Conard county conspiracy, p.21
Conard County Conspiracy, page 21
* * *
Mitch went outside again to check around the house and barn. Reluctantly, Grace watched him go but knew he was right. They had to keep an eye out. Rain still fell, but lighter now. Even the leaden gray of the sky had changed to a lighter color, announcing it had dumped most of its watery burden.
She touched her loaves of bread, surprised to realize they had cooled. Had they made love for that long?
She blushed faintly, guessing they must have. It had seemed to be over too soon, but time had faded in Mitch’s arms.
It had been beautiful. Whatever happened between them now, she decided she didn’t care. The past hours had been so fantastic she wouldn’t have missed them for anything.
Regardless of what she told herself, there was a nugget inside her that hoped for more than the friendship they had shared. Much more.
Another tumble in the hay? She almost giggled aloud. Oh, she had it bad. She needed to brace herself, though. As she’d long since discovered, life rarely turned out the way one hoped.
* * *
Mitch walked around in the gentle rain, hoping it would cool him down a bit. Damn, he wanted that woman again, and he wasn’t at all sure she’d welcome another advance.
Maybe she’d just been overcome by stress. Maybe she had reached out for comfort and not for him in particular.
Maybe she regretted the sex they’d just shared.
One thing he knew for certain: he didn’t regret it. He hadn’t lived a celibate life but he knew when sex was special. This had been, beyond his wildest dreams.
Facing yearnings he’d been denying for a very long time, he accepted that he was drawn to Grace for reasons that had nothing to do with sex. Something deeper had rooted inside him, and he might need a tiller to pull it out.
Leaving a gaping hole behind, with no way to fill it in.
“Now what do I do?” he asked himself as he continued his patrol. The rain didn’t give him an answer.
But a surprising roll of thunder did. He looked up at the sky and saw it blackening again. Cripes, one squall hadn’t been enough? Two in a row?
Climate chaos, he thought. God knew he’d been seeing enough of its effects on his ranch. You couldn’t wander around as much land as he owned without noting steady changes. You could try to remain blind until lifelong observation told you that you had your head in the sand.
Or this might just be an isolated incident. He wanted to hope so.
He hurried his survey but contented himself that no threat hovered yet. How long did they have to wait for the next one? Because he believed there would be a next one.
He wished he could imagine why Grace was being targeted this way. It would have at least given him a direction to pursue.
At last he headed back to the house and entered, hoping Grace might give him a slab of that fresh bread. Preferably with a thick coating of butter.
She greeted him with a smile, but he didn’t miss the faint touch of heightened color. Was she embarrassed? Uneasy?
Not knowing what else to do, ignoring his slightly dampened state—even the duster hadn’t been able to keep him completely dry—he walked to her and gave her a tight hug.
“Missed you,” he admitted. And it hadn’t even been that long.
“Missed you, too.” She sighed and returned his hug.
They separated, as if neither was sure how to continue.
“It’s still raining,” he remarked. “That’s no big deal, but there’s another squall moving in.”
“Really? That’s odd.”
“The sky is mad at us, I guess. Now, how do I beg for a big piece of that fresh bread?”
She laughed, sounding easier. “You sit at the table and wait for me to cut it. How hungry are you?”
“Well, I could probably eat half a loaf, but I’ll be polite.”
“Polite is eating up all my bread. If you stop after one slice it definitely won’t be polite.”
His turn to laugh. He was feeling better by the minute.
She must have taken him seriously, because she did cut him a couple of thick slices and passed him the butter dish along with the butter knife.
“Have at it,” she said. “And tell me what you think. It’s been ages since I made bread.”
He spread the butter thickly, then bit into the soft bread with its crunchy crust. “To die for,” he announced, even though he hated that phrase.
“I detest breads where you can’t taste or smell the yeast.”
He hadn’t thought about that. All he knew was that he liked it a lot.
She sat facing him with her own, thinner, slice of bread. “So nothing outside?”
“Nothing I could detect. It’s a miserable day out there, and about to get worse. Colder, too, I expect.”
“Good. I hope the bad guy is out there and is freezing and wet.”
A surprised laugh escaped him. “I never dreamed you could wish ill on anyone.”
“Well, I can, and this guy deserves it. Maybe he’ll even get hypothermic.”
Mitch grinned. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
Then she surprised him again, saying softly, “I don’t think you could, Mitch.”
“I’m no saint,” he protested.
“Neither am I. As you just saw.”
She finished her bread and rose. “Want more?”
“A couple of slices just like these.”
She cut them for him, then began to wrap the loaves in plastic. They went into a large breadbox. “Jenny’s casserole for dinner?”
“Sounds great.”
“Save some room. She brought enough for an army.”
Then she pulled back the curtain at the kitchen window for a minute. “I’m scared Mitch. Someone is out there and I don’t even know what he wants.”
“Maybe to scare you,” he said slowly, repeating a concern they had shared.
