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Cowboy Comes Home
Rachel Lee


She Couldn't Keep RunningNot when she had finally found a place to call home. So this time, when her past reared its ugly head, Anna Fleming dared to seek shelter in the last place she had ever thought possible…the arms of a man.Hugh Gallagher knew what haunting memories could do to the mind. He taught her to trust, to embrace the passion his gentle touch evoked…and to make a stand for their future.









Cowboy Comes Home

Rachel Lee







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




Contents


Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue




Chapter 1 (#u5ac1458c-a478-531b-af62-b7a8e7025ab1)


Anna Fleming was sure no one could see her.

She stood in the back of Good Shepherd Church in a dimly lit corner and watched the wedding ceremony. It was everything she had ever dreamed of for herself and the embodiment of all the dreams she had lost. A sad little sigh escaped her, but almost at once she lifted her chin and reminded herself not to wallow. It was always wiser to count one’s blessings.

She was a mousy woman, small and bland looking in a shapeless brown dress and sensible shoes. Her dark hair was drawn back severely, and her wide brown eyes peered at the world from behind gold-rimmed glasses. Those glasses were the most flamboyant part of her apparel, but they were nothing out of the ordinary.

And that was how she liked it, she told herself as she watched Sheriff Tate’s daughter marry the policeman from Los Angeles. No one noticed her, no one at all, and in her invisibility and anonymity, she found the only safety she had ever known.

Reverend Fromberg, a gentle man in his late forties, read the vows in a sonorous voice that reached the back of the church without difficulty.

Anna listened to the words and wondered what it would be like to trust someone enough to make those promises. She couldn’t imagine it. Trust, she had long ago learned, was more likely to be betrayed than fulfilled.

Stifling a weary sigh, she turned quietly and slipped out the side door into the vestibule, where she descended the stairs into the church basement. The room was brightly lighted and decorated for the reception and supper to follow the wedding. Anna walked swiftly around, checking to be sure that everything was in order. The caterers were putting last-minute touches on everything, and it wasn’t really her responsibility, but she checked anyway. This was her church, and she was secretary to Reverend Fromberg, as well as leader of the youth group. She couldn’t help but feel that whatever happened on church property reflected on her employer, and upon herself.

Satisfied, she darted back toward the stairway, planning to vanish back into the shadows in the church above, but found her way blocked by the looming bulk of the man known to everyone as Cowboy. He wasn’t a large man, but he was solidly built, with dark hair and dark eyes, and a face that looked as if it had seen a great deal of hardship and sorrow. Anna was scared of him for no other reason than that she didn’t know him, or anything about him, really.

Being caught by him like this, all alone—she completely forgot the caterers at the other end of the basement—startled and unnerved her. She jumped back and stumbled.

His arm shot out as swiftly as a striking snake and caught her elbow, steadying her.

Anna froze, looking up at him, uncertain what would happen next. Part of her realized he had just saved her from falling, but mostly she was aware that he was touching her. She hated to be touched. Suddenly, freed from her paralysis, she shook off his hand.

“Sorry,” he said, his voice slow, deep and steady. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I…” Suddenly embarrassed by her reaction to him, she felt she needed to say something. But what?

He gave her a half smile. “It’s okay. I saw you come down here and wondered if maybe you were sick or something. People don’t usually run out in the middle of the wedding vows. I thought you might need help.” He shrugged a shoulder. “I didn’t know all these other folks were down here.”

Before she could think of a single thing to say, Cowboy turned and climbed the stairs. Anna stared after him, her eyes full of unspoken fears and wishes.

Hugh Gallagher, known far and wide as Cowboy for some damn reason he’d never been able to figure out, took his place at the back of the church and watched Janet and Abel Pierce pose for photographs with the wedding party. A steady stream of guests began to make their way to the rear of the church, toward the stairs that led down to the church basement.

There would be laughter and food and many more pictures taken before the day was over, but Cowboy turned toward the door, getting ready to leave.

He was invited to the reception—hell, the sheriff had invited damn near everyone in the county to one or another of the parties he was throwing to celebrate this event—but he wasn’t a party person. Crowds still made him uneasy, and the basement itself was too confined a space to make him comfortable, even when it was empty.

He hesitated, though, thinking of mousy Miss Fleming, the church secretary, and how startled she’d been to run into him on the stairs. He didn’t like it when people reacted to him that way. It reminded him of things better left forgotten.

If he made himself go down there, maybe he could talk to her a bit, get her over her fear. He didn’t want her reacting that way when she saw him again. On the other hand, if he went down there he was going to have to deal with his damn claustrophobia and all the other phobias that he preferred to leave undisturbed as much as possible.

Hell.

He hesitated a few moments longer, then decided to head outside and smoke a cigarette. Forcing the issue wasn’t going to make Anna Fleming any more comfortable with him. He would just have to bide his time until a better opportunity came along.

Outside, the October twilight was already fading into night. The air was chilly but still, not too uncomfortable. Besides, he was used to far worse after wintering in the mountains in lean-tos and tents. He stepped off the walk onto the grass and lit a cigarette, inhaling with real pleasure. He ought to quit, and knew he was going to have to if he ever got his dream of a youth ranch off the ground, but for now, he savored every puff.

He wasn’t the only one who sneaked out for a smoke. A couple of minutes later the double doors opened to disgorge a group of laughing men. He recognized them all—with only five thousand people in this county, it was hard not to learn to recognize most of them—but he stepped around the corner so that he was out of sight. People tended to regard him uneasily, as if he were a time bomb, and while he didn’t exactly blame them, he resented the hell out of it.

Besides, he didn’t much feel like being sociable. The only reason he was here was that he didn’t want to offend the sheriff and his family. They’d been too good to him.

The group out front stayed where they were, and Hugh let the deepening night wrap comfortably around him. Unlike most people, he always felt safer at night. At night he could be invisible. At night he could vanish.

The basement was a madhouse. Everyone was drinking, laughing, talking. The noise level was almost deafening in the confined space, and the temperature was soaring, even with all the windows open to let in the fresh air.

Anna was beginning to feel claustrophobic, as well as far too hot in her wool dress. She had always hated large crowds and was able to tolerate Sunday worship only because everyone was so orderly. They were not at all orderly right now, and the champagne was making everyone a little bit raucous.

She was, she realized, afraid of being grabbed. It wasn’t so much the crowding as the smell of champagne that was affecting her. The scent of alcohol had preceded some of the worst experiences of her life. As soon as she felt she decently could, she grabbed her jacket and slipped out the side door.

She was hurrying, not wanting to be stopped by anyone, and had her head bowed as usual. She didn’t see Hugh Gallagher until she plowed right into him.

He reached out swiftly to keep her from falling to the cold, hard ground. She felt his arms close around her and heard him say laughingly, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

In an instant, panic flared in her. She flailed against his restraining arms, and as soon as he released her, she backed up quickly, nearly falling again in her haste to escape him.

Some portion of her mind was screaming, “No! No!” even while another part was recognizing that he wasn’t coming after her. That in fact he had stepped back, as if recognizing her terror and wanting to soothe it.

She stood there staring at him with huge eyes, breathing in helpless gulps, and sanity hit her as suddenly as panic had, filling her with miserable humiliation.

The man called Cowboy stared at her, his mouth opening as if he wanted to ask but thought better of it. Finally he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his nylon jacket and took another backward step. “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said.

“It’s not you,” she managed to say shakily but honestly. “Not you…” Her voice trailed away, a forlorn sound like the whisper of the wind on a frigid night. “I was just startled,” she added, afraid that he might ask her what had scared her so.

After a moment, he nodded. “You’re running away, too?”

Her heart slammed. How had he known? “Running away?”

“From the party. Stupid as it is, that basement gives me claustrophobia, and with all those people in there, I’d probably lose it.” He shrugged as if it were an unimportant thing, but Anna felt something inside her respond to his honesty.

“I know what you mean,” she managed to say, and wondered why she suddenly felt as if some little patch of ice inside her had thawed.

“You, too, huh?” He waited, but when she failed to respond he continued. “Are you leaving?”

“I thought I’d just go home. No one will miss me.” The words admitted more than she wanted to, but it was too late to take them back.

He nodded as if he understood. “No one will miss me, either. I’ll walk you to your car.”

Another flare of panic. “I didn’t bring a car.”

“Then I’ll walk you home.” He hesitated.

“You’re safe with me, but with most of the sheriff’s deputies at this shindig, I’m not sure you’d be safe on the streets.”

She hadn’t thought of that, and the night suddenly looked so big and empty. Frightening. Bad things happened at night. Weighing her options, she finally said, “Thank you.”

They headed east down Front Street, past some of the town’s most elegant homes. Anna’s little house, rented from the church, was farther out, in a less prosperous neighborhood–although it was far better than some of the neighborhoods she had lived in.

“Do you always walk to the church?” Hugh asked her.

“When it’s warm enough. It saves wear and tear on the car.” She kept her head down, studying the sidewalk ahead of them. Some dried leaves stirred on a breath of breeze and for a moment danced ahead of them.

“I hear you,” he said. “I walked myself.”

“Oh. Where do you live?” She wished she hadn’t asked. She didn’t want to sound interested. But surely he would take it as a polite question.

“The other way, over toward Snider’s Crossing.”

Near the railroad tracks, she thought. One of the least pleasant neighborhoods in Conard City. But Sheriff Tate and Reverend Fromberg both liked this man, she reminded herself. They wouldn’t feel that way if he was a bad person.

“Not a very good neighborhood,” he said as if reading her mind. “But it’s cheap. I’m saving every dime I can make to put into the ranch.”

“The ranch?” She felt him glance down at her, but she didn’t look up. It had been a very long time since she had felt comfortable meeting a man’s gaze.

“I bought a piece of land out by Conard Creek, up near the Morrison spread. It’s not much for raising cattle for profit, but it’s good for what I want.”

“And what’s that?”

“Well, I really haven’t discussed it all that much with anybody except Nate and Dan.” Nate and Dan being the sheriff and the minister respectively. “But I’m hoping to open a ranch for troubled kids. A place where they can get out of their lousy homes and neighborhoods and start getting it together.”

“That would be really nice.” She meant it sincerely. It was not at all what she would have expected from this rough-looking man with his uncertain background. “Did you grow up in a bad neighborhood?”

“Oh, yeah.” He gave a little laugh. “I just moved from one war zone to another when I joined the army.”

“I never thought of joining the army.” Once again she had spoken without thinking, and wished she could snatch the words back. They revealed far too much.

“You, too, huh?” He let it go. “Well, with all the work you do with kids, you probably see how much trouble at home affects them.”

“I certainly do.”

“So…well, I kinda figure that if I can give them a place away from those problems and influences, most of ’em would straighten themselves out.”

“A lot of them just need an opportunity.”

“Exactly.”

“Would you take only children from around here?”

“Maybe at first. At first I wouldn’t expect to be able to take too many. I mean, there’d just be me, basically, and maybe a couple of other people. Gotta start slow.”

