Chapter Two
Dal didn’t leave when Jeff did. He remained standing on the front porch, both hands in the pockets of his jeans.
“Where’s my cat?” he asked when Meadow was about to choke, holding back harsh words.
She paused and looked up at him. “Your cat?”
“My cat. Jarvis.” His upper lip curled. “Maine coon cat. Male. Red. Remember him? You should. He spends more time down here than he does at home!”
Jarvis. She grimaced. His cat came to visit frequently. He was in love with Meadow. He’d find a way to sneak in the house and perch on the back of her chair. He’d rub her head with his face and purr and try to sit in her lap. He weighed almost twenty pounds, and he was beautiful. His big bushy tail—reminiscent of a raccoon’s—was his finest feature. It was the trait that had prompted the breed’s name.
“I haven’t seen him today,” she confessed.
“A likely story.”
“I can prove it!”
She went back into the house, leaving him to follow. He unsettled her with that soft, easy step of his. She knew that he hunted elk and deer in the fall. He knew how to walk quietly. It was disconcerting when he did it in her house.
“Jarvis!” she called, confident that she could prove he wasn’t inside.
A loud meow came from the bathroom.
Dal’s eyes widened. “You locked my cat in a bathroom?” he exclaimed.
“I don’t know how he got in there,” she wailed. “I didn’t even see him come in the house. I just had the door open for a minute or two while I took the trash out back,” she added. “I certainly didn’t see him in the bathroom!”
“He loves water,” he said. “He sits in the sink when I’m not using it, and he loves the bathtub.”
“Odd, isn’t it? For a cat, I mean.”
“Maine coon cats aren’t like other cats. They’re more like dogs,” he said when she opened the bathroom door and Jarvis came trotting out, as if he owned the place. “You can teach them to play fetch and obey commands.”
“Sure,” she murmured. “I can just see you herding cats.”
He gave her a brief appraisal, taking in the loose jeans and beige turtleneck sweater she was wearing. “You don’t wear dressy things anymore.”
“Waste of time,” she said, averting her eyes. “I don’t have time to train a man to live with me.”
He made an insulting sound in the back of his throat. “Don’t hold your breath waiting for any man to move in here,” he returned. “Miss America you’re not!”
“You are the most insulting man I’ve ever known,” she burst out. “What is your problem?”
“You,” he said. “You’re my problem. Do you have any idea how much your father sacrificed to keep this place going? He devoted his life to it. And here you sit watching YouTube videos to learn ranching!”
“Who told you that?” she demanded.
“Is it true?”
She bit her lower lip.
He didn’t move closer, but his stare penetrated. “Is it true?” he repeated coldly.
She threw up her hands. “They help! My father never taught me ranch management! And my degree is in languages, predominantly Spanish. That was my major.”
His eyebrows arched, asking a silent question.
“I wanted to help go after drug lords in south Texas,” she muttered.
“And look how that worked out for you,” he mused.
She stamped her foot. “Will you take your redheaded cat and go home?”
He picked up Jarvis, who purred and cuddled in his arms. “Will you tell your white rat over there to stay out of my house?” he countered, indicating Snow, who was sitting just inside the dog door, laughing with her blue eyes and lolling tongue.
She wondered what she was going to do to keep her pet at home. Then she remembered what this tall, offensive cattleman had just said. “Snow is not a rat! She’s a treasure!”
“I don’t want her in my house,” he said coldly.
“Then take out the dog door!”
He looked briefly vulnerable. “Not yet,” he said. “I’m not ready.”
She felt guilty. She knew what he was saying. He mourned his Lab. He didn’t want to change anything. He probably still had her toys in a box somewhere, and her bed. It was the only sensitive thing about this hard man, his love for animals. It was absolute. She’d heard about him sitting up at night with heifers who were calving for the first time, rousting out the entire bunkhouse to help find a missing calf. He loved his livestock. He’d loved his old dog, too.
Meadow understood. She’d had a cat at her father’s house who’d been in the family for twenty-three years when he died. He’d come into the house, a stray kitten, when Meadow was born. Mittens had been such a part of her life that when he died, when they were both twenty-three, she grieved for months.