“But why?”
He wished he could answer. They both wanted that answer.
* * *
Carl held the satellite phone away from his ear as the boss shouted at him. Larry could hear it, too.
“What is it with you two,” she yelled. “I’m paying you to do one simple thing!”
She was going nuts, Carl decided. Losing her marbles. What was eating her? They’d done some pretty bad and dangerous things for her, now they was getting screamed at?
“We can’t make that Hall woman do a damn thing,” he retorted, his own voice rising as anger triumphed over his perplexity. “You want her out of there, you go do something.”
“Like hell. You’re getting money for this. You’d better think of something soon.”
“Not too soon, you said. Give her time to think about it, let it eat at her, you said. Well, you get your freaking butt out there and you do something.”
Silence greeted his words.
“I thought so,” Carl spat. “You keep wanting us to risk jail or death, then you can just put up with this. Alls I want to know is do you want us to speed up or wait like you said.”
More silence answered him.
Carl continued his rant. “You ain’t got no idea what’s going on. That woman’s got a guy with her and they’s patrolling the place with shotguns as if they was military.”
Then her voice returned to the earpiece. It sounded steely as all hell, throwing some icy water over his indignation.
“Just remember, you don’t get your money until this job is completed. And I don’t mean halfway.” Then she disconnected.
Carl listened to a different kind of silence before he closed his end of the call.
“Man, that was some yellin’,” Larry said after listening to a godforsaken and lonely bird calling another of its kind.
“She ain’t happy,” Carl said needlessly.
Larry lost interest in the singing when the bird flew away. Damn thing needed to find a mate for hisself. Good luck. Not that Larry had had much luck with finding a woman, and it kinda soured his view of romance. Or sex. Whatever. He didn’t know the difference and he didn’t care.
“What now?” he asked.
“We follow our orders for a bit. Wait and see. Then we’s gonna worsen it.”
“How?” asked Larry, who’d about given up trying to think of something new to do.
Carl didn’t answer for a minute. “Somebody gonna die,” he said. “We tried it her way too damn long.”
* * *
Grace and Mitch felt safe. Briefly. The time between incidents had been long and neither of them expected one immediately.
Maybe, thought Mitch, their patrolling with guns could hold the threat at bay. For a while. He didn’t expect their guns to be a permanent magic charm, and he couldn’t help wondering how long he and Grace could keep this up.
As long as necessary, he decided. If he had to go back to his own operation for a short while, one of his men could come and stand watch.
Because he was damned if he was going to leave Grace alone.
She joined him on the front porch with a carafe of fresh coffee. When she sat, she picked up her shotgun.
The sky remained leaden, still pregnant with rain. It would be surprising if the clouds dumped again because the rain shadow of the mountains generally caused rain to fall farther east. Summers here were usually dry. Well, drier than this one was turning into.
Grace spoke. “You don’t think they’d kill anyone, do you?”
The fear was uppermost in his mind, too, although he was reluctant to voice it. But now she had.
“I don’t know.” Never lie to Grace. His guiding star.
“I don’t know either, obviously. I shouldn’t even have asked.”
“Why not? It’s impossible not to wonder at this point. Worry is buzzing inside both our heads like angry bees.”
She nodded, shooting him the smallest smile at his comparison. “I wish the sheriff had found something about that company. A word might have been enough to make them back off.”
Now they were staring into a black hole with no idea if there was a bottom. Not an easy place to exist.
“We’re doing all we can,” he reminded her.
“You must need to get back to your life.”
He almost said she had become the most important thing in his life, but after the time they’d shared in her bed, he suspected she might scamper away like a frightened rabbit. He had little doubt that the specter of John would swim to the forefront of her mind, making her feel disloyal. Lucky man, John, to have known Grace’s love.
“Not yet,” he told her. “Not yet.” He said no more, giving her room to escape if she needed it.
Nothing permanent. Maybe her reference to him getting back to his own life had been her first attempt to push him away. God, he hoped not. The attraction to her that he’d buried during her marriage to John, that he’d buried in the face of her widowhood, had sprung to full life. She was beautiful, to his eye anyway, but she was even more admirable in so many ways.
Stubborn, yes, but tough and loyal and so lost over the last two years. He wanted to put the sparkle back in her eye for longer than a brief spell. He wanted to put it there most of the time.
He nearly sighed as he realized he’d wandered away from their purpose, the most important purpose. Keeping Grace safe.
Rising, he announced that he was going to take another walk around.
“No coffee first?”
“When I get back. That carafe will keep it hot enough.” Then, gun in hand, he stepped off the porch and began to walk his mental perimeter, not only looking for a man, but looking also for anything out of place.
Soon he’d need to ride out again, even though his men were keeping an eye out for any indication that a stranger had been there, camping on his ranch.
He still hadn’t heard from Burt Stiller about riding around his land. Stiller wouldn’t mind, but it wouldn’t be neighborly to just go ahead. And Stiller must be out somewhere on his own ranch, a big spread that sometimes needed a lot of attention. As they all did.