Anna nodded, her gaze still firmly fixed on the sidewalk. “I know of a few who could sure use a place like that.”

A car beeped cheerfully as it drove by, and they both looked, waving when they recognized Emma and Gage Dalton.

“They’re leaving early, too,” Hugh remarked.

“Gage’s back is giving him fits lately,” Anna explained. “He says it’s the change in the weather.”

“Most likely. And boy, did it change fast. Here we were having this incredible Indian summer, and now it almost feels like winter is coming.”

“It is.”

He laughed quietly. “That it is, Miss Anna. That it is.”

She flushed a little, realizing she had stated the obvious in response to his jesting remark. The tendency came from dealing with children so much of the time. In addition to her work with the church youth groups, she tended the church nursery during services. After a while with children, you got to taking everything literally. “I’m sorry. I get so used to talking with children.”

“Don’t sweat it. You’re just so all-fired serious, it’s hard not to pull your leg.”

She didn’t know how to respond to that. She didn’t think of herself as being serious, but she supposed she was. There wasn’t a whole lot in life worth laughing at or getting overjoyed about. Life was a serious business.

“Anyway, the sheriff thinks the ranch is a good idea. I figure maybe we’d start with a half-dozen kids and see how it goes. I’d like to be able to take girls, too.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Everybody gets so concerned about all the crime caused by boys that girls get overlooked. They don’t commit as many crimes, but they have just as many problems at home and on the streets. Somebody needs to look out for them, too.”

“But won’t making it coeducational cause problems?”

“Not if I do it right.”

They had reached Park Street and turned right, heading toward her house two blocks down. Most of the driveways were empty, since nearly everybody was partying.

Hugh spoke again. “I don’t know how Nate is going to be able to afford to marry off so many daughters if he invites everybody in the county to the shindig.”

“It’s amazing, isn’t it? But he knows everybody. And he’s not doing sit-down meals, so maybe it’s not as bad as it could be.”

“Maybe.”

They reached her house at last, climbed the porch steps and stopped at her door.

“I’ll just wait while you get inside, Miss Anna,” he said. “You have a good evening, hear?”

She stepped inside, turned on the light and locked the door behind her. Then she ran into the darkened living room to look out the window to watch him walk away. He had a slow, easy stride, like a man who’d walked many miles and was in no hurry to get to his destination.

She envied him his calm confidence and steady determination. She wished that once, just once, she could feel as comfortable with herself as he seemed to feel. And it must be wonderful to be able to walk down a dark street and not feel a nagging need to look back over your shoulder.

She let the curtain fall over the window and turned on another light.

She was home and she was lonely.

Nothing new. It was a fact of life. Loneliness kept her safe.

She had the nightmare again that night. It had been years since the last time, but it was still all too familiar when she woke up in a cold sweat, shaking with terror. The night-light she couldn’t sleep without glowed softly in the wall socket, but suddenly it wasn’t enough. Even the shadowy shapes of the furnishings refused to resolve into familiarity by its light.

Sitting up quickly, she reached for the switch on the bedside lamp. It came instantly to life, then, with a flash, burned out. Shaking, shivering, breathing raggedly, she desperately fought her way out from beneath the blankets and ran as fast as she dared into the kitchen. There, the flick of a wall switch cast immediate normalcy over the night.

The refrigerator hummed softly, as it always did. She could smell the very faint odor of gas from the range and realized the pilot must have gone out. Searching for matches gave her something to do, something ordinary and real. Something to drag her out of the consuming depths of her dream.

The matches were where she always kept them, but she dropped the box twice just trying to get it out of the drawer. She waited a moment, taking deep, steadying breaths, then lit the pilot light under the range cover. The match slipped from between her fingers into the drip pan, but she left it.

It could stay until she was steadier.

She poured herself a glass of milk and tried to ignore the phone on the wall, but it was as if her eyes were attached to it by rubber bands. No matter how many times she jerked her gaze away, it snapped back.

He might be dead by now. The thought was seductive and wouldn’t go away.

It had been years since she had called, and he would have to be in his sixties now, wouldn’t he? So maybe he was dead. God, she hoped he was dead.

But she didn’t want to hear his voice. What if he answered the phone? Then she would know for sure he wasn’t dead, that he was still out there. It was better not to know.

She sipped her milk and shivered again, this time from a chill. It was four in the morning, and while the house wasn’t cold, her body thought it ought to be in bed under the covers. But she couldn’t go back to sleep. Not now. She would only have the dream again. Once it came, it just kept coming back.

She wandered through the house, turning on lights as she went, refusing to worry about the cost. She sat in the big, overstuffed chair she had bought secondhand last winter and tried to read a paperback crime novel. She turned the pages four times before she realized she hadn’t absorbed a single word.

Giving up, she tried to turn her thoughts back to the wedding. Back to how nice Hugh Gallagher had been to her. And he had been nice. As threatened as most men made her feel, it was really surprising that he had managed to make her feel safe enough to let him walk her home.

There was a gentleness in his manner, she realized. Something that had reassured her. The slow way he talked, the easy way he held himself, the quick consideration of her feelings had all combined to make her feel she could trust him at least that far. Only Nate Tate and Dan Fromberg had been able to get so far past her defenses.

Deep inside her, she was astonished to realize, was a barely born hope that she would see Cowboy again.

As soon as she recognized it, she felt panic begin to build in her. No. No, she told herself. No. It was too dangerous. There were too many secrets. Too many horrible things in her past. Even if she could trust him not to hurt her, she couldn’t trust herself not to hurt him.

It wasn’t just the fact that she was terrified of men that kept her away from them; she was terrified of what her past could do to her relationships, to her entire life, if anyone found out about it.

Solitude was her fortress, and she kept herself inside it of her own free will. She couldn’t afford to lose sight of that.

But the phone kept beckoning her. He might be dead. It would be nice to know that he was.

The thought upset her, it seemed so evil, but the man had done evil things to her. She didn’t exactly wish him dead, she assured herself. It was just that she knew she wouldn’t be free of him until he was gone. Then she would have only the horrible things she’d done herself to be worried about. By comparison, her own deeds seemed paltry. She could handle that guilt.

She looked at the phone beside her chair and knew that she was going to call. She didn’t want to. She couldn’t stand the thought of hearing his voice again, but she had to know. Ever since she could remember, she had been doing things she didn’t want to because of that man, and she longed to break his hold over her.

But she couldn’t stop herself. As if watching from a distance, she saw her hand reach out for the receiver, watched her own fingers punch in a number she would never forget. Then, holding her breath, she waited while the phone rang. It was two hours later back there, and if he wasn’t up already, he would be getting up soon.

On the sixth ring, a groggy male voice answered. “Hello?”

She slammed down the receiver immediately, disconnecting the call. Her heart hammered wildly, and she could scarcely catch her breath.

He was still alive. Still sleeping in her mother’s bed as if he’d never done anything wrong. She would bet he never had nightmares about what he’d done to her. Never. He probably slept like a baby.

And suddenly, unable to help herself, Anna burst into tears and cried until she couldn’t cry anymore.




Chapter 2 (#u5ac1458c-a478-531b-af62-b7a8e7025ab1)


“Anna, you have to rescue me.”

Anna looked up from her desk as Reverend Daniel Fromberg stepped in from the brisk day outside. She made a point of always getting to the office ahead of him, and he had to insist in order to get her to leave before him.

Daniel Fromberg was a pleasant-looking man in his late forties.

Just average in height, he had a slight build that sometimes made people underestimate his backbone. As Anna had learned during the past five years, Daniel Fromberg had a backbone of steel when it came to what was right.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, feeling a smile curve the corners of her mouth. With two teenage children and a pair of unexpected two-year-old twins, Dan Fromberg was often in need of her help. It usually involved finding him a baby-sitter so he could save his wife’s sanity.

“The dogs!” he said with an exaggerated groan as he dropped into the chair facing her desk. Eight weeks ago, the Frombergs’ Irish setter had given birth to four adorable little pups. “They’re driving me nuts. They’re driving Cheryl nuts. They’re into everything! Piddling all over the place, making little piles behind the couch, the TV, the bed—you name it!”

“So get a gate and lock them into one small area of the house.”

He shook his head. “I tried to. Clearly you do not know my children.”

She laughed; she couldn’t help it. “They let them out, huh?”

“All the time. The older ones finally got the message, but the twins…!” He shook his head. “They just love to release the catch. Cheryl tried using a twisty-tie to stop them, but Dan junior figured it out.

Then we tried a padlock, but this morning Jolly—that’s the momma dog—got fed up with being cooped up and knocked the darn thing down. I now have holes in the doorjamb and a broken gate. Cheryl’s threatening to take the pups to the pound.”

Anna felt a twinge of dismay. “You can’t do that! Surely you can get someone to adopt them.”

“That’s what we thought. I mean, the whole reason we never got Jolly spayed was because the older kids wanted puppies, and Cheryl thought it would be a good experience for them. But now we’ve got too many puppies, and would you believe it? Nobody wants a dog, especially mongrels. Everybody already has a dog.” He eyed her. “Except you.”

“No, you can’t do this to me.”

“Do what to you? Give you a warm, furry little companion? Some soft-eyed little fuzzball that will curl up on your feet on cold winter evenings? A friend who will always be glad to see you and will lick your face when you get sad? How can that be construed as doing something to you?”

Anna felt herself weakening. It was true, she had been thinking about a pet, but she had thought a cat would be better suited to her sometimes long work hours. “It wouldn’t be fair to a puppy to leave it alone all day.”

“So bring it here,” he said. “I’ll even get you a pet carrier to keep it in.

I’ll pay for all the shots. I’ll help you housebreak it.”

“Well…”

“Just a minute.” He dashed back outside and moments later returned carrying a small auburn-colored puppy in his arms. “I call her Jazz, but you can call her whatever you want,” he said, and dumped the puppy in her arms.

Anna was lost. She felt the warm little body quiver fearfully in her arms and instinctively began to pet it and coo gently to it. Jazz’s ears were huge, so long that Anna imagined they must touch the floor when the puppy stood. It had a plump little pink tummy just like a baby. “Dan…”

“Adorable, isn’t she? And I’ll pay to have her spayed, too, so you don’t develop a puppy problem. Trust me, she’ll brighten your life.”

Anna looked down into soft brown eyes and felt a tiny pink tongue lick her chin tentatively. “You are so sweet,” she heard herself say to the dog. “This is extortion, Dan. You know I can’t let her go to the pound.”

“Certainly not. She’s yours.”

Anna looked at Jazz and smiled. “Thank you.”

“I’ll get the carrier out of the car.”

By the time Dan returned, Anna had already figured out a bunch of benefits to having a dog. She would be able to take walks on dark winter evenings without feeling quite as afraid or alone. She would have a dog to keep her company in the dead of night when she couldn’t sleep. In short, Jazz would go a long way toward easing her loneliness without forcing her to take risks.

Then the puppy licked her chin again, and none of the rest of it mattered. She was in love.

Dan set the carrier down in the corner with a stack of newspapers. “I figured the least I could do is provide the first batch of cage liners.”