She’d felt stupid about her grief until she read on a pet website that people’s companion pets were just like furry children. People raised them, trained them, provided for them, loved them, as if they were human. And when they died, people mourned them, sometimes excessively. It was natural. Pet owners knew this, even if those who’d never had pets didn’t.
“I wouldn’t let Daddy throw away Mittens’s bowls or bed, and I kept her bowl exactly where it was when she was alive,” she confessed softly. “I mourned her for months.”
His face was shadowed. “I’ve still got Bess’s bowl in the kitchen. I had her for fourteen years. I’ve mourned her more than some relatives who died.”
She nodded. “I read this article in a magazine, about grief. People who don’t have pets don’t understand how traumatic it is to lose one. The article said that grieving for an animal isn’t an aberration. It’s a natural reaction when you’ve cared for the animal every day since you got it. They’re like furry kids,” she added slowly. “It takes a lot of time to get over it.” She glanced at Snow, lying down in the hall, her blue eyes staring at Dal lovingly. “I got Snow from a shelter in St. Louis. She lived with me in my apartment until I came back here. I was . . .” She hesitated. “I was grieving myself to death over my mother and Mittens. I thought getting another animal might help me.” She smiled. “It did. Snow took the rough edges off the grief.”
“That’s why I have Jasper,” the tall man replied quietly. “He does help ease the pain of losing Bess.”
“I’m sorry Snow keeps bothering you,” she said. “I’ll try to make sure she doesn’t wander when I let her out.”
He was still holding Jarvis, absently smoothing his big hand over the animal’s head. “Jarvis moves like greased lightning,” he confessed. “I usually confine him to his room and the fenced patio in the daytime so he can’t run out. But he’s so fast that my part-time housekeeper can’t keep up with him. He’s sneaky as well.”
She laughed. “Next time, I’ll check all the rooms when I leave doors open.”
He shrugged. “I guess I could put a piece of wood over the dog door and nail it shut.” He glanced at Snow. “She was a rescue?”
Meadow nodded. Her face tightened. “The shelter said that her owner had her chained in his yard and often neglected to feed her or give her water. When she howled, trying to get loose, he hit her. When she went to the shelter, she was eaten up with fleas and mange and she wouldn’t eat the first couple of days. The vet honestly thought she was going to die. I happened to go in the day she was scheduled to be . . .” she swallowed, hard, “put down. It wasn’t a no-kill shelter. Snow saw me come into her cage and she looked as if she’d won the lottery. She was all over me. I took her straight to the vet and let her stay there until they got her well. I visited her every day. When I brought her home, she turned into the finest dog I’ve ever had. She loves to ride in the car.” She watched Dal’s face go hard at the revelation about Snow’s abuse. “To this day, a raised hand makes her run away. She’s terrified of sticks. I have to use a Frisbee if I play with her outside.”
“Was he arrested?” he asked.
She shook her head. “The laws haven’t quite caught up with animal abuse where I lived when I got her. It was a small town outside St. Louis and the man was a local politician. But they did get Snow away from him and put her up for adoption.”
“Pity he didn’t live in Raven Springs,” Dal said through his teeth.
She smiled. “I was thinking the same thing.”
He grimaced. “Well, I’ll get home. You’re really taking that job with Jeff?”
“Yes.”
He arched an eyebrow and smiled. The smile told her the truce was over. “I can see him now, handing you a single bullet for your gun and holding his breath if you have to fire it.”
“I can hit what I aim at!” she shot back.
He shook his head and turned away.
“I can!”
He looked over his shoulder. “Your dad and I did finally get the bullet out of the tractor housing,” he said casually.
She flushed red. She felt her hands clenching at her sides. “I was only sixteen and I’d never fired a gun!”
“I was winning skeet shoot competitions when I was ten.”
“Mr. Perfect,” she muttered.
“Miss Imperfect,” he drawled back.
“That’s Ms. to you!”
“Oh, sure. You’re a manly woman, all right, just like your dad always said.”
She was shocked. “What?”