Chapter 18
The next week passed without any threatening events. Grace began to suggest that it might be over.
Mitch didn’t accept that. The barn-burning and the break-in had been designed to terrify her. Directed at her. Why else would someone do those things if they didn’t want her shaking in her boots? And clearly she wasn’t shaking.
She’d become as immovable as a post sunk six feet in the ground. Which was good for her, he supposed, but it wasn’t good for him. If she’d wavered at all, he’d have swept her off to his house, left her in Lila’s competent charge and waited with a whole lot less fear for her until the next thing happened.
It would be a helluva lot harder to frighten Grace in his house. Too many people around, and Lila was a deadeye marksman.
Not something anyone would expect from a housekeeper.
Of course, the other side to that was that the threat might indeed move to his place. Not that he was worried if it did—he could deal with whatever—but he doubted it would. He could imagine no upside to coming after him. Besides, if there was a target in this madness, it certainly wasn’t him. But it would sure trouble Grace and convince her to return to her own land to protect him.
Inwardly he fumed about the entire mess. Without a direction to pursue, there could be no useful action.
Then there was the immovable steel that was Grace. She hadn’t shown any desire to repeat their memorable hours in her bed.
John, he thought. Or maybe he just wasn’t a good enough partner to make her want another round—despite what she’d said.
Aw, hell. He couldn’t remember ever having felt so many rats scrambling around in his brain. This way or that way? Hah! Damn fool.
Peace of any kind had escaped him.
As he watched Grace rocking on her front porch, shotgun across her lap, he wondered if he just needed to approach her himself. Maybe she interpreted his reluctance to mean he didn’t want to have sex with her again.
How was he supposed to know? And as the days dragged by, making them both edgier about the possibility of more trouble, he felt less inclination to distract either of them with time in the sack. He knew from their one time together that a bomb could have exploded beneath the bed and he wouldn’t have noticed it. Lost to the world with her in his arms.
He stopped pacing around the house and settled beside her on the porch. The inevitable carafe of coffee sat there with two mugs. He didn’t think he’d drunk as much coffee in his entire life as he’d swallowed in the last few weeks.
But it jazzed him enough to keep him from fatigue, which he supposed was Grace’s idea. So he poured another cup.
“You should go home,” Grace said again. “You must be sick of being here.”
Far from it, he thought. Given his choice, he’d tear the fences down between her land and his and move into her house with her. No way to say that, though.
“I’m fine,” he answered. “Damn well fine.”
She looked at him and he was relieved to see her smile. If she could still do that, she’d be okay.
“That sounded like you’re aren’t, Mitch.”
“Believe what I do. I’m here. My choice. I’m just furious about the situation. You should be wanting me here, not needing me. Anyway, I sure as hell don’t want to be anywhere else.”
How could he not be sure? The witch had cast her spell and he had no desire to dispel it. The description amused him.
“You’re sure your guys are handling everything well enough?”
“I trust them or I’d fire them. Hell, they’re probably managing so well that I’ll feel useless when I get back. My secret fear, that the ranch doesn’t really need me.”
She laughed quietly, then startled him enough to almost lock his breath in his throat. “Mitch, what you said—do you want to be needed or need to be wanted?”
His neck suddenly stiffened. He had a bit of trouble turning his head to look at her. “Both,” he said finally. “Who doesn’t?” Brushing it off when he felt it was truly important.
She nodded and returned her gaze to the wide-open spaces, beyond which mountains loomed. “Once I had both.”
He nearly stopped breathing. Here it came again. John. Not that he could blame her, but he nevertheless sent some silent words heavenward. Let her go, man. You loved her. Love her enough to let go.
A selfish thought on his part. All about him.
Then she surprised him again. “John wouldn’t have wanted me to grieve for so long like this. I know I wouldn’t have wanted him to.”
“Meaning?”
Her voice grew soft, wistful. “Before all this I’d just started letting go of the past.”
“Then this.”
She nodded. “The thing is, I was just beginning to think about the future. Just thinking that maybe I could have one. Then this.”
“And now?” He was emotionally on the edge of his seat, expecting her to say that the grief had risen again.
“This? This makes me so angry there aren’t words. Someone is trying to steal my future.”
Slam. Like a body blow. He hadn’t thought of that. “You can still have a future,” he insisted.
“Not if I’m sitting on my porch all the time with a gun in my lap. This has to end. Maybe it already has.”
He poured some coffee and sipped the hot brew. He needed to think carefully before he blundered into the wrong words. He chose a quiet response, rather than an impassioned one.
“We can’t afford to think that way, Grace. Give us another six months.”
“That’s an awfully long time to be on guard with a gun.”
“Try the military.”
Thank God she laughed again. “Good point.”
At least he’d pulled her into a less despairing mood. He just had to hope it would last.