“Thanks.”

He sat down facing her again. “You look awful, Anna. Exhausted. Have you been having trouble sleeping again?”

“Just a little.” She really didn’t want to get into it in any depth. She had never told him what had happened to her and never intended to.

Still, she sometimes thought he suspected. His expression was so kind that she had to stop herself from blurting out the whole story. The impulse terrified her, and her heart slammed.

Dan regarded her gently for a while, then said, “If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here. I think I’m a pretty good friend.”

“I’m sure you are.” But she didn’t want to talk about it. She tried her best not to even think about it. “At least, you are when you don’t have puppies to get rid of.

What are you going to do with the rest of them?”

“Oh, I already found homes for them. Jazz was the only one left.”

“You stinker!”

He rose, laughing. “Hey, all I did was convince you to take a friend for life!” Still grinning, he went into his office.

Anna sat for a while longer, holding Jazz until the puppy’s eyelids began to droop. Then she put the dog in the carrier and locked the door. Poor little thing, she thought as she returned to her desk. It might be the natural way of things, but eight weeks seemed awfully young to be taken from your mother.

Not that her own mother had been worth much, she thought with a sudden burst of bitterness. The woman wasn’t even fit for the title of mother. No question but that she herself would have been better off if she’d been taken away at eight weeks.

At any time before she had turned twelve, in fact.

But she didn’t want to think about that. With great effort, she forced her attention back to her work.

An hour later, Dan emerged from his office. “I have to go over to the hospital. Candy Burgess had a severe gall bladder attack last night, and they’re doing surgery this morning. I promised to go by and sit with the family.”

“All right. Are you taking your pager?”

He pointed to his belt. “Got it. Also, I asked a guy to come by and take a look at the church roof. Last winter we had some serious ice damming.”

“I remember.”

“I want to see if there’s anything he can do to lessen it. He said he’d pop in when he had a minute and take a look, so if he gets here while I’m gone, will you show him where the damming was worst?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, then. You and Jazz have fun.” He headed for the door.

“Say hi to Candy for me.”

He was halfway out the door as she spoke, but he leaned back in. “If you want my opinion, it’s all that dieting she does that caused this. Remember all those news stories a few years back about liquid diets causing gall bladder disease? I don’t think it’s liquid diets in particular. I think it’s starving yourself that does it.”

“You might be right.”

His eyes twinkled suddenly. “Of course. I’m always right. People should listen to me more often. Bottom line is, God made some of us small and some of us tall, some of us skinny and some of us heavy, but we’re all beautiful in His eyes. And just for the record, I think all this weight consciousness is a conspiracy on the part of men to starve women into submission.”

She burst out laughing and heard his answering laugh as he hurried to his car. What a character! He was such a joy to work for—even if he had foisted a puppy on her.

Jazz was still soundly sleeping, and she found herself wondering how often she should walk the puppy. Probably every time it awoke, until she learned its schedule.

And she’d have to stop off at the store on the way home to get some puppy food and a leash and collar. The prospect gave her something interesting to look forward to.

In fact, she decided, Dan couldn’t have done a nicer thing for her than dropping that pup into her arms so she couldn’t resist.

She was thinking about doggie dishes and leashes, and wondering if she could take care of the shopping on her lunch hour, when a battered pickup pulled up out front. She watched with a suddenly pounding heart as Hugh Gallagher climbed out and walked up to the door. Her mouth went dry, and try as she might to tell herself she was overreacting, she couldn’t stop it. Had he come to see her?

He stepped through the door and gave her a wide, warm smile. “Miss Anna. How are you today?”

Before she could answer, Jazz, disturbed by the commotion, woke up and gave a squeaky bark. Hugh squatted immediately and looked into the cage. “Who’s this little fella?”

“That’s…um…that’s Jazz. Reverend Fromberg gave her to me.” Anna sounded as breathless as she felt, and hated herself for it. She wondered why Hugh was here, and was afraid to ask.

“Jazz? What a cute pup. Irish setter?”

“Partly.”

“A mutt, huh? Well, that just means she’ll be really smart, won’t you, girl? Can I take her out?”

“I guess.”

She watched as Hugh unlatched the cage and reached in with large, strong hands to lift the little pup gently. Jazz decided she liked him and started licking his chin at once. Anna felt a sharp stab of jealousy, then castigated herself for it.

Hugh rose and faced her, still holding the squirming puppy. “Dan asked me to come take a look at the church roof. Something about ice damming?”

“Oh, yes! He asked me to show you where the worst problems were.”

“Well, get your jacket on and let’s take a stroll. This little gal would probably love to get outside.”

“I don’t have a leash for her yet.”

“Just wait a minute. I can rig something with the rope in my truck that’ll do in a pinch.”

She rose to pull her jacket off the coat tree and found herself fascinated again by the sight of Cowboy walking away from her. He had such a nice…sway was the only word she could think of. Something that riveted her eyes to his flat backside and long legs. She felt a twinge deep inside that she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Embarrassed color flooded her cheeks.

Uh-uh, she told herself. You know better than that, girl.

She pulled on the jacket and stepped outside, taking care to lock the office door after her.

It took only a minute for Hugh to fashion a slipknot leash for Jazz. The puppy was ecstatic to be outside and began to run this way and that, giving a squeaky bark of joy. Each time the loop around her neck started to tighten, she came to a swift halt.

“Smart little gal,” Hugh said, giving Anna a smile. “She won’t give you any trouble.” He handed her the end of the rope. “Now, where exactly were the worst problems?”

They walked slowly around the church, with Anna pointing out the places where the ice had dammed the snow and caused leaking inside.

“It was terrible last year,” she told him. “Reverend Fromberg went into the church one morning last winter, and he could hear water dripping everywhere. You couldn’t see where it was dripping, but finally we noticed that it was running down the insides of the window frames.”

“So it was coming down inside the walls.”

“Apparently.”

He nodded. “I’ll have to go up on the roof and see if I can find out what’s keeping the snow from sliding off.

You’d think with that steep a pitch it wouldn’t be a problem. I’ll also want to get up under the eaves to try to see where the heat is escaping that’s causing the ice to form. Can you leave the church open for a while?”

“Sure. Just let me know when you’re done so I can lock it up again. I’ll only open the side door, if that’s okay.”

He gave her a smile. “I only need one door.”

Jazz had run off most of her energy and had squatted at four or five different points along the way, so Anna figured the puppy was ready to return to the cage for a nap. She unlocked the church’s side door for Hugh, then hurried back to her office.

She loved this time of year, she found herself thinking as she and the puppy trotted along. The breeze was crisp, carrying a hint of the winter to come, and the light had a buttery color to it, the last golden glow of autumn. Any day now the snow would march down off the white-capped peaks to the west and sprinkle itself all over Conard City like powdered sugar.

Inside the office, she put Jazz in her cage, then hunted up a bowl and put some water in with the dog. The puppy lapped thirstily, then curled up into a little ball of fur and fell right to sleep.

Well, that wasn’t too difficult, Anna thought as she settled back at her desk. She’d managed not to babble like a fool to Hugh Gallagher, she’d walked the dog successfully, remembered to give it a drink…hey, she was getting competent.

Chuckling at her own silliness, she reached for the next letter she needed to type, only to be interrupted by the phone.

“Anna, it’s Dan. I’m going to be at the hospital a while. Candy had a bad reaction to the anesthetic, and we don’t know what’s going to happen. Say a prayer for her, will you? I don’t know at this point if I’ll be back to the office at all.”

“I’ll cancel your appointments.”

“Thanks. Go ahead and take your lunch whenever you want. And close up early if you feel like it. You need some rest, my child.”

Anna hung up the phone, wondering why she always felt like crying when Dan Fromberg got that gentle note in his voice and called her “my child.” He called a lot of people “my child” when they were laid low by life and were calling on him in his ministerial capacity. Still, it affected her.

The phone rang again, just as she was getting ready to call and cancel the first appointment. This time it was Sheriff Nate Tate.

“Hi, sweet pea,” he said in his deep, gravelly voice. For some reason he always called her sweet pea. “Is the boss around?”

“He’s at the hospital and probably won’t be back in again today.”

“Somebody get hurt?”

“A bad reaction to anesthesia.”

“Not good.” But he knew better than to ask who was involved. “Well, I got a leetle bit of a problem here. Maybe you can help.”

“Me?”

He chuckled warmly. “Yes, you, sweet pea. Everyone knows how well you get on with the kids in the youth group, and you’re the closest thing we have around here to a youth counselor.”

Anna felt a pleasant blush fill her cheeks. “Don’t exaggerate, Sheriff.”

“I’m not. Do you think you can come over here to the office? I’ve got me a little gal you know in a cell who shouldn’t be in the cell. I really need somebody to talk to her and figure out what’s going on. I’ll tell you more when you get here.”

“I’ll be right over, but I have to make a couple of phone calls first.”

“It’s not that big a rush,” he assured her. “This little lady is going to be sitting here a while.”

It took Anna ten minutes to make the calls and reschedule the appointments for another day. Then she grabbed her jacket again, hesitating briefly about leaving Jazz alone. After a moment she decided that the puppy was as safe as could be in the cage. Outside, she found Hugh up on the ladder, looking at the church roof. “Mr. Gallagher?”

He looked down at her. “Hugh. Just call me Hugh. Or Cowboy.”

“Hugh.”

She repeated his name, feeling flattered that he’d asked her to use it. “I have to run up to the sheriff’s office. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“No problem. I’ll be a while here. Probably most of the afternoon. There’s a lot that needs to be checked out.”

“Well, if you need to leave, just make sure the church door is closed tightly. I’ll lock it when I get back.”

“You got it.”

The wind seemed to have gotten sharper, and some low clouds were moving in, concealing the sun. She hunkered deeper into her jacket and wished she’d worn slacks today.

The sheriff’s office was only a block away, in a corner storefront overlooking the courthouse square. She’d come here often in the past when the youth group took tours of the office and the courthouse, and she knew most of the people who worked here from church, but she still felt uncomfortable walking into a place that was populated mostly by men. She stepped inside and hovered by the door for a few moments until Velma Jansen, the dispatcher, noticed her.

“Anna! Come on in. Sheriff’s down the hall, first door on the left. He’s expecting you.”

Tate waved her in when she reached his office. He was a big man in his early fifties, with a rugged, permanently sunburned face.

“Come in, sweet pea,” he said. “Close the door and grab a seat.”

Closing the door proved difficult for her. Even after all this time, she couldn’t be comfortable in a closed room with a man. But beside Nate’s desk there was a window that overlooked the square, and the sight of people walking by eased her feeling of claustrophobia. She managed to take the chair facing him and folded her hands on her lap.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“That’s what I’m hoping you can find out. Lorna Lacey. You know her?”

Anna nodded. “She’s in the youth group. A dear, sweet girl.”

“Right. That’s what everyone says. In fact, when I checked her school record, I found out she’s never been in any kind of trouble.”

“I’d be surprised if it said anything different. She’s a natural peacemaker. Active, outgoing, popular—I’d say she’s what every girl her age would like to be.”

