all the time he got to spend with
the man who had helped raise him and he loved him like a father.

     “I wish you’d reconsider
going up there until the weather clears.” He frowned a little. “Look, I don’t
like saying this but I’m gonna say it. Your sister is a flake, Lizzie.”

     “A flake who might have
gotten herself into some kind of trouble. She told me she’d hit the jackpot this
time, Brian. You know just as well as I do what that probably means.”

     He did. God, how he
wished Lizzie could just separate herself from her sister. Drop her before she
got burned too badly. “You can’t keep bailing her out of trouble.” At those
words, his eyes brightened. “Hey, maybe that’s all this is. Maybe she’s warming
a cot in jail.”

     “She would have called me
to bail her out.”  She had numerous times in the past.

     “Just do yourself a favor
and give Matt a call before you risk life and limb driving up there tonight.”

     Matt. She hadn’t seen him
since… “I’m not going to call him. If he doesn’t have her sitting in his jail I
might just arouse his suspicion and get her in trouble. No. I’m just going to
drive there. Maybe her phone is broken.”

     “Lizzie…” He shoved his
fingers through his thick blonde hair in a move that said he knew he was not
going to win the argument.

     “Or maybe she’s in
trouble and needs my help.”

     “If she’s gotten herself
into the kind of trouble she has in the past you should run the other way,
Lizzie. Some of those people have been dangerous.”

     Didn’t she know it.
Still… “She’s my little sister, Brian.”

     He put his hands on her
shoulders and put his forehead to hers, looking her in the eyes. “You can stop
punishing yourself for leaving her, Lizzie. It’s not your fault she turned out
the way she did.”

     But it was, damnit. It
was.

    
He felt good.
Damn
good. Wearing blue jeans, worn leather boots and chaps, a long Duster and a
cowboy hat atop his head, he sat high in the saddle, looking out over the
cattle they’d just rounded up and penned in the feed lot. He was grinning like
a fool and he knew it. He also couldn’t help it.

     Josh grinned back at him.
“I’d still hire you on as a hand in a minute, big brother.” It was good to see
his brother relaxed and happy. It was good to see him on a horse instead of on
television in a tailored suit with a fake smile plastered on his face.

     “You know, it’s days like
this when I just might take you up on that offer,” he told him, steadying his
mount as the mare fidgeted under him. He’d grown up here, on this part of the
ranch. This was the original working ranch. The house his brother occupied was
the original ranch house. Smaller than the house his mother now lived in, he
still preferred it. The house she’d had built after their father had died was
at the back corner of the eight thousand acres. And it was a monstrosity, as
far as he was concerned. But Arlene MacGreggor got what Arlene MacGreggor
wanted. And at the time she’d wanted everyone to know she was one of the
richest women in the state. “Maybe I should have stayed on and run the ranch
and let you go off to law school.”

     Josh laughed. Hard.
“Yeah. Right. Mom had her vision for you.”

     “She had her vision for
you too,” JD reminded.

     “Yeah, well, her vision
was blurry at the time.”

     That wasn’t it and JD
knew it. Josh had just had the balls to tell their mother to stuff it.
Something he wished like hell he’d done once upon a time too. But that was
water under the bridge, wasn’t it? He’d done her bidding. And it really wasn’t
all bad. He made a good living. And he really did enjoy his job, for the most
part.

     “If dad hadn’t died she
would have disowned me and I’d be living out of a box on a street corner
somewhere,” Josh said in monotone, reciting what his mother loved to tell him
every chance she got. But their father
had
died. And someone had to step
up and run the ranch. Since their mother had no interest in what she considered
to be a man’s job, she had allowed Josh to become the head of the ranch. Or, as
Josh knew, she’d decided of her two boys, Josh could be sacrificed to the life
of a rancher. JD, she’d always said, had a calling. He was going to be an
important man someday.

     “Dad wanted this for us,”
JD said. He remembered how his father had loved to work the ranch. But he’d
stopped and left it to hired hands. Because Arlene had browbeat him into it,
telling him he was too good for the physical labor. Telling him he must keep up
his appearances. At last she’d worn him down until he rarely even left the
house. He’d died shortly after, at the age of sixty-three.

     “You still own half,” Josh
said. “You’re welcome back any time and you know it.”

     He did know it. He also
knew he would not come back. Too many people had expectations.

Chapter 4

    
The drive had been
pure
white-knuckle. And though she would never admit it to Brian, she should have
listened to him and waited for the road crews to catch up and get things back
under control. But the nagging feeling she had in her gut had driven her to
come here tonight, risking her own safety. Now she sat in her Explorer,
headlights shining on the front of her sister’s house, trying to get a grip on
herself. She was still shaking. God, she’d almost lost control of the car a few
miles back. And that would have spelled disaster for sure. The drop there was
no laughing matter. She thought of Julie MacGreggor’s husband, who’d lost his
own life a little more than a week ago, and shuddered. What if she’d gone over
the edge? Sean would have been left without a mother
. Okay, so no going back
down the mountain tonight
, she told herself.

     Chewing the inside of her
cheek a bit nervously she looked to the little ranch style house. Not a light
was on. Not a footprint marred the wind kissed snow going up to the front door.
On her way up the mountain, once she’d broken off the part of the road the
MacGreggor’s used to get to Josh’s place there had not been one single tire
track. So, either Katy wasn’t here or she was asleep and her car was in the
garage.

     Lizzie glanced at the clock
on the dash. Fat chance of Katy being asleep, it was just past eight o’clock.
So had she left as planned only to not make it? Had she gone off the road
somewhere? Or was she sitting in a bar somewhere casing out her next big mark?
“God damnit, Katy. You are such a pain in the ass.” She flinched at the
grumbled words. What if Katy really was in trouble? Or worse, what if she was
dead?