He turned. His distaste was evident. “He said that you loved competing with the men at work, always trying to stay one step ahead of the people in your unit. He said you’d never think of getting married because you wouldn’t want to give up control of your life to another person.”
She felt her heart sink. Her father had said that about her, to her worst enemy? Why?
He noted her lack of response. “Not my problem, any way you look at it,” he added with a faint laugh. “I like my women feminine and sweet. I’m dating a florist. She grows orchids in a back room. She loves to work in the garden.” His face hardened. “If I were of a mind to marry, she’d be the woman I’d choose. But women are treacherous. I learned that the hard way. They’ll play up to you, flatter you, do anything to make you think they care. Then when they’ve got you where they want you, they’ll take up with another man and laugh themselves to death about how stupid you were.”
She began to understand him, a little. He’d been burned, and he was shy of fire. She searched his hard face. “I had to go and interview a prisoner in a criminal investigation. I said something that hit him the wrong way and he attacked me, right there in the interrogation room.” She swallowed, hard, fighting the fear all over again. “I never thought any man would attack me physically, not like that. He broke a bone in my face and I think he would have killed me if I hadn’t been able to scream.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “It sort of... ruined me about . . . men.”
He caught his breath. “Did you talk to a psychologist?”
She nodded. She smiled sadly. “She was very nice. But do you know what it costs to go into therapy and stay in it for years? I didn’t have the money. So I went as long as the Bureau was willing to pay her.” She drew in a long breath. “Honestly, it didn’t help all that much. I’m still afraid that it might happen again. He was very quiet. He even smiled at me. I thought he was a gentle sort of person . . .” She stopped. The memory stung.
He scowled. That didn’t sound like any manly woman he’d ever heard of. He’d dated a policewoman once and watched her subdue an escaping suspect. She was small, but the prisoner didn’t have a chance. She wrestled him down and cuffed him. She even smiled while she was doing it.
Meadow wasn’t like the policewoman. She had a sensitivity he hadn’t expected. Her father had exaggerated some of her characteristics. He wondered now if he hadn’t done it to throw Dal off the track. It even made sense. Dal was forceful and aggressive, even with men. But he was also persistent with the women he pursued, and he generally scored when he wanted to. If he’d known what Meadow was really like under the mask she showed the world, he might have found her even more attractive than his florist.
Was Meadow’s father afraid that he might want Meadow, who was already fascinated by him, and leave her devastated after a brief affair that she might not be able to avoid? He wasn’t sure he could answer that question, even in his own mind. She was very attractive. He didn’t want to be drawn to her, but he was. She was religious. She’d expect the works, marriage, a ring. He couldn’t do that. The florist knew he was obsessed with freedom. It was a casual thing. Meadow would be . . . different.
Meadow noticed the way he was looking at her, and it made her nervous. She crossed her arms over her breasts and shifted a little. “I’ll try harder to keep Snow at home,” she said to provoke him out of his glowering expression.
He shrugged. “Nail Jell-O to a tree while you’re at it,” he murmured as he turned away with his cat.
“The same thing applies to your cat,” she said.
He just kept walking.
She closed the door and leaned back against it with a sigh. It was hard going when she was near him. The past kept prodding her.
He’d probably long forgotten, but when Meadow had turned eighteen, there was a Christmas party in Catelow that she and her dad attended. The one that ended in the humiliating punch incident. She’d just started college that semester, and she was gung ho on her new experiences.
She’d bored a cattleman so badly with her revelations about History 101 that he’d smiled, excused himself, and actually left the building.
Dal had been dancing with a pretty blond woman, but she went to the restroom and he went to the punch bowl at the same time that Meadow did.
Meadow had adored him from the first time she’d ever seen him, wearing stained work chaps and a sweat-darkened chambray shirt with disreputable boots and a battered black Stetson. He was tall and handsome. Women were always flocked around him at any social gathering. He never seemed to tire of the attention, although he played the field. There was no serious companion at the time.
She’d looked at him and remembered the coal bin incident and her ruined red dress and his nasty comments about her looking like a streetwalker. Arrogant pig!