“Mmm.” Nate rubbed his chin and swiveled his chair so he could look out the window. “Well, something’s wrong. This dear, sweet girl set a fire in an empty classroom this morning.”

“Good heavens!”

He nodded and glanced over at her. “She set the fire and was still in the room. If a teacher hadn’t happened along the hallway just when he did, the school and the girl would both be gone.”

Anna was appalled. She couldn’t imagine anyone doing such a thing, but even less could she imagine Lorna Lacey doing it. That child was as close to an angel as a girl her age could be.

“You look chilled,” Nate said abruptly. “Let me get you some tea or coffee.”

“Tea. Please.” Still stunned, she was hardly aware that he had left the office. Her gaze wandered out to the square, which looked bleak on this graying day. The flowers that usually filled the flower beds were gone, having died in the first frost nearly a month ago. Even the people who usually sat on the benches had vanished, driven away by the bitter wind.

Lorna Lacey. A petite girl of thirteen with soft blue eyes and long blond hair and an irregular face that saved her from being beautiful. But she was attractive, very attractive, because personality bubbled out of her, and she had an infectious smile.

When Anna thought of Lorna, she thought of laughter.

But now she found herself remembering that Lorna hadn’t been laughing as much lately and had missed quite a few youth group meetings in the past year. Anna had ascribed that to the changing interests of adolescence, but now she wondered.

What could be wrong? She hadn’t heard stories of any kind of trouble either from Lorna or the other kids. The girl’s parents, Bridget and Al Lacey, seemed like nice people. Bridget was a little restrained, but that didn’t mean anything. Al greeted the whole world with a big smile, just like his daughter, and was well liked by everyone.

He was active in the church, coaching youth soccer and basketball, and was always ready to lend a hand where it was needed.

Nate returned carrying a couple of mugs. He set the one with the tea bag in it in front of her, along with a couple of packets of sweetener and creamer, and a plastic stirrer. Anna reached for the mug gratefully and cupped her cold hands around it, soaking up the warmth.

“Thank you,” she said.

“No problem.” He sat back in his chair, holding his mug, and resumed his study of the square. “Sleet tonight, I hear. Make sure you get home before it starts.”

“I will.” Neither of them, she guessed, really knew what to say about Lorna Lacey. “Are you sure Lorna started the fire?”

“She said she did. In fact, she seemed real eager to make sure we knew it.”

Anna hardly knew what to say to that. “But why?”

Nate shrugged and looked at her. “That’s why I want you to talk to her, Anna. I know people. You can’t work with all kinds the way I do every day without getting an instinct. Now, most of the kids who get into trouble around here, I could pick ’em out by the time they were eight or nine. Sometimes even earlier. The troublemaking starts young. Some of ’em outgrow it. Those with rotten families are the ones least likely to outgrow it. But what I have never seen is a thoroughly good kid from a good home turn bad without a reason.”

“Bad friends?”

He shook his head. “I’m a great believer in peer pressure, but most kids like Lorna, who are good through and through, withstand that kind of pressure and pick good friends. You know who she hangs out with. Any problems there?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so.”

“Me neither. So we got us a mystery, sweet pea. That child committed an act of arson, and all my warning bells are clanging that this isn’t the act of a pain-in-the-butt kid. It’s a cry for help.”

Anna nodded, agreeing. It had to be. “But help from what?”

“God knows.” Nate sighed and settled deeper into his chair. “I’ve gotta charge her with arson. No way around it. But what scares me more than arson is that I don’t think she intended to leave that room even when the fire got really bad.”

Anna gasped and nearly spilled her tea. She set it quickly on the desk. “Not Lorna!”

“That’s the way it looks to me.”

Even more appalled now, Anna looked blindly out the window. “She hasn’t been coming to youth group meetings as often.”

“No? Then maybe whatever this is wasn’t sudden. Maybe something’s been building for a long time. She could be depressed. That’s not uncommon at her age, but maybe she doesn’t know how to ask for help. Maybe she doesn’t even guess what’s wrong with her. Or maybe she got involved in drugs somehow. Or somebody just slipped her a mickey this morning and she’s on a bad trip. I don’t know.”

He sipped his coffee, then turned to face her fully. “What I know is, I got a kid in one of my cells who shouldn’t be there. It’s not like the handwriting has been on the wall for years. And I’m not gonna be happy until we find the root of this little problem. I don’t want that child to become an ugly statistic because we couldn’t figure out how to help her.”

“Certainly not!”

“So you’ll talk to her?”

“Of course I will!”

He smiled. “I figured you would, sweet pea. I figured you would.”

“Have you talked to her parents yet? Do they have any idea?”

“No idea at all.”

“They’re not going to leave her in jail overnight.”

“They may not have any choice. Judge Williams has set a bond hearing at five o’clock to try to avoid that, but Lorna said she’s just going to tell the judge she’ll do it again if she gets out.”

Anna drew a long breath. “I’ll talk to her.”

“Please. At the very least maybe you can find out why she thinks it’s better to be in jail than out. I got my own ideas, and they ain’t pretty.”

Nor were the possibilities that were occurring to Anna, but she didn’t want to give voice to them. At least, not until she knew what was going on.

“Anyway,” Nate said, putting his mug down, “you’ve got a definite way with kids this age, especially the girls. I’ve noticed it. Hell, everybody’s noticed it. The kids you work with trust and respect you. That gives you a big advantage from square one over some psychologist I might drag in from somewhere else. At least we can skip over the part about developing trust.”

“Just don’t forget that I’m not a psychologist. And speaking of psychologists, the school has one.”

“But he’s never dealt with Lorna before. How long do you think it would take him to get her to open up compared with you?”

“I can’t venture a guess.” And if Lorna had a guy problem of some kind, she might never open up to a man.

“I don’t think we have that kind of time, whatever it is. I’ve known that girl since she was in diapers, and she won’t talk to me. But I don’t think I know her anywhere near as well as you do. So go talk to her, sweet pea. Find out what’s wrong.”

“If I can.”

A few minutes later she climbed the stairs to the jail. Nate had buzzed the jail guard from his office, and she was taken directly to a consultation room. Lorna was brought in just a few minutes later.

“Hi, Lorna.”

The girl didn’t answer. She sat down at the table and kept her eyes averted.

Anna hesitated, trying to feel her way through this. “We’ve missed you at youth group. Don’t you want to come anymore?”

Lorna gave a quick, negative shake of her head without looking at Anna.

“That’s a shame. Everyone there likes you so much.”

Lorna hunched her shoulders but didn’t say anything.

Anna decided to take the bull by the horns. “Sheriff Tate tells me you set fire to a classroom at school this morning. He didn’t want to put you in jail, but he had to.”

Again no response.

“You’ve never done anything like this before, Lorna. Not even the little stuff that most kids do. So it seems to me that if you felt you had to start a fire, something must be hurting you terribly. If you tell me what’s wrong, we’ll do whatever we can to fix it.”

Lorna looked up at her then, her gaze bleak, almost hollow. “Nobody can fix it.”

“Nobody can fix what?”

But the girl didn’t answer. She lowered her head again.

Anna wanted to reach out and touch her, but she wasn’t sure that would be the right thing to do. Lorna had isolated herself emotionally, that much was apparent, and a touch might be truly unwelcome.

“When I was your age,” she said finally, “something horrible was happening to me, and I couldn’t figure out how to stop it.

Finally I ran away from home for good, but that really didn’t fix much. In fact, it made some things worse.” She realized she had Lorna’s attention now, so she continued. “Looking back at it now, I realized I should have trusted some of the adults in my life. I should have told them what was happening, because any one of them could have helped me. But I didn’t. And that was a big mistake.”

Lorna glanced at her, then looked quickly away without saying anything.

“Just give us a chance, Lorna. The sheriff and I both really want to help you.”

“You can’t. Nobody can.”

“You can’t know that until you let us try.”

Lorna stood up so suddenly that her chair fell over backward. “I want to die! All I want to do is die! Nobody can help me. Nobody at all! Go away. Go away before you get hurt!”

Anna hesitated, but Lorna turned suddenly to the door and started beating on it, screaming, “Get me out of here! Get me out of here now!”

Shaken, Anna watched helplessly as the deputy took Lorna back to her cell. When she felt she could trust her legs to hold her, she went downstairs to Nate’s office.

“Well?” he said when he saw her.

She shook her head. “She won’t talk to me. But she said something very strange. She told me to go away before I get hurt.”

“Was she threatening you?”

Anna shook her head. “Can I sit down a minute? My legs are still shaking.”

“Help yourself. So she wasn’t threatening you?”

“I didn’t get that feeling.” She sank gratefully into the chair. “But something is terribly, terribly wrong, and I got the distinct feeling that someone has threatened her.”

He nodded, compressing his lips grimly. “Yup. That’s about the only reason I can figure that she’d want to stay in a jail cell. Now we have to find out who and why. Damn!” He passed his hand over his eyes, then drummed his fingers on the desktop.

“I’ll talk to her friends,” Anna offered. “The kids she always hung out with in the youth group. Maybe they can shed some light on this.”

“You do that. I’d talk to ’em myself, but I don’t want ’em to clam up for fear of getting Lorna into more trouble.” He gave her a crooked smile. “That’s the disadvantage of this uniform.”

“I’ll let you know if I find out anything. And will you let me know how the bail hearing goes? Maybe she won’t make good on her threat.”

“If she does, it’s going to be a long night for her. God, I can’t see leaving a young girl like that in a cell. We don’t even have proper facilities for it. What if my men have to bring in some drunk tonight to sleep it off? Or worse?” He shook his head. “Hell, if it comes to that, I’ll take her home with me. In custody. Maybe Marge and the girls can get to the root of it.”

Anna nodded. “That might be a good idea. But no matter what, Nate, I wouldn’t send her home.”

He arched a brow at her and nodded slowly. “That’s what I was thinking. I got a feeling there’s something very wrong there. But I have to have something to go on, Anna. I can’t just stick my snoot in without something.”

“I know.” Nor could she. But she could certainly call Lorna’s friends.

A few minutes later she headed back to the church. The wind had grown cruel, and she had no trouble believing there would be sleet later on. The sky was leaden now, with no hint of the autumn sun left anywhere, and the last of the dead leaves were sailing across sidewalks and lawns. The town already looked deserted, as if it had settled down for its long winter sleep.

Dan Fromberg had returned, and greeted her the instant she stepped in the door. “Candy’s okay,” he told her, coming to stand in the doorway of his office.

“Wonderful!” She hung her jacket on the rack and rubbed her hands briskly together.

“I made fresh tea,” he told her, pointing to the drip coffeemaker they used for brewing tea. “You look like you need to warm up.”

“It’s gotten really bitter out there. Oh, I forgot!

I need to go lock the church door. I left it open for Hugh.”

Dan shook his head. “He checked with me a minute ago, and I locked it.”

Anna felt disappointed to realize she’d missed him. She immediately scolded herself for the feeling. “What did he say?”