     Shivering again she shut
off the ignition to the SUV. There was only one way to find out. Leaving the
headlights on she shoved the driver’s door open and climbed out, slogging
through knee deep snow all the way to the front door while searching her key
ring for the key. Since she still owned a majority of the property and home she
kept a spare key. She could only hope Katy hadn’t changed the locks since she’d
last been to the house thirteen years ago.

     The key slid into the
lock easily and turned it without a hitch. She shoved the door open and
practically stumbled into the darkened front room, automatically searching for
the light switch on the wall by the door. As her palm skimmed over the switch
and swept it up she prayed there was still electrical service. Prayed her
sister had used the last check she’d sent for the bills.

     Light flooded the room
and she sighed relief as she turned on the front porch light too. “Katy,” she
called even though she knew no one was there. “Katy! It’s me! Lizzie!”

     Only the howling wind at
her back answered her calls.

     “Well shit,” she groaned,
watching as her breath plumed out in front of her. The house was cooling down
quickly with her standing there like a dummy with the door hanging wide open.
“Kathleen Marie!” she shouted one more time as she slammed the door at her back.

     The furnace kicked on
with a loud thump. A faucet dripped in the tiny kitchen.

     Walking through the small
house she scanned the living room. Empty. At the back of this room she entered
a smaller room which had always and still was used as a utility room/laundry
room. The top of the dryer was littered with her sister’s socks and underwear.
A couple shirts hung on a rod. A few jars lined the shelves. Spaghetti sauce,
pickles, olives, corn and more. But it was none of this she was interested in.
The door at the back of this room led to an attached garage. She shoved the
door open and flicked on the light.

     Empty. No sign of Katy’s
ancient Honda 4x4. So she really wasn’t here and obviously she’d left under her
own steam. “Damnit,” Lizzie swore under her breath. “Katy, where the hell are
you?” Wouldn’t it be just perfect if her sister showed up at her place tonight
and got to stay in the nice cozy guest room? Brian would call her if that
happened since she’d talked him into staying at her place until she came back.

     So… She shut off the
garage light and closed the door. Whether she liked it or not, a call to the
police was in order.

    
Morning brought
sunshine
and a stop to the snow. It also brought on a whole new set of
worries. Still no word from her sister. The police department had not wanted to
file an official missing person report since Lizzie actually had no idea how
long her sister had officially been “missing”. They told her to come to the
station after twenty-four hours and then they’d consider her request.

     Brian had told her to
settle down. He’d reminded her just how flighty Katy could be. How downright
inconsiderate she could be. The way he figured it she was holed up in some warm
and cozy hotel room with the next guy she was setting up to fleece. She’d
either come sauntering back to her own house or to Lizzie’s place soon. End of
story.

     But something still
nagged at Lizzie. Her sister had sounded so confident. So overjoyed with
herself. If she’d scored as big as she’d indicated she wouldn’t need to
“fleece” someone else. Or would she? Lizzie considered this as she sipped her
coffee and looked out the kitchen window. 

     Katy was a self-admitted
player. She had never held a steady paying job and she never would. Too boring,
she said. Too… normal. No, Katy needed the thrill of the chase. She needed the
danger. Perhaps this time it had finally caught up to her. Perhaps she’d
finally taken the wrong person on and they’d gotten the better of her. The
thought pained her. Filled her with fear. God, how many times over the years
had she sat up worrying about Katy? How many sleepless nights only to find out
it was just as Brian had said? Katy was fine. Laughing it up somewhere while
she counted her money.

     Brian didn’t understand
her relationship with Katy. He didn’t understand why Lizzie cared. Why she lost
sleep. And in truth, Katy didn’t understand it either. Not completely. She
loved her sister. That went without saying. But there were some deeper
psychological reasons too. Guilt, she was sure, stood at the forefront of that
particular line. She’d run off to Seattle to marry Brian and had left her
teenage sister here alone with a drunk for a mother. “I did what I had to do,”
she whispered. “I did what I had to for my baby.” And because Katy had refused
to come with her, she’d felt she’d had no choice but to leave her. And unknowingly,
had left her to Grady Summers as well.

     Turning from the sink she
surveyed the tiny kitchen. She’d been keeping her emotional distance from the
house she’d grown up in since walking in last night. And she intended to keep
right on doing that. It was much the same as she remembered. The wallpaper was
the same, though it was peeling off the wall over the old gas range and behind
the chipped avocado green sink. This house had been her mother’s pride and joy.
As had been her two daughters. Until a logging accident had claimed George
Waring’s life and alcohol had claimed Tricia Waring’s soul. And Grady Summers
had walked into their lives
. More like slithered,
she thought.

     Lizzie scowled,
remembering how her mother would sit at the little kitchen table in the corner,
teetering in her chair, a glass of amber liquid in her hand, ice cubes clinking.
How the tears would run down her face as she talked of her first husband. And
she remembered the marks her second husband would put on her face and arms. And
she was sure places no one else could see. Grady had been a piece of trash.
He’d floated into their lives by making promises to Tricia which he’d never
intended to keep. And before he’d left their lives he’d damn near ruined them.

     Mentally shaking herself,
Lizzie set her coffee cup in the sink. What had she told herself? She wasn’t
going to fall victim to these damn memories. All the more reason to find her
sister and get the hell home. Stalking through the kitchen and into the living
room she grabbed her keys and started the Explorer’s engine with the remote
start. She’d put it in the garage last night to keep the snow from piling up on
it so just needed to let it warm up a minute while she gathered her things. Her
plan was to go into town and make a stop at the police station. Like it or not,
they were going to file that damn report. Something had happened to Katy, she
just knew it. And the sooner a search was made for her, the better.