The band was playing a lazy tune. People were dancing. Meadow was wearing a frilly cocktail dress with black high heels. Her blond hair was soft and thick around her shoulders. She’d used just enough mascara to outline her big, soft green eyes. She wasn’t pretty, but she could be attractive when she worked at it.
Dal gave her a long look but averted his eyes to the punch bowl as if one brief glance was enough to tell him she wasn’t worth pursuing.
She was putting finger sandwiches on a paper plate. Her fingers were unsteady. She’d prayed that he wouldn’t notice.
In fact, he didn’t. He was intent on the blond.
They didn’t speak. A couple beside them was pointing to mistletoe overhead and laughing.
“Come on, people, it’s Christmas! Peace on earth! Love your fellow man. Or woman!” a young man chided.
Meadow averted her eyes from the kissing couple beside her and was about to walk away when Dal suddenly shot out a big hand, caught her waist, and pulled her to him.
“What the hell,” he said as his head bent. “Might as well not waste the mistletoe.”
He caught her mouth under his and kissed her with instant, hot passion, twisting her soft lips under his until they parted and her head fell back against his broad shoulder with the force of the kiss.
She was too shocked to really enjoy it. Besides that, she’d never really been kissed in an adult way, and she didn’t know how to respond. It didn’t help that there were wolf whistles nearby while Dal made a meal of her mouth. If she’d dreamed about kissing him, and she had, it hadn’t been in a public place with onlookers making a joke of it.
He pulled back, frowning as he saw the shock and uncertainty on her soft oval face. Her cheeks were flushed and she looked as unsettled as she felt.
“Nice work there, Dal.” A fellow cattleman laughed.
“Hollywood stuff, for sure,” a companion offered.
The blond, noticing the attention they were getting, came back and latched onto Dal’s muscular arm. “Hey, stop sampling the local refreshments and show me what you’ve got, cowboy,” she purred.
He laughed out loud, took a long sip of punch, and turned to the woman. He wrapped her up in his arms and kissed her so hungrily that Meadow turned away, sick to her stomach. The mistletoe was getting a workout.
She could still taste him on her mouth. It made her ache in odd places, the sensations she’d felt when he kissed her. She’d dreamed of it, hoped for it, since she was sixteen. Now she knew. But the way it had happened crushed her. He made it obvious that it meant nothing to him. He pulled his companion close to his side and didn’t look at Meadow for the rest of the night.
She danced with a few other men, but her heart wasn’t in it. That led to the drunk cattleman and the spilled punch and her utter humiliation when Dal Blake stood there laughing his head off as she tried to cope with another embarrassment. Her father had noticed her depression long before the drunk cattleman’s attentions. She’d asked him to take her home.
“Let me tell you something about Dal,” he said when they were inside the house and she was toweling off her beautiful, ruined dress. “He’s a rounder. He doesn’t believe in picket fences and kids, and he likely never will. His mother ran away with his father’s best friend when he was twelve. His first real girlfriend threw him over for a real estate agent and laughed at him for thinking he was more important to her than any other man. He’ll never settle down.”
“I know that,” she said, disconcerted. Her father hadn’t spoken to her like this before.
“You’ve got a crush on him,” her father continued gently, nodding at her shocked expression. “Nothing wrong with that. You have to cut your teeth on somebody. Just don’t get too close to him. He’d break your heart and walk away. He doesn’t really like women, Meda. He thrives on broken hearts.”
“I noticed that,” she said. She forced a smile. “Don’t worry, Dad, I know he’s not my type. Besides, his date was beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful inside, honey, where it really counts,” he said solemnly. “I’d do anything to keep you away from Dal Blake. You deserve someone better.”
“Aw, that’s sweet,” she murmured and laughed as she hugged him. “Thanks, Dad.”
He hugged her back and let her go. “Now, change your clothes and come have coffee in the kitchen like we used to when your mother was alive,” he added, alluding to the sudden, sad passing of her mother the year she started college, “and tell me about that history class you like so much!”
* * *
That had been years ago, but Meadow never got over the hurt. She knew that Dal Blake would never give her the time of day romantically, but it was painful to see how opposed her father was to anything developing between them.