“It looks like we’re going to need some major work done. He says we need to replace the insulation in quite a few places, so escaping heat under the eaves doesn’t cause the snow to melt, then turn into ice. He also pointed out some spots where the roof is concave, and it’s trapping the snow rather than letting it slide off.”

“That does sound expensive.”

He grimaced. “I’m going to have to dip very deep into the building fund, but at least we can afford it now.” Last spring, when they really should have had the work done, the fund had been nearly empty, having been used for repairs to the foundation. Good Shepherd Church was aging. “But first I’m going to get another estimate to compare.”

Anna poured her tea and cradled the cup gratefully. “Did he mind?”

Dan shook his head. “He suggested it, actually. He’s a very honest guy, you know.”

She nodded and sank gratefully into her chair.

“So you went up to the sheriff’s office? What happened?”

She outlined matters as briefly as she could and watched as his mouth drew into a thin line.

“This doesn’t sound good,” he said when she concluded.

“I’m going to call some of her friends tonight and see if any of them have any idea what might be wrong.”

“Good idea.”

Jazz whimpered just then, and Dan squatted down to take her out of her cage. “Hey, little one,” he said softly. “How’re you doing? Did you piddle on your paper?” He looked over his shoulder at Anna. “I can’t believe anything’s wrong at home,” he said. “Bridget and Al are both the nicest people.”

She nodded, and Dan looked down at the puppy he held.

“On the other hand,” he said, “none of us ever really knows another person.” Straightening, he turned to her. “So, have you had lunch?”

“No.”

“Me neither. I’ll go out and get us something from Maude’s diner. In the meantime, why don’t you see if any of Lorna’s friends are home from school yet?”

He handed her the puppy and put fresh newspaper in Jazz’s box before he left.

The pup seemed content to curl up on her lap while she sipped tea and dug out the roster for the youth group. One by one, she started calling the girls who seemed closest to Lorna. Only one of them was at home yet, and she said she hadn’t really talked to Lorna in a while.

“She’s gotten kind of quiet, Miss Anna, but I don’t know why. She doesn’t hang out like she used to. But I can’t believe she actually started that fire at school. Everybody’s talking about it. It just isn’t like Lorna.”

“So she hasn’t found a different crowd of friends?”

“No. She doesn’t have many friends at all anymore. I mean…well, we all still like her, but she doesn’t want much to do with us.

We ask her to go places with us, and she always says no. I always have a pajama party for my birthday, and Lorna always comes. Not this last time, though. She was the only one who didn’t. When I asked her why not—I mean, I felt really hurt—she said she just didn’t feel like it.”

“So there’s nobody at all she’s close to anymore?”

“I don’t think so. Debbie said she thinks Lorna’s just getting snobby because her dad’s a dentist. Mary Jo argued with her about that and said Lorna just isn’t feeling good lately.”

“Did Mary Jo say why?”

“No. And that’s all I know, really. You want me to talk to the others?”

“Thank you, but I’ll do that.

If you think of anything, let me know?”

After she hung up, Anna found herself looking down at the puppy in her lap, thinking about how trusting young animals were, and how easy it was to shatter that trust. Something had shattered Lorna’s trust.

Dan came through the door on a gust of cold wind, carrying a big brown bag from Maude’s. “Steak sandwiches,” he said. “I don’t think either of us will want dinner. Which is okay with me, because Cheryl took the kids to Cheyenne this morning to visit their grandparents.”

“So you’re baching it?”

“Fine by me.” He set the containers down on her desk and took his coat off. “I love those kids to death, but every once in a blue moon, it’s nice to watch what I want on TV.”

He pulled the chair closer to her desk while she cleared papers to one side, then set out containers full of food. Not only had he gotten the steak sandwiches, but he’d brought a salad, and brownies for dessert.

“Did you find out anything?” he asked while they ate.

“Nothing really useful. Apparently Lorna’s even withdrawn from her friends.”

He paused in the process of taking a bite of his sandwich. “Now that’s really not good.”

“That’s what I think.” She found she didn’t feel hungry at all, but in order not to appear ungrateful, she nibbled at the salad.

“You know,” Dan said presently, “I can think of a lot of things short of mental illness that could have caused this change in the child, and none of them are pretty.”

“I know.” That killed the last of her appetite. She absolutely didn’t want to think about those things, but she couldn’t avoid it. Experience had taught her that bad things could happen to people you knew, including yourself. For Anna, they weren’t just newspaper stories.

“Anna?” Dan was looking at her with concern. “Would you like to quit early today and go home? You look really strung out.”

“I’m okay. Just worried about Lorna. I think I’ll go to her bond hearing at five.”

“It’s at five? I’ll go, too. Maybe I can get something out of her parents.”

“I hope you have better luck than Nate did.”

“Nothing, huh?”

She shook her head. “And frankly, I don’t expect anyone will get anything out of them.”

“You seem awfully certain about that.”

“I have my reasons.” And more than that she would not say.




Chapter 3 (#u5ac1458c-a478-531b-af62-b7a8e7025ab1)


Cowboy was disappointed when he finished inspecting the church roof and Anna still hadn’t come back. Not that he had any business being disappointed. Anna

Fleming was two or three cuts above the women who usually consented to spend time with him. And since deciding to clean up his act and get on with life, he was avoiding the women who didn’t avoid him.

He was kind of ashamed of himself anyway, ashamed of the way he’d fallen apart. He knew as well as anybody that post-traumatic stress disorder wasn’t something you opted to have, but he still felt weak for having had it. Nothing had happened to him in his life that didn’t happen to a whole lot of people, but he’d come apart at the seams anyway, after the Gulf War. It had been one straw too many, so to speak.

Not that he was excusing himself. He never excused himself. And it wasn’t that he felt he’d done anything wrong. He’d been a soldier doing a soldier’s job. But nightmare images eventually gave rise to nightmares.

Still, he wasn’t particularly interested in wandering down the paths of his own memory lane. Learning to look forward was one of the biggest hurdles he’d had to clear on his road to recovery, and he wasn’t going to allow himself to backslide.

After he gave Dan Fromberg the roofing estimate, he made his way back to his one-room apartment on the second floor of a hotel that was almost as old as Conard City. Not that that was so godawful old, he supposed, but the building bordered on ancient.

It must have been a grand old hotel in its day, he often thought, near enough the train terminal to be convenient, but not so close that its patrons would have been breathing coal smoke and the aroma of cattle in the stockyard awaiting shipment. In fact, it was just about midway between the courthouse and the terminal. The way people were apt to lay things out in the days when your own two feet were the favored form of transportation.

What a person mainly noticed about the place now, though, was that the halls were dark and musty, the stairs and floors creaked and it looked like a firetrap.

His apartment was different, though. In the old days, they’d believed in building rooms big. He had a huge living room, an alcove for his bed, a tacked-on kitchenette and a bathroom with a claw-footed tub. His tall windows overlooked the street and faced south, so that sunlight poured in all winter long. All of this for less than anything else he could have rented in town.

If he hadn’t been so fixed on his plan for a youth ranch, he could have turned this place into something spectacular.

But this afternoon, with the sky so leaden and a sleet storm getting ready to move in, he was finding it just a bit difficult to remember the potential he’d seen here. The hallway and stairs were as dark as if it had been night, and his apartment wasn’t much better. He turned on a couple of lamps, but it didn’t help much. The early-winter night would be falling soon, and all of a sudden he didn’t want to be sitting here alone.

He decided his budget could handle dinner at Maude’s, so he pulled on a warmer jacket and drove back up the street toward the church and Maude’s place, which was right across the street from Good Shepherd. By the time he reached the diner, night had fallen.

Maude’s was brightly lit but nearly empty. He slipped into a booth that let him look out the front window, and as he scanned the menu, he saw Anna and Dan leave the church together and get in their cars.

Anna’s was an old vehicle, one that had seen all its better days long before it had come into her possession. It was big, built like a tank, and she backed up cautiously before pulling out of the parking lot and heading up the street. He realized she hadn’t brought the dog, and he wondered if she was going to leave it in the office all night. That didn’t seem right.

But then he noticed that she wasn’t heading toward her home. Instead she turned up to the courthouse square. So did the reverend.

Shrugging, he went back to the menu. Maybe they had a meeting to go to.

“What’ll it be, Cowboy?” Maude asked in her usual belligerent fashion as she slapped a mug of coffee down in front of him. She was a plump, older woman with grizzled gray hair and a no-nonsense face. “Eat hearty.

They say it’s gonna get damn cold tonight.”

“Sleet’s in the forecast.”

“Yup. And don’t skip the pie, neither. We got an elderberry pie that’ll knock your socks off.”

“Save a piece for me, then.” He gave her a smile, but she didn’t return it. He wondered if anyone had ever seen Maude smile. “Two bacon cheeseburgers with extra fries and a bowl of spinach, please.”

“Spinach?” She looked surprised.

“If you have it.”

“Oh, I have it, but most folks want salad.”

“I like spinach.” He shrugged.

“Why don’t you have a side of onion rings instead of them extra fries? We got a shipment of some really good sweet onions.”

“Sounds good.” He’d never eaten here when Maude hadn’t changed his order somehow. On the other hand, he’d never regretted following her suggestions.

She stomped away, leaving him to sip his coffee and stare out into the night. It was warm in here, he found himself thinking. Warm. Despite the threatening weather, people would come and go.

He figured he might stay here a while.

He was certainly in no hurry to go back to his empty apartment.

The five-o’clock bail hearing for Lorna Lacey was a special session called for the child’s benefit. The court’s earlier business was finished, and no other prisoners stood in the dock.

The girl herself, hands handcuffed before her, sat with her head down at the defense table. Beside her sat an attorney Anna didn’t recognize, apparently someone the Lacey family had brought in from another town. Sam Haversham, the prosecutor, was standing at his table skimming through a thin file. Probably Lorna’s file, Anna thought.

It was amazing how quickly you could develop a file when you got in trouble with the law.

Apart from herself and Dan, the only other observers were Bridget and Al Lacey, both of whom were sitting with Dan in the front row. Anna sat farther back, preferring to be unobtrusive. Besides, she hated courtrooms. They gave her the willies.

At the front of the room, the court clerk sat at her desk beside the judge’s bench, and in front of the witness box sat a stenographer, feeding the leading edge of a fresh stack of fan-folded paper into her machine. Two bailiffs stood to the side, chatting quietly with Nate Tate.

The door to the judge’s chamber opened, and one of the bailiffs called out, “All rise” as Judge Francine Williams walked to the bench. Lorna, Anna noticed, had to be encouraged to stand by a gentle tug on her elbow. When the judge sat, everyone followed suit.

Judge Williams sat and spent a moment glancing over some papers in front of her. “Good afternoon.” She devoted a few minutes to reciting the case number and charges for the record, and having the attorneys identify themselves.

“Now,” she continued, “let’s get right to the point, shall we? We all know why we’re here, and I’m willing to dispense with the usual formalities, if no one has any objection?”

“No objection, Your Honor,” both lawyers answered immediately.

“Good. I’m sure everyone wants to get home for dinner. We have an unusual case here, unusual at least for Conard County. We have no facilities suitable for the keeping of a thirteen-year-old girl. Our limited juvenile facilities are set up only to handle boys, and I really don’t want to see this child in the county jail overnight, so I’m going to ask the prosecutor to be reasonable in requesting bail. Mr. Haversham?”

“We’re fully prepared to be reasonable, Your Honor. In fact, considering that Lorna Lacey has never been in trouble before, we were prepared to agree to have her released on her own recognizance. However, another fact has come to light, which I need to bring to the court’s attention.”

“And that is?”

“Miss Lacey told Sheriff Tate that if she is released on bond she will start another fire.”

Anna’s hands clenched in her lap.

Judge Williams looked at Nate. “Is that true, Sheriff?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She turned her attention to Lorna’s attorney. “Mr. Carlisle, what’s going on here?”

The lawyer cleared his throat as he rose to his feet. “A moment to confer with my client, Judge?”

“By all means,” the judge said. “Be advised that if your client made such a threat, I won’t be able to release her from custody. Would you like to straighten that out for me?”

“Certainly, Judge.”

The lawyer sat back down and had a hurried, hushed conversation with Lorna. Anna found she was holding her breath, and her nails were digging in to her palms. Her heart squeezed when the man stood back up to speak.

“My client…is aware of the consequences of her statement,” he said.

“Does that mean she’s not taking it back?”

“I…for ethical reasons, Judge, I…ah…”

A sound passed through the courtroom then, a sound of muted dismay. Bridget Lacey looked as if she might cry.

Judge Williams sat back, a perplexed frown on her face. “You leave me no choice, young lady.”

Sam Haversham stepped forward. “Your Honor, we have an alternative to propose. Sheriff Tate has offered to take Miss Lacey home to his family in custody so that she won’t need to spend the night in jail.”

“That’s highly irregular.”

Francine Williams tapped a pencil on the bench, frowning down at the girl. Finally, she sat forward. “Off the record here.”

The court reporter’s hands dropped to her lap.

“Mr. Haversham, I’d like you to consider a grant of immunity here.”

Anna leaned forward, holding her breath. What was happening?

Sam stepped forward. “I think I know what you have in mind, Your Honor. I’ll offer immunity.”

Williams looked over at the young girl. “Miss Lacey, you’ve been offered immunity for any answer you give to the questions I’m about to ask. That means whatever you say is off the record and can’t be used against you in any legal proceeding. Do you understand that?”

Lorna’s attorney added a quick, whispered explanation. Lorna nodded.

“Good,” Judge Williams said. “Now, Miss Lacey, are you telling me you want to stay in jail?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

Lorna lifted her head then, looking straight at the judge, and the anguish in her voice caused Anna’s heart to break. “Because I’m bad! I do bad things! And I’ll keep on doing bad things! I tried to burn down the school! If you give me a chance, I’ll try to burn it down again!”

When Lorna finished, she dropped her head to the table and sobbed.

The judge let out a heavy sigh. “I’d like to see counsel in chambers, please.

Miss Lacey, I’d like you to come, too. And, Sheriff Tate, I think you’re going to need to hear this, as well, if the defense has no objections?”

Mr. Carlisle hastened once again to his feet. “No objection, Judge. That’s fine.”

“And, counsel, I imagine her family hired you?”

“Yes, Judge.”

“You know where your ethical duties lie here, right?”

The attorney put his hand on Lorna’s shoulder. “She’s my client, Judge. I made that clear to the family.”

“Make sure you remember that.

Let’s go talk this over.”

Anna had the feeling everyone in the courtroom knew what was coming. The type of thing you didn’t say out loud, in public. The type of thing no one wanted to hear about someone they knew. The kind of thing Anna knew all too well.

As soon as the group had disappeared into the judge’s chambers, Al Lacey rose and walked from the courtroom. He looked at no one as he left. Anna felt her stomach turn over in revulsion as she watched him go. Bridget followed a few moments later, her face set like stone.

Dan came to sit with Anna. “I’m praying I’m wrong, but the handwriting is about six feet high on the wall, isn’t it?”

She nodded, battling a storm tide of emotions that all of this was raising in her. “That poor child,” she managed to say finally. “That poor, poor child.” Long-buried anger simmered in her stomach, making it hurt.

“It could be something else.”

Anna didn’t even bother to reply. She’d given up on vain hopes a long time ago. “Why didn’t somebody keep him from leaving?”

“Al? I don’t think they can detain him without some kind of proof. That’s probably why Judge Williams took Nate into chambers with them. If Lorna says anything about what’s going on, Nate will take action.”

Anna folded her hands tightly together. “I hope she tells the judge. Oh, God, I hope she tells.”

Dan reached out and gently touched her shoulder. “She might not, Anna. There are an awful lot of people in that room, some of them strangers to her.”

“I know.” And she did, only too well. Some things just couldn’t be spoken of, no matter how they tore you apart. There were some things just too awful to tell strangers. “If she doesn’t tell them, Dan, I’m going to do everything in my power to find some proof, some evidence. We have to help her!”

“We could be wrong in our supposition,” he reminded her gently. “The problem might not be her parents at all.”

She looked him straight in the eye.

“You don’t really believe that.”

He compressed his lips. “No, I don’t. But I’m praying as hard as I can that this will be just a juvenile overreaction to something that isn’t so terrible after all. God have mercy on that child if it isn’t.”

Twenty minutes later everyone traipsed back into the courtroom. The judge settled at the bench and spoke to the court reporter.

“On the record again, Mrs. Jubilo. All right. I’m denying bond. Lorna Lacey will remain in the custody of the sheriff’s department until trial. Mr. Carlisle, what I said before holds. If Miss Lacey wishes to withdraw her threat at any time, or wishes to confide in you or anyone else the cause for her behavior, the matter of bail will be immediately reopened.”

“Yes, Judge.”

“I’m also recommending that Miss Lacey undergo psychological counseling. I realize we don’t have psychologists growing on trees around here. In fact, I believe the only one we have is the school psychologist, and I’m not sure he’d be able to handle this situation. However, Sheriff Tate has kindly agreed to arrange for counseling in Laramie, and for a deputy to take Miss Lacey to appointments once a week. Any objections?”

None were voiced.

“Now,” Judge Williams continued, “while it is highly irregular, I’m going to put Miss Lacey in the personal custody of Sheriff Tate. By that I mean that she will spend her days in jail and her nights at the sheriff’s home with his family. This release will be contingent upon Miss Lacey promising to behave while in the sheriff’s custody. No fires, no running away, no nonsense of any kind. Miss Lacey, will you give this court your promise?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Anna heaved a huge sigh of relief. She couldn’t think of anything better for Lorna than to be in the custody of a man who had raised six healthy, happy daughters, three of whom were still living at home.

“Now,” the judge continued, leaning forward, “I’m going to take one more extraordinary step here. From now until this matter is settled, or until Miss Lacey explains her actions to my satisfaction, all of her contacts with any member of her family must and will be supervised by a member of this court or a member of the sheriff’s department. Is that clear?”

Both lawyers answered that it was, but the judge was more interested in Lorna’s reaction. “Miss Lacey, do you understand what I’ve said? You can’t see your family without someone from the court or the sheriff’s department there. How do you feel about that?”

Lorna lifted her head and looked right at the judge. “Good,” she said. “Except my sister. Can I see my sister?”

“How old is she?”

“Four.”

The judge hesitated. “Not immediately,” she finally said. “Let’s see how it goes this way first. We wouldn’t want to put your sister in a difficult situation, would we?”

To Anna’s horror, Lorna’s face drained of color.

“No,” the girl said hoarsely.

“No. I don’t want to see her at all.”

Francine Williams nodded slowly. “That might be best for a little while. Just one other thing, Miss Lacey. Every one of us in this courtroom wants to help you. Find one of us you can trust and give us the information we need to do just that. You are not alone.”

Five minutes later, Anna was back in her car. She had left Jazz in her cage at the office so she wouldn’t have to be left all alone in a cold car. It was, she decided, the perfect time to go get puppy chow and a collar and leash. Then she could pick up Jazz and take her straight home to a warm house.

But while she was thinking of Jazz, most of her attention was focused on what had just happened in court. Old wounds of her own had been torn open as she sat there, and she felt as if she were bleeding inside. Once upon a time, a judge had looked down from his bench at her and said almost exactly the same thing. He’d said, “We want to help you, but you have to trust us first.” Finally she had.

And somehow she had to get Lorna to do the same thing: trust someone. The sheriff. Reverend Fromberg. The judge.

Herself. It didn’t matter so much who, as long as it was someone who was willing to go to bat for her.

Distracted as she was by worry and seething emotions from her own past, she spent more than was wise at the grocery, buying Jazz the fanciest blue collar and leash, a big bag of puppy chow, a box of puppy treats, a small bone and several squeaky toys. She picked up some carpet cleaner that was guaranteed to remove pet stains, but talked herself out of a flea collar. At this time of year, it would be a wasted expense. She also picked up a few groceries.

When she stepped back outside, the first spit of sleet was falling, fine, icy crystals that stung her cheeks. The pavement was wet, still warm enough to melt the sleet. That wouldn’t last long. Hurrying, she emptied the shopping cart into her car and drove swiftly back to the office.

As soon as she opened the door, Jazz started barking, a high-pitched puppy yelp. Looking into the cage, she saw that the dog had had an accident. She cleaned it up swiftly and replaced the soiled paper with fresh newspaper. Then she put Jazz back into the cage and carried her out to the car.

The cage wouldn’t fit into her car, though. Finally giving up, she put it in the trunk, then took the puppy into the passenger compartment with her. Jazz insisted on curling up on her lap, but she didn’t think that would cause much trouble.

Then she tried to start the car. And tried again.

The starter whined, but the engine wouldn’t catch. What now? Sleet crystals were rattling against the windows of her car, warning her that the streets would soon be dangerous. Forcing herself to wait in case she had flooded the engine somehow, she counted seconds in the tick of ice on her windows.

The night was dark and empty. Funny, she thought as she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, there had been a time when she had believed being out alone at night would protect her. Then she had discovered otherwise. The night was a time when predators stalked the young and weak. It was full of threat. At night she wanted to be safely within the walls of her snug little house.

She shivered as the night’s chill began to find its way into her jacket. Jazz whimpered softly, suggesting that she was getting hungry. Anna patted her gently and tried to start the car again. And once again the engine refused to turn over.

A tap on her window startled her, and she gasped, turning her head swiftly. Hugh Gallagher stood there, bent over to look in her window. “Car trouble?” he asked through the glass.

She rolled her window down an inch. “It won’t start.”

“I heard. The engine’s not catching. Let me lift the hood and see if the choke’s stuck, okay?”

“Thank you.”

Her gaze followed him as he walked around to the front of the car. Then the hood lifted with a protesting groan and he vanished from view.

He was a nice man, she told herself. He’d proved that already. She didn’t have to be afraid to be in his debt.