She knew he was right. As the years passed, Dal’s reputation with women became even more notorious. To say that he played the field was an understatement. He was handsome and rich, and he could get almost any woman he wanted. He dated movie stars, politicians, physicians, even a psychologist. But he never bought any of them a ring, and they didn’t last long. He pushed them out of his life if they tried to get serious.
Meadow wasn’t disposable. She wanted a man who could settle down and raise kids with her. Of course, that presupposed that a man would actually want to have kids with her one day. So far, her few dates had been mostly disastrous.
She’d gone out with a fellow FBI agent who spent the entire date talking about his favorite makes and models of cars and described painstakingly how he’d rebuilt the engine in a classic sports car.
Then there was the businessman who dealt in securities. He was good for two hours on the benefits of diversity in a portfolio. As if Meadow, even on her good salary, was ever going to be able to build the sort of portfolio he was talking about.
The last man she’d dated had been an electrician. She’d met him when the refrigerator and the stove both stopped working at the same time in her apartment. A faulty electrical line was the culprit. He’d fixed it and they’d talked, and he’d asked her out. His wife had phoned her the following night to ask if Meadow would like to come over and meet her and his children. Horrified, she’d almost been in tears. She honestly had no idea that he was married. The woman had relented. She was sorry. Her husband made a habit of this. She was pregnant with their third child and he was roaming. Again. Meadow apologized. She blocked the man’s calls and never saw him after that.
She pretty much gave up on dating after that. It had been over a year since anyone had asked her out. She wasn’t a social animal anyway, much preferring a good book to a booze-soaked party. She had no close friends. Her college roommate had married and moved to England. Her high school friends were all married and scattered to the four winds. Her mother had died soon after she moved into the dorm at college her first semester there. Her father had died weeks ago. So now it was just Meadow and her dog.
She remembered that warm, hungry kiss that Dal had given her under the mistletoe so long ago. She’d given him her heart and he never knew. It wouldn’t have mattered. Her father had made sure that he wouldn’t want her. He knew Meadow had no resistance to Dal, considering her feelings for him. He was protecting her, making Dal see her as a somber federal agent who didn’t really like men and wanted only to compete with them and best them in her chosen profession.
It was sweet of her father to care so much. Probably he’d saved her, in case Dal had developed any feelings for her. Not that it was likely, considering how angry he got when he had to bring Snow back home or come to collect Jarvis. The only emotion she seemed to provoke in him was extreme irritation.
It would have been nice if her feelings for him had vanished. He gave her no encouragement at all. Her only memories of him were hedged in by humiliation and ridicule. But love was as hardy as a weed and just as hard to eradicate. Her heart fed on just the sight of him, as it had for so many long years.
She’d have a better chance of lassoing the moon and bringing it home. She knew that. It didn’t help.
* * *
She wore a neat dark green pantsuit to work the following Monday, with soft-soled shoes. She wore her old service pistol as well, the .40 caliber Glock, in a holster at her waist.
The Juniper County Sheriff’s Department had an office in the hundred-year-old county courthouse in downtown Raven Springs. In addition, there was the detention center a mile out of town, where prisoners were housed and which was under the care of Captain Rick Sanders.
Jeff was happy to see her. He introduced her to the clerk at the desk, to his two patrol officers and his chief deputy, or undersheriff, Gil Barnes, who barely had time to say hello because he was rushing out to answer a call from the local 911 center.
“It’s a small operation,” Jeff explained sheepishly. “We have our office here at the courthouse, where it’s been for almost a hundred years. The detention center is newer, but we’re mostly here in town. Not much has changed since my granddad was sheriff.”
She remembered talk about his grandfather, who had been one heck of a lawman. She just nodded.
He glanced at the weapon on her belt. “A Glock?”
“I like them,” she said. “They’re not heavy, they’re easy to use, and if you drop them in mud, they still fire.”
He laughed. “Good point.” He indicated the huge .45 1911 model Colt in the holster on his own wide hand-tooled leather belt. “I like something with stopping power.”
“Have you ever had to shoot anyone?” she asked solemnly.