He rattled around under the hood for a few minutes, then slammed it closed and came back to her window. “It’s not the choke, Miss Anna, and I can’t see well enough to check anything else out. How about I drive you home and take a look at it in the morning?”

She hesitated. It wasn’t that she really had any option, but she hesitated anyway. It had been a long time since she had been comfortable getting into a car with a man. Any man. Even after all these years, she was still uneasy. But common sense won.

“If you wouldn’t mind. I have the dog and all these groceries….”

“No problem. My truck’s right across the street. Just let me bring it over.”

A couple of minutes later, he had her groceries and the dog cage loaded in the back, and Anna and the puppy in the front seat with him.

“I’m glad I happened to be having dinner at Maude’s,” Hugh said as he pulled out onto the street.

“So am I. I really didn’t want to call a tow truck. I can’t afford that expense right now.” Especially not now that she was going to have to get her car fixed. “I hope you didn’t interrupt your dinner to help me.”

“Naw. I was just finishing a piece of Maude’s elderberry pie. You ever have any?”

Anna never ate out; her budget wouldn’t allow it. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“Well, let me take you over there for lunch tomorrow, before she runs out of elderberries.”

Anna didn’t know how to answer that, because she wasn’t exactly sure what he intended by the invitation. Before she could think of anything to say, he went on.

“Did you hear about the fire at school today? They say the Lacey kid set it. Now, I don’t know folks in the county as well as people who’ve lived here all their lives, but I did see that girl a lot around the church, and she always seemed like a good kid to me.”

“She is. One of the best.”

“Well, I just can’t figure it.

Now, if it’d been Bobby Reilly, I would have thought it was just what you oughtta expect, but not that girl.”

“I know.” She felt her heart accelerating as they edged near a topic she didn’t want to discuss with him—or with anyone, for that matter. She didn’t want to have to tell anyone what she suspected Lorna’s problem was—at least, not unless she got some proof of it.

“You ask me,” he said, “there’s something wrong there, and it isn’t that girl.”

They eased to a careful stop at the corner, then turned onto Anna’s street.

“Gettin’ slippery,” Hugh remarked. “Guess I oughtta put the chains on after I drop you off.”

“That might be wise.” God, how she hated this stilted conversation. How she hated being so uncomfortable with men that she couldn’t think of anything to say to keep the ball rolling. How she hated being the prisoner of hurts that were so old they ought to be almost forgotten.

He turned into her driveway, and she felt the tires slip and spin on the icy pavement as he braked to a halt and switched off the ignition.

“You stay right where you are,” he said. “I’ll come around and help you out. Those shoes you’re wearing don’t look like they’ll give much traction.”

They wouldn’t, she thought. They were a pair of cheap pumps she’d bought just because she had to keep up appearances at work.

Hugh climbed out and came around to her side. He opened the door and reached for her elbow to steady her. “It’s like a skating rink. Hang on to me.”

Even with all her caution, her feet slipped anyway, and he caught her around the waist. All of a sudden there was nothing between them but a squirming puppy and the layers of their clothing.

He smelled good, Anna realized with astonishment. He smelled really good, like freshly cut wood and soap. His arm around her felt powerful, but the way it held her was not at all frightening. She ought to feel trapped and terrified, but instead she felt…strange. As if the world had stopped between two heartbeats.

Then he backed off a little, giving her space but keeping his arm around her waist.

“Let’s get you onto the porch. I’ll bring your groceries in.”

A few moments later she was safely inside her snug little house, watching Hugh Gallagher carry her groceries and the puppy cage inside. It took him two trips, and he insisted on putting everything in the kitchen while she stood there like a dolt, silent, clutching the puppy to her breast as if the poor little thing was a lifeline.

She ought to do something, say something. Make some gracious gesture to thank him. Instead she was feeling shell-shocked by today’s events, and by the realization that she didn’t want Hugh to go. She wanted him to stay. For the first time in her life, she actually wanted a man to stay. Was she losing her mind?

“Would you…would you like some coffee?” she asked in a rush as he prepared to leave.

He smiled, and she was struck by the warmth of that simple expression. “Thanks, but I drank four cups at Maude’s. Tell you what. Promise to have lunch with me tomorrow. I’ll bore you to death with my plans for the youth ranch, and we’ll call it even, okay?”

She couldn’t say no. The word absolutely refused to come to her lips. “All right,” she heard herself say.

“One o’clock?”

“That’s fine.”

Then he walked out into the night and left Anna alone with the realization that she had just made a date with a man.

She, Anna Fleming, had made the first date of her entire life. She should have been exhilarated, but instead she wondered if she’d just made another one of her gargantuan mistakes.

Jazz appeared to be pleased with her new environment. As soon as Anna set out bowls of water and food, the puppy dug in, in her eagerness making a minor mess that made Anna smile.

But she couldn’t smile for long. It was as if the shadows in the corners of the room were whispering to her, trying to call her back into the nightmares of her past. It was because of Lorna, she decided. She was watching her own nightmare unfold again through the child.

Remembering the roster she had put in her purse, she left Jazz eagerly eating and went to get it. She had to call the other girls from the youth group, to see if any of them had a hint of what was wrong in Lorna’s life. If she could find a key, any key, she might get the girl to open up to her.

The first two girls had nothing new to offer, but then she got through to Mary Jo Weeks.

“It’s awful, Miss Anna,” Mary Jo said. “I’ve been crying on and off all day. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know how bad it was.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, bad enough that she would set a fire. I heard one of the teachers say he thought Lorna meant to stay in the room until the fire killed her. It’s terrible!”

Anna hesitated, aching for Mary Jo, but not wanting to give the girl empty platitudes. Finally she said, “We can’t know that, Mary Jo. That’s just somebody’s speculation.”

“But what’s going to happen to her now?

Is she going to jail?”

Jail, Anna thought, could be better than some things, but not many. She couldn’t say that to Mary Jo, though. “At present she’s going to be staying with Sheriff Tate’s family, until we find out what’s going on.”

“That’s not so bad, then. But what do you think is wrong?”

“I don’t know, not for sure.

But I need you to help me, Mary Jo. I need every little thing you can remember that might give me a clue to what’s wrong here.”

“You’re trying to help her?”

“Of course! There are a lot of people who want to help her. I don’t know anyone who wants to see her go to jail. But unless we find out what the problem is, she may have to.”

“Oh, no! I don’t want that to happen to her—ever!” Mary Jo started crying again, and Anna waited patiently, making soothing sounds. There was never just one victim, she thought bitterly. There were always others.

When the young woman had her tears under control, Anna asked her if she remembered anything, anything at all, that seemed unusual.

“Well, I thought it was weird when her dad wouldn’t let her come over to spend the night anymore. I mean, we’d always been best friends, and at least once a month I’d sleep at her place or she’d sleep at mine.”

“When did that stop?”

“About a year ago, I guess. But what was so weird was that he’d let me come over there, but he wouldn’t let her come to my house. I asked Lorna why, but she just shrugged and said nobody could explain parents. My mom and dad started to feel insulted by it and didn’t want me to go over there anymore after a while.”

“I can understand that.”

“Well, it made me mad, so a couple of times I made ’em let me go anyway.”

“Did anything strike you as unusual?”

“Not really.”

Anna felt something brush against her leg and discovered the puppy had joined her and was looking up at her with hopeful eyes. Bending, she scooped Jazz onto her lap. “This is a harder question, Mary Jo, and I want you to think very carefully about it. When you spent the night with Lorna, did anything happen that made you feel uneasy? Did anything seem not quite right? Anything at all?”

“Hmm…” Mary Jo was silent for a bit. “Well…it sounds silly, but her dad made us get ready for bed at eight o’clock. I mean, we always used to stay dressed until we went to bed, but the last few times he insisted we get ready before we watched TV. I thought that was kind of weird, but parents can be crazy sometimes, you know?”

“I know.”

“Anyway, that just seemed stupid to me, but…” She hesitated. “This sounds awful, Miss Anna, and I don’t want you to think poorly of me.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Well…” Mary Jo drew a long breath. “I don’t have a sick mind or anything, but it just made me uncomfortable to see Lorna running around in front of her dad in those baby doll pajamas. She didn’t put on a robe or anything. My dad would have a fit if I sat around in the living room dressed like that.”

It was now Anna’s turn to draw a deep breath. Her heart accelerated. “But he didn’t say anything or do anything?”

“Not about her running around like that. But then she was acting funny. I couldn’t figure it out. It was like she didn’t want to be dressed that way, either. She kept her arms all folded up and scrunched herself into a corner of the couch, like she wanted to hide. And she didn’t say much after that. Her dad got on her about being so gloomy. She just kind of ignored him, and then he tried to tickle her out of it. Tried to tickle me, too, but not much. I figured that was because I wasn’t one of his kids and he didn’t think it would be right. But he tried to tickle her, and she said the weirdest thing.”

“What was that?”

“She said, ‘Don’t touch me.’ And then she looked at him like she was gonna kill him. It sort of scared me. I didn’t know she hated her dad that much.”

Anna drew a shaky breath. “Thanks, Mary Jo.

You’ve been a great help.”

“Really? I hope so. Oh! I just remembered one other thing. The last time I was over there, she had this big old pipe wrench under her bed. I asked her what it was doing there, and she told me she was afraid of burglars coming through the window. Did you ever hear anything so crazy?”

Anna had.

Under her own bed she had kept a hammer. It required a lot of effort for her to find her voice. “Thanks, Mary Jo. This is what I needed.”

“Good. If I think of anything else, I’ll call you. But you know, Miss Anna, I haven’t been over there since. When my dad heard that Mr. Lacey had tried to tickle me, he flat put his foot down about me ever going there again.”

“Your dad is right, Mary Jo. Absolutely right. Don’t go over there again.”

When she hung up the phone, her hands were shaking. She looked down at the little puppy curled contentedly on her lap and tried to drag herself back to the present. But it was so difficult. Memories long buried were beating on the doors of her mind, demanding recognition.

Sleet rattled sharply against the window, and the wind moaned sorrowfully. A draft snaked across the floor and wrapped around her ankles, causing her to shiver. She needed to change. She needed to get into something warm and comfortable, and make herself some dinner. She needed to get busy so she could take control again and push the memories away. And she needed to figure out what she was going to do about Lorna.

It was going to be a long night.




Chapter 4 (#u5ac1458c-a478-531b-af62-b7a8e7025ab1)


In the morning, the world was covered with a clear, sparkling glaze of ice. Anna looked out her window and wondered how she was going to get to work or to the sheriff’s office. Not only did she not have a car, but it looked too treacherous even to walk.

She’d spent a disturbed night, sleeping fitfully, almost as if she were a child again, afraid that the bedroom door might open at any moment. Afraid that another night of fear and humiliation was about to begin.

She wondered if Lorna had slept any better at the sheriff’s house. She hoped so.

Jazz was startled by the ice out back, slipping and sliding and looking at Anna with confused dismay. She finally managed to find purchase on some blades of grass that were poking up, and made a little puddle and a little pile. Anna praised her extravagantly, causing the puppy’s tail to wag like a racing metronome.