He nodded. His face hardened. “A guy who’d just killed his five-year-old son. He was high on meth and he came at me with a combat knife.” He averted his eyes just briefly. “I had a 9 millimeter pistol, like yours,” he added. “I emptied it into him and he caught me by the throat. If my undersheriff, Gil Barnes, hadn’t been sent to assist by the 911 operator, I’d be dead. You might have noticed from the glimpse you got of Gil that he packs a .45, like mine. He took the man down. It was a hard lesson. Sometimes you need a weapon that will knock a man down in a deadly circumstance. That was why .45 caliber handguns were invented in the first place, for their stopping power.”
Her lips parted on a rushed breath. She recalled the man who’d attacked her in the interrogation cell, where she hadn’t had her firearm. She wondered if she’d have the nerve to actually kill a man who threatened her life. Her batting average in gun battles was dismal.
“You were lucky,” she pointed out.
He nodded. “Damned lucky. So you think it through and decide if you want to keep that,” he indicated her pistol, “or exchange it for one like mine.”
She smiled sadly. “Jeff, my hands aren’t made for big weapons.” She displayed them. “I even had trouble with the .38 I trained with at the academy. My firing instructor said I needed to keep doing hand exercises to build up my strength. But it never really worked. I just have small hands.”
He sighed. “I’ll make sure you always have backup,” he promised. “But that one shooting was the only one I’ve been involved in for the seven years I’ve been sheriff,” he said encouragingly. “So maybe you’ll get lucky.”
She grinned. “Maybe I will. Okay. I’m here. I’ve been photographed, fingerprinted, grilled and chilled, and licensed to carry a concealed weapon if I so desire. So what do I do first, boss?”
He chuckled. “I like that. Boss.” He turned back to his desk and pulled out a file folder. “This is a photo I took off the Internet. It shows a lamp like the one that was stolen just recently. I know, it’s a light case, but I’m starting you off with easy stuff. Okay?”
She didn’t take offense. It was early times. “That’s fine. What do you want me to do?”
“Go into Raven Springs and talk to Mike Markson at the Yesterday Place. It’s our only antique shop. See what he can tell you about the lamp. If we know what it’s worth and who might want it, we might get a break on a suspect.”
“I’ll go right now.”
“He’s on the main drag,” he told her. “You can drive one of our cars, if you like.”
“I’d rather drive my own SUV,” she said. “Since I’m a plainclothes investigator.” She frowned. “Did you want me to wear a uniform?”
“Not necessary,” he said easily. “Wear what you like. Well, short of low-cut red dresses,” he added, forcing down a helpless grin.
She glared at him. “He told you!”
He burst out laughing. “Sorry. Really. I just couldn’t resist it. Dal said the whole coal bin fell on you.”
She ground her teeth together. “Dal Blake is an animal,” she said shortly.
He raised both eyebrows. “Well, when it comes to women, he probably is,” he agreed. He chuckled. “We’ve been friends since high school. I’d give a lot to have his charm.”
“There are other words for that,” she muttered.
“Now, now,” he said gently. “He’d just break your heart if you got involved with him. He’s not a forever after sort of guy.”
“I knew that the first time I met him,” she confessed. She managed a smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not breaking my heart over him. I had a huge crush on him when I started college.” She forced a laugh. “It didn’t survive the last Christmas dance.”
He pursed his lips and whistled, laughing. “That was memorable, too. I wasn’t there, but I heard about it. Old man Grayson’s wife gave him hell all the way home about coming on to you, not to mention having him embarrass you by tipping the punch bowl over on your dress.”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t much of a dress,” she confessed.
“Dal said that.” He averted his eyes. He was laying it on thick, but he didn’t want her looking in Dal’s direction. He wanted that ranch, and she was going to eventually have to sell it. Both men needed the water rights. Jeff wanted them very badly.
She wasn’t bad looking, and he didn’t have a steady girl. So if courting her got him the land, why not?
“Dal can shut up,” she said under her breath. “His opinion is no concern of mine.”
He smiled. “Exactly. Now get out there and find that lamp.”
“Yes, sir.” She grinned as she went out the door.