While Jazz ate breakfast, Anna made herself some coffee and poached an egg. She was just getting ready to sit down when the phone rang.

“Anna? It’s Dan. Listen, the roads are really bad this morning, so don’t even try to come to work, okay? If it melts off later, we’ll talk about whether it’s worth going in, but for now, just stay put.”

“You won’t get any argument from me.”

“Enjoy the break,” he added. “I intend to. I’ve got this new computer game I’ve been dying to try. Talk to you later.”

Anna ate her egg and a piece of whole wheat toast and wondered how she would fill her day, since she couldn’t go anywhere. Plus there was the problem of Lorna, and she was really reluctant to let matters ride another day. What the child needed more than anything in the world right now was to know that someone was on her side and would protect her. She didn’t need to spend even one more day alone in hell.

Making up her mind at last how she was going to handle the matter, she called the sheriff’s office and was put straight through to Nate Tate.

“Lovely day, isn’t it, sweet pea?” he asked in his deep, gravelly voice. “We’ve had a three-car pileup on the state highway, reports of cars in ditches all over the county, and half my men can’t get to work. Velma managed to make it in, though, and she’s teaching Lorna how to work the dispatch desk.”

The image of wizened, chain-smoking, blunt-talking Velma Jansen working with a soft-spoken thirteen-year-old made Anna feel like smiling for the first time that day.

“What’s Lorna think of that?”

“Unless I miss my guess, she’s thrilled. So what’s up? Are you stuck in a ditch, too?”

“No, but probably only because my car died at the church last night.”

“How’d you get home? Did you call a deputy?”

“Hugh Gallagher took me.”

“Well, that’s the next best thing. He’s one fine man.”

Anna knew she should come to the point, but she seized on Hugh as an excuse to avoid it just a little longer. “Is he?”

“You bet. He’s a bona fide war hero, you know. Everybody knows he had some head problems after the Gulf War and hid up in the mountains with those vets for a few years, but that isn’t the whole story. Anyway, for all that, he’s got his head screwed on straight. But I don’t gossip, so you’ll just have to find out the rest for yourself.”

Anna had to chuckle at that.

“Now, what’s up, sweet pea? Not that I want to rush you or anything, but you never know when there might be another pileup on the state highway. Some of those damn truckers are pushing through like that pavement is dry.”

“Well, it’s about Lorna.” She drew a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut, reminding herself to keep her own feelings out of this. She had to speak to save the girl. “I’m convinced her father is sexually molesting her.”

“So are all of us who were at that hearing yesterday. But there’s not a whole lot I can do without proof. If she won’t talk, my hands are tied.”

“I talked to one of her friends last night, Nate. And she said some things…well, I think if I tell her what I know, I might be able to persuade her to confide in me.”

He was silent for a moment. She could almost hear him ruminating. “All right. It’s worth a stab. At least if she talks to you, I’ll have something to start with. Okay, sweet pea, get into your outdoor gear.

I’ll have a deputy at your door in ten minutes.”

“I’ll be ready.”

“Damn county’s going to hell in a handbasket,” he muttered. “See you in a few minutes, Anna.”

Anna put Jazz in her cage, then dressed with trembling hands. She was about to do something she hadn’t done in fifteen years: expose her past to another person. She didn’t kid herself that she was going to get anywhere with Lorna if she didn’t. God, she hoped she had the strength to go through with it.

The deputy took longer than ten minutes to get there. More like twenty, actually. Anna was just grateful that Nate had sent a woman. Sara Ironheart apologized profusely for the delay, but said she’d had to stop at an intersection to help get a car out of the way.

“Don’t you live all the way out at the west end of the county?” Anna asked her. “How did you manage to get in this morning?”

Sara flashed her a smile. “I never got home last night. I’ve been on duty since three o’clock yesterday afternoon.”

“You must be exhausted!”

Sara shrugged. “I caught a couple of catnaps at the office.”

“Well, I hope the roads clear soon, so you can go home.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen. It looks like snow is moving in, and unless some of the other guys manage to find their way in, Nate’s going to need every one of us still here to stick it out.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an ice storm like this.”

“I don’t recall us ever having one here. Usually it’s just snow. Funny weather yesterday. Really funny.”

The chains on the tires of the Blazer clanked loudly as they drove down the ice-coated streets. The trees looked like something out of a fairy tale, encased in ice and icicles. If the sun had been out, the world would have glittered and sparkled, but overhead, leaden clouds dulled the day.

“How’s Joey doing?” Anna asked, referring to Sara’s eighteen-year-old brother. When she had first moved here, Joey had been in the youth group and going through some hard times.

“Glad to be away at college, I think. I’m so glad my husband was able to talk him into at least trying it. I’d sure hate to see him miss the opportunity.”

“Gideon seemed to have a good influence on him.”

“He’s been a good influence on all of us,” Sara said. “And he’s sure taken the load off my grandfather’s shoulders.”

“You board horses for people at your ranch, don’t you?”

“Board some and raise some. Gideon’s a wonder with those ponies.” She shook her head and smiled. “The man is magic with horses. You ought to come up sometime and watch him work with them. It’s well worth seeing.”

“Some day I’d like to ride a horse.”

Sara smiled at her. “We can arrange that, too. We have some really gentle ponies that are good for getting started on.

Gideon’s thinking about giving lessons to town kids who don’t get the chance to ride like the ranch kids. I’m sure he’d love to practice on you.”

“I’ll think about it.” But Gideon Ironheart, pleasant as he was, intimidated her. He was so big and muscular, and so exotic looking with his long black hair. She didn’t think she would ever feel comfortable enough to take riding lessons from him.

They pulled up at last in front of the sheriff’s office, and nervousness washed over Anna. It was no worse than stage fright, she told herself. Just do it. Just walk through it and do what needs doing.

Lorna was still sitting at the dispatcher’s desk, working with Velma. When she looked up and saw Anna, she broke into a wide smile that nearly broke Anna’s heart. This child looked so different today from yesterday. So much more alive and hopeful.

“Hi, Miss Anna!” Lorna said cheerfully. “Did you get stuck, too?”

“No, I just wanted to see you, so Sheriff Tate had Deputy Ironheart pick me up. Have you tried walking out there? You need ice skates!”

Lorna laughed and tossed her long blond hair. “I fell on my bottom this morning at the sheriff’s house when I was helping put down salt on the driveway. And now it’s going to snow. I hope it snows so deep that nobody can go anywhere.” She looked suddenly wistful, and Anna identified with the feeling. How many times had she hoped her stepfather wouldn’t be able to make it home from work?

“This child,” said Velma, through a cloud of cigarette smoke, “just wants to be stuck here at this desk forever. Can you believe it? She actually likes talking to all these deputies and answering the phones. Next thing you know, they’ll be retiring me and giving her my job.”

Lorna grinned at her.

“You shouldn’t give them such a hard time.”

“Child,” said Velma, “giving deputies a hard time is my stock-in-trade. Somebody’s got to keep them in line.”

Nate Tate came down the hallway and greeted Anna. Then he turned to Velma. “Let Lorna go visit for a while with Miss Anna. We can’t have you working the girl too hard. We’ll run afoul of the child labor laws.”

“Working her?” Velma snorted. “Boss, this child is having fun. Now scoot, Lorna, and go visit with Miss Anna.”

Nate led Anna and Lorna to an empty office and left them alone with the door closed. Anna sat on a creaky office chair, while Lorna went to the window to look out.

“Did you have a good time at Sheriff Tate’s last night?”

Lorna nodded. “He has a nice family. He didn’t even make me wear handcuffs like I thought he would. I just had to promise I wouldn’t run away from him, so I did.”

“That was a wise promise to make. And he does have a lovely family.”

“They’re all so happy,”

Lorna said wistfully. She kept on looking out the window. “We made popcorn after dinner and watched some funny movies. It was really fun.” She paused. “I bet his daughters don’t think about running away.”

Anna drew a long breath to steady herself. “Do you think about running away?”

“All the time.”

“Why?”

Lorna didn’t answer.

Anna hesitated, wondering whether to keep beating around the bush or to just charge right in. For the first time in her life, she wished she had some formal training in psychology. At last she said, “I used to think about running away when I was your age. Finally I did.”

Lorna turned from the window, looking at her with evident interest. “Did you make it?”

“That depends on what you mean by making it. I got away. But I paid a terrible price for it. There isn’t much a fourteen-year-old girl can do on the streets. Nobody will hire you. I wound up having to do things I’m too ashamed to talk about.”

Lorna came closer and sat, facing her. “I won’t tell anybody. I promise.”

Anna shook her head. “I don’t like to talk about it. But running away is never an answer, Lorna. I found that out the hard way.”

The girl nodded. “I kind of figured that out myself. Did they catch you and make you go home?”

“They caught me. But no, they didn’t make me go home.”

“How come?”

“Because I finally told them the truth about what was going on. After that, they made sure I didn’t have to go home.”

Lorna caught her breath but still didn’t say anything. Her look was one of painful yearning in the instant before she averted her face. Silence reigned for several minutes.

Finally Anna spoke. “I talked to Mary Jo last night. She’s worried sick about you.”

Lorna nodded but didn’t reply.

“Killing yourself isn’t the answer, either, Lorna.

Honey, you’ve got to trust one of us enough to tell us what’s wrong. We can’t help you if you don’t tell us.”

“I can’t. I can’t.”

“Of course you can. Don’t you see?

Nobody can hurt you anymore if you just tell us what’s wrong. I’ll protect you. Sheriff Tate and the judge will protect you. Nobody will ever lay another finger on you.”

“You don’t know. You can’t promise that.”

“Yes, I can. And I’m promising it right now. But we can’t do anything unless we know what’s going on.”

Lorna kept her head down and didn’t answer.

Anna rose and went to the window, searching for the courage to bare her soul. The words didn’t want to come. They lodged in her throat, stuck like glue. She dug her nails into her palms, then forced the words out past lips that felt like wood.

“Mary Jo said you sleep with a plumber’s wrench under your bed.”

“So?”

“I used to sleep with a hammer under mine.”

She heard Lorna gasp, and part of her wanted to go to the girl and wrap her up in a tight hug. But she couldn’t move. She kept staring out at the alley and the gray day. A solitary snowflake drifted down and vanished on the ice below.

“I know what’s going on, Lorna. But I need you to tell me yourself. Nobody can do anything if you don’t tell us yourself.”

The girl sounded breathless. “You…you could be wrong.”

“I’m not wrong. I slept with a hammer under my bed for too long to be wrong. I ran away from home and lived on the streets. I’ve been there, Lorna. I’m not wrong.”

“You…you promise…you won’t tell anybody?”

Anna hesitated. She needed Lorna to tell the sheriff or the judge about this. On the other hand, the first and most difficult step was getting Lorna to speak about it at all. One step at a time.

“I promise,” she said, and turned to look at the girl.

“I won’t tell unless you say it’s okay. But you’d better tell somebody fast, before that man leaves town and takes your sister with him.”




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